President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday used the opportunity of marking the 77th anniversary of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident to reiterate the Republic of China’s (ROC) sovereignty over the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) in the East China Sea, which are also claimed by Japan and China.
“We will not back down on protecting sovereignty over our territory, even by one inch,” he said.
Ma made the remarks at an exhibition in Taipei marking the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, which is seen as the beginning of Japan’s full invasion of China in 1937 that led to the second Sino-Japanese war.
Photo: CNA
Ma said that “the mistakes in history may be forgiven, but the truth cannot be forgotten.”
Ma said the war was the largest in ROC history, in which more than 3 million military personnel and 20 million civilians died.
It ended with Japan’s surrender to US-led Allied forces in 1945 and was followed by the ROC government’s retreat to Taiwan in 1949 after losing to the Chinese communists in the Chinese Civil War.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
“The most important thing is how we view what has happened since the war [with Japan],” Ma said.
After the ROC won in 1945, it was able to implement political, economic and constitutional measures in Taiwan, creating a new chapter in ROC history, Ma said.
Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) also attended the exhibition, which commemorates the nation’s victory in the war of resistance against Japan.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
The exhibition focuses on battlefields in China and uprisings in Taiwan against Japanese colonial rule, Hau said.
Taiwan was a colony of Japan from 1895 to 1945.
Hau said that the goal of the exhibit is to remind people that “hatred can be relinquished, but history must be remembered and cannot be forgotten or tampered with.”
Running through Aug. 31, the exhibition is at Zhongshan Hall in Taipei, where the Japanese surrender ceremony was held in 1945.
Separately in Beijing yesterday, Hau’s father, former premier Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村), challenged China’s belief that the communists defeated Japan in the war, saying the Nationalist forces led by Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) were responsible.
Hau Pei-tsun, 94, made the remarks to staff at China’s Museum of the War of Chinese People’s Resistance against Japanese Aggression while touring the facility in Beijing.
“No one should deny history,” he said.
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