Society

China to build WWII memorial park

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-09-02 16:29

HARBIN - A once war-ravaged Chinese county in northeast China will build a memorial park on facilities left behind by the Japanese invaders of World War II, to commemorate the invasion and Russian assistance, county authorities said Thursday.

Sunwu County in Heilongjiang Province, separated from Russia by the Heilongjiang River, was the base for more than 100,000 Japanese soldiers.

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The invaders left behind 160 war facilities, 24 of which are government-protected cultural relics.

"The park aims to paint a picture of the war through the connection of Sanwu's scattered war sites," Zhang Weihua, deputy head of county tourism department, said.

The park will be more than 1,150 square km in size and include barracks, criminal evidence museums, Japanese colony sites, an airport and strongholds. It will be completed by 2020, according to the county's plan.

The government of Russia's Amur Oblast offered support for the building of the park, Zhang Xing'an, head of the county's foreign affairs department, said.

Sunwu County and Amur Oblast planned to build the Shengshan Stronghold in the park and make it a base for patriotic education. About 200 Russian teenagers would visit the stronghold annually, Zhang said.

Shengshan Stronghold, 40 km from the county seat and with an area of more than 100 square km, will be a key part of the memorial park with its well-preserved underground barracks, warehouses and weapon displays.

The sites and relics in the park are evidence of the Japanese invasion of China and how people suffered during World War II, Lu Changjiang, deputy head of the county's cultural relics department, said.

"The memorial park would help the younger generation learn about the war and promote world peace," Lu said.

Japanese troops invaded Sunwu in 1932 and started building strongholds and defense systems in the county in 1933. They were defeated by Chinese and Russian allied troops in 1945.

On May 8, Chinese President Hu Jintao met with a group of 20 Russian war veterans and thanked them for their assistance in fighting the Japanese invaders in northeast China in August 1945. He met 10 of the veterans in Moscow five years ago.

During his meeting with the Russian veterans, Hu said through fighting the Fascists together, the Chinese and Russian peoples forged a profound friendship.