The World Memory, Peaceful Vision - Exhibition on the Historical Facts of the Nanjing Massacre exhibition organized by the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders was held in Madrid, Spain, and Budapest, Hungary, showcasing the atrocities committed by Japanese invaders in Nanjing and an international tribunal's prosecution of Japanese war criminals.
Featuring more than 100 historical pictures and nine replica exhibits, the exhibition consists of three parts: The Calamity in Nanjing, Justice Trial and The City of Peace.
The exhibition also quotes Western media reports and Western diaries and letters, describing history from a third-party perspective. These include photographs shot by Hungarian-based war photographer Robert Capa during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1931-45). These works were published through US magazine Life, which focused on the international community's attention toward the Chinese battlefield.
On May 16, 1938, Life featured a famous cover photo showcasing a young and fearless Chinese soldier taken by Capa in Hankou, Central China's Hubei Province. Capa arrived in China in 1938 and documented the Chinese resistance against the Japanese invasion and the wartime lives of the people.
In addition, on December 13, 1937, the Japanese army occupied Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province, committing atrocities over the next six weeks that included massacring civilians, looting, sexual violence, and destruction of buildings. These actions resulted in the death of over 300,000 Chinese people. The killing competition carried out by the Japanese army in Nanjing was exposed to the world by Spain's El Diluvio newspaper.
The atrocities committed by the invading Japanese army in China were heinous and exceed the red line of civilized humanity, former Hungarian prime minister Peter Medgyessy said in a speech at the exhibition. "Such an exhibition allows young people to learn about peace and living together," he noted.
"War is like a mirror, allowing people to better understand the value of peace," Zhou Feng, director of the Memorial Hall, said.
He also expressed the hope that the painful memories of history would evoke people's yearning for peace and inspire them to more firmly defend diverse civilizations and maintain world peace, and work together to create a better future.
The Nanjing Massacre Archives were included in the UNESCO Memory of the World on October 9, 2015. To date, the Memorial Hall has organized exhibitions in cities such as Los Angeles in the US, Moscow in Russia, Florence in Italy, Manila in the Philippines and Aarhus in Denmark.
Immersive cultural tourism has experienced a surge in popularity in recent years. This new form of experiential travel has tapped into the growing consumer demand for interactive and sensory-rich experiences, creating a fresh dynamic in the tourism industry. The success of immersive cultural tourism can be attributed to its ability to meet people's evolving expectations and its capacity to breathe new life into cultural heritage and narratives.
"Immersive" has become a buzzword in recent years, primarily due to the advancement of technologies such as the internet, big data and virtual reality. At its core, immersion refers to being deeply absorbed or engrossed in a particular environment or activity.
This concept has been applied in various contexts, encompassing two main forms: one involves constructing real or virtual environments that transport individuals into entirely new worlds, like walking onto a stage as real-life performances are going on, while others utilize online platforms such as livestreaming, videos, and augmented reality (AR) to immerse people in specific scenarios or events.
The explosive popularity of the immersive trend can be attributed to its inherent interactivity and experiential nature, which cater to the evolving desires of modern-day travelers. Superficial tourism or passive learning experiences have lost their glamour as tourists seek more accurate, deeper and more engaging participation and immersion. In response to this demand, immersive cultural performances, night tours and immersive exhibitions have sprung up, breathing life into cultural and educational experiences.
Immersive experiences integrate technology, intelligence and creativity. They recreate historical settings, depict fantastical dreamscapes, design experiential spaces for both old and new items, and create real-time interactive platforms. Immersion offers sensory experiences involving sight, sound, touch, and smell, as well as narrative and emotional experiences, along with the pursuit of values, making them multi-dimensional and all-encompassing experiences that affect both body and mind.
The immersive cultural tourism wave is transforming the essence of travel by offering deeper, more meaningful experiences. It goes beyond the traditional elements of "traveling, shopping and entertainment," and focuses on in-depth exploration and interactive leisure. Recent examples of immersive cultural tourism demonstrate its ability to enrich travel experiences.
