Tong Zeng (\u7ae5\u589e) – Who Speaks for the Voiceless:<\/strong> Although millions of Chinese people suffered great atrocities under the Japanese military in the form of massacres, rapes and kidnapped comfort women, slave laborers, biological and chemical weapon attacks, vivisection as POWs. The instigators never admitted to their guilt and basically never punished. The victims never received any apology and were never financially compensated for their sufferings. <\/p>\n When China and Japan established diplomatic relationship on September 29, 1972, in the interest of the friendship between the Chinese and the Japanese people, China, as a gesture of good will, renounced its demand for war reparation from Japan, i.e., the Chinese government no longer required the Japanese government to pay reparation for the damages it did to China during WWII and the Second Sino-Japanese War.<\/a><\/p>\n As a young man studying for a masters degree in law, Tong Zeng investigated various international legal cases and issues regarding compensation related to atrocities committed during a war by one country on the citizens of another country. He concluded that there are \u201cwar reparations\u201d and \u201cdamage compensations.\u201d The former, \u201cwar reparations,\u201d are compensations for the losses that the defeated countries launching the war caused to the countries they invaded. The latter, \u201cdamage compensations\u201d are compensations for the sufferings and losses of the people of the invaded countries caused by acts of the invading militaries violating the laws of war and humanitarian principles.<\/p>\n In July 1990 he wrote a White Paper “China Demands Japan to Compensate Atrocity Victims.” [1] Although initially he received no interest in any newspaper on the contents of his White Paper, on March 31, 1991 he got the newspaper Ming Bao<\/em> in Hong Kong to post a short article about it. Then a couple of days later, he distributed copies of his White Paper to various delegates on their way to attend the National People’s Congress (NPC) in Beijing. Several delegates showed interest in his proposal. Although it was too late to discuss this in the 1991 NPC, it was taken up as a topic of discussion in the 1992 NPC. When news of this discussion was reported in the mass media, it ignited a brush fire across the whole country.<\/p>\n Seeking compensation for the atrocities committed by the Japanese military was a long-overdue item for seeking justice and closure that has been buried in the hearts and souls of thousands and thousands of Chinese atrocity victims and their relatives. During the next few years, thousands of people wrote to Tong Zeng endorsing and thanking him for his proposal and wrote to him providing details of the atrocities that they or their family members had experienced. Within a few years, he had received about 10,000 such letters. [2] This became an archive of letters of historical significance that document the atrocities experienced by the victims and written by the victims or their close relatives. <\/p>\n Here are excerpts of a few sample letters that were sent to Tong Zeng starting in the 1990s [3].<\/p>\n Written on 12\/15\/1992 by Tang Qiangshen of Zhejiang Province, with the first part of the quote referring to air bombing: “More than 8,000 people died from being buried alive, burning to death, freezing, boiling with hot water, cramming pepper water, poisoning, attacking by hounds, starving, body splitting by horses (all kinds), hanging, skinning, mutilation, (gang) raping, live targets of shooting and flesh carving. \u2026 After the Japanese army retreated in May 1945, 25 shoulder pole loads of human bones were excavated, more than 2,700 skeletons were discovered across the area. \u2026 18 women were raped (gang raped) before death, over 500 women were raped by brutal force; these women were stripped and raped in broad daylight, and \u201cteased\u201d before being raped, some even died from splitting the body with knife.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Written on 11\/20\/1992 by Tang Qingyu of Kunming, Yunnan Province: \u201cIn 1941 when the Japanese Army invaded Western Yunnan, after Baoshan was conquered, large crowds of residents living in Baoshan and other places in Western Yunnan swarmed to Kunming to avoid slaughter by the Japanese Army. Immediately afterwards cholera broke out in Kunming. At first people thought it was epidemic plague, but soon it spread to the whole city. Those contracted cholera first would have symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea, and soon they died in less than one day. On the streets one could see dead people each day. Back then at the biggest and most famous coffin shop (the boss was surnamed Zhao) on Wenmiao Street in Kunming, all the coffins were sold out. … The Japanese army spread cholera bacteria in Western Yunnan, therefore the fleeing people of all social circles brought the cholera bacteria to Kunming and spread it around. \u2026 As mentioned above, the number of civilians suffering direct or indirect damage from the Japanese Army runs to thousands and millions. Newspapers published at that time all carried the story.