1980s
Chinese interest in the history of the massacre further developed in the 1980s. Research of burial records and documents, as well as interviews, confirmed a figure of 300,000 dead Chinese in the course of the massacre, thus corroborating the findings of the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal.
In Japan, a variety of new evidence was published, including the private journals of commanding Japanese generals as well as those of many ordinary soldiers. Official military records of a number of the Japanese units involved also became available. In addition, a number of Japanese veterans began openly to admit to having committed or witnessed atrocities in the Nanjing area.
Masaaki Tanaka's book "Fabrication of Nanjing Massacre" not only denied the Nanjing Massacre but laid the blame for the Sino-Japanese war on the Chinese Government.
In September 1986, the Japanese education minister, Fujio Masayuki, dismissed the Rape of Nanking as "just a part of war."
The Japanese distributor of The Last Emperor (1987) edited out the stock footage of the Rape of Nanking from the film.
Read more about this topic: Historiography Of The Nanking Massacre