In Xi'an, Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, the slogan "Xi'an during the day, Chang'an (the ancient name of Xi'an) at night," welcomes visitors to the Tang Dynasty Everbright City, a place that transports tourists to the splendors of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) at its prime. The interactive game Tang Dynasty Treasure Box has also gained immense popularity for its immersive nature.
In Yangzhou, East China's Jiangsu Province, the China Grand Canal Museum offers a lifelike experience, digitally showcasing the history and culture of the Grand Canal in its entirety. Visitors can explore the canal's history and culture from every angle, across all time periods, and from various perspectives.
In Pingyao, North China's Shanxi Province, a large-scale immersive theater production titled Revisiting Pingyao introduces a unique walk-through viewing experience. The audience is not confined to seats. Instead, they move along with the storyline, witnessing different scenes as the narrative unfolds, making them both spectators and participants in the story.
In Dunhuang, Northwest China's Gansu Province, a high-profile immersive cave performance Ancient Sound of Dunhuang offers visitors an opportunity to explore the mural paintings of the Mogao Caves in an immersive manner. Dubbed the "living No.736 cave of the Mogao Caves," it illustrates the story of ancient music through the use of traditional Chinese instruments, injecting new vitality into the city, especially in slack winter seasons.
By adopting immersive experiences, these attractions have unlocked the potential of cultural and tourism resources, reviving traditional culture in the modern era and presenting it in a fresh light.
In essence, tourism involves temporarily leaving one's usual place of residence and experiencing a change in one's surroundings and relationships. Immersive cultural tourism offers a much more enriching experience, reflecting the integration of culture and tourism.
From a content perspective, immersive cultural tourism caters to a wide range of cultural elements, including historical, revolutionary and ecological themes. These experiences allow tourists to immerse themselves in the past, present, and even the realm of their imagination.
From a technological perspective, immersive cultural tourism leverages innovations like 5G, ultra-high-definition screens, augmented and virtual reality, artificial intelligence and the metaverse. These experiences break free from traditional viewing methods, allowing visitors to walk through and immerse themselves in a storyline.
Immersive cultural tourism is transforming the way people travel by offering in-depth exploration, interactive experiences and meaningful learning opportunities. It elevates tourism from the superficial pursuit of sightseeing to a holistic engagement with culture and history. Additionally, it plays an irreplaceable role in promoting cultural heritage, sharing China's stories, enhancing cultural confidence, and fostering cultural development.
By offering interactive, sensory-rich experiences that transcend traditional tourism, it has brought new life to cultural heritage and narratives. As travel is no longer just about sightseeing but also about experiencing, learning and connecting with culture and history, immersive cultural tourism has found its place. It has not only enhanced the tourism experience but also contributed to cultural preservation and revitalization.
The Chinese civilization is the key to keeping people across the Taiwan Straits connected despite certain secessionists political bodies are trying to deny it, Chinese scholars and analysts have stated.
The secessionist forces on the island of Taiwan, led by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities, have continued to pursue an acrimonious path in the development of cross-Straits ties and provocation of the Chinese mainland. This has resulted in the stunting of many aspects of the cross-Straits cooperation and dialogue.
Ji Bin, a senior official with the All-China Federation of Taiwan Compatriots, said that despite the DPP authorities' attempts to undermine the importance of traditional culture on the island, Chinese culture is still the foundation that connects compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Straits.
"The national reunification we are pursuing is not only a reunification on paper, but more importantly, a spiritual unity of compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Straits," Ji said at the 9th Forum on Chinese Culture, an annual event hosted by Peking University where over 150 scholars and experts from both sides of the Taiwan Straits gathered.
He also emphasized that the inclusivity of Chinese civilization is the linchpin to achieving a high-quality form of reunification.
"The achievement of this goal cannot be separated from transforming Chinese culture into a spiritual bond for cultural exchanges, and placing Chinese cultural identity at the spiritual core to construct a cross-Straits community of shared destiny," Ji said. Several high-profile cultural exhibitions, led by a 2011 showing of Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains, a masterpiece by Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368) artist Huang Gongwang, at the Palace Museum in Taipei, have been tremendously popular. The piece, burnt into two pieces in 1650 during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) was separated during the civil war in the mid-20th century, with one part remaining on the Chinese mainland, which underlines the shared cultural heritage between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits, said Feng Ming-chu, former chief of the Palace Museum in Taipei.
