Persecuted veterans finally vindicated
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The first thing Xiong Shichao does every morning is dress up in full uniform and pin five anti-Japanese war (1937-1945) campaign medals to his chest.
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Three thousand un-named soldiers are buried in the Guoshang Muyuan war cemetery in Tengchong county of the city of Baoshan,Yunnan Province. |
At first glance, this 88-year-old veteran looked just like any other proud but forgotten war hero.
"As a soldier, these medals are all I care about," Xiong said.
The difference with Xiong is that he, like millions of other Chinese, fought on the wrong side.
Four of his medals are brand new: They were handed to Xiong last year by the government of Baoshan, Yunnan Province.
"It's been nearly 65 years since the war ended," Xiong said. "I only received most of these medals last year, but I don't care if it was too late.
"I'm just happy to be recognized."
There are more than 100 veterans like Xiong living in this prefecture-level city of about 2.5 million people. They came here to fight the Japanese.
On May 4, 1942, Japanese troops invaded Longling, a small border county of Yunnan. Before that, they had swept through Thailand, Malaysia and Myanmar.
The ruling Kuomintang dispatched Xiong and more than 200,000 comrades to fight alongside American and British troops. Before Xiong even arrived, the Japanese had already occupied most of western Yunnan.
"The counterattacks came in 1943 and 1944, but the war was cruel," said Bo Shaohai, deputy director of Guoshang Muyuan battlefield cemetery in Baoshan's Tengchong county, "although there is no specific number of casualties of Chinese soldiers, roughly half of them didn't come back."
Tengchong is 102 kilometers from Longling, also occupied by the Japanese during the war.
The cemetery has nearly 3,000 buried soldiers who fought back to Tengchong in 1944 and many others who were just buried on the battlefield.
"These people should not be forgotten, never ever," Bo said. "They are Chinese heroes, no matter what party they served at the time."
Honoring the survivors has proven far more problematic.
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