Taiwan media is reporting that a joint editorial committee of scholars from China, Japan and South Korea are working together to write a new history textbook telling the true stories of WWII.

File photo of The Contemporary and Modern History of Three East Asian Countries, jointly written by scholars from China, Japan and South Korea in 2005. [Photo: baidu.com]

Work on the book has been underway since 2015, and it is expected to be completed by 2020.

Li Xizhu from the Institute of Modern History at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said the book "is to address the differences in how we, the three countries, see history and to respond to the current debate on historical issues."

The committee has already published two books. The first was "The Contemporary and Modern History of Three East Asian Countries" published in 2005.

It is believed to have been the first time that these three nations have worked together to produce a shared history.

The second book written by the committee was titled "A Modern History of East Asia Beyond the Boundaries". It was published in 2012.

In recent years, Chinese authorities have complained about Japanese history textbooks, many of which have tried to whitewash Japan's historical record of the war of aggression against China.

Japanese troops captured Nanjing, China's capital at the time, on December 13 in 1937 and started a massacre that lasted for more than 40 days.

About 300,000 civilians and Chinese soldiers were killed; and over 20,000 women were raped during those 40 days.