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)
