When thousands of Chinese rioted this spring over a new Japanese textbook that critics claimed glossed over wartime atrocities, a stunned Japanese press went looking for the instigator. An ocean away, the phone rang in the hillside home of Cupertino retiree Ignatius Ding.

Reporters wanted to know what kind of technology a Chinese immigrant in the United States could use to spark a riot halfway around the world.

Ding, 61, laughed at the notion that he would have some special technology or power.

``I told them, `You watch too much ``Star Trek,'' ' '' he said.

But Ding is on a global mission and today, the 60th anniversary of Japan's surrender to end World War II, the former technical consultant for IBM and Hewlett-Packard continues his work as spokesman and premier cyber-warrior for millions of Chinese and other Asians who believe Japan has never properly paid for its imperial brutality.

He and his supporters want their worldwide campaign, launched in Silicon Valley, to provide closure and compensation for the roughly 30 million civilians and soldiers who suffered through slaughter, mass rape and biological and chemical warfare at the hands of the Japanese during the 1930s and '40s. Their efforts have been newly recharged by the anniversary -- 60 is a key number in the Chinese zodiac signifying a full circle -- and by Japan's bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Since Ding helped found Global Alliance for Preserving the History of World War II in Asia in 1994, he has worked at his computer every night into the early hours of the morning -- planning conferences and events or sending copious e-mails regarding what many call the ``forgotten holocaust.''

Trained in strategic planning, Ding uses the same skills in his activism. In more than 15 years of work, he has taken on world powers and multinational corporations. He has pushed for declassification of war documents, teamed with high-powered lawyers who won billion-dollar settlements for Jewish Holocaust victims and helped orchestrate sales of the late Iris Chang's bestselling book, ``The Rape of Nanking: World War II's Forgotten Holocaust.''

The Global Alliance is a loose-knit group of 52 organizations that this year will raise and spend $130,000 on conferences, scholarships and an education campaign. Ding calls co-founder Cathy Tsang the ``soul and godmother'' and current president Betty Yuan the ``glue.'' But supporters say Ding also has a special perch.

``Worldwide leader,'' said Julie Tang, a San Francisco Superior Court judge who founded the Rape of Nanking Redress Coalition, an affiliate of Global Alliance. ``You can easily attribute that title to him because of his determination and conviction. He's somebody you know is not able to be convinced to back down.''

Ding calls that an exaggeration.

``What I do is give them the idea on how to bring something together,'' he said of the thousands working on the cause, most of whom he has never met. ``I don't play ball. I really just coach.''

If you hike the switchback stairway to Ding's three-story, semi-custom home and ring the bell, he appears in the attire of deep retirement, a man spurring a global movement in bare feet, shorts and a T-shirt. Only the slogan on the shirt -- ``Never, never, never give up'' -- provides a clue to his unrelenting passion.

He's a trim man not much over 5 feet, with a full head of black hair and a movie-star smile. Yet his footsteps shake the floor when he walks through the house, retrieving pieces from the mounds of information he collects: newspaper clippings in Dutch, Japanese and Chinese about his work; photographs of elderly Chinese with rotting open sores from Japanese use of chemical and biological warfare when they were children.

The Japanese Consulate General in San Francisco declined comment on Ding or Global Alliance activities. Japanese prime ministers have issued many apologies over the decades, the latest made today by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, his second this year. He expressed his ``deep reflections and heartfelt'' sorrow for the damages caused by Japan during its conquests in the region in World War II.

The government contends that reparations were settled by treaties ending the war and establishing diplomacy with China in 1978.

With the onset of the Cold War after World War II, critics say the United States worked quickly to close the books on Japanese war crimes to make Japan an anti-communist ally. By contrast, the United States fought vigorously to prosecute Nazi war criminals, and worked alongside lawyers suing the Swiss Bank to negotiate individual settlements for Nazi holocaust victims.

Getting the word out

Supporters credit the Global Alliance and Ding with putting the Asian story on the world radar, particularly in the United States, where it's not widely taught in schools.

The alliance also brought Korean, Filipino and American prisoners of war together in support of the cause and also united Chinese normally divided over the future of Taiwan.

Most recently, Ding drove a petition campaign that garnered more than 40 million signatures, most from China, demanding that Japan be denied a permanent U.N. Security Council seat until it apologizes and makes amends. For geopolitical reasons not connected to the petitions or protests, the bid is expected to fail.

One of Ding's greatest feats in outreach came with the publication of Chang's book in 1997. The two strategized a year in advance how to make it a bestseller. It worked so well, other publishers asked Ding to promote their books.

``He was a key factor in making sure that book found its audiences,'' said Susan Rabiner, Chang's editor. ``There aren't many people in the U.S. today who don't have some inkling of the term `rape of Nanking,' and what that means. Ignatius deserves a lot of credit for that.''

When Chang, who suffered from depression, committed suicide last November, Ding was devastated. ``It took me a long time to accept,'' he said.

Ding grew up in a politically influential household in China and Taiwan, only to eschew all politics for the high-tech world.

Born in 1943, he spent his early years in ``the cave,'' a government bunker in Chunking where his family was hiding from the Japanese. His grandfather, Ding Wei-fen, a friend of modern China's founder, Sun Yat-sen, and a high official in the Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, moved the family to Taiwan after the war.

Ding's father discouraged him from entering politics, having lived his life in the shadow of a party leader. It wasn't difficult. Ding's first passion was computers. In the 1960s he tried unsuccessfully to create an electronic assembly plant, then earned a graduate degree in strategic planning at the University of Missouri.

In 1978 he came to Silicon Valley with IBM, and in 1984 landed at Hewlett-Packard, where he ignored world events and buried himself in technical consulting work.

That changed in the late spring of 1989, when thousands of Chinese took to the streets to demand democratic reforms.

``I had given up on the Chinese, period. There was no hope,'' he said. ``But I was looking at all the children, young people, old people, workers, and I thought there's still hope.''

Then, kneeling in front of the television in the family room, he watched tanks roll into Tiananmen Square and open fire. ``Right in front of me, my world was shattered,'' he said. ``I felt like I was dying inside.''

Reaching the world

He joined Silicon Valley for Democracy in China. He put his strategic planning skills to work building international alliances for the group and dealing with the media. Before the Internet hit the general public, he was already collecting mass e-mail communication hubs and creating one of the first Web sites, which focused on human rights.

In 1991, Tsang invited Ding to a memorial event in Sunnyvale for the victims of the 1937 massacre in the Chinese province of Nanjing, where the Japanese tortured and slaughtered as many as 300,000 people. The organizers expected only a few people to show up, but instead, several hundred came and testified about what they had endured.

Climate for change

Ding saw the issue as a non-confrontational way to bring changes to China. He had been persona non grata there for his pro-democracy efforts, but received a cautious welcome when he returned to China for the first time in 2002.

``I didn't change, they changed.'' Ding said. ``I'm more useful to them now. . . . I can get under the skin of the Japanese better than they do.''

On occasion, Ding's single-mindedness also has gotten under the skin of his supporters.

``He has his own opinion. If he thinks he's doing the right thing, it's hard to change his mind,'' Tsang said.

Alliance co-founder Gilbert Chang nearly left the group over differences with Ding, who he said would act independently of the leadership. He said Ding has mellowed in recent years.

But never enough to give up. Ding said his work won't be done until Japan decides to change.

``Not in terms of words or dollars but attitude,'' he said. ``People in Asia still remember. They've never had closure. There's so much hatred. . . . We have to work in multiple ways to change that.''