French national Bastien Ratat speaks at a handover ceremony featuring scanned copies of diplomatic archives related to the Japanese invasion of China at the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders in Nanjing, east China's Jiangsu Province, May 4, 2026. (The Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders/Handout via Xinhua)

NANJING, May 4 (Xinhua) -- A handover ceremony featuring scanned copies of diplomatic archives related to the Japanese invasion of China was held on Monday at the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders.

These archives, consisting of 42 diplomatic documents totaling 1,993 pages, were collected by French national Bastien Ratat when he was combing through the files at the Center of Diplomatic Archives in Nantes under the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs.

The documents, primarily in French but also in English, Japanese and Chinese, span the period from 1920 to 1943. Its contents feature the Nanjing Massacre, the link between Japan's aggressive acts and Western interests in China, Japan's invasion and expansion in northeast China and surrounding areas, among others. The materials expose Japan's wartime atrocities, including the Nanjing Massacre, from multiple perspectives.

Ratat said these materials handed over to China include correspondence between French diplomats and their British, American and Italian counterparts, as well as directly translated telegrams from Japan's then Dōmei News Agency, which mutually corroborate each other within the same diplomatic files.

Zhou Feng, curator of the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders, located in Jiangsu Province in east China, said these materials will be preserved in the hall's Nanjing Massacre documentation center.

Zhou noted that they are of positive significance for further deepening related historical research and once again prove that Japan's atrocities, including the Nanjing Massacre, were known to France and the international community as early as the Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. Zhou added that such ironclad evidence cannot be denied. ■