BEIJING - China on Saturday published more than 110,000 confidential Japanese documents from wartime to expose Japan's history of invasion.

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The 395-volume photocopied files about wars and relations with China were issued by Japan's foreign ministry (1931-1945), the army (1872-1945) and the navy (1872-1933).

Japanese authorities destroyed most of its confidential documents on the eve of its surrender in 1945 to cover its wartime crimes. US troops occupying Japan obtained the remaining ones and transferred them to the United States. The original versions were returned to Japan in 1979.

China's Thread-binding Books Publishing House bought the copyright of the documents and has publicized them for the first time in China.

"The books tell us a true history," said Zeng Fanhua, chief editor of the publishing house, at the issuing ceremony.

"While we learn and retrospect on history, we should always remember our national pain and cherish peace."

Also published were government gazettes of the "Manchukuo", the puppet state established by the Empire of Japan in Manchuria when it occupied northeast China.

While the Japanese demolished almost all their confidential files prior to the surrender, the 163-volume gazettes, covering all aspects including laws, policies, foreign affairs, appointments and removals, financing, communications, industry, education and agriculture, were extremely important files to study the history of the state, publishers said.

The revised book, Nanjing Massacre, provided lots of photographs and text records about Japanese aggressors' crimes which claimed lives of more than 300,000 people in Nanjing City during six weeks in 1937.

Also published was a continuation of the literature on China's maritime border regions which proved the Diaoyu Islands have been part of China's territory since the ancient times.