China holds ceremony in memory of Nanjing massacre
Marching soldiers carry large wreaths to place at memorial hall in remembrance of victims
China held an annual ceremony in remembrance of the victims of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre for a second year Sunday at a memorial hall in the eastern city.
The country’s state news agency reported that honor guard carried the national flag, which flew at half-mast before the ceremony in Nanjing, Jiangsu province.
Photos on Xinhua’s website showed marching soldiers carrying large wreaths to place at the memorial hall in remembrance of the massacre, in which China says more than 300,000 people were killed by Japanese forces.
Some audience members, donning pins of white fabric flowers with dove symbols in the center, shed tears during the ceremony, also attended by schoolchildren in uniform.
Li Jianguo, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, gave the main speech at the memorial event.
In 1937, the Japanese army captured Nanjing, the then capital of the Chinese republic.
Japan continues to dispute that a massacre of this scale took place, while much of the world has long accepted its occurrence, despite some varying figures over how many people were actually killed.
In October, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, accepted Chinese documents supporting claims of Japanese “atrocities” in Nanjing in its Memory of the World register – a move that drew objections from Tokyo.
