Protesters remember incident that sparked Sino-Japanese war

Updated at 2.15pm: More than 20 protesters demonstrated at the Japanese Consulate-General in Central on Friday to mark the 69th anniversary of the Marco Polo Bridge incident.

They demanded compensation from Japan for wartime suffering in China during World War II.

Members of the Hong Kong Reparation Association rallied from the Central Post Office to the Japanese Consulate-General in Exchange Square.

The protesters handed a letter to consular officers, demanding Tokyo exchange military currency issued during the war, but declared invalid after Japanese occupation ended in 1945.

The protesters also called on Japanese political leaders to stop visiting the Yasukuni Shrine which honours its soldiers killed during the war.

Historians generally consider the Marco Polo Bridge incident the start of Japan?s full-scale invasion of China in the late 1930s. In the early 1930s, the Japanese had already occupied Manchuria, the northeast of China, and established a puppet state.