China's relationship with Japan and Korea?

China marks victory over Japan, relations at new low
Thu Jul 7, 2005 8:56 AM BST
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By John Ruwitch

BEIJING (Reuters) - China commemorated its victory over Japan in the Sino-Japanese war at the site of one of its best-known battles on Thursday, giving its version of disputed events that decades later have brought relations to a new low.

To the strains of a 100-piece military band, hundreds of doves were set free, 60 red flares were shot into the hazy sky and leaders held a moment of silence for Chinese soldiers who died before unveiling an exhibition called "Great Victory".

Unlike events marking the end of World War Two elsewhere, which have brought old foes together, no Japanese dignitaries were invited to the commemoration at a war museum near the Marco Polo Bridge just outside Beijing. The war ended 60 years ago.

Relations between China and Japan are at their lowest in decades over a series of disagreements hinging on what Beijing sees as Tokyo's intransigence over its militaristic past.

Tensions spiralled in April when thousands of Chinese protested against Japan's bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council and the revision of a Japanese school history textbook which critics say whitewashes wartime atrocities.

Vice Premier Wu Yi cancelled a meeting in May with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi over his visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, where convicted war criminals are honoured along with Japan's other war dead.

"History is a mirror of present-day realities, and also a textbook teeming with philosophical wisdom," Liu Yunshan, a member of the Communist Party's leading Politburo, said in a speech before about 1,000 soldiers, students and other people at the exhibition.

The new exhibit "lays bare the war atrocities committed by the Japanese militarists, eulogises the extraordinary heroism of the Chinese people, and underscores the patriotism-centred national spirit" of China, he said.

ANTI-JAPAN SENTIMENT

The Sino-Japanese war has been a major source of legitimacy for the Communist Party, and the government has been accused of whipping up anti-Japan sentiment.

But Wang Xinhua, curator of the Memorial Hall of the Chinese People's War Against Japan, said the exhibition was intended to be merely educational.

"We are putting on this exhibition to use historical facts to teach the people, not to fan some kind of nationalist feelings," he told reporters.

"I think telling facts of history to the people of China and Japan will be of benefit to better building healthy Sino-Japanese relations."

Thursday marked the 68th anniversary of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, a skirmish that marked a turning point in the Chinese resistance and is credited by many as the spark that started eight years of war.

On the night of July 7, 1937, Japanese troops were conducting exercises on one side of the bridge while Chinese Nationalist troops were on the other. The Japanese side demanded to search the Chinese side for a missing soldier, but the Nationalists refused and the argument devolved into a battle.

William Kirby, dean of the faculty of arts and sciences at Harvard University and a professor of Chinese history, said that despite the carnage of the war, the benefits to both China and Japan of their later cooperation appears to be under-appreciated.

"The depressing fact when one thinks about it from the perspective of 2005 is how divided China and Japan still are over their wartime history, their post-war relations," he said.

"It's arguable that 68 years after the fact that Chinese people, as a result of the war and a half century of education about the war, are possibly more anti-Japanese now than they were at that moment."



© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.

I was always proud to be Chinese and after their 2004 olympics success in the gold medals (same amount as US I think and only second to the US) I have never been prouder to be chinese. I love the country, I love the government, I love the people.

Are you really into chinese issues? You seem to be posting alot of Chinese and asian related issues lately. If you are, have a look at the "china and Taiwan" thread in the "Asia" section, you may find it interesting.

Wow, if anything I thought it'd be South. I guess not...

Mmm with the Japanese apologising, I think their minister mumbled something about "sorry for what have happened in the past".... no alluding to any events specifically nor was the apology made to any country in particular. They need to stoop down from their ego!

North Korea + China = good

Say what!?

Wow, if anything I thought it'd be South. I guess not...

North Korea is a stronghold of a communist country. I hear things are getting worse and worse in a democratic sense. As for China if they were to finally become a democratic country I believe it would be after 2K8 olympics after China anihilates... hmph... I mean steals the show with 50+ gold medals.

It it interesting, coz I can not see the connection between democracy and Olympics in China. Can you explain a little about it?

I watched the news of how some Canadian teacher's went to China to learn about the wars and the gruesome slavery/torture some Chinese had to go through in the hands of the Japanese not very pretty.

Not very pretty, is an understatement - they don't call it torture for nothing. you had rape after rape after rape, on women whose ages ranged from 8 to 80 years old, perpetrated by the Japanese solidiers. There were babies who were thrown up into the air and then had a bayonett thrusted into their bodies by the soldiers. Chinese people were used as target practice: I quote Iris Chang: "the rivers were choked with bodies."

The worst thing is...they refuse to apologise like Germany has to the Jews. The worst thing is everyone acknowledges the Holocaust, but how many people know about the "Forgotten holocaust?"

I can understand that people will sympathise the Japanese for having to suffer the effects of the atomic bombs but knowing of the effects China had to suffer under the hands of the Japanese, I hope that people will understand my less sympathetical position for the Japanese victims.

Now I don't blame you for being upset at me or not having sympathy over the Japanese victims of the atomic blast.

aIIk, What the Japanese did to China and what the US did to Japan with the two bombs in August 1945 are separate issues.

What the Chinese government is doing to rejuvenate hate against Japan is wrong. Most of the people living in Japan today had nothing to do with the atrocities of that period, and to continue to reestablish hate based on history is very short-sighted and dumb. Hating hurts the hater more than the hated. One must learn to forgive and move forward. That doesn't mean the atrocities perpetrated by Japan against China should be forgotten.

I'm glad to be a citizen of the United States, because I have seen the period of hate between the majority of Chinese and Japanese in America as a young boy in this country, but now it is common to see Japanese and Chinese marriages and families and friendships.

One of my oldest and dearest friend was born in Shanghai. He and his family fled to Hong Kong during the Cultural Revolution. His father was the president of the Bank of China in Shanghai, and he went to school in India and Tibet. In the late forties, his father gave him US$4,000 to come to the states to get his college education. After he landed in San Francisco, he spent the $4,000, so he worked himself through college in Michigan. I met him in Chicago in the late fifties, and we have been friends ever since until he passed away four years ago. We attended each others weddings, and saw our families grow. He has three children, and we have two. We have celebrated each other's family holidays and birthdays for many years - even after he passed away, his children have invited us to their Red Egg and Ginger parties.

In some ways, my friend George was closer to me than my own siblings. I miss him from my life.