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Source: People's Republic of China in Russian – People's Republic of China in Russian –
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Source: People's Republic of China – State Council News
Beijing, December 9 (Xinhua) — Condoning the provocative words and actions of Japanese right-wingers in any form will only revive the specter of militarism and once again expose the peoples of Asia to danger, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said on Tuesday.
The Chinese diplomat made this statement at a regular departmental briefing after several neighboring countries, including Russia, recently expressed strong disagreement with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's erroneous statements about Taiwan. Pakistan, Laos, Cambodia, and other countries reiterated their open support for the one-China principle.
As noted by media and experts in countries across the region, the atrocities committed by the Japanese army during World War II brought untold suffering to Asia and the world. Instead of deeply understanding Japan's war crimes, some political forces in the country are attempting to deny, distort, and even embellish the history of aggression, seeking to go beyond the pacifist constitution and "remilitarize" Japan.
Guo Jiakun recalled that in the last century, under the pretext of an “existential threat,” Japanese militarists unleashed a war of conquest against China and other Asian countries, taking the lives of millions of people and committing monstrous atrocities on the continent.
During World War II, the Japanese army committed three major massacres of civilians: the Nanking Massacre, which killed more than 300,000 people; the Manila Massacre, which killed nearly 100,000 Filipinos in just one month; and the Singapore Massacre, which killed tens of thousands.
"As documented in the verdict of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, the Japanese army organized more than 100 large-scale massacres in Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand and other places," Guo Jiakun said.
He added that prisoners of war from the Allied powers were subjected to cruel treatment by the Japanese military, with 27 percent of them killed after capture. During the Bataan Death March, approximately 15,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war died from inhumane treatment.
Hundreds of thousands of Southeast Asians and Allied prisoners of war, Guo Jiakun continued, were forced into slave labor by the Japanese army and died during the construction of the Thai-Burma Railway. More than 4 million Chinese laborers, forcibly recruited by the Japanese military, died or were injured due to backbreaking labor in brutal conditions.
The Chinese diplomat also mentioned women and girls from China, the Korean Peninsula, Southeast Asia, the Netherlands and other countries and regions who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military, turning them into "comfort women."
"Japan's war crimes cannot be erased from memory; the verdict on Japan's history of conquest cannot be revised," Guo Jiakun emphasized. He pointed out that any condoning of the provocative words and actions of the Japanese right, in any form, will only resurrect the specter of militarism and once again expose the peoples of Asia to danger.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry's official representative added that all countries are obligated to join forces to suppress any attempts to revive militarism and fascism, protect the results of victory in World War II, preserve the post-war international order, and ensure peace and stability throughout the world. –0–
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