UBC Awareness for WWII in Asia - Forum

Hello fellow group members:

I've been assigned by the President to be in charge of the contents of the Presentation for the Outreach Program.

As a self-introduction, I'm currently an Unclassified Student at UBC. I completed a Bachelor of Arts in History at the University of Alberta in 2005. My fields of interest are history of modern China, World War I and II, as well as Chinese in Canada.

For the most part, I'll be running this group like a seminar in the senior level university courses. In contrast to the general meetings, this group will focus a great deal on research. Due to the nature of this group, we require that members that join this group be arts student, and have some experience in academic research (like term paper).

According to what was decided in the last club meeting, out presentation will roughly go in the following order:

1. Age of Imperialism, First Sino-Japanese War
2. China and Japan in World War I, the 21 Demands, and the subsequent "Shandong Question"
3. "9-18" Incident in 1931, Unit 731.
4. Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937, Nanjing Massacre
5. The Asia-Pacific Theatre expands beyond China after Pearl Harbor in 1941, Canada's role in the Battle of Hong Kong (8-25 December 1941).
6. Atrocities committed by the Japanese Imperial Armed Forces during the war, e.g.: slave labour, Comfort Women, Sook Ching Massacre, etc.
7. Aftermath

This is certainly a lot material to go through in a 60-minute presentation. For most intensive purpose, it'll be a more informative overview of the war. I mean...from the Opium War to the First Sino-Japanese War usually take 6 wks to go through in university.

The purpose of the outreach program is to allow high school students to gain a better understanding of this history. To put it in perspective, when I was in high school in Alberta, the Social Studies 30 class spent a week talking about the rise of the Nazis from 1933 on, but only 1 on the entire Asian-Pacific Theatre on the war.

As my field are more into diplomatic/political side of history, we need other members in the group to contribute on other items. We'll have regular meetings, and share the research information that we found.

As the President have discuss with me (and I somewhat share his view) that, given the subject matter we deal with here, it's important that we maintain objectivity, and do our best to be non-partisan.

I agree with the President because it'd give our club more creditibility, but the President has yet to suggest how we should get there. I think bringing out the Chinese Government's role in the entire debate is a good way be objective (See my article titled "Don't give the CCP so much credit in the 'history issue'").

Lastly, I'm very open to comments and suggestions. If anyone has something that can make the project better, please let me know.

Thank you