BEIJING, (Xinhua) — Eighty years after the opening of the Tokyo Trials, the publication of a complete Chinese translation of the transcripts of the proceedings of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) spotlights innumerable war crimes of Japanese militarists, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said here on Friday.
These transcripts are the core archives of the Tokyo Trials. They documented the tribunal’s entire proceedings that lasted for more than two years. The handwritten diaries by U.S. lawyer David Nelson Sutton who served as an assistant prosecutor at the Tokyo Trials were recently uncovered and made public for the first time.
Lin told a daily press briefing that the IMTFE held a total of 818 court sessions, heard testimony from 419 witnesses, examined 4,336 pieces of evidence and formed nearly 50,000 pages of English transcripts of court proceedings. The Tribunal brought to light the wartime atrocities of Japanese militarism in Asian countries, ruled that militarist Japan waged a war of aggression, and condemned the Fascist war criminals to perpetual infamy.
“The publication of the Chinese translation of the transcripts and the diaries by Prosecutor Sutton once again spotlight the innumerable and ironclad war crimes of the Japanese militarists,” said Lin.
He said eighty years on, the right-wing forces in Japan remain unrepentant over the history of the war and continue to try every means possible to whitewash the crime of aggression and instill a distorted view of history among the Japanese public.
Some Japanese politicians even pay frequent visits to the Yasukuni war shrine where convicted Class-A war criminals are honored. Lin said these moves are essentially attempts to negate the judgement of the Tokyo Trials and challenge the postwar international order.
“History and truth shall not be erased. Principles and justice shall not be fudged. The postwar international order shall not be challenged,” said Lin, adding that no peace-loving people in the world will ever allow the verdict on the war crimes to be reversed or stop saying no to Japanese neo-militarism.
