Court transcripts proving Japanese war crimes released

China's State Archives Administration is set to release for the first time, court transcripts proving war crimes committed by the Japanese Army, during the War of Aggression against China between 1937 and 1945. The Information Office of China's State Council is holding a press conference on the transcripts.

China has applied to UNESCO to include 11 sets of documents relating to the 1937 Nanjing Massacre in the Memory of the World Register. Preparation work began in 2009, and the application process started in March this year, when the State Archives Administration handed the documents to the Memory of the World Secretariat.

The documents, which include diaries, films, photographs and testimonies, depict the brutality of the Japanese invaders.

The documents also relate to Japan's use of wartime sex slaves, also called as "comfort women". Historians estimate that 200,000 women were forced into sexual servitude by Japanese forces during World War Two, most of them from countries invaded by Japan at that time.

Japan invaded northeast China in September 1931. But historians agree that Japan's full-scale invasion started on July the 7th, 1937, when a crucial access point to Beijing, the Lugou Bridge, was attacked by Japanese troops.