Editor's Note:

To commemorate the centenary of the outbreak of WWI and the 75th anniversary of the start of WWII, an international conference themed at "WWI and WWII in Retrospect: Lessons and Inspirations" was held Saturday in Beijing. Supported by the State Council Information Office and organized by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Academy of Military Science of the People's Liberation Army, the symposium invited both domestic and foreign scholars to express their views.

Don't forget Japan's crimes

Wu Enyuan, professor and former director of the Institute of Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

The Cairo Declaration, issued by the then government heads of China, the US and the UK in December 1943, laid the foundation of the international order and in particular the East Asian landscape in the postwar era.

The Yalta Conference, the Potsdam Declaration and Japan's pacifist constitution all reflected the will of the anti-fascist countries, the appeal of most Asia-Pacific nations that fell victim to the atrocities of Japanese invasion, and the vigilance of the Japanese public against militarism.

Nevertheless, the Japanese right wing has been denying the postwar order for all these years. With escalating strife surrounding the sovereignty of the Diaoyu Islands, the Japanese government has displayed an increasing tendency to rebuild its identity as a military power and dominate the international politics in East Asia.

The Japanese cabinet led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe adopted the new "three principles on transfer of defense equipment," lifted the ban on the right to collective self-defense, and broke the pledge of limiting the military budget to within 1 percent of its annual GNP.

Some Southeast Asian countries view the territorial disputes over the Diaoyu Islands just as controversies between Tokyo and Beijing, forget their own bitter history of slavery, and even back Japan.

Actually, Tokyo is pursuing a militarist resurgence, and Washington is attempting to regain its hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region and hedge China with Japan's help. This will bring new destabilizing factors for Asia and the world at large.

We should pay close heed to Tokyo's radical right-wing forces and prevent the replay of appeasement.

War never answer

Sylvanus Nicholas Spencer, professor of the University of Sierra Leone

WWI was described as the Great War and the war to end all wars. Locked in this description is the widely held belief that history has lessons for mankind and we can immensely benefit from such lessons if we are prepared to sit at the feet of history and learn from past experience.

Despite the unprecedented scale of WWI and its huge cost of massive destruction of infrastructure, property and unwonted loss of lives in all continents, people failed to learn lessons throughout the traumatic years.

It was after just two decades of peace that WWII broke out, bringing with it a fresh trail of death and destruction far more devastating than the first one.

Then what lessons can our generation learn from the two wars?

First, dangerous ideologies should never be encouraged. Imperialist ambitions that often seek to satisfy themselves by territorial aggrandizement should not be a force in international relations.

Then there is greater benefit in collective security and international cooperation than in the form of unholy alliances with hidden agendas. There should be mutual respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of nations whether great or small, and this should not be violated by any one nation under the guise of humanitarian concerns or serving as the policeman of the world.

Civilians who will suffer a huge loss due to the use of modern armaments should not allow their governments to declare a war.

And war should never be an option in dealing with state-to-state relations because though the Allies won WWI, its rippling effect paved the way for the ascendancy of the US in dominating world affairs.

Though the brutality of the two world wars brought about the negative side of mankind, the triumph of the human spirit was also manifested in the way humanity contended with the postwar socioeconomic and political development. The human spirit was not overwhelmed and crushed by the traumatic events of the wars, but the wars apparently tested and strengthened the resolve to have a better world.