China begins publishing Nanjing Massacre testimonies

Xia Shuqin sued two rightist Japanese historians in 2009 for 4.55 million yen (about $44,500). In the case, the Japanese Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Shudo Higashinakano, an Asia University scholar, and Tendensha, a publishing house, ordering them to pay a combined total of 4 million yen in damages.

In his book, Higashinakano defamed Xia by saying she had lied about witness

New textbooks published on Nanjing Massacre

ing the mass murder. The verdict demanded an immediate end to the publishing of the books and the recall and destruction of all sold copies.

"I lived with the bodies of my family for 14 days before I dared to go out. My mother and my two sisters were raped and tortured before they were killed," Xia recalls.

"The most powerful evidence is no doubt the narrations of survivors themselves," says Fei Zhongxing, a researcher on the Nanjing Massacre.

"Using the Internet to spread history can give people knowledge."

In the past several months, China's State Archives Administration has published 45 confessions by Japanese war criminals and documents and videos that showed Japan's aggression and defeat in China during the 1930s and 1940s.

On Sept 3, President Xi Jinping urged the Japanese government to admit to and reflect on its history of militarist aggression, as China marked the 69th anniversary of victory in the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937-45).

China will allow neither denial nor distortion of this history, or any return to militarism, he said.

The war broke out in 1937 and ended on Aug 15, 1945, with Japan's unconditional surrender, which also cemented victory in WWII.

China was the major battlefield in the East, and more than 35 million Chinese died or were wounded during the war.