The Japanese version of a book that outlines the crimes Japanese troops committed on the Chinese people in Nanjing City during the Second World War has been published.

Nanjing Massacre, which is in two volumes, contains first-hand, full and accurate materials, including recollections of survivors and 790,000 letters, in evidence of the crimes of Japanese invaders.

Sun Zhaiwei, chief editor of the book, said he hoped it would help academics in China and Japan to study this part of history and help Chinese people, Japanese people and the international community to have a complete and authoritative understanding of the incident.

The Chinese edition of the book was published in 1997.

Japan launched the war of aggression against China in July 1937.

The Nanjing Massacre occurred in December that year when Japanese troops occupied Nanjing, the then capital of China. Over 300,000 Chinese were killed, one third of the houses in the city were burned and more than 20,000 women were raped.

Historical records bear witness to the fact that Japanese troops committed the atrocity in Nanjing. Photos of the massacre scenes at the Zhongshan Wharf taken by a photographer for the Japanese troops also document the slaughter. During the massacre, Japanese troops killed more than 9,000 Chinese citizens at the wharf with machine guns and threw the bodies into the river on Dec.16 and 18, 1937.
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(Xinhua News Agency February 19, 2004)