Regarding the April 28 Reuters article "China releases trove of Japanese sex slave records": It's wonderful to learn that China has released a "trove" of confidential Japanese records on sex slaves, but why weren't these records released decades ago?
And wouldn't it be even more wonderful if China released a trove of records about the brutal Cultural Revolution of Chairman Mao's era and the horrors of the Great Famine back in the 1950s and early 1960s when up to an estimated 40 million Chinese died of starvation and disease?
China, much like Japan, indulges in much self-serving censorship when it comes to historical events that might prove embarrassing to the ruling elites.
Once again to quote Mark Twain: "The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice" and "What a hell of a heaven it will be when they get all these hypocrites assembled there!"
China's self-inflicted wounds during the years of Communist oppression were in some ways far worse than anything Japan or any other imperialist nation ever inflicted on the Chinese people before or after Mao's grand revolution.
History is all about little ironies. Thomas Jefferson, one of America's most celebrated Founding Fathers and a man who loved freedom more than life itself, kept slaves on his plantation.
The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.