Japan's all-out aggression of China 68 years ago was aimed at resolving its domestic political, economic and social problems, said a South Korean historian recently in an interview with Xinhua. 

This Thursday sees the 68th anniversary of the Lugouqiao (Marco Polo Bridge) Incident that occurred on July 7, 1937, which was an excuse taken by Japanese militarists to launch all-out invasion of China.

Shim Shung-ha, professor at the History Department of Seoul National University, told Xinhua in the written interview that Japan's aggression of China was the embodiment of its ambition blew up by the so-called "Continental Policy" formed in the 1880s.

The policy advocated Japan should plunder natural resources from the continent of Northeast Asia, emigrate Japanese people to the region, and finally control the whole region.

"After annexing the Korean Peninsula in the early 20th century, Japan extended its expansion to northeast China and to China's hinterland. It wanted to seek hegemony over the world by occupying China," Shim pointed out.

"The outbreak of the Lugouqiao Incident made Chinese people hold together to fight against Japan's aggression. Finally they smashed Japan's aggressive ambition and won the victory in the war of resistance against Japanese aggression," the famous historian said.

Shim also urged the Japanese government to make formal apology for Japan's aggression in the past and taking the history as a mirror.

Shim further criticized some Japanese people who denied the Nanjing Massacre, in which Japanese intruding troops atrociously killed about 300,000 Nanjing citizens within six weeks.

The South Korean professor also reprimanded some Japanese politicians for their unabashed distortion of Japan's wrongdoing history.

"Currently, people who were born after World War II constitute the majority of Japan's population. Hence, it is all the more necessary to remind Japanese people of the maleficence their country has done in the past," Shim said.

(Xinhua News Agency July 8, 2005)