A Purposeful Life

place in Beijing (Peking). This event awakened suppressed sentiments, which led to a military confrontation between the two countries. This finally culminated in the Second World War. Since that time there had been enmity between Japan and China. Then after a lapse of some years, an agreement was signed between the two countries, according to which Japan was to set up a steel mill in China. But after the signing of the agreement, the government of China suddenly cancelled it. However, new opportunities opened up for Japan when the new Prime Minister of China, Deng Xiaoping, put an end to the extremist version of communism and adopted a new open door policy. This allowed Japan to break fresh ground with China, which caused an influx of the Japanese into China again. If you go to China today, you will have to book your air passage three months in advance, for every flight from Japan to China goes full. China affords great opportunities for business, which Japan wants to avail of to the greatest possible extent. To facilitate commercial interaction, the Japanese lost no time in shutting their minds down to all previous painful memories. As a tourist once put it: Japan decided that it would bear all offensive behaviour unilaterally. The same tourist wrote that during his stay in Tokyo (June 1987), Radio Beijing announced that China would build a museum that would show, through pictures, the injustices and tyranny inflicted upon the Chinese by the Japanese. This Museum was to be inaugurated in 1987 to mark the 50th year of the tragic event of Marco Polo.