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© 2014 AFPWith eye on Japan, China announces national 'Martyrs' Day'
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© 2014 AFP
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oldman_13
Christ, like a broken record, these nationalists.
afterthequake
What the hell is the point of having a national day when it doesn't get you off work. Isn't that the whole point of the thing?? Still I admire their dedication to making junk for the free people in the west to fill their lives with.
Sabrage
Will this Martyrs Day commemorate Chinese nationalists who died resisting foreign invaders?
Nessie
I thought every day was martyr's day in China.
gokai_wo_maneku
Well, as usual, the Europeans were there 100 years before the Japanese doing their atrocities on the Chinese, but the Japanese get most mention. Fortunateliy, ordinary Chinese don't care about this (except a fringe group). The government seems to have a hard time getting Chinese interested. Instead, Chinese come and visit Japan in record numbers.
nath
The most backward-looking pathetic country ever. Do they share the same anger of everything the British did to them during the Opium Wars?
Laguna
Look forward to the "Day of Atonement" to commemorate the tens of millions killed during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.
hkitagawa
Without Japan there were no China!
semperfi
Meanwhile may - TODAY - - - CNN and BBC ran report on Abe and his awesome engineering proactive foreign relationships with the likes of India's Modi - - bc BOTH countries ALONG with other DEMOCRACIES in the he Asian area are apprehensive of China's imperialistic aims
OssanAmerica
I sincerely hope Chiang Kai Shek is honored.
PhillyStreetzPAC
Can't help but wonder it Vietnam will have its own holiday as well or when CCCP legislature will finally find the heart to have a national day of remembrance for Tiananmen Square Martyrs' . These commies really need to give this reflection hyperbole b(#sh@ a rest.
ReformedBasher
Meanwhile folk in Hong Kong are protesting for democratic representation.
God help them, I hope there's no slaughter but I suspect the CCP will stamp them out rather than agree to this unthinkable of representation of the people.
Not communist, facist.
Iowan
Ironically they will also be celebrating the foreign invaders who won: Communists. (2) "On this day of independence and prosperity, get back to work!" (3) Perhaps the other nations of the world could Skype their museums' collections of Chinese artifacts to help China celebrate?
StormR
China again shows its belligerence and ignorance, the leaders do behave like indolent 5 year olds.
Thunderbird2
Meanwhile they crack down on the freedom that Hong Kong has had by forcing a new leader on them rather than let them vote.
Asian2014
In Singapore, there are also memorials to honor heroes who died fighting the Japanese. To Singaporeans, these are martyrs and school children are brought every year to pay their respects and understand history. Is this also wrong?
AlexNoaburg
Thank japan for weakening the nationalists and allowing for the communists to win. The legacy of ww2 is still being felt even if Japan is sitting pretty under the us's protection
Disillusioned
Both Japan and China are like two school girls sparring in the toilet. For gawd's sake I wish these two would grow the heck up! Last week's speech made by Abe honoring the war criminals as martyrs is what has spured this 'tit for tat' action by China.
nath
Sounds like the kind of holiday Saudi Arabia would come up with. You keep the best company, Peking.
@AlexNoaburg That doesn't explain why China has allowed the communists to stay in power for the past 70 years. The people could make life significantly harder for the party.
OssanAmerica
Every country honors those who died for their country. But Singapore does not make anti-Japan sentiment or a fixation on 70 year old history an official diplomatic and political tool. So to answer your question, no it's not wrong. But it's completely different from the article.
decibel
@gokai_wo_maneku
Europeans did not slaughter 20 milllion chinese. Imperial army did. Of course you don't find that documented in the Japanese history books. Try UK, US or other european history books for true accounts.
nigelboy
Except for the inconvenient fact that it's completely ignored by Japan.
LeChatBotte
Since you're into numbers, it is estimated that over 40M Chinese were slaughtered during your own "Cultural Revolution". Indeed look to European or US history books for true accounts.
Wolfpack
"Martyrs Day" sounds nutty. Veterans Day or maybe Armed Forces Day or something like that. Martyrs Day sounds like they are honoring people who blew themselves up in a cafe. The Chinese are getting scary.
darknuts
It's no different than veterans day. Not a big deal.
JoeBigs
The country's top legislature on Sunday declared September 30 as Martyrs' Day, which will be marked "with events across the country" every year, the official news agency Xinhua said.
When will Communist China have a martyrs day for all the people that Mao and his cohorts murdered due to Red Terror tactics?
Or how about all those millions of people that were murdered after the uncivil war ended or during the repression that follow? Or how about all those that were murdered during the Cultural Revolution? Or how about all those people that have been tossed into prison just because they ask questions?
It is always better to point a finger at others when you don't want people to look into what you have done. So bringing up a past war is better than bringing up their own past.
There is a word for that......hm what is that word??? Oh yeah, hypocrisy!
Kcquitano
i think war is inevitable, when it does come i hope that china will be among the defeated. there is just too much to say about this issue and not enough time or energy.
MyJT2014
They may as well make it every day is a day of martyr day so people don’t get confuse and forget. Unbelievable!
ebisen
Does is apply to the freakin' Tibet and the people killed by the Chinese on a daily basis there?
SecularBeast
@decibel, said: "Europeans did not slaughter 20 milllion chinese. Imperial army did."
You've got to be careful with this kind of claim, decibel. Japan did not 'slaughter' 20 million (or whatever figure the CCP choose to throw around). The majority of civilian deaths in China during the Second Sino-Japan War (1937-45) were due to starvation and disease, not 'slaughter'.
While elements of the IJA were responsible for civilian massacres in some areas, to attempt to portray every death during the conflict as such (as the CCP do), is nonsense. While starvation was a flow on effect of the war, the massive armies the KMT and CCP were marching around the country needed to be fed - and for this they preyed on the civilian population for food as much as the Japanese did.
History is never as simplistic as nationalists choose to portray it to serve their own interests.
boweevil
@decibel
I agree up to a point. But European text books are flawed-although not to the degree that Chinese or Japanese textbooks are. They take the cake for selective revisionism. Europeans killed Chinese in their thousands. Japanese killed Chinese in their millions and Chinese killed Chinese in their hundreds of millions. So if I was a Chinese person either brainwashed or forced to believe that my government was beyond reproach it stands to reason I would blame the Japanese the most. Similarly, if I were Japanese and taught to believe (not forced-not yet anyway) to believe that my country was incapable of any wrongdoing since time immemorial I would say it never happened.
But Martyrs day.? Seems to be an awful lot of 'martyrs' in East Asia these days with a conspicuous lack of saints.
Monkey see monkey do. Abe talks of martyrs China picks up on it and decides to make a day of it.
Back in the day Ishihara writes 'The Japan that can say no' and some Chinese genius comes up with 'The China can say no.' Pathetic nationalism all across the board.
nath
20 million!? where did you get this information?
so Japan was too strong. lol