The Lugouqiao (Marco Polo Bridge) Incident dating back 68 years ago should be remembered by the Japanese people as it marks the onset of Japan's all-out and decimating aggression of China, the Red Flag newspaper pointed out in editorial on Thursday. 

In contrast to anniversaries like Japan's defeat day on August 15 and the start of the Pacific War on December 8, the day of July 7 was treated with indifference.

Japanese troops attacked the Chinese army on that day at the Marco Polo Bridge, after they were not allowed to search the Wanping City near the bridge for an allegedly missing soldier.

Breaking a truce inked after the incident, then Japanese Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe and his cabinet decided to wage an all-out aggression while blaming the warfare on China, the editorial said, adding that those accusations against China were totally unfounded.

The newspaper said that in the war criminal-enshrining Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, the Japanese people are still being taught that the war was at China's fault. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's annual visit to the shrine serves as an endorsement of right-wingers' praise of the aggression. Still, children in Japan will be misled as the government is pressing for the use in schools of textbooks that gloss over the war.   

It remains a serious task to establish a correct viewpoint on history and get rid of the theory of embellishing war of aggression, the newspaper noted.

(Xinhua News Agency July 8, 2005)