China mourns Nanjing massacre

A candle burns in front of a pit of ten thousand corpses in the Chinese city of Nanjing. China Photos / Getty Images

BEIJING - Nanjing has mourned the 68th anniversary of the eastern Chinese city's fall to Japanese troops and the start of the Nanjing Massacre.

Thousands of people, including survivors and some Japanese, gathered at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial in the capital of Jiangsu province for a memorial ceremony in which one resident read out the "Nanjing Peace Declaration", local media said. Air-raid sirens sounded through the city.

"We oppose war, we oppose terrorism, we oppose any form of unjust action that endangers people's lives and livelihoods," the resident was quoted as saying in the statement. "Humanity does not need war, the world needs peace."

The anniversary of the 1937 massacre, in which China says Japanese soldiers slaughtered 300,000 Chinese men, women, and children, comes at a time of frosty relations between Beijing and Tokyo, mostly triggered by Japan's wartime past.

Japanese politicians have often incurred Beijing's wrath by challenging China's account of the massacre, sometimes referred to as the Rape of Nanjing.

The 1948 Tokyo war crimes tribunal found Japanese troops killed 155,000 people, mainly women and children, in Nanjing, formerly known as Nanking.

Tensions stemming from Japan's 1931-1945 invasion and occupation of parts of China rose after protests broke out across China in April over Tokyo's bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and the revision of a Japanese history textbook that critics say whitewashes wartime atrocities.

Relations have also been strained by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to a shrine that China sees as a symbol of Japan's past militarism.

- REUTERS