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Xinhua Insight: Commemorating war for peace
Last Updated: 2014-09-18 23:46 | Xinhua
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Liu Yunshan (L, front), a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, joins citizens to strike a big bell carved with "never forget national humiliation" to mark the 83rd anniversary of the 9.18 Incident, in Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province, Sept. 18, 2014. On Sept. 18, 1931, Japanese troops blew up a section of the railway under their control near Shenyang, and then accused Chinese troops of sabotage as a pretext for attack. They bombarded barracks near Shenyang the same evening, beginning a large-scale armed invasion of northeast China. The incident was followed by Japan's full-scale invasion of China and the rest of Asia, triggering the war against Japanese aggression. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin)

Siren sounded across the city of Shenyang on the morning of Sept. 18, as they have every year since 1995, recalling the beginning of Japanese invasion in 1931.

Pedestrians stopped. Automobiles pulled over and blew their horns.

Two minutes before, at 9:18 a.m., senior Communist Party of China official Liu Yunshan and some local people rang a bell at the Historical Museum. The bell is engraved with "never forget the national humiliation".

The bell was rung 14 times, once for each of the 14 years of war Chinese people fight against Japanese aggression from 1931 to 1945.

Liu Jiaqi, 11, was the youngest bell ringer. "It's a great honor for me, and it's a kind of responsibility. I represent all the students of the nation by doing this," she said.

Liu has come to the museum on this day every year since she was four years old. "My mum used to bring me here, and the school also organizes visits. I know history very well," said Liu.

"We must learn history so that we can better contribute to our country and make it stronger," she said.

The history she refers to is that on Sept. 18, 1931, when Japanese troops blew up a section of railway under their control near Shenyang, and accused Chinese troops of sabotage as a pretext for attack. They then launched an invasion of northeast part of China.

The incident was followed by a full-scale invasion of China and the rest of Asia and 14 years of war of Chinese people fighting against Japanese aggression.

Veteran Liang Baojin, 89, came to Shenyang from nearby Liaoyang City to mark the anniversary for the first time.

"It reminded me the time of raging battle, flames and shells," he said. "The peace we are enjoying today didn't come easy. We must cherish it."

INDELIBLE CRIMES

The Japanese occupied the whole northeastern part of China in less than half of a year as the Kuomintang government decided not to fight and the government army in the three provinces retreated to the south after Sept. 18. The invaders used the resources in the area to feed its war machine in the east and murdered a huge number of Chinese civilians.

In September 1932, Japanese troops besieged Pingdingshan Village in Fushun City and massacred more than 3,000 villagers including women and children.

At a public memorial ceremony on Sept. 16 in Fushun, among thousands of attendees, 50 Japanese from a railway workers' association, with white flowers on their chests, bowed in front of the memorial to the victims.

"We come here to express many Japanese' will that we don't want war, and we love peace," said a 32-year-old woman from Tokyo.

The Pingdingshan Massacre is not well known in Japan, but Japan's crimes during the war can't be forgotten, she said.

Survivors filed a lawsuit at Japanese court in 1996 to ask for apology and compensation, but it was rejected by the court despite an admission of the massacre. The court quoted an "immunity from responsibility" policy, which stipulates that the government will not be responsible for damage inflicted before 1947.

The lawsuit failed, but efforts are still being made to let more Japanese know about the tragedy, said Shiroh Kawakami, lawyer for the plaintiff who, for years, has helped Chinese victims strive for justice.

The association decided to build 19 schools in rural areas, "to do something to atone for our crimes".

By 1945, when, along with WWII, the war ended, more than 35 million Chinese soldiers and civilians had been killed or wounded.

FOR PEACE

"Commemorating the war is for the sake of peace," said Zhang Jie, a social science researcher in Liaoning.

China commemorates the date on such a scale, not to rekindle hatred, but to remind people of the humiliation and to learn from the past, he said.

China is on the path of peaceful development and values improved China-Japan relations, but history is history. Nobody can change it or ignore it, said Jing Xiaoguang, curator of the September 18 museum in Shenyang.

China had decades of friendship with Japan after the two established formal diplomatic ties in 1972, but relations became strained in 2012 when the Japanese government and right-wing began behaving in ways China finds unacceptable, such as the "purchase" of parts of China's Diaoyu Islands.

Tokyo has also attempted to deny history, challenging post-WWII world order, and reworking its pacifist Constitution to allow collective self defense.

The Chinese government has approved Sept. 3 as Victory Day and Sept. 30 as Martyrs' Day. China wants long-term, steady and healthy development of Sino-Japanese relations on the basis of the four political documents, President Xi Jinping said at this year's Sept. 3 observance, stressing that Japan's correct treatment of and deep reflection on the past events is the political basis of bilateral ties.

Xi urged Japan to be prudent in dealing with historical issues, learn lessons and stick to the road of peaceful development

However, historical issues have not been well handled, and Japan seems to be moving in the wrong direction with a resurgence of imperialism, said Jing.

How relations develop is based on the attitude of the Japanese side towards history, Jing said.

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