A move in the Ontario Legislature to condemn the 1937 “Rape of Nanking” by Japanese invaders is making waves across the Pacific.

MPPs have unanimously passed Liberal Soo Wong’s motion recognizing Dec. 13 as Nanjing Massacre Commemorative Day in Ontario.

It remembers the more than 200,000 victims in the city of Nanjing, which was known as Nanking when Japan invaded China 80 years ago.

“The Nanjing Massacre is about the tens of thousands of women, young and old, who were sexually assaulted in the capture of the city,” Wong (Scarborough-Agincourt) told the Legislature on Thursday.

“It is about women and girls being used as weapons of war. Those who were non-compliant were beaten and killed,” she said.

Progressive Conservative MPP Lisa MacLeod (Nepean-Carleton) said the carnage was so horrific that she “can’t believe it has taken us 80 years to commemorate it.”

“During the six weeks that the Imperial Japanese Army decided to rape and pillage and murder the city of Nanking, it was called by westerners ‘hell on Earth.’ Close to 20,000 to 80,000 were raped,” she said.

But Japanese interests quietly lobbied MPPs from all three parties against supporting Wong’s motion.

That’s because the government of Japan has long argued the Chinese exaggerated the atrocities committed during the invasion.

NDP MPP Peter Tabuns (Toronto Danforth) said Friday he received “strange postcards from Japan” at his office prior to voting in favour of Wong’s motion.

“They were just telling me how much the people of Nanjing supported their occupiers back in the 1940s. ‘Everybody loved us. Everybody loved the occupation forces.’ I threw them out. I thought: ‘give me a break.’ It’s just crazy,” said Tabuns.

“It was very weird and I gather others had similar experiences in being contacted that way,” he said.

“They were not from official sources, but they looked like they were specially printed.”

Two Liberal sources told the Star that Premier Kathleen Wynne herself was lobbied by those sympathetic to the Japanese version of events.

“There have been emails to some of us from Japanese lawmakers in the Diet in Tokyo,” confided one senior Liberal, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.

“The Japanese are not happy,” noted another Liberal insider.

Their displeasure comes as Wynne will be in Nanjing next month on her third trade mission to China since 2014.

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Interestingly, Wong’s motion passed even though similar private member’s legislation she tabled — Bill 79, Nanjing Massacre Commemorative Day Act, 2016 — has been stalled in a legislative committee since last year.

Mindful her law is unlikely to be passed soon, she moved Thursday’s motion in time for the 80th anniversary of the massacre on Dec. 13.