Members of four Japanese friendship groups gathered in Tokyo on Tuesday to commemorate the 78th anniversary of the beginning of China's eight-year anti-Japanese war, expressing their aspiration for peace and friendship.

Mitsuyoshi Himeta, representative of "Association to Carry on Miracle in Fushun," said Japan's full-scale invasion of China which started with the Lugou Bridge incident on July 7, 1937 brought numerous disasters to Chinese people and cost many Japanese their lives.

However, incumbent Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is trying to revive Japan's militarism by lifting the ban on collective self- defense and pushing for approval of security-related legislations, which may drag Japan into war again, participants of the event told reporters.

Fumihiro Himori, secretary of "the 815 Japan-China Friendship Association," also expressed his concerns at the event held at the Chinese embassy in Japan. "Those security legislations are 'war bills' which lack reflection on Japan's past war crimes."

The real "active pacifism" demands actions that are in line with the war-renouncing constitution instead of running against it, said Himori.

Nobuo Okimatsu, a former Kamikaze suicide attacker, said there has been increasing noise within the Japanese society that denies the history, which resulted from the lack of recognition and real reflection of Japan's aggression. "On the 78th anniversary of the Lugou Bridge incident, Japan should reflect on its past history and consider its future path more than ever," said Okimatsu.

Chinese Ambassador to Japan Cheng Yonghua said during the event: "To remember history is not to nurse hatred but to use it as a mirror to look forward and prevent the reoccurrence of tragedy."

In 1937, at Lugou Bridge, also known as Marco Polo Bridge, Japanese troops attacked Chinese defenders in the nearby fortress town of Wanping, marking the beginning of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.

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