A witness to Japanese military atrocities in the 1937 siege of Nanking -- now Nanjing -- in eastern China is suing two Japanese writers and their publishing house for printing books that distort history and personally discredit her, she said Tuesday.
In the first case of its kind to be tried in Chinese courts, Xia Shuqin is suing Asia University professor Osamichi Higashinakano and writer Toshio Matsumura for distorting the truth about the Nanking Massacre.
Japanese soldiers killed seven of her immediate family, sparing only Xia, then 8, and a younger sister, she told reporters in Beijing.
Xia has been a vocal advocate of survivors of the massacre, in which the Chinese government estimates 300,000 people were killed. A handful of rightwing Japanese academics say the death count was far less.