"We are all the inheritors of Chinese culture, which is so profound that it is worth our efforts to promote, as it is shared by the two sides of the Taiwan Straits," Feng told the Global Times.
She also noted that the continued inheritance of Chinese culture by both the island of Taiwan and the Chinese mainland underscores an intrinsic connection between the two sides.
"Nobody could erase the fact that we are sharing the same culture," Feng noted.
Wang Zaixi, vice president of the National Society of Taiwan Studies, highlighted the pivotal role that cultural integration has played in the perpetual rise and fall of the Chinese nation over five millennia.
"One of the major reasons why the Chinese nation has been divided and reunited over the last 5,000 years and has always maintained a great unity is the strong cohesion, and centripetal and inspirational power of Chinese culture," Wang said.
Speaking the same language
Yok Mu-ming, former chairman of the New Party in Taiwan, said that the enduring nature of Chinese culture is a testament to the profound value placed by the Chinese people on family.
"The resilience of the Chinese nation lies in its ability to coalesce in the face of external challenges, reinforcing its unity and strength," he told reporters.
Ho Hui-li, an expert on culture from Taiwan at Tianjin University, brought attention to the practical cultural symbols that could bridge the gap between the two sides.
She advocated for the effective utilization of cultural icons such as Mazu within the island of Taiwan.
Mazu culture, which also holds influence in the southeastern coastal regions of the Chinese mainland, promotes a spirit of volunteerism and selfless dedication, according to Ho.
"For people who don't know much about Mazu, excluding the religious perspective, we can interpret her role as a role model for volunteering, which is equally understandable for both sides of the Taiwan Straits," Ho told the Global Times.
Ho believes that this cultural commonality could serve as a foundation for communication and collaboration between the two sides, noting that "we can work on whether people in Taiwan could volunteer to participate in the mainland rural revitalization activities, an act that would add personal value to their held beliefs as an expression of pure goodwill to each other."
Embracing the future
Chang Ching, a senior research fellow with the Society for Strategic Studies in Taiwan, called for the integration of cutting-edge technologies in promoting Chinese culture among the young generation.
"It could be used as a tool to strengthen Chinese education. We can't reject an information society, nor can we reject AI, which has already entered our lives," Chang said.
"If we can master it and turn it into a tool for cultural innovation and inheritance, I think the future is boundless."
The prevailing sentiment at the forum was that cultural understanding and collaboration hold the key to fostering unity and preventing conflicts.
Chi Chun-Chen, a professor with Ming Chuan University in Taiwan, stressed the importance of continuing to strengthen communication among the youth to reduce misunderstandings, break down stereotypes, and foster genuine connections.
He argued that fostering youth exchanges has become even more critical at a time when secessionists are intensifying their separatist campaigns.
"Youth exchanges must be strengthened as it is a prolific way to strengthen communication and reduce misunderstandings," Chi said, emphasizing that "it's even more important when there are people blatantly advocating for Taiwan secessionism."
"The journey toward peaceful reunification may be long and challenging, but through cultural integration and understanding, the people on both sides can strive toward a harmonious and united future," Chi said.
The US administration has recently wielded its big judicial stick on overseas Chinese again, accusing them of "being an agent of the Chinese government," while the so-called evidences listed in the indictment turn out to be a public group photo and a gift for foreign affairs. Experts said on Tuesday that this is another example of the US trying to fabricate cases accusing China of the so-called "transnational repression" with their common tricks of weaponizing and politicizing laws, and US' law enforcing agencies have turned into "political thugs" of the White House.
People familiar with the matter told the Global Times, Liang Litang, an overseas Chinese who runs a Chinese restaurant in Boston, went to Washington for an event related to the Chinese Association together with two entourages. They contacted the Chinese Embassy in the US in the hope of visiting the Embassy.
