Deep insights into Tokyo Trial
Print Edition
TO study history is to understand who we are and how our thoughts, behaviors and interactions have changed over time. Therefore, to fully acknowledge what happened 70 years ago at the Tokyo Trial is not to hold a grudge against a former opponent, but to bridge the gap and look forward to a new page of history in Sino-Japanese relations.
On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the opening of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press joined hands with the National Library of China and released a series of books with the transcripts of the court proceedings relating to China. The aim is to highlight some events about the Tokyo Trial that most Chinese aren’t very familiar with and to open a floor for discussion.
“Transcripts of the Proceedings of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East: The China-related Phases,” is a series of 12 books that chronicle the everyday proceedings of the Tribunal between July 1, 1946 and April 16, 1948, including the “Invasion of Manchuria,” the “Nanking Atrocities with Evidences from Both the Prosecution and Defense,” and the “Judgment International Military Tribunal for the Far East Indictment.”
The Tokyo Trial, also referred to as the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, opened on May 3, 1946 and tried high-ranking political and military leaders of Japan.
In 1931, Japan instigated the Mukden Incident in Shenyang. Within three months, northeastern China had fallen into the enemy’s hands. On July 7, 1937, by starting the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, Japan waged a war against the whole of China. A month later, Japanese troops invaded Shanghai, marking the beginning of the Battle of Shanghai. On December 13 that year, Japan occupied Nanking, then the capital of China, and committed the Nanking Massacre. In the next eight years, Japanese troops committed war crimes in other parts of China.
On September 2, 1945, Japan surrendered unconditionally. Four months later, allied nations established the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo to bring alleged Japanese war criminals to trial. The court was formed by representatives from 11 countries: China, the Soviet Union, the United State, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and the Philippines.
The trial lasted more than two and a half years, 817 court sessions were opened and 419 people were called as court witnesses. As many as 4,336 pieces of evidences were admitted, and 48,412 pages of trial transcripts were recorded.
In November 1948, the verdicts and sentences were announced, which took seven days. Twenty-five Class-A war criminals were found guilty and seven were sentenced to death. The total cost of the trials amounted to as much as US$750 million at that time.
Although seven decades have passed, the Tribunal is still a sensitive issue in Sino-Japanese relations. A monument of Indian Judge Pal, who raised objections during the Tokyo Trial and insisted that the Class-A criminals were not guilty, stands at Japan’s Yasukuni Shrine. While in China, people believed that the Tokyo Trial hadn’t served justice.
Despite the fact China was among the victorious countries during WWII, the domestic and international situations at that time had added many difficulties to the trial. The nationalist government, thinking the aggression was universally known and the trial would simply be a formality, was therefore ill-prepared for the cases.
Legacies of the past have continued to trigger questions of today — Why Japanese Prime Minister Abe repeatedly questioned the liberty of the Tokyo trial and why Japanese history textbooks had, over the years, been trying to avoid mentioning the invasion of China?
“If there were a Tokyo Trial essentially similar to the Nuremberg trials, there would be considerably less room for imagination when confronted with historical facts,” said Cheng Zhaoqi, editor-in-chief of the series.
Cheng, who is also head of the Center for Tokyo Trial Studies affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University, has been studying the records for years.
“This is the first time for the full transcripts of the trial to be published in the Chinese language for Chinese readers and historians by and large. Previously, we had excerpts from either the English version or the Japanese version. After comparing the two versions, we found what’s missing on either side was exactly what raised controversies over the years,” Cheng said.
Translation of the proceedings started in 2012, according to Cheng, right after the Center for Tokyo Trial Studies in Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University was set up. Along the way, names and facts were checked and double checked, new resources were found, and an index book was also compiled to facilitate fast and accurate information retrieval.
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