BEIJING, CHINA – Media OutReach Newswire – 21 February 2026 – Organized by the Japanese Repatriates and Japan-China Friendship Affiliation, a delegation of 90 Japanese “conflict orphans,” together with their descendants and relations, visited Harbin in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province on September 11, 2025, for a cultural efficiency. The occasion served as a possibility for contributors to convey heartfelt gratitude to their Chinese language foster mother and father who raised them, whereas additionally selling messages of peace and historic reflection by way of their inventive expressions.
The affiliation is devoted to fostering mutual understanding and friendship between Japan and China. Its mission contains supporting the social welfare of Japanese “conflict orphans” left behind in China—people who endured vital hardship through the post-war turmoil and are nonetheless going through numerous challenges in the present day. The group additionally seeks to protect and transmit the recollections of those experiences to youthful generations and to deepen bilateral exchanges.
Following Japan’s give up in 1945, greater than 4,000 Japanese youngsters have been left behind in China and raised by Chinese language households. Now superior in age, the group has determined to undertake what they name their remaining “gratitude tour,” which coincides with the eightieth anniversary of the victory of the Chinese language Folks’s Struggle of Resistance Towards Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist Struggle. Since 2009, these orphans have been touring to China each few years to acknowledge the kindness of their Chinese language foster mother and father and different benefactors who supported them.
Sumie Ikeda, 81, head of the affiliation of friendship of repatriates from China, is herself one of many Japanese orphans left behind in China. In an unique interview with CNS, she spoke within the fluent northeastern Chinese language dialect of her childhood, reminiscing about her upbringing in Heilongjiang. “How might I be Japanese?” she mirrored, her early identification obscured by the conflict’s aftermath. Separated from her organic household as an toddler, she was raised in Mudanjiang, Heilongjiang Province. “My foster mom was really an distinctive Chinese language girl,” Ikeda stated, noting that recollections of her foster mom’s power proceed to maintain her.
A pivotal second occurred when she was eight and native Chinese language authorities recognized her Japanese heritage. The phrases of her foster mom, who insisted “This youngster is mine,” left an indelible mark on Ikeda. As an grownup, her seek for organic roots in Nineteen Eighties Japan resulted in hardship and betrayal, leaving her destitute and suicidal till rescued by the Chinese language consulate.
“My first life was given by my start mother and father; my second by my adoptive mother and father,” she recounted. “In essentially the most troublesome instances, it was all the time the Chinese language individuals who reached out to us.”
Ikeda’s story displays a broader historic expertise. Official Japanese data acknowledge 2,818 such “conflict orphans.” Their lives, Ikeda stresses, are a residing indictment of the catastrophes attributable to conflict.
But, regardless of their hardships, their enduring sentiment is one in every of profound gratitude in direction of China. “Although Japanese by start, we’d not have survived with out Chinese language individuals,” Ikeda stated.
Their collective narrative delivers a twin message of profound gratitude and solemn warning. It pays tribute to the extraordinary compassion of strange Chinese language individuals—a love that selected nurture over vengeance. “We mustn’t ever let conflict occur once more. Conditions like ours mustn’t ever be repeated,” Ikeda urged.
“We’re a bunch with the twin identification of each perpetrators and victims,” she mirrored, an announcement that embodies the advanced legacy of historical past, humanity, and a plea for lasting peace.
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