The echoes of the Khabarovsk War Crimes Trials

May 3, 2026 marks the 80th anniversary of the opening of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, or Tokyo Trials.

Eighty years ago, judges from 11 nations, after two and a half years of trials, used irrefutable evidence to clarify the trajectory of Japanese fascist aggression, from the September 18 Incident to the full-scale invasion of China and then to its rampage across Southeast Asia, exposing atrocities including burning, killing, looting and other crimes against humanity. With the highest authority of international justice, the tribunal rendered a final historical verdict and established legal accountability for Japanese militarism. Carrying immense global legal significance and universal human value, these trials have even greater contemporary relevance today.

However, not all Japanese war criminals were brought to justice before this tribunal. It was for this reason that the Soviet Union initiated the Khabarovsk Trials in 1949. As the first trials in human history specifically targeting perpetrators of biological warfare, the Khabarovsk War Crimes Trials to some extent addressed gaps in the Tokyo Trials, providing original records for prosecuting Japan's war crimes in violation of international conventions and constituting crimes against humanity. A CGTN correspondent returns once more to the site of that historic trial in 1949.