The 88th anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre is Dec.13, and there are always major ceremonies at the memorial in Nanjing on this date, for the 1937 mass atrocity. This year, again, there was a major delegation from Japan, including a Japanese history professor who wrote a book on the massacre, but who had previously never visited the memorial. The memorial received perhaps more coverage this year with the outbreak of tensions between the two countries, after statements from Tokyo’s Prime Minister placing in doubt Japan’s commitment to the one China policy.
Speaking at a memorial ceremony in Nanjing on Dec. 13, Shi Taifeng, head of the ruling Communist Party’s organization department, said that any attempt by Japan to revive militarism, challenge the postwar international order, or undermine global peace and stability was “doomed to failure,” according to state broadcaster CCTV.
The conflict has also placed heightened emphasis on the notorious Japanese biological experiments on Chinese civilians in the Program 731 in Manchuria, in preparing methods for biological warfare.
Russia has also recently transmitted to China documents collected when Russia tried the Japanese officers and physicians responsible for the war crimes. Toward the end of the war, Marshal Rodion Malinovsky commanded the Russian forces in their moves into Manchuria, where they found the buildings where Japan conducted these experiments. Trials were held in the Soviet city of Khabarovsk in 1949, on the Manchuria border. Several of those tried were sentenced to prison. The Soviet material helps Chinese authorities in documenting Japan’s crimes. “Many of these materials contain information previously unknown to us, serving to complement and corroborate the contents of our existing archival collections,” said Zhou Zhenfan, an official with the archive preservation department of China’s Central Archives.