ABSTRACT
In 1955 a group of French women activists, headed by a leader in the peace and women's movement, Madame Eugenie Cotton, visited the People's Republic of China (PRC). During the meeting with the Chinese premier, Zhou Enlai, Madame Cotton took issue with Zhou's suggestion that the French people should work closely with the German people for world peace; instead she expressed the frustration that ‘it is impossible to build solidarity with Germans.’ In response, Zhou reiterated the need for international solidarity and went to great length to offer ‘China's experience’:
Our neighbor Japan is the country that bullied and oppressed (qihui yapo) us the most. After the war of 1894 it took Taiwan from us. Later it created Manchukuo [in northeastern China] and then further occupied vast areas of China. The death toll of Chinese reached not tens of thousands, but millions. Chinese people harbored [original] deep resentment toward Japan. After Japan's surrender, Chiang Kai-shek started the civil war, and people had to fight back. During the War of Liberation (1946–49) many Japanese engaged in technical work in our armed forces. Japanese doctors and nurses treated our wounded soldiers and we trusted them. Japanese engineers helped us with production in factories, helped our technicians to conduct experiments. We all trusted them. After seven or eight years, they changed from bullies to our friends … Not only must people visit each other, they also should influence their government and change the attitude of the government. This way the two countries can maintain friendly relations.1
