At the height of territorial tensions between Beijing and Tokyo, calls by Chinese netizens to demolish structures left by the Japanese during a period where they occupied China were dealt a blow, as buildings constructed in the puppet state of Manchuria have received official protection from the government, state media reported Thursday.
Beijing has decided to preserve buildings from the Manchukuo era in 1931-45, a long period of Japanese occupation when Manchuria was seized by the Imperial Army following the Mukden Incident of September 18, 1931. History remembers the unsavory incident when Japan blew up a railway and blamed it on Chinese citizens, using that as a precursor to war and an eventual invasion. The era was also marked by a puppet government set up by the occupying forces, with Pu Yi – the last Qing dynasty emperor – as its head.
The Global Times, a paper owned by state-run People’s Daily, said that 11 historical relics from Jilin province have been listed as protected by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, most of them dating from the period. “The Manchukuo buildings include those used for military or political purposes, such as the Manchukuo Imperial Palace,” the report said. But if Chinese netizens would listen to the reasoning of Zhou Zueyang, a history professor from Nanjing University, they would probably see the sense in what the professor was saying. “A nation should face the tough years in its history,” Zhou said in an interview with the Global Times. “If it’s invaded, enslaved and bullied by others, it should not hide that history but should demonstrate it to the world and let its descendants remember that forever.”
[via Asia One]