The hard-won postwar peace in Asia was built on tragic historical lessons. Diluting those lessons risks putting humanity in harm's way again.

by Shao Xia

Eighty years after the Tokyo Trial began, debates over its legitimacy are again intensifying in Japan. A growing current of right-wing historical revisionism seeks not only to reinterpret wartime history, but to recast Imperial Japan as misunderstood, victimized, or even justified in its actions.

These arguments are not simply academic disputes. They strike at the moral and legal foundations of the postwar international order. Behind many of them lies a broader attempt to sabotage the historical consensus that aggressive war, colonial expansion, and crimes against civilians must carry consequences.

Five recurring claims in particular deserve closer examination.

I. "The Tokyo Trial is illegitimate"

Japanese right-wing revisionists often dismiss the Tokyo Trial as "victors' justice," arguing that the Allies unfairly punished Japan for actions that had not been previously defined as crimes -- overlooking the essential fact that the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact, to which Japan was a party, had already outlawed aggressive war. The Tokyo Trial was convened not because Japan had lost the war, but because it had waged wars of aggression against other countries.

The tribunal operated in line with formal judicial procedures, hearing testimony from hundreds of witnesses, reviewing thousands of pieces of evidence, and allowing extensive legal defense for the accused. This represented an effort to hold wartime aggression legally accountable rather than seek political retribution.

II. "Japan fought a war of self-defense"

Another longstanding narrative portrays Imperial Japan as a victim of Western sanctions and strategic encirclement, and even claims that Tokyo was effectively forced into war.

This argument is untenable. Sanctions by the United States and others came only after Japan's invasion of China escalated into a full-scale war, followed by its expansion into Southeast Asia. Revisionist arguments that framed this aggression as an act of self-preservation have effectively reversed cause and effect.

The claim that Japan sought to "liberate Asia" through the so-called "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" is equally difficult to reconcile with historical reality. At the Tokyo Trial, Chinese prosecutor Xiang Zhejun challenged the defense argument that no state of war existed between China and Japan. He asked how the invasion and killing of millions of Chinese civilians and soldiers could be described as anything other than war.

Atrocities in China, colonial rule in Korea, forced labor in Southeast Asia, and systematic resource extraction are all evidence of Japan's imperial domination, not liberation.

III. "Japan was the true victim of the war"

Another revisionist argument focuses on Japanese suffering during the war, particularly the atomic bombings and civilian casualties.

The suffering of Japanese civilians was undeniably real. But it cannot be separated from the militarist system that produced the war, nor can it be used to obscure atrocities committed across Asia, including the Nanjing Massacre, Unit 731's biological warfare experiments and the coercion of women into sexual slavery.

Selective memory turns perpetrators into victims while once again silencing the real victims. The evidence presented at the Tokyo Trial, from missionary diaries to survivor testimony, exposed the crimes of Japanese militarism to the world and secured their place in the historical record.

IV. "The Tokyo Trial's conclusions no longer matter"

To support the claim that the Tokyo Trial's conclusions are no longer relevant, Japanese historical revisionism is increasingly reshaping public memory by revising textbooks and honoring Class-A war criminals at Yasukuni Shrine, thereby obscuring the tribunal's findings. Even at the trial's former courtroom, the emperor's throne has reportedly been placed above the judges' bench, symbolically elevating imperial authority over the tribunal itself.

In the same vein, revisionists frequently cite the dissenting opinion of Indian judge Radhabinod Pal, who rejected the guilty verdicts. However, elevating a single dissent above the tribunal's final judgment reflects a misunderstanding of how courts function. The Tokyo Trial reached its conclusions through majority decision-making, and those judgments became part of the legal and political settlement that shaped postwar Asia.

V. "Individuals should not be held accountable for war crimes"

Perhaps the most consequential revisionist argument is the attempt to shift responsibility from individual war criminals to state institutions.

This directly contradicts one of the most important principles of international law: individuals can be held criminally accountable for violations of international law. Both the Tokyo and Nuremberg trials helped establish that aggressive war and crimes against humanity are committed by people, not by faceless institutions.

Japanese wartime leaders repeatedly defended themselves by claiming they were merely serving the emperor or carrying out national policies. But atrocities such as mass killings and systematic abuses were not committed by an abstract entity called "Japan." They were planned, ordered, and executed by identifiable individuals. Without individual accountability, international law would be impossible to enforce. Holding wartime leaders personally responsible was not just about punishing their crimes but also about deterring future wars of aggression.

The hard-won postwar peace in Asia was built on tragic historical lessons. Diluting those lessons risks putting humanity in harm's way again. As memories of World War II fade, debates over history are increasingly becoming debates over international norms themselves. That is precisely why the arguments surrounding the Tokyo Trial still matter today.

Editor's note: The author is a commentator on international affairs, writing regularly for Xinhua News Agency, Global Times, China Daily, and CGTN. He can be reached at [email protected].

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Xinhua News Agency.