Opening the Modern history of China, the audiences will find the scarred truth in the dark days. These days are not only hurt Chinese people, but also the world. People and history will never forget Japanese Army’s crimes during the World War II. They brutally killed Chinese citizens no matter they resisted or not.

The most notorious event probably is Nanking Massacre. Japanese Army robed everything in the city, and burned over one third buildings. Besides that, they killed more than 300,000 Nanking citizens within 6 weeks; more than 20,000 women were raped. They event organized killing competitions within soldiers. These crimes were admitted in the trials of International Military Tribunal for the Far East and Nanking Military Tribunal. However, these are not the end. Since 1931, Japanese Army kidnapped thousands of Chinese, Korean, Southeast Asian women and forced them to provide sexual service. They are so called “Comfort Women”. They were taken away from their homes, separated with their families, abused and suffered from brutal treatment. Moreover, the Japanese 731 unit built up a Biochemical Laboratory in northeastern of China. They used Chinese citizens as the subjects to apply a lot of inhumane experiments. These experiments include injecting living bacteria to human beings and many other ruthless surgeries. Some researchers believe that there are more than 3,000 dead because of these experiments.

Even though about 70 years past, the precious records has been saved in the museums and publications. Chinese people try to notice themselves how valuable the peace is by remembering the dark days and damages. However, Japanese government may have another idea. Some of their behaviors really hurt Chinese people, and other victims of war from Korean peninsula and Southeastern Asia. Japanese government conducted three major events that consistently challenge the bottom line of these victims.

Since the beginning of this century, there are more than 30 high-level politicians of Japan visited the war shrine, which enshrines Japan’s Class A war criminals during the World War II, in public. They include five previous and current Prime Ministers. These behaviors not only have been protested by Chinese people and government, but also people and governments from other parts of Asia. The facts show that Japanese government and politicians ignore the feelings of other countries’ people.

In addition, Japanese government changed their history textbook in order to hide and distort the truth. They do not want their children know and remember what they did in the war. The sad is there might be no Japanese people know the real history after two or three generations. These behaviors are not deliberate. If the new generations never know the truth of the war, they will never notice how cruel the war is. No matter to be the victims of aggression or the criminals, they all paid a lot because of the war. Japan also went through a hard time during and after the war. The economic damage of the war is huge. Young people should learn to be thankful for the peace and protect the stability of the world.  

Moreover, as the previous text mentioned, the “comfort women” are a group of innocent female citizens that were kidnapped by Japanese Army and forced to provide sexual service. They were tortured and abused in the “comfort station”. No one was clearer about the history than these female victims who are still living after these years. The first claim for compensation was brought up by a Taiwanese non-profit women’s aid foundation in 1992. After that, more and more female victims from China and other parts of Asia spoke out their miserable experiences and ask help from the public. They asked for the apologies from Japanese government and the compensation for depriving their rights. Nevertheless, they do not get what they want yet. Japanese government does not want to respond their requests and deny the truth. They claimed that they did not force these women to do anything, they are volunteers. The statement is really ridiculous because no one will leave her families and provide sexual services over 17 hours a day for years voluntarily.

The conflicts between China and Japan never stop in history. Since hundreds of years ago, they have contended for territorial sovereignty, economy and trade. As Chinese government and people, they can accept the positive competitions, but never accept aggression and violence. Chinese people have remembered the lessons from the wars, and also hoped Japanese people could remember the history as well. These facts could notice both of us how precious the peace is, and how important to respect each other. Even though there are a lot of conflicts between these two nations, most of Chinese people and Chinese government are willing to look forward to cooperate with Japan only if they face up to the truth and admit the history. 

As the third party of the events, American and European scholars’ opinions may be more objective. According to an article, All Captives Slain, that was published in New York Time on December 18, 1937, F. Tillman described the situation of Nanking in 1937. In the article, Mr. Tillman conducted some severe terminologies like “barbarously cruel”, “mass killing”. These terminologies definitely showed a least a part of the tragedy to the audiences. In addition, he is not the only foreigner in China, many other foreigner journalists and missionaries like him helped a lot during and after the war, they saved valuable written and image records about the truth. These materials were precious evidences to testify what the Japanese Army did to the innocent Chinese citizens.

Just like they cannot deny their criminals in Nanking and other part of China, Japanese government cannot deny their criminals to the innocent women as well. The western media publishers also admit that Japanese Army forced Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese, Indonesian, Filipino, and Dutch women provide sexual services to the soldiers during the war. Some media publishers describe these women as “sex slaves” and support these survivors when they asked for their rights and compensations. Major media publisher like BBC also reported Japanese government’s inappropriate behaviors in distorting history. BBC News reported an article, which is named “Japan textbook angers neighbors”, on April 3^rd, 2001. In this article, the journalist reported the protest events that were conducted by South Korean citizens to against to Japanese government changing their textbook. In addition, the article also pointed out the distorted history like “Dismissed the Nanjing Massacre as ‘nothing like a holocaust’”.

No matter how many decades and centuries go by, the truth is never changed. As a part of the history, we should remember and respect the past, and prepare and alert for the future. History can teach people lessons and help them chasing for a better future. If Japanese government wants to keep the friendly relationships with its neighbors such as China, Korean, Indonesia, it has to notice how important to respect others’ feeling. China always pays attention to have close cooperation with Japan, but the progress has to be pushed by both two sides. Both the people and government of China hope to hear the good news from Japan.