Nanjing Massacre must not be forgotten, say college students

More than 93 percent of college students in east China's Nanjing said the massacre in which 300,000 Chinese civilians were killed in the city 67 years ago must not be forgotten, said a survey by Nanjing Normal University's institute on the Nanjing Massacre, Monday's China Youth Daily reported.

The students overwhelmingly said more efforts should be made to keep reminding people of the tragedy.

The capital city of east China's Jiangsu Province saw about 300,000 civilians slaughtered by Japanese troops in 40 days after they took the city on Dec. 13, 1937.

According to the survey, 62.4 percent of the college students said the country should never forget the history though it will develop peaceful relations with Japan.

Around 83 percent of the students said the Japanese government's attitude towards the massacre has increased their dislike of that country.

According to the survey, 65.5 percent of the students have read books about the Nanjing Massacre, 64.7 percent knew it happened between 1937 and 1938, and 43.8 percent know the exact date when the massacre started, but 54.1 percent has never been to the Nanjing Memorial Hall of Compatriots Murdered in the Nanjing Massacre.

The country still needs to improve the education on young people about the event, said Li Hongsheng, the researcher with the institute in charge of the survey.

And 88.3 percent of the students disagreed that China should stop dwelling on the history of Japan's invasion into China as some Japanese media have said, while 82.2 percent said China should be alert to possible militarism in Japan.

In the survey, 60.7 percent of the students said China and Japan will have both conflicts and common interests in the future while 63 percent thought Chinese know little about present Japanese society.

The survey sampled ten local universities and collected 973 effective questionnaires out of the 1,000 that were handed out.