Illustration: Xia Qing/GT

After Japan's Asahi Shimbun revealed that Japanese right-wing forces have been using artificial intelligence on a large scale to churn out disinformation denying the Nanjing Massacre and claiming Japan treated civilians humanely during its invasion of China, China's Ministry of State Security on Sunday published a commentary slamming such acts that trampled on historical justice and human conscience and have drawn fierce criticism from the international community and visionary people in Japan.

Such blatant distortion of wartime history tramples historical justice and human conscience, drawing fierce condemnation from the international community and insightful figures within Japan, per MSS.

Japanese right-wing forces post assignments on major crowdsourcing platforms including CrowdWorks and have long run recruitment ads explicitly calling for production of so-called "criticizing China" videos. Contractors provide assignees with detailed operation guides. After inputting simple prompts into AI software, creators can generate a smear video within mere minutes.

Public budget data from Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs shows that since 2015, Tokyo has allocated more than 56 billion yen ($3.43 billion) under the name of "overseas strategic information dissemination" specifically for launching opinion-based smearing campaigns against China. Such efforts include twisting historical perceptions and downplaying Japan's war of aggression responsibilities.

An investigation by Asahi Shimbun revealed that a 30-second AI-generated disinformation video distorting the history of Japan's invasion of China is priced at 5,000 yen. Creators earn a bonus of 1,000 yen per 1,000 views for China-related negative content — over three times the reward for ordinary videos — with additional payouts for hitting viewership targets. This flagrant, price-tagged model has drastically lowered barriers to participation, drawing large numbers of creators lacking capacity to distinguish historical facts, and fueling mass output of falsified historical content.

AI-manipulated videos distorting the history of Japan's invasion spread rapidly across online platforms, continuously stirring disputes and muddying public opinions. Such content disrupts normal information circulation and poses risks to China's ideological security.

As wartime witnesses pass away and the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression fades into history, the internet has become a key channel for younger generations to access and understand historical facts. Yet AI-propagated fabricated historical narratives easily mislead teenagers with incomplete historical knowledge, diluting and distorting collective historical memory as it passes between generations.

Disinformation generated overseas may flow back into China's cyberspace. Left unchecked, such content risks dismantling the collective memory and unity the Chinese nation forged during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. Worse still, if these falsified materials contaminate training datasets for domestic large language models, AI systems may internalize historical biases espoused by Japanese right-wing forces when answering history-related queries, warping Chinese people's understanding of history. Rigorous precautions must be enforced to block infiltration of these problematic videos into China, MSS noted.

From toning down references to "aggression" in textbooks and annual visits to the infamous Yasukuni Shrine worshipping war criminals, to reclassifying the Nanjing Massacre as an "incident" at the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, and now leveraging AI to whitewash wartime crimes, Japanese right-wing forces have relentlessly strived to cultivate a public image of Japan as a "peaceful nation". They seek to whitewash the crimes of militarist aggression through carefully crafted narratives and symbolic vanity projects. But truth cannot be tampered with, and war guilt can never be erased.

The judgment of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in 1948 featured a dedicated chapter ruling on the "Nanjing Atrocities." In 2015, the Documents of the Nanjing Massacre were inscribed onto UNESCO's Memory of the World Register. Over 192,000 cultural relics preserved at the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders, alongside witnesses' diaries The Good Man of Nanking, Terror in Minnie Vautrin's Nanjing, the John Magee footage and survivor testimonies, archival records, relics and remains, all constitute overwhelming, ironclad evidence and brook no ambiguity or any attempts to "reverse the verdict." 

The fact that Japanese right-wing forces resort to elaborate disinformation tactics instead of reflecting on their historical guilt speaks volumes: they are fully aware that crimes of aggression can never be washed away, nor historical facts erased, leaving them no choice but to fool themselves with lies.

History brooks no revision, and justice resides with the people. The more petty schemes and wrong turns Japanese right-wing forces take over historical issues, the greater vigilance and opposition they will encounter from the international community. Any attempt to erase historical truth via technological tools is destined to collapse in the face of irrefutable evidence and universal justice. Only by facing history squarely can nations march toward the future; only genuine remorse can sustain peace. China will work alongside the international community to resolutely resist and dismantle lies fabricated by Japanese right-wing forces and safeguard historical justice, the MSS stressed.

Global Times