Brutal history is still a burden for this developing city

Shenyang Letter: It's a bitterly cold, clear morning on the outskirts of the bustling Chinese city of Shenyang and snow covers the exact spot where the "Manchurian Incident" took place on September 18th , 1931.

The incident in question was an explosion which destroyed a small section of railway track. The Japanese army blamed Chinese dissidents, and took this as a pretext to occupy Shenyang, then eventually all of Manchuria.

For the Chinese, the explosion, also known as the "Mukden Incident", is the date which marks the start of an invasion and subsequent occupation during which 35 million Chinese were killed or wounded.

The explosion is dramatised in a special exhibit at the 9.18 Incident Museum, sited on the exact spot where the explosion took place.

Lights flash and you see an explosion on a diorama which looks a little like a train set. It's slightly comic, but the message on the wall isn't at all funny.

"From that day on, the Japanese imperialists went on to commit numerous massacres of unparalleled savagery and set innumerable criminal records which still send cold shivers down our spines," reads the text.

To underline this chilling message, there are various exhibits of the torture implements used during the occupation of Manchuria, including a wooden rack to which people were strapped and beaten, plus a mediaeval looking, round, steel frame, with spikes on the inside. Victims were placed inside and rolled down the hill until they died.

There are also shabby prisoners' clothes, skeletons and skulls, evidence of biological warfare experiments carried out on human beings. It's a gruesome display.

And yet, outside the museum, in the modern, bustling heart of modern Shenyang, a city of 7.2 million, evidence of Japan's brutal occupation of Manchuria and other parts of China is remote. The provincial capital of Liaoning province, Shenyang, has more pressing matters - it is trying to reassert itself as a major city, having fallen behind its northeastern neighbours Harbin and Dalian.

The city is trying to promote itself as a place to come and shop, as one of China's leading second-tier cities, as well as restore its industrial base to help cut rising unemployment and boost the city's profile.

Ireland's Glen Dimplex has located not far from the city. A lot of the investment coming into the city is Japanese money.

History is quite a burden in Shenyang, possibly because the city has always been strategically important. It was the capital of the Manchu empire in the 17th century - Mukden is a Manchu word - and it was from here that the banner armies of the Manchus conquered China and established Beijing as capital.

Many years later, during the brief Russo-Japanese war from 1904 to 1905, Shenyang fell to the Japanese in March 1905, after a 15-day battle. This led to Japan replacing Russia as the dominant foreign power in southern Manchuria. After the establishment of the Chinese republic (1912), Shenyang was the headquarters of several warlords, including Chang Tso-lin, who was assassinated outside the city in 1928 and whose luxurious family home is one of the tourist high points.

Shenyang fell to the Communists on November 1st, 1948, after a 10-month siege, during which time thousands starved; the defending Nationalist army was routed as it attempted to break out of the siege.

Nearly 70 years after the "Manchurian Incident", the past keeps fighting its way to the surface, and the raw wounds are reopened afresh every year when sirens wail and cars stop and beep their horns to commemorate the explosion.

Not just in Shenyang. The world was horrified when demonstrators attacked the Japanese embassy in well-orchestrated riots in Beijing as anti-Japanese sentiment hit dangerous new levels.

Relations between Japan and China are at a low ebb on all kinds of issues, even though economic ties are healthy. The biggest problem for the Chinese is Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, where several class-A war criminals are honoured alongside Japan's war dead.

The Japanese say they are sorry for what happened during the war and insist they have atoned. Mr Koizumi says the shrine visits are to honour the war dead and are not a sign of Japanese militarism. Critics accuse the Chinese of fanning the flames of anti-Japanese nationalism to distract from domestic political issues.

Regardless of the motives, the strained relations remain and the Chinese insist they have real grievances. China's foreign minister Li Zhaoxing said Japanese leaders' repeated trips to the Yasukuni shrine must stop before the two countries, and others affected by Japan during the second World War, can resume healthy relations.

"This is a very serious problem. It is not only the Chinese people that cannot accept Japanese leaders still worship class-A war criminals," said Mr Li. "The Chinese people are the victims in this history. Now the important thing is for particular Japanese leaders to show enough courage and sincerity to correct their wrong actions."

The "Manchurian Incident" is a potent example of a small act causing a reaction which gathers momentum, and ultimately has global consequences.

The Japanese went on to occupy all of Manchuria, despite a pledge before the League of Nations to withdraw, and ultimately led to the proclamation of the puppet state of Manchukuo in 1932 and Japanese withdrawal from the league. A similar event in European history would be the burning of the Reichstag in Germany which helped Hitler to power.

So who really planted the bomb? The 9.18 museum leaves you in no doubt which theory it subscribes to - the Japanese.

The Yushukan Museum, which neighbours the Yasukuni shrine, blames Chinese militants.

Most historians reckon it probably was Japan's Kwantung Army which blew up the railway and some key soldiers have said they were involved. Outside the museum, the Chinese have left the Japanese monuments to the "Manchuria Incident", lying on their side, and now covered in snow, as a reminder.