Peace Announcement by China’s Religious Community-In Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Victory of the World Anti-Fascist War and the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression（1995）

Peace Announcement by China’s Religious Community

In Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Victory of the World Anti-Fascist War and the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression

(August 14, 1995)

Over half a century ago, fascists from Germany, Italy and Japan launched a worldwide aggressive war, which inflicted an unprecedented catastrophe on mankind. Those fascist devils were savage in nature, and wantonly committed nefarious crimes. Wherever they reached, territories were ravaged, and people were either slaughtered or plunged into extreme misery, with corpses and bloodshed everywhere. The world was turned into an absolute living hell. The world war against fascists was a life-and-death fight concerning survival and extinction between good and evil. The Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression was an important part of the World Anti-Fascist War; through eight years’ bloody fight, the Chinese people finally won the war against Japanese invasion, making great contributions to the great victory of the World Anti-Fascist War. At the critical point for the Chinese nation, the religious people in China were active in taking part in the national united front led by the Communist Party of China. Together with other people across the country, these religious followers rose up against the savage Japanese invaders, and plunged themselves into all kinds of anti-Japanese national salvation activities. They had thus made the costly sacrifice and important contributions. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Victory of the World Anti-Fascist War and the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, China’s religious community prayed for the tens of millions of victims who lost their lives to the fascists, in order to express the grief and console the dead.

That aggressive war launched by the fascists 50 years ago involved 61 countries and regions, inflicted enormous disasters on four-fifths of the world’s population, caused the deaths of 55 million people, and incurred the loss of US$4 trillion. Today, man is being threatened by nuclear weapons and other types of destructive weapons, and any new world wars would certainly bring human lives and civilizations to the edge of destruction. Therefore, the tragedy of world wars shall not be repeated anymore. Peace and development are two major themes of today’s world. Peace is the precondition and guarantee for development, is the most fundamental interests of the people of the entire world, and is the loudest voice in present times. The common characteristic and basic spirit of the doctrines of all real religions are peace—tranquility and peace of the inner and the outer world. To safeguard world peace is a sacred mission of people with religious faith. Religious believers, who account for more than two-thirds of the world’s population, are an important force for peace. Hundreds of millions of religious believers in China are resolved to safeguard the peace of mankind together with all the other believers in the world. Therefore, the following steps are taken:

1. To organize peace prayers. A pious prayer certainly has its effects. Prayer is the great sublimation and central embodiment of religious believers’ will and wishes. Peace prayers of hundreds of millions of religious believers are powerful in terms of influence, cohesion and publicity. All religious organizations, temples and churches in China should regard the prayer for peace as an important part of their regular religious rituals. From this year on, the period from August 14 to 20 every year will be the Week of Chinese Religious Believers’ Prayer for World Peace. During this period, all religions in China may, in accordance with their traditions, organize prayer activities for world peace in response to the anniversary of the victory of the World Anti-Fascist War and the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression.

2. To spread doctrines of peace. All religions may select from their own scriptures the content that is against evil, atrocity, plunder and killing and for mercy, benevolence, justice and peace, and compile it into volumes for convenience of moralization, study and practice. Preaching activities and publications of all religions should intensify the promotion of their own doctrines of peace. Seminaries should teach in light of their own doctrines of peace to improve students’ self-consciousness in safeguarding world peace.

3. To take part in activities to protect world peace. The religious community in China should take part in peace activities organized by the World Conference of Religions for Peace, the Asian Conference of Religions for Peace and all the other friendly international religious organizations, and uphold their initiatives and resolutions beneficial to world peace. China’s religious community should improve solidarity and friendship with its Japanese counterpart, look squarely at the history, heighten vigilance, pursue justice, and safeguard peace.

4. To support the Chinese government’s foreign policy of peace. We totally stand up for the Chinese government’s standpoints of complete prohibition against and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons, its promise as the state with nuclear weapon not to use nuclear weapons first, its view of handling state-to-state relations in accordance with the five principles of peaceful co-existence, and its principle of opposing the resolution of international disputes through force of arms, and observe and publicize the aforementioned peace guidelines in our exchanges with religions of other countries. Meanwhile, we also support all proposals of the international community that help to defuse international tense situations and deter wars, and look forward to the early finalization of a complete nuclear-test-ban treaty. The religious communities in China are willing, together with its counterpart in other countries, to jointly build a new world of peace, cooperation, fairness, equality, common development and shared prosperity.

5. To love the country and religion and to rejuvenate China. A strong, prosperous China is significant for preventing world wars and safeguarding peace in Asia and in the entire world. Religious believers in China should carry forward the ethos of loving the country and religion and cherishing peace, stand on their own to run churches well, and make their contributions to social stability, ethnic unity, reform and opening up to the outside world, economic prosperity, national reunification, and world peace.

Let’s pray for world peace, and let’s strive for world peace. May the light of peace illuminate the Earth, and may the bell of peace sound throughout the globe.