Shanghai to build memorial hall for Tokyo Trials
Shanghai is planning to build a memorial hall for the Tokyo Trials next year as an educational base for the history of the Second World War as well as the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression.
The Tokyo Trials, also known as the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, was a trial convened on April 29, 1946 to try the leaders of the Japanese empire for “Class A” crimes, formed by allied countries including China, the US, Soviet Union and the UK.
Next year marks the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and China, and the 70th anniversary of the judgment of the Tokyo Trials (execution of Japanese war criminals), so the plan of building the memorial hall has drawn the attention of China and Japan.
Cheng Zhaoqi, head of the Center for Tokyo Trial Studies at the Shanghai Jiaotong University, told the Global Times that Shanghai is planning this hall, and said that “The Tokyo Trails is not like other incidents during the war but the summary of Japan’s war crimes against humanity from the international community.”
This summary set Japan’s return to the international community, but unfortunately, in recent years, many Japanese politicians are trying to deny this culmination and to overthrow it, Cheng stressed.
Japan’s Kyodo News reported on Saturday that China is planning to build the memorial hall in Shanghai. Cheng told Kyodo News that the municipal government is choosing a location for the hall, and apart from relevant documents and photos, a huge oil painting of judges, procurators and war criminals will also be displayed in the hall.
Japanese right-wingers consider the judgment “unfair” for Japan, and “the revenge of the war’s winners,” Kyodo News reported. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in 2013 that it is “a judgment made by the winner against the loser.”
Chinese Net users praised the plan. A comment from Net user Zhang Pei received the most likes on WeChat platform. Zhang said that “not only the hall, we should build a comfort women’s monument in every Chinese city.”