On Feb. 25 2014, China's top legislature discussed passing legislation designating December 13 as the official national memorial day to commemorate victims of the Nanjing Massacre.

The Nanjing Massacre occurred after the Japanese troops occupied Nanjing, the then capital of China, on Dec. 13, 1937. More than 300,000 Chinese civilians were killed in a little over 40 days.

The Nanjing Massacre should not be forgotten, and it should certainly never be denied. After the anti-Japanese war, some forces in Japan continuted to deny the crimes Japanese troops committed in the Japanese aggression war against China, even in face of hard evidence.

On Feb. 3, 2014, Naoki Hyakuta, a board member of Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK), delivered a speech to the public in which denied the Nanjing Massacre; on Feb. 16, 2014, in an article entitled "It is true that the Nanjing Massacre never happened", Sankei Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper, claimed that the Nanjing Massacre never happened; in 2012 Takashi Kawamura, the mayor of Nagoya, told a visiting delegation from Nanjing that such an event as the so-called Nanjing Massacre was unlikely to have taken place.

In recent years, there has been a growing tendency for Japan’s right-wing forces to deny and distort history to achieve political ends or mislead the international community.

China will establish a national memorial day for the Nanjing Massacre victims with the dual intention of flagging up the risks of Japanese militarism and comforting the Nanjing Massacre victims. At the same time the national memorial day will show China's resolve to defend national sovereignty, as well as its willingness to shoulder the responsibility of safeguarding human dignity and world peace.

The article is edited and translated from《国家公祭日：历史不容忘却》, source: People's Daily Overseas Edition, author: Hua Yiwen.