Marco Polo Bridge Incident

 Marco Polo Bridge Incident

July 7, 2020

Today, July 7^th, marks the 83^rd anniversary of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, the date on which the all-out War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression started. Every school boy and girl has studied in the history books that Japan, after the 1^st Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904, made great inroads in Manchuria, an integral part of China. After the full-scale invasion and occupation of Manchuria following the Mukden Incident of 1931, the Japanese set up a puppet regime in Manchuria, “Manchukuo”, in violation of the Charter of the League of Nations. That was part one of the grand plan of Japan to conquer China.

After that, the Japanese forces based in Manchuria made further inroads into northern China approaching Beijing. In early July 1937, the Japanese invaders claimed that one of their soldiers was missing, so they insisted on entering the walled county of Wanping, an outskirt of Beijing, for a search. The garrison commander, Col. Ji Xing-wen, a regiment commander under the 29^th Army Corps, flatly rejected the demand, whereupon the Japanese opened fire and Colonel Ji fired the first salvo in the all-out War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.

Colonel Ji moved with the National forces to Taiwan and was made Deputy Commander of the Garrison Forces on Kinmen, now a lieutenant general. Unfortunately, he died in action in the Artillery Duel of Quemoy in 1958.

After eight long years of war, Japan surrendered to the ROC and Allied Powers in August 1945. We should never forget this page of history, just as the Nazi atrocities should not be forgotten, either.

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