The Truth Must Be Told

By staff reporter LU RUCAI

IN 1943, Li Shuxian was driven out of her home in Changchun City, Jilin Province in northeast China by Japanese soldiers and as a result had a miscarriage that deprived her of the ability ever to bear another child. Two years later, she adopted a 3-year-old Japanese orphan, and renamed her Xu Guilan. Says Li Shuxian, "I had mixed feelings at first. What decided me was knowing that Xu Guilan would die if I didn't adopt her, so I overcame my hatred of the Japanese and raised her as my own." Now 81, Li Shuxian lives alone. Her adopted daughter Xu Guilan has settled in Japan and visits her occasionally.

In 1991 Du Dongmei (right), a Japanese orphan who had been permitted to settle in Japan, returned to take care of her adoptive mother in China.

In northeast China and eastern Inner Mongolia thousands of other kind-hearted Chinese women like Li Shuxian adopted Japanese orphans that had been abandoned at the end of the war. More than 2,800 have been acknowledged by the Japanese government, but the actual number is much larger. According to research carried out by Professor Qu Xiaofan of Northeast Normal University, Chinese families adopted at least 5,000-7,000 Japanese orphans.
Since the end of WWII, the Chinese people have adopted the policy of "repaying evil with good will" in dealing with the Japanese soldiers who so wronged them. In 1956, 1,017 of the 1,062 Japanese war criminals imprisoned in China's War Criminals Administration Office were exempted from prosecution, released and sent back to Japan in three groups. The remaining 45 were sentenced to imprisonment, but none received the death penalty. They were released in April 1964. Back home, the returned former prisoners established a fellowship society that published books telling of the humane treatment they had received at the hands of China's War Criminals Administration Office.
At the end of WWII, the Chinese government did not demand the US $120 billion in war reparations to which it was entitled. As the late Premier Zhou Enlai said, if China had claimed this sum, the burden would have fallen on the Japanese people, making their lives hard for decades into the future. This was not the wish of the Chinese government or the Chinese people, who wished to carry forward friendship with the Japanese people from their generation to those following. At that time, the living standards of the Chinese people were no better than those of the Japanese, despite being on the winning side.

Respect for History

	The China Expedition Corps in joint action with the allied forces.
In 1945 the Japanese army surrendered.
	Eighth Route Army soldiers battling the Japanese army.

In 1995, a news item printed in The Japan Times totally changed the life of Wang Xuan, at that time an overseas student in Japan who had just obtained his master's degree. The article stated that two Japanese scholars had delivered a report at an international seminar on a plague in Chongshan Village, Yiwu, Zhejiang Province that had been caused by experiments at the Bacteriological Warfare Unit 731. As Yiwu was Wang Xuan's home village he did all he could to participate in further investigations. In 1996, his fluency in Japanese and familiarity with the Zhejiang dialect won him the job of interpreter for the Japanese non-governmental bacteriological warfare investigation group. When the group arrived at Chongshan, however, villagers were unwilling to talk to its Japanese members. "They still feared them as Japanese invaders," explained Wang Xuan. The shadow cast by the Japanese war of aggression is still very real for many Chinese people.
Wang Xuan was selected to represent Chinese victims in the lawsuit prosecuting Japan for its bacteriological warfare, but it was not until August 27, 2002, upon Wang Xuan's 27th appearance in a Japanese court, that judges at the local Tokyo court ruled that Japanese troops had indeed used bacteriological warfare during World War II, and so violated the terms of the Geneva Convention. They, however, did not agree to the compensation claims of Chinese victims, and Wang Xuan, who represented many of them, lost the case. But there was bitter victory in Japanese acknowledgement of the crime against humanity they had committed.
To Wang Xuan, the lawsuit is clarification of historical facts as regards relations between China and Japan. Whether or not Japan acknowledges history and its responsibilities to China reflects its choice of political orientation. As a Chinese person, it is Wang's duty to investigate and denounce the crimes of Japanese bacteriological warfare and uphold justice. History must be respected.
Wang Xuan's stance represents another aspect of the Chinese people's disposition - their veneration of history. It is history that sustains the morale of the Chinese people. As the old Chinese saying goes, "No matter if a country has been conquered, its history should not be destroyed." According to Wu Xuewen, advisor at the China Institute of Modern International Relations, the Chinese government has adopted a consistent policy toward Japan of distinguishing Japanese militarists from the Japanese people and Japanese decision-makers from those that have participated in implementing Japanese policies.
Japan's generally blinkered attitude towards its history of aggression is, however, unacceptable to the Chinese people. In 1958, the Japanese Ministry of Education changed the wording in school history textbooks in the section on WWII from "invading China" to "entering the Mainland." In textbooks used in the Japanese school curriculum since 1982, the "Nanjing Massacre" has been referred to as the "occupation of Nanjing." In 2004, the Japanese Tokyo Education Committee approved a history textbook that glosses over Japan's war of aggression and does not mention China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression that lasted eight years (1937-1945), caused 35 million casualties and economic losses of US $600 billion. The Japanese prime minister's visits to the Yasukuni Shrine has also aroused great indignation and opposition from China, South Korea, North Korea and other Asian countries that were invaded by Japan. It is obvious that this nation that denies historical facts has not examined its misdeeds or repented its war of aggression and that it is, therefore, evading its historical responsibilities.
Certain Chinese specialists insist that the Japanese attitude towards war is influenced by events at the Tokyo War Criminals Trial. Tang Zhongnan, president of the Japanese History Society of China, has pointed out the considerable shortcomings of the Far East Military Court trial. Only seven A-class war criminals received the death penalty, and all the other war criminals, released by 1953, went on to play decisive roles in the Japanese political arena. Bian Xiuyue, senior research fellow at the Institute of Modern Chinese History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, says that post-war Japan's refusal to acknowledge its war responsibilities, or to apologize to all the Asian peoples in addition to the Chinese that it invaded and occupied is attributable to the pre-war and post-war right-wing elements emanating from the same source.

Using History as the Mirror and Looking into the Future

Wang Xuan (center front) on a rally with Chinese and Japanese people in Tokyo, calling upon the Japanese government to acknowledge the truth of history.

Within Chinese culture, harmony is valued above all else. As the Chinese saying goes, "Harmony brings benefit to both sides while dispute brings harm." This is a sound principle on which to guide Sino-Japanese relations. Normalization of Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations in 1972 has indeed brought benefit to both countries. In 2004, bilateral trade approached US $170 billion, and there were more than 4 million visits between the two countries.
In a meeting with the visiting Kyodo News president Toyohiko Yamanouchi in April 2005, Chinese State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan pointed out that the war of aggression launched by Japanese militarists made countless Chinese people suffer, but that Japanese people were also victims of that war. For many years the Chinese government has educated its people in this spirit. Carrying forward Sino-Japanese friendship from generation to generation is the greatest desire of the Chinese government and the Chinese people.