More than 20 papers and a number of useful suggestions have been yielded in the project Research of “TRUTH” Historical Materials, which are believed to be hard evidence of the Japan-instigated September 18 Incident in 1931, also known as the Mukden Incident, according to the project team at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences (LASS).

The “TRUTH” document was compiled by patriotic intellectuals and renowned figures in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, in the wake of the incident.

The League of Nations created a fact-finding group called the Lytton Commission that travelled to Northeast China to determine what had happened. They collected and translated original evidence that Japan launched the incident and propped up the Manchukuo puppet state. Their final report was titled “TRUTH” to expose Japanese aggression. Nine of them signed their names on the materials to make them legally binding.

In 2010, a copy of the document was sent to China after the original had been kept at the United Nation’s library in Geneva for 80 years. Given the significant meaning of the materials, LASS organized experts to conduct relevant research. They made key achievements that encouraged the National Social Sciences Fund to sponsor the project.

Since it was approved, the project has made remarkable achievements. For example, Zhang Jie, chief expert of the project and a research fellow from the Institute of History at LASS, and Wang Jianxue, a professor at the Party School of the Liaoning Provincial CPC Committee, jointly compiled the textbook September 18 Incident for primary and secondary education. The book had a circulation of 1 million and was also released overseas in Japanese and English, exerting some global influence.

In the process of the project, domestic scholars built a number of constructive relationships with scholars abroad that helped to publicize their findings. “[In the immediate aftermath of the incident], some foreign friends lent great help to the nine participants in delivering the materials to the investigation group of the League of Nations,” Zhang said.

Researchers were able to gather information about Frederick O’Neil, a British missionary and member of the Lytton Commission, by contacting his grandson Mark O’Neill. Mark was instrumental in spreading the project’s results in England and Ireland, Zhang said.

Moreover, Mark joined forces with Zhang Yuewei, a member of the project team, to write an English-Chinese bilingual paper and have it published, Zhang said, adding that the team will continue to explore platforms for collaborative research between Chinese and foreign scholars.

The research team plans to further explore the impact the “TRUTH” document had on historical events, thereby multiplying the academic, applied, social and international effects of the project.