Update: China urges Japan to reflect on war crimes, make clean break with militarism

Xinhua
05 Jun 2026, 21:20 GMT+10

BEIJING, June 5 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson on Friday urged Japan to deeply reflect on its war crimes and make a clean break with militarism.

Spokesperson Mao Ning made the remarks at a daily press briefing, in response to media reports regarding relevant plans of Japan's Nagasaki atomic bomb museum to update exhibition panels.

Mao said there is abundant evidence for the Nanjing Massacre, a horrendous war crime of Japanese militarists that shall never be erased. The Tokyo Trials ruled in black and white that the wartime atrocities of the Japanese army in Nanjing were a "massacre," not a mere "incident." The Judgement of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East dedicated a special chapter to detail "the Rape of Nanking."

Mao noted with numerous survivors' testimonies, records of third-country witnesses and Japanese army files, the judgement, in the form of the ruling of international justice, made it very clear that the Japanese army who invaded China committed the heinous crime of the Nanjing Massacre. The Massacre's chief perpetrator Iwane Matsui was sentenced to death by hanging as a class-A war criminal.

The verdict of history must not be overturned, said Mao, adding that many survivors of the atomic bombs in Japan, Nagasaki citizen groups and people with insights have called for fully and accurately depicting the crimes and history of Japanese militarists as victimizers.

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