Searching for war's meaning at sunrise

In the cool early morning of Sept 2, I will walk to a quiet park near my home in Beijing. As the sky lightens and the sun slowly rises, I will stand silently among the trees and bow my head in solemn thanks to my parents' generation, including Chinese, who helped defeat Japan in World War II.

Sunrise provides a fitting moment for reflection on the 70th anniversary of the formal surrender. It recalls another rising sun: the self-proclaimed Japanese empire with its war flag that stood for conquest.

I will mourn for those who died at the hands of the aggressors - for the military casualties of my own country, of course, but perhaps even more poignantly for China, the root and branch of peaceful Confucianism, where the cost was tens of millions of lives.