minister, Fujio Masayuki, dismissed the Nanjing massacre as "just a part of war". The Japanese distributor of The Last Emperor (1987) edited out the stock footage of the Nanjing massacre from the film. 1990s As far as Japanese academics are concerned, the controversy over the occurrence of atrocities ended in the early '90s. Both sides accept that atrocities did occur; however, disagreement exists over the actual numbers. The debate is focused on the questions of whether to include archival or anecdotal evidence, what time period to use in defining the massacre, and what geographical area to use in defining the massacre. Chinese historical studies In a 1990 paper entitled The Nanking Massacre and the Nanking Population, Sun Zhai-wei of the Jiangsu Academy of Social Sciences estimated the total number of people killed at 377,400, combining Chinese burial records and estimates totaling 150,000 given by Japanese Imperial Army major Ohta Hisao in a confessional report about the Japanese army's disposal efforts of dead bodies. Denial by Japanese government officials A number of Japanese cabinet ministers, as well as some high-ranking politicians, have made comments denying the atrocities committed by the Japanese Army in World War II. Among these were General Nagano Shigeto, a World War II veteran and a former chief of staff of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force who was appointed justice minister in spring of 1994. Shigeto told a Japanese newspaper that "the Nanjing Massacre and the rest was a fabrication". In an interview with Playboy magazine, Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara said, "People say that the Japanese made a holocaust but that is not true. It is a story made up by the Chinese. It has tarnished the image of Japan, but it is a lie." Some subsequently resigned after protests from China and South Korea. On November 10, 1990, during a protest by Chinese Americans against the Japanese actions on the island of Diao-Yu-Tai, the Deputy Japanese Consul in Houston asserted that "the Nanjing Massacre never occurred". In response to these and similar incidents, a number of Japanese journalists and historians formed the Nankin Jiken Chōsa Kenkyūkai (Nanjing Incident Research Group). The research group has collected large quantities of archival materials as well as testimonies from both Chinese and Japanese sources. Apology and condolences by the prime minister and emperor of Japan On August 15, 1995, the fiftieth anniversary of the Surrender of Japan, the Japanese prime minister