A WWII veteran has sent an open letter to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, urging him to apologize to the Chinese people for the atrocities committed by Japan's imperial army during the war.
John Yee, who was a Chinese member of the legendary Flying Tigers squadron and is now living in the United States, said in the letter that the Dec. 27 visit to Pearl Harbor by Abe is "more USA-Japan theater."
The full text of the open letter is as follows:
I was 17-years old and living in Kunming when the Japanese slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocent people in Nanking, 1,340 miles (2,156 km) away.
It was a horrible, sickening event, and shocked everybody in China. It started a long period of atrocities committed by the Japanese military against innocent Chinese people.
Japan tried to take over Asia and Germany tried to take over Europe. Same thing, and just like Hitler tried to exterminate the Jews in Europe, the Japanese committed a genocide against the Chinese. But Western educators and media have yet to recognize the extent of the atrocities committed by Japan.
The visit to Pearl Harbor by Shinzo Abe is more USA-Japan theater. The first people the Japanese should apologize to are the Chinese -- for the Rape of Nanking, for invading China, for murdering millions of Chinese people.
Japan invaded Manchuria (Northeast China) in 1931, and when China appealed to the League of Nations, the Japanese contingent got up and walked out of the room. And the world's big Western powers -- England, France, Germany, Italy and America -- did nothing.
Had they intervened, in any capacity, the slaughter of millions of Chinese might have been averted. The Japanese have no more excuse than Hitler had. There are several countries that Japan should apologize to, and China is at the top of the list. Not the USA.
More Japanese and American back-rubbing seems to be on show in Pearl Harbor this week.
