Betty Wong, 84 living in Irvine, California, said that members of her family were killed by Japanese in Shanghai during the Sino-Japanese war. She would like nothing more than for Japan to apologize . In the next two weeks, some 41 million signatures to a petition will be forwarded to United Nations Secretary- General Kofi Annan. Ms. Wong is not alone. People like Robert Ting Huang, 73, and Shih-How Chang, 68, both of Irvine, have signed on. The signers oppose Japan's bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council until Japan formally apologizes for war crimes and pays reparations to victims.
A Korean-American group, Historical Justice, also joined the Fremont-based Global Alliance for Preserving the History of World War II in Asia to launch the petition drive in February.
The accusations against Japanese soldiers include massacre, forced labor, germ warfare and use of Asian girls and women as "comfort women" to service military men. In recent years, academics and Chinese-Americans say, Japan has begun to alter some school history books to sugarcoat its war crimes. (Source: Vik Jolly, The Orange County Register, Jun 12, 2005).