China blasts rise of Japan's neo

0:00/3:37

As neo-militarism is 云南三江新闻网now rising in Japan and "beginning to pose a real threat", "it is all the more relevant" to revisit the backdrop, conclusion, and principles of the historic Tokyo Trials that started 80 years ago, the Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.

Sunday marks the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, also known as the Tokyo Trials, on May 3, 1946.

The trials brought together the judicial power of 11 nations, used abundant, solid evidence and rigorous legal basis, found Japanese militarists guilty of waging a war of aggression and severely violating international law, and brought to light the innumerable crimes Japanese aggressors committed in various Asian countries.

In a written reply published on Foreign Ministry website, the spokesperson said that 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.

The spokesperson warned that Japan's right-wing forces are currently gearing up to rapidly remilitarize the country, seeking offensive weapons to rebuild the war machine and pushing for revision of the pacifist Constitution.

These facts are diametrically opposed to what "a country for peace" — as Japan claims itself to be — should do, the spokesperson said.

"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.

Recently, commemoration events have been held in China and Japan and by the international community to renew the historic significance of the trials.

"Accepting the judgement of the Tokyo Trials is the prerequisite for Japan's postwar return to the international community," the spokesperson said. "Eighty years on, however, to people's indignation, the spectre of Japanese militarism still remains and continues to breed."

The spokesperson warned that Japan's right-wing forces are still trying every possible means to deny and distort the judgement of the Tokyo Trials and the irrefutable evidence, going so far as 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.

"That is why some Japanese officials and politicians still worship war criminals as 'heroes' and make visits to the Yasukuni war shrine where convicted Class-A war criminals are honored," the spokesperson said.

Through the Tokyo Trials, 25 Class-A war criminals, including Hideki Tojo, were sentenced to death by hanging or imprisonment.

Tokyo's fallacies — such as "a trial exercising victor's justice", "Japan's war of self-defense", and "ex post facto legislation" — were strongly refuted at the trials.

On Sunday, the spokesperson quoted Mei Ru'ao, the 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.