China to publish Tokyo Trials book collection

The National Library of China (NLC) said Friday that a collection of 80 books detailing the post-World War II Tokyo Trials will be published in June. The "Court Records of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE)" will contain records covering all 818 trials held from May 3, 1946 to Nov. 12, 1948, the library said. The library's statement came days after media reports detailing recent comments made by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in which he challenged the fairness of the judgments made during the trials. The collection, the first of its kind published by China, will include presentations of the prosecution and defense, as well as the verdicts, the statement said. Japan published its own collection of books on the trials in 1968. The materials will provide evidence of the justice and fairness of the tribunal and its verdicts, said Gao Hong, a research fellow at the library. The books were compiled by the NLC and Shanghai Jiao Tong University starting in March last year. A great deal of material was collected from archives and libraries in Taiwan, as well as the United States and Japan. Also known as the Tokyo Trials, the IMTFE brought formal prosecution to 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. The IMTFE marked the biggest international trial in terms of scale and duration, surpassing the Nuremberg trials.