Chinese academics held a forum on the Nanjing Massacre Thursday afternoon in the city of Nanjing after a Japanese official said the atrocity "probably never happened."

Mayor of Nagoya Kawamura Takashi made the comment on Monday while meeting with a delegation from Nanjing.

Zhang Xianwen, a professor at Nanjing University, said the denial is "futile and ridiculous" in the face of the evidence gathered by Chinese historians. He said some people in Japan still hold the same views as Kawamura, showing that Japan has not been introspective enough about its past invasion of China.

Rong Weimu, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the governments of China and Japan have already reached a consensus on the facts of the Nanjing Massacre, and Japan has admitted repeatedly in its reports that the Nanjing Massacre was a "collective slaughter and robbery."

Jing Shenghong, a professor at the Nanjing Normal University, said right-wing forces in Japan have sought to "beautify" the Japanese invasion of China by denying the facts of the massacre.

"They are deceiving themselves as well as others, and their actions will eventually be condemned by the international community," Jing said.

(Xinhua News Agency February 24, 2012)