With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

A Chinese Town’s Deep Bonds With Japan Bring Wealth and Hatred

At the end of a narrow road in Fangzheng, a remote town in northeastern China, next to a hushed forest of birch and pine trees, stands the locked iron gate of the Sino-Japanese Friendship Garden.

But inside is no garden. Instead, there are graves of some 5,000 Japanese who died in what was then known as Manchuria when the Japanese Empire collapsed in defeat at the end of World War II, and victorious Soviet armies swept in.

The Friendship Garden was built as a memorial to this tragic period of history, and became a symbol of the unusually close ties that have bound Fangzheng to Japan since the war.

Read entire article at NYT