Occasionally, a few people (foreigners) did stand up for civilians, although in the scale of events, it did not have large impact. Perhaps the most peculiar of them is the story of John Rabe, "a Nazi hero".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rabe

> “Nazi hero”

Persons are always kind. It is people that do horrible things.

Whether it’s the angry mob ready to stone Mary Magdalene or US soldiers wasting civilians at My Lai the principle is the same.

The idea that because someone is on the other team in a war he is a monster is wartime propaganda used to justify and convince good persons to commit atrocities.

There is another comment to this story where someone applies exactly this kind of thinking to the North Vietnamese.

Rabe is one of the most famous. When book "Rabe Dairy" was published in China years ago there were memorial ceremonies. There were few if not no mentions of Nazi background though. Chinese people remember those foreigners who help them during difficult time in the war against Japanese invasion. There was a movie about an India doctor. There are statues a Canadian doctor in a lot of famous medical schools for memory of him. His home town attracted many Chinese tourists every year.

> people in China treasures peace a little bit more than freedom

That's the narrative of the Chinese authoritarian dictatorship, a convenient one for them, but I've never seen data to back it up, there's plenty of evidence to contradict it, and it's based on a false premise.

The false premise is that freedom is a threat to peace. In fact, it's only a threat to peace of mind of dictators. The most peaceful places in the world are the most free, and as freedom has spread around the world, the levels of violence worldwide has dropped to historic lows. Again, the "peace" they speak of their own peace, not for people the government doesn't like; the people of Tibet, Xinjiang, and elsewhere suffer a lot of violence, perpetrated by the government. The poor have no freedom and are therefore driven from their homes; where is their peace? If people are so happy with the peace the Communist dictatorship provides, why not hold an election - the Communists are sure to win!

Freedom begets peace in part because people with rights live under less threat (their rights protect them; they can protect their property in court; etc.), and people with freedom of speech and voting rights can express their needs verbally and at the ballot box. Cut off those avenues and their needs don't just go away; they turn to guns, insurgencies, civil wars, riots, etc.

That people in China - unlike most other places in the world - would not desire freedom is also plainly false. In the only parts of China where people have the option of freedom, Taiwan and Hong Kong, they value their freedom very much. They also have a much higher standard of living than the non-free parts of China, and freedom from want is also important.