CCTV9英语新闻：Nanjing should not be forgotten

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has called on Japan to face its military past during the Second World War. He said this on the very same day when US President Barack Obama attended commemoration activities in Hiroshima for remembrance of the victims of nuclear bombings. 

 

"Hiroshima is worthy of attention. But even more, Nanjing should not be forgotten. Victims deserve sympathy, but perpetrators should never shirk their responsibility," he said.

 

The foreign minister made the remarks in east China's Nanjing, the city in which around 300-thousand people were slaughtered by Japan's imperial army in just six weeks during World War Two.

 

Chinese casualties totalled 35 million during the eight years' war against Japan. The war also caused economic losses of 600 billion US dollars. Japan also invaded other Asian countries, including South Korea, the Philippines and Indonesia.

 

Historians estimate that at least 200,000 women from these countries and China, were forced to serve as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during the war. Most of them never received apology nor compensation.

 

Japan accepted unconditional surrender after the US dropped two nuclear bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.