Japan museum under fire for ‘rewriting history’ with Nanking ‘incident’ label

A museum in Japan is facing accusations of “rewriting history” for replacing the Nanking massacre with the word “incident”, drawing criticism and reviving anger over the country’s wartime aggression.

The Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, which previously resisted revisionist attempts, appears to have capitulated to a civic group’s pressure campaign following Thursday’s release of proposed exhibit changes by its operations council.

Other amendments announced by the museum, which opened in 1996, include describing Imperial Japan’s assault on China as an “invasion” and that the army used “aggression”, Japanese broadcaster NCC reported on Friday.

However, the most controversial change was the replacement of the word massacre with “incident”, a decision one analyst said left “Japan with egg on its face”.

The massacre took place in the city now known as Nanjing and occurred over a period of six weeks starting on December 13, 1937, the day Japanese forces captured the city.

The death toll has not been conclusively established. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East, also known as the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, estimated in 1946 that more than 200,000 Chinese people were killed.