A British journalist quoted rejecting historians¡¯ accounts about Japan¡¯s actions after occupying Nanking has restated that he believes the 1937 Nanking Massacre did not occur, after saying he was ¡°shocked and horrified¡± by his Japanese book¡¯s conclusion, which said the Chinese government fabricated the massacre.

Former New York Times Tokyo bureau chief Henry S. Stokes rejected as ¡°just ridiculous¡± a recent Kyodo News report that quoted him as saying that his translator, Hiroyuki Fujita, ¡°smuggled¡± rogue passages into the work and had the apparently contradictory conclusion ¡°just spooned into the text¡± without Stokes¡¯ approval.

In a six-minute video interview posted on YouTube by a group called Watchdog for Accuracy in News-reporting Japan last week, Stokes, who cannot read or write Japanese well, said he was ¡°fully aware¡± of what the book contained.

¡°I¡¯m saying the so-called Nanking Massacre by Japanese troops never occurred,¡± Stokes, 75, said. ¡°The fact is that there was no such thing as massacre as far as I¡¯m concerned.¡±

Kyodo News reported earlier this month that his book ¡°Eikokujin Kisha Ga Mita Rengokoku Sensho Shikan no Kyomou¡± (¡°Falsehoods of Allied Nation¡¯s Victorious View of History, as Seen by a British Journalist,¡°), published only in Japanese, has passages written by translator Hiroyuki Fujita purporting to be Stokes¡¯ own opinion.

¡°I had the feeling that Kyodo News was not inaccurate so much as they were inattentive to the real detail,¡± Stokes said. ¡°They didn¡¯t really focus on the real thing, except they¡¯d like to knock me down and him (Fujita).¡±

Fujita is closely tied to a group advocating revisionist views of history. In the Kyodo story, Stokes is said to have described his book¡¯s conclusion as ¡°straightforward right-wing propaganda.¡±

Stokes, who has advanced Parkinson¡¯s disease, acknowledged there was ¡°sporadic violence here and there in the city¡± but it should be referred as an ¡°incident,¡± not a ¡°massacre,¡± and that the Nanking Massacre was ¡°certainly propaganda of the KMT government,¡± a reference to the Kuomintang authorities who were in charge at the time.

¡°I¡¯m very insistent on it. I¡¯m not willing to be called a liar by anybody on this subject,¡± he said.