Wu Guangqiang

    jw368@163.com

    ON Thursday, China will for the first time host a grand military parade to mark the 70th anniversary of the victory of Chinese People’s Resistance against Japanese Aggression.

    Nationwide, various activities are being held to mark the anniversary: exhibitions to remind people about the brutality of the Japanese invaders and the massive casualties and sufferings the bloody war inflicted on the Chinese people, historical archives published to display confessions of Japanese war criminals, films and TV dramas shown depicting Chinese soldiers and civilians’ brave fight against the Japanese invaders.

    China commemorates the victory of the resistance against Japanese aggression every year, but none of the previous commemorations has transcended this year’s in scale and dimension.

    Some foreign media outlets have, instinctively, speculated that the Chinese Government is trying to stoke fears of new Japanese militarism to focus attention on a foreign threat rather than China’s domestic social and political problems.

    But nothing is more groundless and preposterous. In fact, the Chinese are the most tolerant and rational among the world’s peoples — most of them are able to tell history from present and truth from false.

    Most Chinese people, including me, hate the barbarous Japanese invaders in the 1940s but admire the hardworking, disciplined and courteous Japanese people today. The fact that millions of Chinese tourists visit and shop in Japan every year is evidence of Chinese wisdom and rationality.

    There is an array of reasons why China is marking the occasion in a big way.

    Seventy years is a long time, but it may be too long for newer generations to remember the dark history and to stay vigilant against the hazards of another war, which seems increasingly possible now.

    Despite the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s hypocritical promise to avoid another war, his words and deeds are bringing his nation and people closer to getting involved in another war, voluntarily or involuntarily, especially when under his manipulation the Japanese Parliament has approved legislation that would allow Japanese troops to fight overseas for the first time since the end of World War II.

    Given the developments in Japan since the end of WWII, China’s mounting misgivings about the resurgence of Japanese militarism are well-grounded.

    Unlike in Germany where fascism has been basically rooted out thanks to the nation’s deep remorse for its war crimes and its sincere reparation by criminalizing fascism of any form and offering full compensation to war victims, Japanese militarism has never been eradicated because Japan as a nation has never acknowledged its war crimes, except by a few top officials’ heartfelt personal apologies.

    In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the U.S. virtually suspended the process of punishing Japanese war criminals and transformation of Japan to thoroughly uproot its militarist residues, in a bid to turn Japan, America’s former enemy, into a strategic ally to confront the Soviet Union-led socialist camp. The Korean War consolidated Japan’s status as America’s important ally, thus terminating the possibility of making Japan genuinely repentant for its war crimes.

    As a result, Japan’s right wing keeps growing, officials keep paying visits to the Yasukuni war shrine where the country’s war dead, including many WWII war criminals, are worshiped, and textbooks are revised to whitewash or cover up Japan’s war crimes while Japan gradually moves away from the peace policy that its post-war constitution stipulates.

    No Chinese will forget the bloody war 70 years ago that took millions of lives and injured tens of millions. Nor will any Chinese be so naive as to think that another maniac will not launch a war against China because we are peace-loving.

    China is never bellicose, but it is under constant and multiple threats. The nation remains disunited and has territory disputes with a few neighboring countries, which could be used by some evil-minded nations to impose a war on China. The threat of war has been ever-constant for China.

    The best way to maintain peace is to remember previous wars and always be fully prepared for the next one.

    (The author is an English tutor and freelance writer.)