The Embassy then registered and approved their request as per the requirements, assigned the police liaison officer in the Embassy to make corresponding arrangement, presented them with gifts after the visit, and took a group photo in front of the Embassy. The gifts were verified to be wooden police badges used for foreign exchanges. And the police liaison officer only accompanied them throughout the whole process without engaging in any official businesses.
However, the US law enforcement agencies forcibly forged Chinese traditional customs as the evidence of "recruiting spies," and Liang was arrested for allegedly serving as an agent of the Chinese government. He was indicted on May 15 for acting as an illegal agent of China.
The charge of acting as an unregistered foreign agent carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000.
Experts told the Global Times that the US is trying to fabricate cases accusing China of the so-called transnational repression with their common tricks of weaponizing and politicizing laws. "Would the US administration openly take group photos of their spies or agents to be recruited in front of the US Embassy covered with security cameras?" he asked.
The US Department of Justice, the FBI and other law-enforcing departments have politicized and weaponized legal instruments and already turned into "political thugs" for the White House, abandoning the basic facts and losing their professional ethics, said the source.
However, this is not the first case brought by the US Justice Department against innocent Chinese. On April 17, the FBI arrested two Chinese-American men and accused them of "running a covert station for China's police force in New York." The same day, the US Department of Justice announced charges against 34 Chinese police officers and eight Chinese officials for "their online persecution of Chinese dissidents in the US."
The spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington Liu Pengyu said the US' prosecution of Chinese citizens under the guise of "transnational repression" is an exercise of long-arm jurisdiction on the basis of fabricated charges, which is purely political manipulation aimed at defaming China's image.
As can be seen from all those cases recently imposed by the US against Chinese, such as accusing them of acting as agents for a foreign government, transnational repression or whatever name it may take, those who are intent on maligning others will easily find a pretext, experts said.
The basic attitude of the US Department of Justice is to demonize people or issues associated with China, and even to hype them by distorting the law, which shows that the US government has no bottom line in the operation of China-related issues and even trample on the spirit of its own laws, Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
The real purpose of the US administration is to fabricate something out of nothing, manipulate politics and deliberately suppress other countries. But this time, the despicable and absurd nature of the US administration has reached a new peak, which has once again refreshed people's understanding of the hypocrisy of the US judiciary and the bottomless practice of its double standards, experts noted.
Three scientists, Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L'Huillier, won the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics "for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced Tuesday.
South Africa's mining production, one of the country's pillar industries, decreased by 2.5 percent year on year in August, with diamonds, manganese ore and other metallic minerals being the main contributors, data have shown.
In August, the production of diamonds dropped by 54.6 percent, becoming the largest negative contributor to the country's mining sector, while the production of manganese ore and other metallic minerals went down 7.9 percent and 17.6 percent in August, respectively, according to data released by Statistics South Africa Thursday.
In the three months ended August, seasonally adjusted mining production in South Africa decreased by 2 percent compared with the previous three months, with the largest negative contributors being gold, coal and manganese ore.
Gold production went down 6.5 percent in the three months ended August, and the production of coal and manganese ore dropped by 2.8 percent and 6 percent, respectively, Statistics South Africa said.
"The International Cultural Festival facilitates cross-cultural exchanges and mutual understanding among young people from different countries, allowing them to explore core values in different cultural contexts," Georgian Ambassador to China Archil Kalandia said at the opening ceremony of 2023 Peking University International Culture Festival.
The festival successfully kicked off on October 21 in Beijing, titled "Meet the World at PKU," and included participation from students from more than 100 countries and regions. Ambassadors from Jordan, Venezuela, Grenada, Cuba, Thailand, New Zealand, Pakistan, and Mexico also attended the opening ceremony.
Ambassador Kalandia expressed a belief that cooperation in the field of higher education is an important direction to promote international exchanges and cooperation. He encouraged teachers and students from the two countries to participate in a variety of international exchange programs to promote mutual exchanges and mutual understanding, and hoped that Peking University would play a more active role in strengthening educational cooperation between the two countries.