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/li>\n <\/p>\n<\/li>\n As the result, Tong Zeng became the leader of the whole grievance and compensation movement in China. For example, he helped to establish and became the Chairman of the Chinese People’s Association for Compensation Against Japan. He gave voice to the thousands and millions of voiceless Chinese atrocity victims and provided an organized force to seek apology, justice, and compensation from the Japanese government, as well as those Japanese companies who were involved in slave laborers.<\/p>\n One of the accomplishments of this organized force is the negotiated settlement between former Chinese slave laborers of Mitsubishi Materials Corporation (or Mitsubishi for short) and Mitsubishi that was reached on 6\/1\/2016. The negotiated agreement included:<\/p>\n More than 70 years after the war ended, a portion of the atrocity victims finally received justice and compensation. However, this is only a small portion of the millions of atrocity victims. Much more hard work remains in the years ahead.<\/p>\n The thousands of letters that Tong Zeng received from atrocity victims were accumulated and kept in many boxes in his office. <\/p>\n Thousands of Tong Zeng’s Letters Kept in His Office<\/p><\/div>\n When years and years have gone by and there was still no apology and compensation from Japan, Tong Zeng was worried such important archives could be lost from history with a theft or fire. So he tried to find a method of safe-keeping these letters. In early 2014 when a couple of Chinese Americans in the U.S. heard of this dilemma, they offered to work with Tong Zeng to develop a website to keep and post all the letters, including digitizing all these letters and translating a subset of the letters into English. This led to a joint collaborative project between a small Chinese team, led by Tong Zeng and his able assistant Meng Huizhong (\u5b5f\u60e0\u5fe0), and a small Chinese American team of volunteers. After almost two years of hard work working almost days and nights, the initial website called “10,000 Cries for Justice” was completed, and this important historical archive has been posted in a bi-lingual website www.10000cfj.org<\/a>. This important historical archive is now safe from loss due to thefts or fires. This website (the current address of this website is now “https:\/\/2018.10000cfj.org<\/a>) is still being worked on, as only a small percentage of the letters have been translated into English. The goal is to eventually translate all these letters into Japanese also.<\/p>\n Because of the political climate at that time when China was still trying to establish diplomatic relations or build up its friendship with many countries, Tong Zeng did not always have the support of the Chinese government in what he was doing. As a matter of fact, when certain important visitors, e.g., Japan’s Prime Minister, were visiting Beijing, Tong Zeng’s employer, the National Committee on Aging, would arrange an out-of-town business trip for him so that he was not around Beijing just in case he would cause trouble.<\/p>\n As stated earlier, the whole compensation movement is far from completed, Tong Zeng and many other similar leaders will continue to work hard to restore justice and seek compensation for millions of other atrocity victims, so that all the voiceless victims can be heard and rest in peace.<\/p>\n Tamaki Matsuoka (\u677e\u5ca1\u74b0) -The Conscience of Japan:<\/strong> One of the largest atrocities that the Japanese military inflicted on China was the Nanking Massacre which occurred for approximately six weeks starting from December. 13, 1937 to near the end of January 1938. During these six weeks, approximately 300,000 Chinese, most of them civilians and many were women and children, were slaughtered, and over 20,000 Chinese females (women, girls, and even very young girls and great grandmothers) were raped, and one third of the city of Nanking was burned to the ground.<\/p>\n Tamaki Matsuoka was born in Japan in 1947, and was an elementary school teacher. As she was growing up and as a young adult, she was taught and heard many different versions about the Nanking Massacre, including that it was fake and fabricated by the Chinese. So starting in the mid 1980s, she decided that she was going to find out for herself what really happened during the Nanking Massacre. <\/p>\n She did and spent more than 30 years of her adult life to find out just exactly what happened in Nanking during those six weeks. An ambitious and formidable task even for a person working full-time on such a project. But Tamaki had to earn a living working full-time as an elementary school teacher, and also together with her husband raising a family with two sons. She was able to work on this project only during the summers, school holidays, or weekends. Initially she only had herself to work on this project, and she had to pay for any incurred expenses (e.g., travel expenses between Japan and China). Furthermore, she endured a lot of criticisms and attacks from the Japanese right wing, including death threats.<\/p>\n But she endured this difficult, challenging, and dangerous journey. The journey was not easy at all. She exhibited courage, dedication, commitment, and sacrifice to achieve her objective. Among other accomplishments, she interviewed over 250 former Japanese soldiers who participated in the Nanking Massacre and over 300 Chinese survivors of the Nanking Massacre.