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Triumph for justice

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-04-18 08:02

Justice has prevailed.

Eighty-year old Xia Shuqin was finally awarded damages this week for the libel she suffered when her identity as a witness to the Nanjing Massacre was questioned.

It is nine years since she first lodged a lawsuit at a Nanjing local court against Higashinakano Osamu and Magsumura Goshio, as well as publisher Tendensha, for a book that questioned whether Xia witnessed the mass killing by Japanese aggressors in Nanjing in 1937.

Seven of Xia's nine family members were killed by the Japanese invaders. Xia, just eight years old at the time, survived, despite three bayonet wounds, along with her four-year-old sister.

However, Tendensha published a book by Higashinakano Osamu and Magsumura Goshio that questioned the identity of Xia as the girl in the documentary filmed by John G Magee, a US missionary and then chairman of the International Commission of Nanking Red Cross.

The book denied the atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers and captured by the documentary film.

It is quite sad that the remaining survivors who have filed lawsuits seeking compensation for both physical and psychological damages they suffered in the massacre are yet to see justice delivered.

In the past more than six decades since the Japanese surrender in 1945, some right-wing Japanese have tried their best to whitewash the war crimes committed during their country's invasion of Southeast Asian countries and even denied the war was an invasion.

That is certainly the last thing people who suffered will ever accept.

Chinese people don't choose to harbor resentment towards their Japanese neighbor because of the war.

But they want people of both countries to always remember the tragedy as a guide to the future.

A true reckoning, it is thought, will prevent a similar war from repeating itself.

For Xia Shuqin and other survivors, it is not important whether they receive compensation or not.

They took legal action against right-wing Japanese because they could not allow the truth, which they witnessed first hand, to be turned upside down.

What they want is due respect from the Japanese, who should acknowledge the miseries of that particular period of history.

The Chinese government gave up its quest for war reparations from Japan in 1972 when the two countries forged diplomatic relations.

That move owed to the importance we place on the long-term friendship between the two neighbors. But this priority does not mean we do not care about any attempt to whitewash war crimes.

The amendment of bilateral relations by leaders in the past couple of years was welcomed by both Chinese and Japanese people, who understand that long-term friendship is in the interests of both sides.

The right ruling of this case by the Japanese Supreme Court will increase our respect for our neighbor, and certainly contribute to bilateral relations.

(China Daily 04/18/2009 page4)