Source: Global Times-Global Network
[Global Times-Global Network Comprehensive Report] According to Japanese media reports on the 8th, former Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo was shot in the chest while giving a street speech in Nara. On the same day, Shinzo Abe died of serious injuries. This incident has attracted everyone's attention, one is the sudden incident, and the other is that the sudden encounter of the former Japanese Prime Minister has attracted even more attention on the premise that the Chinese people continue to pay attention to "China-Japan relations".
Since the 21st century, Japanese Prime Ministers have changed more than a dozen, and Shinzo Abe is one of them. The three former Japanese prime ministers I want to mention today are the director of the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre of Japanese Invaders, who received and explained the close service to them during my tenure as the director of the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Japanese Invaders in Nanjing Massacre. They are all Japanese politicians who are friendly to China.
I remember that it was on the afternoon of May 24, 1998. Former Japanese Prime Minister of Murayama Toshima visited the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre of Japanese Invaders. As the director at the time, I gave him nearly an hour of explanation and gave him a detailed introduction to the historical facts of the Nanjing Massacre of Japanese Invaders. He heard it very seriously at the time and kept responding, "Hai! Hayi!" During his visit, he said: "The cruel and atrocities of the Japanese army are terrible. We must be seriously aware that the invasion has brought unbearable pain to the Chinese people." He also wrote in the guestbook of the memorial hall after the visit: "Don't forget the past, the army of the future!" Mr. Murayama was the first former Japanese prime minister to visit the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre of the Japanese invaders, and was also the first Japanese politician among all Japanese prime ministers to recognize the Japanese aggression war and reflect on it.
Coincidentally, on September 18, 2010, I shook hands for the second time with Prime Minister Murayama at the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression Hall on the banks of Lugou Bridge. That was the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre of Japanese Invaders, on commission by Japanese friend Yoshi Ishikawa, and brought the translated and produced exhibition "August 15th" written by Japanese cartoonists to the Memorial Hall of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. Mr. Murayama was invited to come to Beijing from Japan to attend the opening ceremony of the exhibition. It is very honored that on that day, I, former Prime Minister Murayama and Shen Qiang, then director of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and others, jointly cut the ribbon for the opening of the exhibition. That time, within three days, I had five zero-distance contacts with Prime Minister Murayama, including Beijing Hotel, Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression Memorial Hall, Wanpingcheng , Beijing Lijun Hotel, Japanese Embassy in China, etc. Mr. Murayama, who has a silver thread, has long eyebrows and looks very amiable. He once asked me, "Mr. Zhu, guess how many years have I had long eyebrows?" I thought about it and said, "It's been about 50-60 years." He said, "My long eyebrows have been born, and it's been more than 80 years." The two sides had a great conversation, just like a family.
The second former Japanese Prime Minister I have received is Mr. Toshiki Hibe. It was on the morning of August 19, 2000, and I gave a full explanation service to the former Prime Minister of the Seaside of Japan. In the exhibition hall, facing the historical photos I introduced, he kept nodding his head, with a serious attitude. Faced with the bones of the victims in "0,000 mass grave ", he asked if this place was a site of the massacre that year? I replied, "This place is called Jiangdongmen , which is one of the burial sites of the collective massacre of Nanjing Massacre and the bodies of victims." After the visit, he said, "I am very heartbroken now. History must not be repeated. People from Japan and China should work together to work together for peace in Asia in the 21st century." In the end of the exhibition hall, he wrote 11 big words "The Twenty-first Century is a Century of Peace" in the guest book of the memorial hall to express his mood at that time and his feelings after visiting the memorial hall.