<\/p>\n Even after establishing some initial contacts with former Japanese WWII veterans after posting an announcement in Japanese newspapers, she had to overcome significant cultural and political reluctance to talk about this sensitive subject. Again it took months or even years of building friendship with these veterans and gaining their trusts in the importance of the project that the veterans were willing to open up and discuss these long-held memories which they had not discussed with anyone else (including their immediate family members) for over half a century. Similarly, she had to overcome significant reluctance for the survivors to revisit the long suppressed terrifying dark memories of the past, including cultural reluctance to discuss being raped, and political reluctance to discuss atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers when at times the Chinese government was trying to establish friendlier relationship with the Japanese government. <\/p>\n By comparing notes of the perpetrators and victims, Tamaki matched up records and compiled testimonies of the mass slaughter, rape, arson, destruction, plunder and other unimaginable violence committed to the Nanking residents including women, elderly and children. Her work produced numerous presentations, research articles, films and several books, including winning the \u201cJapan Congress of Journalists Prize\u201d in 2003. A summary of her life-long project is summarized in the English book Torn Memories of Nanking<\/em> [4], which should be a must-read book for everyone.<\/p>\n Thanks to her and others [5], the true picture of Nanking Massacre is gradually being revealed to the world with irrefutable evidence. Through these testimonies, there is an undeniable case for the existence of the Nanking Massacre as one of the most horrific atrocities in the history of humankind.<\/p>\n The best way to get a good sense of the Nanking Massacre is from interview statements that Tamaki recorded from Chinese survivors and Japanese soldiers. Here is a small sampling from her published English book.<\/p>\n How could humans use such atrocious treatments toward other humans? Although a complete explanation may not be found from the interview statements, they do mention some of the reasons.<\/p>\n I want to end this section on the Nanking Massacre with a quote of Mitani Sho, an 18 year old Japanese soldier whom Tamaki interviewed: \u201cUntil now, I had no opportunity to tell my story. After sixty years, I can finally give my testimony. I am extremely grateful. As a Japanese, I often reflect deeply on this episode. Today, however, many Japanese deny that the Nanjing Massacre or military sexual slavery took place. What kind of people are they? These people are trying to find an excuse to slowly change the interpretation of the Japanese constitution. Today, they are establishing a large military, and completely revamping the armed forces. In addition, they are trying to place the Japanese Army under U.S. command as an allied army that is prepared to fight American wars. Under a new security treaty and guidelines, Japan would be automatically pulled into any wars that the U.S. started. If such a situation were to arise, it is possible that events like the Nanjing Massacre could happen again. If we do not clearly state the historical truth and admit to this truth, we will not be able to establish a peaceful world for ourselves and our families.\u201d<\/p>\n That is why Tamaki Matsuoka is known as “The Conscience of Japan.” [6]<\/p>\n Ending Remarks:<\/strong> Seventy fives years have transpired since the Second Sino-Japanese War ended in 1945. We must acknowledge what happened during that war, we must learn from that painful experience, so that that painful experience will not have to be endured by anyone else in this world in the future. <\/p>\n We must, like Tong Zeng, continue to speak for the voiceless. We must, like Tamaki Matsuoka, continue to spark the conscience of Japan.<\/p>\n I hope the following comments will be used to guide us in the future:<\/p>\n [1] You can find this White Paper (both English and Chinese versions) at “An Archive of Historic Cries for Justice Letters”: http:\/\/www.dontow.com\/2015\/09\/an-archive-of-historic-cries-for-justice-letters\/<\/a><\/p>\n [2] In the early 1990s when the majority of these letters were sent to Tong Zeng, many relatives and Chinese media personnel borrowed many of these letters. Because at that time copying machines were not readily available to Tong Zeng and other people in China, many of these letters were borrowed and unfortunately, most of them were never returned. That is why Tong Zeng now has only about 5,000 letters.<\/p>\n [3] For more sample letters from Tong Zeng’s collection, see “Sample Letters from Tong Zeng\u2019s Collection of \u201c10,000 Cries for Justice\u201d: http:\/\/www.dontow.com\/2018\/03\/sample-letters-from-tong-zengs-collection-of-10000-cries-for-justice\/<\/a><\/p>\n [4] Torn Memories of Nanking<\/em>, by Tamaki Matsuoka, ALPHA Education, 2016, ISBN 978-0-9920550-I-1 (paperback). Parts of this English book, plus other material, have previously been published in several other books in Japanese and Chinese by Tamaki Matsuoka.<\/p>\n [5] The most notable contributor was the late Iris Chang, who authored the best-selling book The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II<\/em>, Basic Books, 1997.<\/p>\n\n
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