Staff writer
Li Qingxiang was 15 when Imperial Japanese troops surrounded his village on May 27, 1942, to wipe out the communist-led resistance forces based there and their supporters.
Li's voice still trembles when he describes the attack on Beitong in Hebei Province, in which two brothers and two sisters were killed. He is currently visiting Japan with four other villagers to meet government officials and petition for reparations from Tokyo for alleged atrocities, including the poison gassing of underground tunnels where many villagers took refuge. The gas was a kind of sternutator, or sneeze gas, according to Japanese researchers.