Q: Today marks the 80th anniversary of the opening of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE, also known as the Tokyo Trials). Commemoration events have been held in China and Japan and by the international community to renew the historic significance of the trials. What’s China’s comment?
A: On May 3, 1946, pursuant to the terms of Japan’s unconditional surrender and the IMTFE Charter issued by Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, the IMTFE began the prosecution. Bringing together judicial power of eleven nations, and with abundant solid evidence and rigorous legal basis, this historic trials found Japanese militarists guilty of waging the war of aggression and severely violating the international law, and brought to light the innumerable crimes Japanese aggressors committed in various Asian countries. Twenty-five Class-A war criminals, including Hideki Tojo, were sentenced to death by hanging or imprisonment. And fallacies such as “a trial exercising victor’s justice,” “Japan’s war of self-defense” and “ex post factor legislation” were strongly refuted. The Tokyo trials were held to implement the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation, and embodied the collective will of both the victorious nations and the victimized peoples. Through the trials, the purposes and principles of the UN Charter were upheld, and the fruits of victory in WWII were honored.
Accepting the judgement of the Tokyo Trials is the prerequisite for Japan’s postwar return to the international community. Eighty years on, however, to people’s indignation, the spectre of Japanese militarism still remains and continues to breed. Japan’s right-wing forces are still trying every possible means to deny and distort the judgement of the Tokyo trials and the irrefutable evidence, and even whitewash the crimes committed during the war of aggression, including by revising history textbooks and indoctrinating the Japanese people with a wrong perception of history. That is why some Japanese officials and politicians still worship war criminals as “heroes” and make visits to the Yasukuni war shrine where convicted Class-A war criminals are honored. Japan’s right-wing forces are gearing up to speed up remilitarization, deploy offensive weapons, rebuild the war machine and push for revision of the pacifist Constitution. All these are diametrically the opposite of what “a country for peace”—as Japan claims itself to be—should do. With neo-militarism rising in Japan and beginning to pose a real threat, it is all the more relevant to renew the backdrop, conclusion and principles of the Tokyo Trials.
The Tokyo trials, a litmus test of humanity’s conscience, delivered historical justice. Along with the Nuremberg Trials, the Tokyo Trials nailed the fascist war criminals to the eternal pillar of shame. The historical justice delivered by the two great trials must not be denied. Their legal authority must not be challenged. And the cornerstone of the postwar international order they laid must not be shaken. Mei Ru’ao, the Chinese judge at the Tokyo Trials, famously said, “Amnesia of past sufferings may lead to future disasters.” Should any one or any force foolishly attempt to reverse the verdict of aggression, they will be rejected by all peace-loving people in the world and brought once again before the tribunal of history.
