Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning

In response to a media inquiry regarding reports that the city of Nagasaki plans to complete updates to exhibition panels at the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum during fiscal year 2026, including replacing the term "Nanjing Massacre" with "Nanjing Incident" on a display panel, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Friday that the Nanjing Massacre was a brutal crime committed by Japanese militarism, with overwhelming and irrefutable evidence, and that history must not be distorted. 

She said the Tokyo Trial explicitly determined that the atrocities committed by Japanese forces in Nanjing constituted a "massacre," not an "incident." Mao said the judgment of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East devoted a special section to the atrocities in Nanjing and, based on extensive survivor testimonies, records by third-party foreign witnesses, and Japanese military archives, established through an international judicial ruling the grave crimes committed by the invading Japanese army during the Nanjing Massacre.

Mao said that General Iwane Matsui, held responsible for the Nanjing Massacre, was sentenced to death by hanging as a Class-A war criminal and stressed that history must not be overturned. She added that many Japanese atomic bomb survivors, civic groups in Nagasaki, and other people of insight have called for a correct and complete account of the crimes and history of Japanese militarism as an aggressor. 

Japan should deeply reflect on its wartime crimes and responsibilities and make a clean break with militarism, Mao said. 

Global Times