Until the recent resurgence of interest in the Nanjing Massacre, the atrocities and their survivors had been largely forgotten. "After the war some of the survivors had clung to the hope that their government would vindicate them by pushing for Japanese reparations and an official apology. This hope, however, was swiftly shattered when the People's Republic of China (PRC), eager to forge an alliance with the Japanese to gain international legitimacy, announced at various times that it had forgiven the Japanese." Despite the fact that "the PRC has never signed a treaty with the Japanese relinquishing its right to seek national reparations for wartime crimes," no such reparations have been sought -- or offered