A construction team pulled down the last remains of the Beidaying (Northern Grand Barracks) site in Liaoning Province on May 19 amid outcry from locals and historians.
"Japanese right-wingers compile history-distorting textbooks, attempting to deny their country's aggression against China. How can we ourselves destroy Beidaying, from where the Japanese took the first step toward their occupation of the entire northeast of China?" asked 78-year-old Zhang Yibo, chairman of the September 18 War Research Center.
The old Kuomintang Northeastern Army stable and many other old houses demolished last month were in the Dadong District of Shenyang, the provincial capital, and were remnants of the September 18 Incident of 1931, a key moment in Japan's invasion of China's northeast.
The demolished stable.
According to Zhan Hongge, who has devoted himself to collecting evidence of the Japanese invasion, immediately after seizing Beidaying the Japanese aggressors began to build an 18-meter-high monument and memorial hall at the site where the first shell had fallen.
By the 1980s and 90s, the monument and hall were both demolished and, around 2001, real estate companies entered the area. Since then modern buildings have been erected over historical sites, gradually reducing Beidaying to ruins.
Eighty-five-year-old Sun Shizhen went to Beidaying on a secret military mission in 1942. Revisiting, he said he regretted that, though the remains survived the turmoil of war, they have been destroyed by today's urban construction.
Li Jian, head of Dadong's Culture and Sports Bureau, held that as historical sites, the remains of Beidaying ceased to exist long ago.
Based on a field survey carried out by Li's bureau in 2003, a work report compiled by Dadong District in June that year put Beidaying on a list of "already demolished" historical sites.
When asked why the local government didn't move soon enough to save Beidaying prior to that, Li said no stress was laid on the protection of historical sites at the time.
As for the army stable, Li said whether or not it was a historical site was "decided by the government, not scholars and experts." As the Beidaying remains as a whole were not protected, their demolition has been lawful, he explained.
Zhang Yibo confirmed that the second phase of a General Motors project will be built where Beidaying used to be. The area now looks like a forest of tall buildings with busy traffic, and only a "Beidaying Street" road sign evokes memories of the past.
Zhang Yibo stands at the demolished stable.
At the beginning of this year, a 100-meter-long wall of a concentration camp, also located in Dadong and built by Japanese soldiers to house Allied prisoners of war from 1942 to 1945, was torn down.
According to Beijing-based daily The First on April 7, a "comfort station" in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, where WWII sex slaves were held, is being demolished too by the local government. The station is considered the largest and best preserved of its kind in Asia.
These actions have provoked great concern and outcry among local residents and historical researchers.
According to Li Jian, a new monument will be erected at Beidaying's former site.
A nation without memory is hopeless, said Zhang Yibo, hoping the monument will remind visitors of what happened in the past.
"In some places, people invest to build tombstones for popular historical prostitutes like Chen Yuanyuan and Su Xiaoxiao to promote tourism; but Beidaying with tremendous historical value had to be demolished for it could not bring about remarkable economic results. This gives us much food for reflection," said one anonymous history expert.
Beidaying was first built in 1907, the 33rd regnal year of Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), and covered an area of nine square kilometers.
File photo of Beidaying.
On the night of September 18, 1931, the Japanese army attacked the Kuomintang's Northeastern Army, who were stationed in the barracks.
Chiang Kai-shek gave a "non-resistance" order and in the following four months all three northeastern provinces (Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning) fell into Japanese hands.
(China.org.cn by Shao Da, June 14, 2005)
