Li Peilin, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, speaks at a symposium in Beijing that focused on findings of Japanese wartime atrocities revealed by the archive bureau of Jilin Province on Thursday. Photo: CFP

China on Thursday started publishing confessions made by 45 Japanese war criminals, described as iron-clad proof of Japan's heinous crimes during World War II, just two days after the Abe administration lifted the ban on overseas military action.

Handwritten confessions, along with Chinese translations and abstracts in both Chinese and English, are being published on the website of the State Archives Administration (61.135.203.68/rbzf/) one person a day, said the administration's deputy director Li Minghua at a press conference on Thursday.

A 38-page confession by Keiku Suzuki, who served as assistant commander of the 28th Infantry Regiment and later as lieutenant general and commander of the 117th Division in the Japanese army, was the first to be published.

He admitted ordering a Colonel Taisuke to "burn down the houses of about 800 households and slaughter 1,000 Chinese peasants in a mop-up operation" in the Tangshan area of Hebei Province, according to the official translation.

He also "ordered the establishment of comfort stations in regions occupied by Japanese troops, and lured about 60 Chinese and Korean women to serve as comfort women" in 1945.

Among a litany of other crimes with a total toll in the thousands, he also admitted that he "ordered the Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Squad to spread the cholera virus in three or four villages."

Li said the confessions,  signed by the war criminals, are scans of the originals.

"Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, disregarding historical justice and human conscience, has been openly turning black into white, misleading the public, and beautifying Japanese aggression and its colonial history since he took office," Li told reporters.

"This [Abe's stance] disregards the WWII victory and the post-WWII international order," he said.

Abe outraged China in December last year when he visited Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, where high-level war criminals are also worshipped. 

His cabinet Tuesday adopted a resolution to reinterpret Japan's Peace Constitution, which will allow the country to defend allies under armed attack in collective self-defense.

This is seen by many as a dangerous deviation from Japan's pacifist route after World War II, as its military will no longer be limited to national defense activities and could engage in overseas warfare.

The State Archives Administration is making the personal accounts of Japanese aggression available to mark the 77th anniversary of the July 7 Lugouqiao incident in 1937, the beginning of the full-scale Japanese invasion into China.

There were 1,109 Japanese war criminals in custody in China between 1950 and 1956, according to Li.

Among them, 1,017 guilty of minor offenses were exempted from prosecution and released in 1956 and 45 received open trials in special military tribunals under the Supreme People's Court that year.

The 45 war criminals were sentenced to prison terms of between eight to 20 years.

Li said the administration is sorting out the archives of confessions made by the 1,017 charged with minor offenses and will make them public in future.