Photos: Commemorating July 7 Incident of 1937

   BEIJING, July 7 (Xinhuanet) -- People around China have held various activities to mark the 67th anniversary of the July 7 Lugou Bridge Incident on Wednesday.

   More than 100 new members of t he Communist Party of China (CPC) from the graduates institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences took an oath in a joining-CPC ceremony Wednesday morning at the Memorial Hall of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1937-1945), which is situated near the Lugou Bridge, southwest of Beijing proper.

   On July 7, 1937, the intruding Japanese forces assaulted Lugou Bridge or Lugouqiao (known as the Marco Polo Bridge), and Chinese defending soldiers responded by gun fire. This has been known as the world-famous Lugou Bridge Incident, which marked the beginning of Japan's all-out aggression against China as well as of China's War of Resistance to Japan.

   Thereafter July 7 became the very day for marking the incident.

   Fighting courageously and uninterruptedly against Japanese aggressor troops for eight straight years, Chinese people the final victory on August 15, 1945 when Japan surrendered unconditionally.

   Xiong Zhijian, who attended Wednesday's ceremony, cited  July 7 as a day that is worthy of being remembered. "I feel I take the responsibility to make my due contributions to building my motherland into a thriving and prosperous country and to make contributions to the world peace."

   Wang Xinhua, curator of the memorial hall, said "We mark the war that occurred 67 years ago not for the purpose of instigating hate, but precisely for a peaceful world."

   "Taking a correct attitude toward history helps press ahead with the growth of Sino-Japanese friendly relations and world peace," Wang said.

   The commemoration day of the July 7 Incident is also a day impressed deeply in the mind of the people of the northeastern China region, which consists of three provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning, and which was overridden by Japanese invaders during World War II.

   To date, chemical weapons abandoned by the Japanese troops still jeopardized the lives of local people.

   On August 4, 2003, a mustard gas leak from chemical weapons abandoned by Japanese invaders poisoned 43 residents in Qiqihar, one of whom died. As of August last year, 775 bombs and gas bombs left over by Japanese troops had been discovered in the city.

   An expert of history in Qiqihar city said that history could not be evaded and invaders could not evade punishment for their towering crimes, adding that only after all the chemical weapons discarded by Japanese invaders were destroyed, can Chinese people live a peaceful life.

   In east China's Jiangsu province, young volunteers from prestigious Nanjing University, Nanjing Teachers University and other institutions of higher learning have trekked to more than 30 villages under the administration of Nanjing, the provincial capital, to seek witnesses of the Nanjing Massacre and collect evidence and testimony for the Nanjing Massacre.

   The Nanjing Massacre occurred in December 1937 when the Japanese intruders occupied Nanjing, the then capital of China. More than 300,000 Chinese were slain in the slaughter.

   To remind people of the slaughter, a book exposing the atrocities of Japanese invaders in the massacre has been published in Nanjing.

   Zhu Chengshan, curator of the memorial hall of Chinese people who were killed in the massacre, noted the book was not only crucial historical material for studying the Nanjing Massacre, but also irrefutable evidence beating back Japan's right-wing forces who deny the slaughter.  Enditem