As neo-militarism is 许村镇新闻网now rising in Japan and "beginning to pose a real threat", the Foreign Ministry said on Sunday that "it is all the more relevant" to revisit the backdrop, conclusion and principles of the historic Tokyo Trials that started 80 years ago.
Sunday marked the 80th anniversary of the opening of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, also known as the Tokyo Trials, on May 3, 1946.
The trials brought together judicial powers of 11 nations, used abundant solid evidence and a rigorous legal basis, 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.
Through the Tokyo Trials, 25 Class A war criminals including Hideki Tojo were sentenced to death by hanging or imprisonment.
In a written reply published on the Foreign Ministry website, the spokesperson said 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 United Nations Charter were upheld, and the fruits of victory in World War II were honored", the spokesperson said.
Japan's right-wing forces are still trying to whitewash the crimes committed during the war of aggression, including revising history textbooks and indoctrinating the Japanese people with a wrong perception of history, the spokesperson warned.
The right-wing forces currently are gearing up their drive to speed up remilitarization, deploy offensive weapons, rebuild the war machine and push for revision of the pacifist Constitution, the spokesperson said.
All these are diametrically the opposite of what "a country for peace" — as Japan claims itself to be — should do, the spokesperson added.
"The Tokyo Trials, as a litmus test of humanity's conscience, delivered historical justice and, along with the Nuremberg Trials, nailed the fascist war criminals to the eternal pillar of shame," the spokesperson said.
"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," the spokesperson added.
Liu Jiangyong, a professor of Japan studies at Tsinghua University, said Japan's perspective on history and wars is closely linked to its current political landscape.
"Some in Japan view the convicted war criminals enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine as 'heroes' because they believe Japan's past colonial rule, aggression and expansion constitutes a history of 'victory' and 'pride' — they show not the slightest remorse," he said.
"This year is particularly significant because of the Tokyo Trials anniversary. At such a crucial historical juncture, we must remember history while remaining vigilant against Japan's attempts to whitewash these war criminals," he added.
Recently, commemoration events have been held in China and Japan and by the international community to renew the historic significance of the trials.
On Sunday, the Foreign Ministry spokesperson quoted Mei Ru'ao, the late Chinese judge at the Tokyo Trials, who said, "Amnesia of past sufferings may lead to future disasters."
"Should anyone 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," the spokesperson said.
Mei Xiaokan, daughter of Mei and a veteran researcher on the history of the Tokyo Trials, said,"What concerned my father most at that time was the possible scene in which those people (Japanese war criminals) do not receive the punishment they deserve."
"So he spared no effort in explaining what actually happened (during the war) to his fellow judges, trying to let them better know how atrocious the war crimes committed by the Japanese had been to the Chinese people," she told local media recently in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province.
Tokyo's fallacies such as "a trial exercising so-called victor's justice" and "Japan's war of self-defense" were refuted at the trials, the Foreign Ministry spokesperson noted."Accepting the judgment of the Tokyo Trials is the prerequisite for Japan's postwar return to the international community."