On January 17, 2013, I received the third former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. In the reception room of the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre of Japanese Invaders, I briefly introduced the purpose and history of the memorial hall to former Prime Minister Hatoyama.Mr. Hatoyama took the topic and said to me: "Dear Mr. Zhu Chengshan, , thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to receive us. Mr. Wu Rujun (Nanjing Foreign Cultural Exchange Envoy, the Second Nanjing Cultural Celebrity) is my friend. He told me that there is a memorial hall for compatriots in the Nanjing Massacre of Japanese Invaders in Nanjing. You should go there to take a look. Today, I accompanied my wife, Mr. Shinichiro Bai Xi (the then chairman of the Japan-China Association) and others to see with my own eyes. This is my seventh time setting foot on the land of China. Just now, I sat in the car and saw a tall white marble statue in the memorial hall from afar. The image of the woman holding the peace dove on the statue is very beautiful, which touched me. . My surname is Hatoyama. In Japanese, the word 'Jiu' means pigeon. So I have a special feeling about the image of a pigeon."
In the historical material display hall, there is a tall but collapsed and damaged city wall in Nanjing that was copied one by one. I pointed to a historical photo on the instructions board and said to Mr. Hatoyama, "The scene restored here is based on this historical photo." Mr. Hatoyama asked, "Which Japanese unit was attacked by Zhongshanmen back then?" I replied, "The 16th Division of the Japanese army, also known as Nakajima Division, because the commander of the 4th Division of the 16th Division of the 3 is Nakajima Imao." Mr. Hatoyama asked again, "Where are they from Japan?" I replied, "Kyoto, Japan." I pointed to some Japanese newspapers on the exhibition board and said to former Prime Minister Hatoyama: "There were many newspapers in Japan back then, and they had clearly reported that the Japanese army killed 58,000 people in Nanjing, "36,000 people", "30,000 people", "17,000 people" and other figures. Mr. Hatoyama asked, "What newspapers are they?" I replied, "Tokyo Daily News", " Osaka Daily News" and other newspapers. In front of the exhibition board of Nanjing International Security Zone, Mr. Hatoyama asked: "How many foreigners were there in Nanjing at that time? How many people were there in Nanjing?" I told him a few numbers clearly: there were 39 foreigners who stayed in Nanjing at that time. They came from different countries such as the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Russia. They had different professions such as professors, doctors, businessmen, missionaries, diplomats, etc., but their common behavior was to fulfill international humanitarian obligations. In early 1937, the population of Nanjing was 1.016 million. As the Japanese army invaded Shanghai, the National Government moved its capital to Chongqing and some Nanjing citizens who had the conditions to flee from Nanjing. However, on the eve of Nanjing's fall, more than 500,000 citizens were still stranded in Nanjing. In addition, the Chinese defenders who were transferred from Shanghai, Sichuan and other places to defend Nanjing, as well as refugees who fled to Nanjing from Shanghai, Suzhou , Wuxi , Changzhou , Zhenjiang and other places. At that time, the population of Nanjing was more than 600,000.
In a corner of Peace Park, under the tall sculpture of the goddess of peace, there is a ginkgo tree that is about 20 years old. We asked the Hokageyama and his wife to cultivate the soil to water it as a memorial tree for this visit to the memorial hall. This is also the wish of Hatoyama and his wife. In Mr. Hatoyama's own words, he hopes to cultivate a tree of peace.
Before the visit ended, I invited former Prime Minister Hatoyama to write an inscription for the memorial hall. He picked up a brush and wrote four powerful big words on the rice paper that he had prepared in advance: "Friendship, Peace". When signing, I found that he rewrites his name "Yu" by Yukio Hatoyama into the word "you". When I asked him if he was interested, he nodded in agreement. It turns out that what he wants to express is to be a friend of the Chinese people.
It is reported that before coming to Nanjing, on November 13, 2013, former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama was invited to deliver a keynote speech on "My Views of the East Asian Community" at , Hong Kong City University as the "Chairman of the Institute of East Asian Community Research" .
(Author of this article: Distinguished Professor of Changzhou University, Doctoral Supervisor of Shanghai Normal University, former director of the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre of Japanese Invaders)
