Chinese honor guard members take part in a ceremony to mark China’s first National Memorial Day at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall in Nanjing in eastern China’s Jiangsu province Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014
China held a memorial for Nanjing Massacre victims in the eastern city of Nanjing yesterday.
Li Jianguo, a member of the Party’s Central Committee Political Bureau and vice chairman of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, addressed the event at the Memorial Hall for the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre.
“When we recall that day, one of the darkest and most painful scenes in our history rises once again before our eyes”, Li said, stressing that the massacre will always be remembered in China.
Japanese troops captured Nanjing, then China’s capital, on Dec. 13, 1937 and started a campaign of slaughter lasting more than a month. More than 300,000 unarmed Chinese soldiers and civilians were murdered and over 20,000 women were raped.
In February 2014, China’s top legislature designated Dec. 13 as National Memorial Day for Nanjing Massacre Victims.
Though China-Japan relations have been strained lately, Li said substantial progress has been made since the two sides normalized relations in 1972.
They should “continuously push forward good-neighborly and friendly cooperation and make a joint contribution to world peace and human progress,” he added.
The Nanjing Massacre is seen in China as the nadir of an era in which it was bullied and humiliated by foreign powers.
“We are now marching on a path of building a prosperous society and realizing the dream of national rejuvenation with pride. The era of humiliation is well and truly over,” said Li, urging people to work hard to achieve the “Chinese Dream.”
State Councilor Wang Yong was also at the ceremony, along with survivors of the massacre, Chinese WWII veterans, foreigners who helped China during the war, and people from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. Xinhua
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