[Correspondent Diary] China, "We Have Not Forgotten Japanese Military Atrocities"

Chinese State Media Reports on Lives of Nanjing Massacre Survivors and Comfort Women Grandmothers
Chinese Ministry of National Defense Warns Japanese Defense Minister's Yasukuni Shrine Visit "No Future Possible"

[Asia Economy Beijing=Special Correspondent Jo Young-shin] August 15 is Gwangbokjeol (Liberation Day). It marks the 76th anniversary. For us, it is Gwangbokjeol, while for Japan, a defeated war nation, it is the day of defeat.

China, which has a different system from ours, also remembers August 15. Japan, unable to suppress its ambition to invade the continent, established the Manchukuo in 1931 and started the Sino-Japanese War. During the Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese army committed atrocities that the Chinese people can never forget. After occupying Nanjing on December 13, 1937, the Japanese army mercilessly massacred Nationalist prisoners led by Chiang Kai-shek and civilians. Over six weeks, the brutal massacre by the Japanese army claimed the lives of 200,000 to 300,000 innocent people. Tens of thousands of Chinese women were raped. Korea calls this the 'Nanjing Massacre,' and China remembers it as the 'Nanjing Massacre' (Nanjing Daedosal). The perpetrator Japan downplays the atrocities of their ancestors by calling it the 'Nanjing Incident.'

Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe paying respects at Yasukuni Shrine
Photo by Yonhap News

On August 14, the day before Gwangbokjeol, China's state-run Xinhua News Agency published an article titled "65 Survivors of the Nanjing Massacre Await Apology." Xinhua introduced the life of Ge Daolong (aged 94), a survivor of the Nanjing Massacre. When he was 10 years old in 1937, two of his uncles were brutally killed by the Japanese army. He was lucky to escape but has never forgotten the nightmare of that day throughout his life.

Xinhua explained that seven victims of the Nanjing Massacre died last year, and currently, 65 survivors remain alive. It pointed out that the elderly survivors remember the suffering of their nation and are important witnesses of history, and any attempt to distort history is powerless in the face of their memories.

On the same day, Xinhua also reported another article titled "14 Survivors of the Comfort Women Still Alive." Xinhua explained that 'comfort women' refers to the Japanese military's system of sexual slavery and stated that during World War II, the Japanese military enslaved women from various countries as sex slaves. Xinhua introduced that in May, they found three grandmothers who were comfort women born in 1922, 1925, and 1930 in Hunan Province. One grandmother, who was 13 years old in 1943, testified that she was forcibly taken by the Japanese army at that time.

Professor Chen Lipei of the Comfort Women Research Center at Shanghai Normal University said, "The elderly women shed tears recalling the past, and they still suffer from nightmares even now."

The newly identified comfort women grandmothers in China last May (Photo by Xinhua News Agency)

On the morning of Gwangbokjeol, a man named Mark Ramseyer, a professor at Harvard Law School, once again distorted history under the name of a scholar. In the preface of a book written by a Japanese professor claiming that "all comfort women were under consensual contracts," he wrote, "The Japanese military had no need or capacity to forcibly recruit prostitutes." He further added that even Japanese military documents from World War II show no evidence of forced recruitment of comfort women. He even urged, "I hope Japanese readers will not be deceived."

China also seems uneasy about the historical distortions and outrageous remarks by Japanese officials who have not escaped the shackles of past ambitions. When Nobuo Kishi, Japan's Defense Minister, visited the Yasukuni Shrine, where Class A war criminals of the Pacific War are enshrined, on August 13, the Chinese Ministry of National Defense stated, "It contains Japan's wrong attitude toward its history of aggression and sinister intentions regarding the postwar international order," and urged reflection, saying, "There can be no future without facing the past."

Meanwhile, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited the Yasukuni Shrine on the morning of August 15, Japan's day of defeat, revealing his political ambitions.