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Japan seeks truth about Nanjing massacre http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUST20256220070511
Fri May 11, 2007
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan should take steps to ensure that films and exhibitions planned in China on the Nanjing massacre do not distort the truth, a government official said on Friday
China's official Xinhua news agency said in late March that no fewer than four Chinese films about the wartime atrocity were planned for this year, the 70th anniversary of Japan's capture of China's former capital.
"There will be various movies and exhibitions on the Nanking incident, and it is natural that we should make efforts to suggest more details of facts and prevent wrong views from spreading in China," Japanese Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hakubun Shimomura told a lower house panel.
China says invading Japanese troops slaughtered 300,000 men, women and children in Nanjing, then known as Nanking. An Allied tribunal after World War Two put the death toll at about 142,000.
But some Japanese historians say the 1937 massacre has been exaggerated and some conservatives deny there was even a massacre.
A Japanese group backed by ultra-nationalist figures said earlier this year it planned to make a documentary, "The Truth about Nanjing", denying Japanese soldiers massacred civilians and prisoners of war. China condemned the proposed documentary.
Last August China announced plans to make a movie about the "Nanking Massacre" based on Iris Chang's best-selling book.
Sino-Japanese ties have been overshadowed by what Beijing says has been Tokyo's refusal to admit to atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers in the country between 1931 and 1945.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been trying to mend fences, visiting Beijing last October for a leaders' summit less than two weeks after taking office.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao followed up with an "ice-melting" visit to Japan last month, marking the first visit by a Chinese premier to Japan since 2000.
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