Japanese wartime photos strike a nerve in China
- Kyoto University publishes 35,000 photographs taken during Japan’s occupation of China
- Chinese social media users recall legacy of invasion
The release online of 35,000 photographs taken during the Japanese occupation of China between 1936 and 1945 has riled Chinese social media commenters.
Until now the photographs, taken by the North China Transportation Company, a railway freight firm owned by the puppet government set up by the Japanese, were used only for historical research.
Japanese broadcaster NHK reported that Kyoto University’s humanities department had published the photographs online.
They include scenes of daily life during the wartime occupation and many of the photographs also show Japanese soldiers marching in formation, doing manual labour or posing with weapons.
The memory of Japan’s invasion and subsequent occupation of China remains a sore point for many in China.
“I am still unable to forgive the war crimes during the invasion [of China],” said one highly rated comment on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like microblogging service.