This year's festival featured a number of activities, including a themed garden tour, an international food festival at the world food court, and a chess tour of Yanyuan in Peking University.
Among them, the "Meet the World at PKU" theme garden set up more than 50 booths covering 47 countries and regions from five continents. At the booths, international students from different countries elaborately displayed their unique histories and cultures, allowing teachers and students to appreciate the social customs of different countries.
Launched in 2004, the Peking University International Culture Festival will hold a series of activities from October to December, such as a singing contest to feature the top 10 singers among international students, international youth speeches, the Chinese speech contest for international students, a movie view party, and a photography exhibition.
"We are disappointed that Japan still wants to go ahead and dump the nuclear polluted water into the Pacific, because we are not convinced by the scientific reports that it will be safe for marine life, or for communities who are going to be affected," former prime minister of Papua New Guinea Peter O'Neill told the Global Times in an exclusive interview on Wednesday.
He told the Global Times that efforts will continue to ask international agencies including the United Nations to attend to the concerns of people in the Pacific region.
On July 4, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and announced the final safety review report for the release of contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. The report stated that Japan's plan for dumping the nuclear-contaminated wastewater "meets safety standards," but it also emphasizes that the report cannot serve as the standard for Japan's approval of the policy.
Japan's plan to dump the nuclear-contaminated wastewater has been met with strong protests and concerns from the international community since it was first proposed in 2021. According to the plan, Japan intends to discharge 1.3 million tons of treated nuclear-contaminated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean over the next 30 to 40 years.
In addition to neighboring countries such as China and South Korea, many Pacific island nations, which are ecologically vulnerable and heavily reliant on ocean fisheries, are also affected. Earlier this year, the Pacific Island Forum collectively opposed Japan's plan to dump the nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the ocean and sent a delegation to Japan for talks on the issue.
O'Neill was talking to the Global Times after attending an event organized by the think tank Center for China and Globalization (CCG). He said Japan owes it to the international community and to the Pacific to take the issue seriously, adding that they should not dump the nuclear-contaminated wastewater and should find other ways of trying to treat the water or to manage the problem.
He stressed that it isn't the Pacific that started the problem of the nuclear-contaminated wastewater in Japan.
"It is their own issue and they need to manage it better. Many countries in the Pacific are very disappointed. They do not support Japan in doing this," he said.
"We all know from experience that for nuclear waste of any form, it takes time, it takes years, it takes decades [to resolve]. It's not resolved in a few years. Over time you will still have the presence of nuclear content within the waste that has been disposed of," he said.
As Japan continues with its plan despite the protests from Pacific Island countries, O'Neill told the Global Times that they will raise their questions to international organizations including the UN.
"Is this water safe? Will this water affect marine life? Is this water not going to affect individuals who have to drink water in the Pacific? These are questions that need to be answered," he said.
On the IAEA's release of a comprehensive report on the dumping of nuclear-contaminated wastewater at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday that the report "failed to fully reflect views from experts that participated in the review." Also, "the conclusion was not shared by all experts. The Chinese side regrets the hasty release of the report," the spokesperson said.
"We believe that the IAEA report should not be a 'shield' or 'greenlight' for Japan's discharge of nuclear-contaminated water into the ocean. Due to its limited mandate, the IAEA failed to review the justification and legitimacy of Japan's ocean discharge plan, assess the long-term effectiveness of Japan's purification facility and corroborate the authenticity and accuracy of Japan's nuclear-contaminated water data. Therefore, the conclusion is largely limited and incomplete. We noted that Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi stated that the IAEA conducted the review at the request of the Japanese government and the report is neither a recommendation nor an endorsement of Japan's ocean discharge policy," said the spokesperson.
Recently, the US' Department of Defense (DOD) announced an $800 million military aid package to Ukraine, which will include cluster munitions, sparking widespread condemnation from the international community. Cluster munitions are a type of explosive ordnance that can be launched from airplanes, missiles, or cannons, and can contain hundreds of submunitions, which are dispersed over a large area aerially, causing casualties and damage in a wider area. What's even more alarming is that if these bombs land on wet and soft ground, a significant portion of them can become "duds." The "duds" did not explode initially, but will explode later when subjected to external forces or environmental changes.
