Japan needs unjaundiced view

A dose of sobriety and acceptance of historical truths are the remedy for the rightist sickness clouding its vision and preventing healthy ties with China

China has been taking a series of significant moves to mark the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. Last Monday President Xi Jinping joined hundreds of people in an unusually high-profile ceremony marking the 77th anniversary of the start of the all-out war with Japan, stressing the need to correctly view and hold the right attitude toward history.

Earlier this year, China officially proclaimed Dec 13 as the Public Memorial Day for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre committed by the Japanese army. And recently the State Archives Administration began to publish the confessions of Japanese war criminals, at the rate of one confession a day, while the Jilin Archives Administration has published letters of Japanese soldiers that were censored by the Japanese army because they recorded its crimes.