A collection of scanned diplomatic records related to Japan’s invasion of China has been formally handed over during a ceremony at the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders.
The archives were gathered by French researcher Bastien Ratat while examining files at the Center of Diplomatic Archives in Nantes, under France’s Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs.
Comprising 42 documents and nearly 2,000 pages, the materials date from 1920 to 1943 and are written mainly in French, with some in English, Japanese, and Chinese. They cover events such as the Nanjing Massacre, Japan’s expansion in northeast China, and the connections between Japanese military actions and Western interests in the region.
According to Ratat, the documents include exchanges between French diplomats and their counterparts from Britain, the United States, and Italy, along with translated telegrams from Japan’s former Dōmei News Agency, offering corroborating accounts within the same files.
Zhou Feng, curator of the memorial hall, stated that the materials will be stored in the institution’s documentation center. He added that the archives hold important value for advancing historical research and reaffirm that Japan’s wartime actions, including the Nanjing Massacre, were already known internationally during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
