The Japanese government should be held accountable for telling history as it is and take effective measures to restrain right-wing forces who have denied that the Nanjing Massacre ever took place.

These remarks were made by members of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) today. They strongly condemned right-wing activists in Japan who have denied atrocitiescommitted by Japanese troops in Nanjing in December 1937.

This is flagrant defiance of history, the members said. The Chinese people suffered untold atrocities by Japanese aggressors. Denying that the Massacre ever took place also runs against world peace, justice and conscience of the mankind, they said at a gathering here.

"We hope that the Japanese statesmen will see their history as a mirror and will learn from the past and promote and develop peace," they stressed.

The Nanjing massacre was an atrocity committed by the Japanese troops, who killed 300,000 unarmed Chinese. It was a final verdictof a military tribunal made up of 11 countries including China, the former Soviet Union, Britain and the United States.

Some of the CPPCC members also denounced the atrocity citing their own experience during the war of resistance against Japan inthe 1930s and 1940s.

They said that it is not accident that a small group of Japan'sright-wing forces have attempted to deny the history of Japan's invasion of China half a century later. After World War II, they pointed out, Japan has never earnestly showed repentance for the invasion of China, and militarist forces have not been destroyed completed, providing a hotbed for the recovery of the militarist forces in Japan.

The CPPCC members pointed out that along with Japan's economic development and changes in the international situation, right-wingforces in the Japanese political circles have also developed.

Last year, Japan's right-wing forces produced a movie -- Pride,A Fleeting Moment in One's Lifetime, whitewashing the atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers and reversing a verdict of Hideki Tojo, a chief war criminal during World War II. Two days ago, right-wing forces performed a farcical play denying the Nanjing massacre.

Shortly before that, the Japanese Supreme Court rejected Azuma Shiro's case again. Azuma, a Japanese veteran, openly confessed toatrocities committed by Japanese troops during the Nanjing Massacre.

All the facts show that Japan's right-wing forces have deliberately conducted anti-China activities, the members said, adding: "We should keep a vigilant eye against such activities."

They stressed that whether the history of the Japanese militarist invasion of China can be viewed correctly will serve asa touchstone to show whether the Japanese government is sincere inmaintaining the political basis of Sino-Japanese relations.