By Xin Shunkang
WINDHOEK – Recently, many Namibian friends have asked me about the ongoing “diplomatic war” between China and Japan.
People saw Chinese and Japanese ambassadors engaged in a debate each on the BBC. Some, out of friendly concern, suggested that such nuisance with others, especially a neighbour smaller in size, should not bother a country as big as China.
At this point, it makes me feel the need to tell some Asian history, which is a bit distant to our African friends. Indeed, a Japanese Prime Minister visiting a temple to honour war criminals is a big deal. Japan, as the first industrialized and most advanced country in Asia during the first half of the 20th century, once invaded and occupied China, Korea and many other Asian countries.
To a Chinese, or a Korean, and many people in Asia, especially those senior citizens who in their early life witnessed the loss of their families in WWII, this past is painful and emotional. We feel the same way that Namibians would feel about apartheid, and Africans about colonial occupation.
Perhaps we do feel more, since the Japanese war criminals have not yet been condemned but have been honoured as “heroes.” Anyone could do a research of this history, and here I would recall some of the most well known facts:
For a stretch of 40 days since 13 December 1937, Japanese soldiers under the command of General Iwane Matsuione-one of the 14 Class-A war criminals of WWII who are housed in Yasukuni Shrine, captured the then capital city of Nanking and killed 300 000 ordinary Chinese citizens.
The murders, arson, looting, rapes, and many other acts of cruelty and atrocities are well documented and referred to as the Nanking Massacre or the Rape of Nanking. It was one of the many crimes that the Japanese invaders committed in China.
There was also the Chongqing Bombing and the massacres in Pingdingshan and other places. The Japanese army even used chemical and biological weapons in the war and its notorious Unit 731 conducted experiments on living human bodies in the northeast of China.
Even today, some of the chemical weapons left and buried by the Japanese army after the war are still harming the lives of Chinese citizens. It is estimated that there are about “several hundred thousand” chemical weapons buried in China. Up to July 2004, only 37 000 have been uncovered.
This and other widely recognized historical truths are exactly what some rightwing political groups in Japan have been trying to deny. They re-write history text books in the attempt to promote a wrong view of history in the public eye.
What is more, last year, on 26 December, in the same month that the Nanking Massacre took place, Shinzo Abe, in his full capacity as the Japanese Prime Minister, blatantly paid homage to the Yasukuni Shrine, which house the 14 Class-A war criminals of WWII. Who on earth would believe that a full-dressed politician saluting to those who commanded mass killings is there to pray for peace?
Recalling the history is not to create hatred and confrontation, but to call for justice, peace and reconciliation in the long run.
The Chinese are not unforgiving people. On the contrary, although throughout the war against Japanese aggression, China suffered 35 million causalities, 600 billion US dollars in direct and indirect economic losses, the Chinese have been ready to forgive.
Our people treated the Japanese prisoners of war well and raised the Japanese war orphans left in China. When China and Japan normalized diplomatic ties in 1972, the Chinese leadership made the important decision not to seek war reparations from Japan. We believe that the crimes and responsibilities of the war of aggression should be borne by the small number of militarists.
The Japanese people were also victims of the war. Japan is China’s neighbour. We are willing to develop normal ties of good-neighborliness and friendship with the Japanese people. However, the Prime Minister’s honouring of the Class-A war criminals is not some ordinary Japanese remembering his deceased family. It has gone too far and is totally unacceptable.
Former South African President Nelson Mandela said, “ the greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
War crime, crime against humanity, is a heavy fall. It is wrong and should not be justified and glorified. We do hope that the like-minded and peace-loving Japanese politicians could show courage to face the truth, and not, in a way to garner support for themselves take Japan again in a wrong and dangerous direction.
His Excellency Xin Shunkang is the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Namibia and is based in Windhoek.