The US has used cluster bombs multiple times in wars. During the Vietnam War, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia were heavily targeted with cluster bombs. Several decades later, the specter of cluster bombs still looms over these three countries. Civilians face unknown dangers, and economic development is constrained. What is even more terrifying is that the local populations have and might continue to be stuck in this state of uncertainty and perpetual danger for decades. Ho Van Lai, 26, lost both his legs and right arm when he was only 10 years old due to cluster munitions. One day in June 2000, while playing with his two cousins near his home in Quang Tri Province in Vietnam, his cousins found what appeared to be a tennis-ball-sized "toy," but it turned out to be a cluster bomb. The bomb exploded after it was touched, killing his cousin and seriously injuring Ho, according to Project Renew, an NGO in Vietnam. Ho's family home was next to a US military base occupied by American soldiers and where weapons were stored from 1966 to 1972.
Ho's horrific is just an example of the fate shared by a large number of people who continue to suffer through the nightmare of undetonated cluster bombs. Public reports showed that the cluster bombs in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia were mostly left behind by the US military during the Vietnam War.
According to the Lao National Regulatory Authority for Unexploded Ordnance (UXO), between 1964 and 1973, over 270 million cluster munitions were dropped by US warplanes in Laos, with approximately one-third of them failing to detonate.
These bombs have posed a significant safety hazard to the local population since the end of the war. Some 80 percent of the people in Laos rely on agriculture, but it is too dangerous for them to farm, Reuters reported.
Laos, which neighbors Vietnam, was not directly involved in the Vietnam War. However, it was subjected to intense bombing by the US military. Analysts noted that on the one hand, it was because Vietnam's territory is long and narrow, and the central region, which saw heavy fighting, lacked strategic depth. As a result, some combatants would seek refuge in neighboring Laos. Moreover, North Vietnamese forces would utilize Laos' dense jungles to transport weapons and ammunition, creating a hidden supply line known as the "Ho Chi Minh Trail" along the Laos-Vietnam border.
Between 1964 and 1973, the US dropped over 2 million tons of bombs on Laos, a number roughly equivalent to the country's population at the time. This staggering quantity of bombs dropped on Laos during the Vietnam War surpassed the combined total dropped on Germany and Japan during World War II. Consequently, Laos holds the unfortunate distinction of being the most heavily bombed country per capita in history. The covert nature of this conflict was intentional, as the CIA sought to disrupt communist supply routes between Laos and Vietnam, read a CNN report.
The bombing campaign was conducted in secrecy, only coming to light through a congressional hearing in 1971 and subsequent media reports. However, the true extent of the devastation caused by this "secret war" in Laos remains largely unknown to the American public, read the report.
From 1965 to 1973, the US dropped some 230,516 bombs on 113,716 sites in Cambodia, according to Yale University. Analysts pointed out that many of the bombs did not explode and are scattered in the border areas of Cambodia, causing great harm to the local environment and development. Local media reported that the affected area in the country due to cluster bombs is about 700 square kilometers.
For decades, farmers in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia have suffered frequent accidentally triggered explosions while working on the land. Construction teams also unintentionally detonated bombs left in the ground while building foundations or repairing roads. Moreover, many children mistook bombs for toys and touched them out of curiosity, resulting in casualties and fatalities. Tragedies related to cluster bombs continue to occur in these three countries.
Farming on the battlefield
Analysts noted that in Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia, all predominantly agrarian, are the countries that were most affected by the legacy of American bombs.
On one hand, the constantly looming threat of detonating bombs poses a huge safety hazard. Farming is like going to war, and farmers live under constant fear of accidental detonations. On the other hand, the bombs contain highly dangerous and polluting chemicals, causing severe contamination of the local soil and water. This environmental damage is difficult to address in the short term. The dilemma faced by these areas is that clearing unexploded bombs requires a significant amount of manpower and resources, which comes at a huge cost. The prerequisite for this is economic development, which in turn relies on a stable environment. This creates a "deadlock" and is an important reason for the persistent poverty in these countries decades after the war.
