80-volume Tokyo Trials account debuts in Beijing

BEIJING - An 80-volume, nearly 50,000-page book detailing the post-World War II Tokyo Trials of Japanese war criminals was released in Beijing on Monday.

Co-compiled by the National Library of China (NLC) and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University(SJTU) and published by the SJTU Press, the book is the first full account of the trials held between May 3, 1946 and November 12, 1948 to be published in China.

Publication of the book provides the most fundamental, first-hand documents on the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) for Chinese scholars and readers, said Zhou Heping, curator of NLC.

The book also serves as powerful evidence to back China in refuting Japanese right-wing forces' false remarks on the history of Japanese aggression, according to analysts.

On Monday's launch event, the book's editorial board donated a copy of the book to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Central Archives, the Museum of the War of Chinese People's Resistance against Japanese Aggression, and the Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre each.

The IMTFE formally prosecuted 28 Japanese Class-A war criminals, including Hideki Tojo, the former prime minister of Japan.

The tribunal lasted for more than two and a half years, with the court sentencing Tojo and six other criminals to death.

Japan published its own collection of books on the trials in 1968.

The IMTFE was the biggest post-WWII international trial in terms of scale and duration, surpassing the Nuremberg trials.