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In cold weather, 45 Japanese war orphans revisiting China to thank their Chinese foster families received a warm welcome in Beijing.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (R) meets with the members of the Japanese war orphans' delegation, who revisit China to thank their Chinese foster families, in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 11, 2009.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao met them, mostly in their seventies, in the Zhongnanhai compound Wednesday.
Premier Wen invited the orphans to Zhongnanhai for talks and also accompanied them on a visit to the former residence and office of the late Premier Zhou Enlai inside the compound, who were much concerned about the war orphanage issue.
The Japanese orphans were those who had been left behind by their parents after the eight-year Japanese Aggression War against China. More than 2,800 Japanese orphans were adopted by the Chinese people and most of them went back to Japan in the 1980s and 1990s after normalization of bilateral ties.
The thanksgiving gathering is organized to express the war orphans' gratitude to their foster families, but the visit is, to some extent, an emotional one as many of their foster parents have died.
"We care about the living conditions of the orphans after they returned back to Japan, and I believe that everybody will live a happy and stable life though their own efforts and by support from the Japanese government and all walks of life," said Wen in talks with the delegation.
Wen said that it was a handful of militarists who were responsible for that war of aggression, and the Japanese people were also victims of the war. |
