Sixty years after the end of World War II, Chinese American activists are initiating a growing international movement that seeks to hold Japan accountable for atrocities throughout Asia. Chinese immigrants have waged a grassroots campaign seeking an official apology for Japan's wartime occupation of China, Korea and other Asian countries, where Japanese troops are accused of killing millions of civilians and forcing women into sexual slavery.
The Chinese government estimates that 35 million people died in China alone as a result of Japan's occupation from 1931 to 1945, when the military routinely used biological and chemical weapons against Chinese citizens.
The activists, part of the Global Alliance for Preserving the History of World War II in Asia, helped organize an online petition signed by more than 40 million people worldwide seeking to block Japan's UNSC bid.
Like their counterparts in China, Chinese Americans claim Tokyo has distorted the history of Japan's wartime invasion of its neighbors, so that most Japanese citizens, especially young people, know little about the country's violent past.
Activists want a strongly worded government apology backed by the Japan's Parliament. They also want compensation for victims, Japanese textbooks to acknowledge the brutality of the occupation, and laws to punish Japanese citizens who deny or distort Japan's wartime past.
In Silicon Valley, the grassroots movement started in 1991, when a group of Chinese Americans held a memorial and panel discussion on the 1937-38 Nanjing massacre.
Their advocacy also helped lead to President Clinton's order in 2000 to declassify government records on Japanese war crimes. And this year, they encouraged California's Senate to pass legislation to require schools to teach the history of World War II in Asia.
Activists have helped file lawsuits in Japan and the United States seeking class-action compensation for "comfort women" forced into sexual slavery, and for prisoners of war forced to labor for Japanese companies. None of the suits have succeeded yet, but activists feel like their campaign is gaining momentum. (Source: Terrence Chea, AP, Jun 11, South China Morning Post, Jun 13, 2005)