As China ties warm, US military resumes search to bring WWII ‘fallen heroes’ home from southern provinces
- For the first time in nearly five years, American military completes site surveys in mission to recover missing soldiers
- It may be among lower-level progress that could help stabilise bilateral relationship despite disagreement over other issues, says history professor
The US military has completed two site surveys to recover World War II remains in China, the first in the country in nearly five years, in the latest effort to honour the legacy of Sino-American military cooperation eight decades ago.
A team with the US Defence POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) “spent several weeks surveying sites in southern China in order to provide vital information for future recovery missions”, the agency said on its website last week.
It was their first trip to China since May 2019. It came as ties between the two countries continued to thaw following a summit between presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping in San Francisco in November, and as high-level communication between their two militaries was subsequently restored.
“We are committed to finding our fallen heroes and bringing them home with dignity, honour and respect,” US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns wrote on X on February 1.
Zach Fredman, an associate professor of history at Duke Kunshan University in Jiangsu province in China’s east, said the latest surveys in China were “unambiguously good news”.