The Tokyo Trial

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East, often known as the Tokyo Trial was held by the Allied Nations from 1946–8 to try Japanese military and civil officials for war crimes committed during World War II. The trial proceedings were controversial at the time and remain a highly emotive subject, particularly in East Asia. This collection of essays from leading Chinese historians, presented here in English translation for the first time, represents a distinctively Chinese approach to the interpretation of the trial and its significance today. The essays are supplemented by a detailed chronology and by firsthand accounts of the trial by two men who represented China in the proceedings: the judge Mei Ru'ao and the prosecution consultant Ni Zhengyu.