Delegation of the Federation of French-Chinese Friendship Associations Visits China

At the invitation of the CPAFFC， Alain Labat， president of the Federation of French-Chinese Friendship Associations，led a seven-member delegation on a friendly visit to China from August 18th t0 26th 2015. The delegation visited many cities， including Beijing， Harbin，Changchun， Yanji， Tumen， Changbaishan，Ji’an and Dandong.

During the delegation’s stay in Beijing， CPAFFC President Li Xiaolin and Vice President Song Jingwu met the members and hosted a banquet in their honor. The delegation also called on Ms. Yu Shaohua， director of the De-partment for Asia-Pacific Security and Cooperation of the China Institute of International Studies and an expert on Korean Peninsula issues， who gave a systematic introduction about the past and current state of the relations be-tween China and the DPRK.

In Northeast China， the delegation received warm welcome from local government officials. In Heilongjiang Province， the provincial govermnent’s Foreign Affairs Office organized a meeting attended by its own officials and the local development and reform commission to brief the delegation about the situation in Northeast Asia and relations and exchanges between Heilongjiang and other countries， suchas the DPRK， ROK and Russia.

In Jilin Province， the delegation visited the Yanji Museum， Tumen port，Ji’an Museum and the remains of the Gao Gouli Dynasty and Yalu River Bridge and Dandong Port.

The purpose of the delegation’s visit to China was to observe and un-derstand the situation in northeast Asia，especially the relationship between China and the DPRK. After having discussions with the Chinese side and undertaking field trips， M. Labat said that some of the reports by the Europe-an media on the situation in Northeast Asia and China-DPRK relations ap-peared far too superficial.

Through this visit， delegation members had gained an all-round understanding of the situation in the Northeast and China-DPRK relations that would help the people back in their country know the truth.

The delegation’s visit to China coincided with the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the victory of the chinese people’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War. On this occa-sion， the delegation's tour was planned to coincide with those celebrations.

For instance， they visited the Mu-seum of the Imperial Palace of Man- chukuo in Changchun and the site of the notorious Japanese Unit 731 troop in Harbin. The delegation members systematically learned how the Japa-nese militarists occupied the Korean Peninsula and nibbled away China’s sovereignty in the 1894-1895 Sino-Japanese War， how they gradually oc-cupied Northeast China after orches-trating the Mukden Incident and how they tried to seize the whole of China after initiating the Marco Polo Bridge Incident near Beijing.

Visiting the site of the Japanese Unit 731， the delegation members learned how numerous Chinese， Koreans and Russians were used as live victuns in bacterial experiments and vivisection.Mme Denise DUBOIS-POT， Ppresident of the French-Chinese Friendship As-sociation of Nancy Lorraine， tearfully remarked that both France and China had suffered the ravages of war and that people in the world should remember history and pass on the lessons to future generations so as to prevent similar trag-edies from happening again.