Exhibit on US-China wartime collaboration opens in Washington

An exhibit featuring U.S. soldiers fighting alongside Chinese troops during World War II kicked off Wednesday.

The exhibit, named "National Memories," displays photographs and artifacts from the China-Burma-India Theater, including a famous picture showing an aged Chinese civilian obtaining a light for his cigarette from a U.S. Army sergeant.

The sense of common cause between the U.S. and China reached its zenith during World War II, the time of alliance and mutual sacrifice that peoples of the two nations remember today, Jane Harman, Director of the Wilson Center, a Washington-based think tank, said at the opening ceremony of the exhibit.

The photographs at the exhibit, Harman said, "testify to the friendships made and hardships born together" between the U.S. and China during years of fighting against the Japanese troops, and are "astonishing portraits of both Chinese and American heroes."

Wu Xi, Minister of Chinese Embassy in the U.S., said the exhibit is a good reminder that world peace does not come easily and the outcomes of the victory of World War II need to be upheld.

"The 'National Memories' exhibition reminds us that we should always remember the shared history we had during the Second World War, and we should work more closely for the lasting peace and prosperity of the human society," she said.

The exhibit, co-organized by the Wilson Center and China Overseas Exchange Association, is on display on Woodrow Wilson Plaza and in the Wilson Center through Tuesday.