Extract from ABC News
Posted 20 minutes ago
Photo:
Japanese troops storm a barricade during the fighting in Nanjing
(Supplied: Nanjing People's Anti-Japan War Museum)
Japan has lashed out at UNESCO's decision to
inscribe documents related to the Nanjing massacre in its Memory of
the World register, describing it as "extremely regrettable"
and calling for the process to be reformed.
Key points
- Japan labels UNESCO's decision to archive documents related to the Nanjing massacre as "extremely regrettable"
- UNESCO inscribed the documents in its Memory of the World register
- China says 300,000 people died in a six-week spree of killing, rape and destruction after the Japanese military entered Nanjing
- The massacre is an exceptionally sensitive issue in the often-tense relations between Japan and China
The UN's cultural and scientific body agreed to 47
new inscriptions on Friday, including a request by Beijing to mark
documents recording the mass murder and rape committed by Japanese
troops after the fall of the Chinese city of Nanjing in 1937.
The massacre, often referred to as the Rape of
Nanjing, is an exceptionally sensitive issue in the often-tense
relations between Japan and China, with Beijing charging that Tokyo
has failed to atone for the atrocity.
Japan had called for the Nanjing documents not to
be included and on Saturday accused UNESCO of being politicised.
"It is extremely regrettable that a global
organisation that should be neutral and fair entered the documents in
the Memory of the World register, despite the repeated pleas made by
the Japanese government," Tokyo's foreign ministry said in a
statement.
"As a responsible member of UNESCO, the
Japanese government will seek a reform of this important project, so
that it will not be used politically."
The UNESCO decision came after a two-year process
during a meeting of experts tasked with studying nominations from 40
countries.
The new inscriptions were agreed at a meeting that
ran from Sunday to Tuesday and was held in the United Arab Emirates.
Japan's World War II record still creating friction
The Japanese military invaded China in the 1930s
and the two countries fought a full-scale war from 1937 until Japan's
defeat in World War II in 1945.
China says 300,000 people died in a six-week spree
of killing, rape and destruction after the Japanese military entered
Nanjing.
Some respected foreign academics put the number
lower but there is very little mainstream scholarship doubting that a
massacre took place.
In Japan, however, some conservatives and
nationalists deny that atrocities were committed, a source of regular
regional friction.
Photo:
When Japanese troops arrived in Nanjing, they went on widespread
killing spree (Supplied: Nanjing People's Anti-Japan War Museum)
In February, a senior executive at Japan's
publicly funded TV broadcaster NHK denied the massacre, reportedly
dismissing accounts of it as "propaganda".
Japan's official position is that "the
killing of a large number of non-combatants, looting and other acts
occurred" took place, but it adds "it is difficult to
determine" the true number of victims.
In April this year, Japan rebuffed protests about
newly approved textbooks after complaints that they failed to use the
word "massacre" when referring to the mass slaughter of
Chinese civilians in Nanjing, preferring the term "incident".
Tokyo frequently clashes with many of its Asian
neighbours over its war record, with many accusing the country of
failing to atone for its atrocities or recognise the suffering that
took place under the yoke of Japanese militarism.
The Memory of the World register, set up in 1992,
is aimed at preserving humanity's documentary heritage, and currently
holds 348 documents and archives that come from countries all over
the world.
"It is my deep and firm conviction that the
Memory of the World program should be guided in its work to preserve
documentary heritage and memory for the benefit of present and future
generations in the spirit of international cooperation and mutual
understanding, building peace in the minds of women and men,"
UNESCO director Irina Bokova said.
Japan had two entries recognised by UNESCO on
Friday.
The first was a body of 18th century documents
amassed by a Buddhist temple and the second a tranche of documents
related to the internment of Japanese prisoners in Siberian labour
camps after the end of World War II.
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