On March 21, 2023, the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company presented precious historical footage to China Media Group. The video was captured by the former Soviet Red Army from the Japanese Kwantung Army in Northeast China. With much of it previously unseen, the 25-minute video records Japanese aggression in China and the heinous crimes committed by the invaders.

A photo of the Japanese army capturing Wanping County

On July 7, 1937, the Japanese army lied that a soldier “went missing” and shocked China and the whole world by launching an assault on the Lugou Bridge in Beijing, which was known as the “July 7 Incident”. In the video filmed by the Japanese Kwantung Army, however, the Japanese army passed the buck entirely to China.

The Japanese army blatantly distorts history

In its written judgment after World War II, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East offered a detailed description of how the “Lugou Bridge Incident” happened, as verified by the court. The judgment believed that starting from June 1937, the Japanese troops carried out intense military drills every night near the Lugou Bridge. This proved that the “Lugou Bridge Incident” broke out amid a tense and uneasy atmosphere.

The “Lugou Bridge Incident” marked the beginning of Japan’s all-out aggression against China. Chinese people lost their homes and some were even killed. On July 29, 1937, Beiping (then the name for Beijing) was captured. After that, more than 10,000 Chinese people died or went missing. However, the videos filmed by the Japanese army still showed a normal life for Beiping residents. These “whitewashing” videos came from the Manchukuo Film Association Corporation backed by the Japanese military.

The chairman of the association was a Japanese spy. During the Japanese invasion of China, the association tried to indoctrinate people with colonialism and glorify its act of aggression by shooting films. That was precisely part of Japan’s strategy to invade China, known as “using the Chinese people to subdue China” and “using resources obtained in a war to support that war”.