Still stinging with anger and sorrow, many Asians Sunday marked the 60th anniversary of Japan's World War II surrender by honouring their dead, burning Rising Sun flags and demanding compensation amid rekindled tensions over Japanese abuses.

Hu: China marks war to promote peace

Chinese President Hu Jintao said Sunday the Chinese people are commemorating the victory of the resistance war against Japanese aggression to keep history in mind, cherish peace and create a better future, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

"We will seize the opportunity to concentrate on construction and development," Hu said during his visit to a large-scale commemorative exhibition held near the Lugou Bridge (also known as the Marco Polo Bridge).

"We will always steadfastly pursue the peaceful development road and join with all nations in the world to collectively advance the lofty causes of peace and development of humankind," said Hu.

The exhibition, which is about the 60th anniversary of the victory of China's resistance war against Japanese aggression and the world war against fascists, consists of pictures, relics, reconstructed scenes and other articles to reflect the war period.

Hu presented a basket of flowers to a large scale sculpture of a mass of people entitled the Bronze and Iron Walls, which portrays the Chinese civilians and army joining hands to fight Japanese aggressors.

At the close of the visit, Hu said holding the exhibition at the 60th anniversary of the victory of China's resistance war against Japanese aggression is of great significance.

"The exhibition faithfully reflects the glorious path of the Chinese people's heroic fight against Japanese aggressors," said Hu. "They are vivid teaching materials for education in patriotismamong the people, especially the young people."

Wounds unhealed after six decades

The occasion inspired a rare joint commemoration by North Korea and South Korea, and spurred protesters in Hong Kong to burn Japan's flag and march on Tokyo's consulate chanting "Down with Japanese Imperialism!"

In the Philippines, elderly women once forced to act as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers renewed demands for compensation and apologies. Former Australian prisoners of war returned to the Thai jungles where they laboured under brutal conditions to build the notorious Death Railway, according to the Associated Press.

An 84-year-old Australian Baden Jones said, "I can accept the fact that the young generation of Japanese is not to blame. It was their fathers and grandfathers. But until they own up, they'll always be a pariah nation."

He was among former POWs who honored fallen comrades at a ceremony in Kanchanaburi, Thailand, where many of the 12,000 prisoners who died building Japan's jungle railway were buried.

In the Philippines, Lili-Pilipina, a group of women who say they were forced into prostitution by the Japanese Imperial Army, demanded again that Tokyo compensate them. While some have accepted payments from the privately run Asian Women's Fund, the women want official compensation and acknowledgment of their suffering from the Japanese government.

Tokyo has generally refused to pay damages to individuals for the war, saying the issue was settled between governments in postwar treaties. Japanese courts have rejected a number of lawsuits brought by former sex slaves across Asia.

In China's anniversary events, religious associations planned rites condemning aggression and praying for peace, the Xinhua News Agency said.

The northeastern city of Qiqihar put on an exhibit commemorating the death of a Chinese man two years ago from a mustard gas canister abandoned by Japan's army, the China Youth Daily reported. The leak also injured 42 people.

Japan invaded China in 1931. Its troops massacred as many as 300,000 people after taking the city of Nanjing in December 1937, and Japanese scientists performed germ warfare experiments on Chinese prisoners.

Yasukuni visits protested

Looming over this year's remembrances was the Yasukuni shrine, which honors Japan's war dead, including its prime minister during World War II, Hideki Tojo.

Nearly 200 Japanese gathered on Monday in Tokyo at a conference sponsored by a group of bereaved World War II families, demanding Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi stop visiting Yasukuni Shrine.

They urged him to consider the feelingsof other Asian countries that suffered from Japan's wartime aggression. The notorious shrine in Tokyo honors 14 Class-A war criminals responsible for Japan's aggression war against its neighboring countries.

Koizumi indicated Friday he would not visit the Yasukuni Shrineon or around the 60th anniversary of the end of the war. Kyodo News said Koizumi apparently hopes not to provoke a further deterioration in relations with Japan's neighbors.

Six decades after Japan's surrender in WWII, peace-loving people across Japan called for world peace, with war victims' relatives and civic groups taking to the streets or holding meetings to protect Japan's pacifist postwar Constitution.

Source: agencies