Key facts
- The Chinese and US militaries held the handover ceremony in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province.
- Remains were excavated from sites along the Hump, the wartime airlift route between India and China.
- China's defence ministry did not say how many sets of remains were transferred or whether they were identified.
- The ministry said Beijing had worked with Washington for years to locate remains of missing US personnel.
China handed over to the United States the remains of American airmen killed during World War II while flying supplies over the Himalayas, with a ceremony in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, on Tuesday.
The remains were excavated from sites along the Hump, the wartime airlift route between India and China. China's defence ministry did not say how many sets of remains were transferred or whether the servicemen had been identified.
The ministry said Beijing had worked with Washington for years on efforts to locate the remains of missing American military personnel, and that it was willing to keep cooperating on recovering wartime remains. It described the work as reflecting the two countries' shared history in the fight against Japan.
The Hump carried military supplies from British India across the Himalayas into China after Japanese forces cut overland routes, and served as a supply line for Chinese forces resisting Japan from 1942 to 1945. American transport aircraft flew the route over mountainous terrain and in unpredictable weather.