Chinese historians held a symposium Monday to show their support for a former Japanese soldier determined to tell the truth about the war crimes committed by Japanese troops in Nanjing in 1937. Azuma Shiro, 88, was a soldier in the Japanese brigade that occupied Nanjing, then China's capital, in December of 1937. In the following weeks they killed more than 300,000 unarmed Chinese soldiers and civilians and he recorded the atrocities in a secret diary.

He published this diary in April 1996 and was promptly sued by a former soldier named in it who was described as a war criminal. The Tokyo Higher Court ruled in this man's favor and instructed that his name should not be made known or any action taken against him.

Shiro took his case to a higher court but his appeal was denied in December, 1998. At today's gathering, the experts, who specialized in the study of the War of Resistance Against Japan (1937-1945), accused the Japanese court of attempting to prevent more former Japanese soldiers from telling the truth. They said recent rally of right-wing activists in Japan sounded an alarm against Japanese militarism, and the Chinese people should never relax their vigilance. Shiro will continue his tour in the cities of Shenyang and Shanghai.