During the Vietnam War, many cities in Vietnam also suffered from heavy bombing. To this day, these cities are still plagued with cluster bomb contamination, which has had a serious impact on people's lives and economic development.
Public reports in 2018 revealed that Vietnam has 61,000 square kilometers of bomb-contaminated land, accounting for nearly 20 percent of the total land area. In addition, the water bodies and soil of the Mekong Delta and Red River Delta have also been affected by pollution, which has had a huge impact on Vietnam's economic development.
The high-risk profession of bomb disposal has evolved in Laos, born out of the need to dispose of unexploded American bombs. As the locals often self-deprecatingly say, "Thanks to the US, we are so poor that all we have left are bombs," and "while others rely on mountains for survival, we rely on bombs for survival." The fragments of exploded bomb casings and unexploded bombs are prized by bomb disposal workers. Most of the metal materials from the bomb disposal cottage industry flow into processing plants in Vietnam and are turned into steel needed by the construction industry. According to reports, the price of a pound of bomb scrap metal is 10 cents. Larger bomb casings can be sold for as much as $30 to $40, which is a considerable income for the locals.
Some locals upcycle the materials into chairs and tables made from bomb casings. Some people even use simple equipment to melt bomb body steel and make spoons and other utensils, which are also popular in markets across the country.
There is no doubt that engaging in bomb disposal is a dangerous profession, with occasional reports emerging of practitioners being killed, injured, or maimed by explosions. Relying on scavengers driven by economic need to clear abandoned bombs is also an ironic move for local governments fueled by helplessness, an approach that cannot solve the problem of environmental pollution caused by ammunition debris in soil and water bodies.
Thousands of years to dispose
In fact, in recent years, many countries have established specialized agencies or relied on non-governmental organizations to clean up "war remnants" such as cluster bombs and landmines.
Some Western countries have also established charitable organizations which deploy explosive ordnance experts to Southeast Asia to support bomb clearance efforts. However, compared with the massive amount of unexploded bombs, the support from these organizations is like a drop in the bucket. Many locals have criticized the US, the country which is responsible for deploying the bombs, for not taking enough remedial actions at the national level, which is extremely irresponsible.
According to reports from the Khmer Times, Cambodia needs at least $700 million to clear the remaining cluster bombs in the border areas. Reports showed that since the 1970s, Cambodia has recorded more than 64,000 civilians killed or injuries from leftover undetonated cluster bombs or landmines. To this day, there are still reports of at least one munitions-related accident almost every week.
Meanwhile, despite the Vietnam War having ended several decades ago, many people in Laos are still working every day to search for and dispose of the bombs left behind by the US.
Relevant international organizations are highly concerned about the issue of clearing leftover bombs in Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia, but they are not optimistic about the short-term progress of the clearance work.
In the book Eternal Harvest: The Legacy of American Bombs in Laos, the author points out that the bombs dropped by the US during the Vietnam War, which cost $17 million per day, now require a huge amount of money to clear safely and counter their impact and environmental damage. Laos spent $61 million between 1993 and 2012. At this rate, it would take thousands of years to completely clear the "harvest" of American bombs.
The UAE Ambassador to China Hussain bin Ibrahim Al Hammadi met with the Chinese Minister of Science and Technology Wang Zhigang, on July 19, to discuss strengthening bilateral cooperation between the two countries in the fields of science, technological development and innovation. The ambassador gave a positive evaluation of the effectiveness of China-Arab cooperation in science and technology. He affirmed his willingness to work together with the Chinese side to further deepen cooperation in the field of science and technology innovation.
Wang said that China and the UAE have a long history of relations and technical that are constantly being strengthened.
During Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to the UAE in 2018, the two countries announced the establishment of a comprehensive strategic partnership, which opened a new chapter in China-Arab relations.
Wang said that scientific and technological progress is the key driving force of human progress, noting that China-Arab scientific and technological cooperation benefits both countries and peoples, and he is willing to work together with the UAE Ambassador to continue to deepen China-Arab scientific and technological innovation cooperation.
