TOKYO, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- In October 2025, Nagasaki City, Japan, announced a draft revision of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, proposing to change the museum's description of the Nanjing Massacre to "Nanjing Incident." During the review process of the draft, some even advocated for the removal of related exhibits, which has drawn strong criticism at home.

The revision of this museum is not an isolated case. After several months' investigation, Xinhua has found that in many places in Japan, "peace" memorial museums are quietly changing -- many exhibits that showcase Japan's history of aggression and reveal the truth of the war have been deliberately weakened, reduced or even deleted. There are very few exhibition halls that can systematically and objectively present the country's history of aggression.

The Osaka International Peace Center is one of the earliest war museums in Japan to remove the term "aggression." Once an important anti-war and peace education and research base in Japan, it faced fierce attacks from right-wing forces for its long-term display of historical materials related to the Nanjing Massacre and was labeled as having a "masochistic history view" to the point where it faced a crisis of closure.

In 2015, the center reopened, but exhibits related to the Nanjing Massacre, the Pingdingshan Massacre, and "comfort women," which depicted the acts of the Japanese army's aggression, were removed, leaving only narratives of victimization, such as the bombing of Osaka by U.S. air forces.

The core content regarding Japan's responsibility for waging war is almost no longer presented in the exhibitions, said Masahiko Yamabe, an expert who has been studying the war history exhibits in "peace" museums across Japan since the 1980s. "This shift is a typical manifestation of the rise of Japanese historical revisionism."

Similar "updates" to exhibits that attempt to downplay and evade historical responsibility have also appeared at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. After renovation in 2017, the museum's exhibits on the Japanese invasion of China contained only a few words: "In 1937, the Sino-Japanese War broke out... The war dragged on, and many Japanese soldiers died on the battlefield and were buried in foreign lands. At the same time, in the 'Nanjing Incident,' not only Chinese soldiers, but also prisoners of war, civilians, and children became victims."

This is in sharp contrast to the descriptions used before the renovation -- the word "occupation" was directly erased; "massacre" was replaced with "sacrifice;" the Nanjing Massacre was downplayed as the "Nanjing Incident;" and the historical fact that the number of victims in the Nanjing Massacre was 300,000 was nowhere to be found. What remained unchanged was that Japan consistently referred to this war of aggression against China as the "Sino-Japanese War," a war of equal responsibility.

"This is a historical regression. Describing Japan's aggression and responsibility for harm as a third-party narrative is no different in essence from historical revisionism," said Japanese modern and contemporary history scholar Ryuji Ishida.

"The Nanjing Massacre was an atrocity committed by the Japanese army, which is an indisputable fact. Describing 'massacre' with a word like 'sacrifice', which seems to be used to describe natural disasters, and deliberately omitting the perpetrators is tantamount to distorting history," Ishida added.

As one of the few public museums in Japan that insists on confronting the history of aggression and advocating for peace, the Kyoto Museum for World Peace, Ritsumeikan University, has long displayed important historical facts such as the Japanese army's "comfort women" system and the Nanjing Massacre.

During renovations in 2022, some curatorial staff and administrative personnel attempted to remove the displays of these historical facts on the grounds of "popularization." This move was strongly opposed by an academic team led by Ritsumeikan University Professor Satoshi Tanaka, who even resigned en masse in protest, ultimately forcing the management to withdraw the renovation plan.

Then deputy director of the museum Yoshifusa Ichii wrote that if the renovation plan were implemented, it would diminish Japan's responsibility for aggression in the war. Given Japan's current attempt to promote the so-called "national normalization" and become a "nation capable of waging war" by revising its pacifist constitution, many common-sense principles are facing the crisis of being completely rewritten.

In September 2025, the National Archives of Japan held a special exhibition with the theme of "The End of the War," defining the starting point of the war as "Dec. 8, 1941, when Japan went to war with the United States and the United Kingdom," without making any statement about Japan launching a war of aggression.

Yamabe criticized: "If we only start from 1941, it becomes merely a war between the U.S. and Japan, but in fact, Japan's invasion of China was the more important part. From the perspective of the nature of being an 'aggressive war,' it should start from the September 18 Incident."

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War. Yet currently, the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum is still discussing revisions to its description of the Nanjing Massacre.

A Nagasaki citizens group has called on the museum to retain the expressions of "Nanjing Massacre" and "aggression." The civic group argues that in the eyes of the countries that once suffered from Japanese aggression, the revision of relevant expressions is merely an attempt to cover up its negative history.

Looking back, Yamabe pointed out that compared to the 1990s, Japanese exhibition halls have shown a significant regression in their presentation of the history of aggression. In recent years, under pressure from right-wing forces and as various museums have been renovated one after another, the displays related to that period of history have generally shown a trend of contraction.

Even more alarming is the increase in narratives that affirm Japan's role in the war and glorify its aggression, Yamabe added. "This is essentially justifying Japan's war," noting that this change reflects the spread of historical revisionism in Japanese society.

Takakage Fujita, the secretary-general of the Association for Inheriting and Propagating the Murayama Statement, believes that the long-term lack of history education in Japan is a major reason for the spread of historical revisionist ideas.

Fujita pointed out that the Japanese authorities have recently been making erroneous remarks on Taiwan. However, due to the interference of successive governments in textbook content, downplaying or even denying the history of aggression, the younger generation knows very little about the truth of history.

Moreover, the right-wing media have been vigorously hyping the "China threat theory," making it impossible for many Japanese to recognize the extreme danger and war-provocative nature of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's Taiwan remarks.

He believes that Japan must enhance history education for its people, especially the younger generation, so that they can understand the history of Japanese militarists' aggression and its responsibility for causing harm.

Yamabe said that Japan has been continuously regressing in its history education, making the younger generation unable to know the truth of history. He hopes that the "peace" memorial museums in Japan can truly assume the responsibility of history education. Through objectively presenting Japan's war history, they can help more people understand the value of peace and prevent the recurrence of historical tragedies. ■