Nanking Massacre denial.

Nanking Massacre denial.   
   Nanking Massacre denial  is denial that Imperial Japanese forces murdered hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians during the Second Sino-Japanese War, and is a highly controversial episode in Sino-Japanese relations. Although not many outright deny that certain atrocities occurred, it is about the scope of the situation and the number of victims and whether command was given to do the atrocities or the soldiers themselves took the situation in their own hands. Despite the popularity of denialism in Japan, it is considered as a revisionist viewpoint and is not accepted in mainstream academia, even within Japanese academia.

 Most historians accept the findings of the Tokyo tribunal with respect to the scope and nature of the atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army after the Battle of Nanking. In Japan, however, there has been a heated debate over the extent and nature of the massacre. Because denial of the massacre is seen as part of an overall unwillingness on Japan's part to admit and apologize for its aggression, debate over the massacre, or a perceived insensitivity regarding the killings, complicates relations between Japan and China. Estimates of the death toll vary widely. Many scholars have accepted the figure of 300,000 dead as an approximate total, and this figure has become emblematic of the tragedy in China. Estimates of the dead vary, however, notably among revisionist scholars and activists in Japan, who have contended at times that the actual death toll is far lower, or even that the event was entirely fabricated and never occurred at all. These revisionist accounts of the killings have become a staple of Japanese nationalist discourse.

In Japan, public opinion of the massacres varies, and only a minority deny the atrocity outright. Some Japanese journalists and social scientists, such as Tomio Hora and Katsuichi Honda, have played prominent roles in countering revisionist historiography, in the decades since the killings. Nonetheless, negationist accounts, such as those of Shūdō Higashinakano, have often created controversy that has reverberated in the global media, particularly in China and other East Asian nations. The 1937 massacre and the extent of its coverage in Japanese school textbooks also troubles Sino-Japanese relations.

It is important to note that the "denial" doesn't mean no atrocities occurred, it is about the scope and the situation during that time.

Takashi Yoshida asserts that, "Nanjing has figured in the attempts of all three nations [China, Japan and the United States] to preserve and redefine national and ethnic pride and identity, assuming different kinds of significance based on each country's changing internal and external enemies."

Japan

In Japan, interpretation of the Nanking Massacre is a reflection upon the Japanese national identity and notions of "pride, honor and shame." Takashi Yoshida describes the Japanese debate over the Nanjing Incident as "crystalliz[ing] a much larger conflict over what should constitute the ideal perception of the nation: Japan, as a nation, acknowledges its past and apologizes for its wartime wrongdoings; or... stands firm against foreign pressures and teaches Japanese youth about the benevolent and courageous martyrs who fought a just war to save Asia from Western aggression." In some nationalist circles in Japan, speaking of a large-scale massacre at Nanjing is regarded as "'Japan bashing' (in the case of foreigners) or 'self-flagellation' (in the case of Japanese)."

China

David Askew characterizes the Nanjing Incident has having "emerged as a fundamental keystone in the construction of the modern Chinese national identity." According to Askew, "a refusal to accept the "orthodox" position on Nanjing can be construed as an attempt to deny the Chinese nation a legitimate voice in international society".

Issues of definition

The most conservative viewpoint is that the geographical area of the incident should be limited to the few square kilometers of the city known as the Safety Zone. Japanese fascist writers such as Higashinakano Shudo said that the number of deaths has been exaggerated.

However, historians include a much larger area around the city, including the Xiaguan district (the suburbs north of Nanjing city, about 31 km2 in size) and other areas on the outskirts of the city, the population of greater Nanjing was running between 535,000 and 635,000 civilians and soldiers just prior to the Japanese occupation. Some historians also include six counties around Nanjing, known as the Nanjing Special Municipality.

The duration of the incident is naturally defined by its geography: the earlier the Japanese entered the area, the longer the duration. The Battle of Nanking ended on December 13, when the divisions of the Japanese Army entered the walled city of Nanking. The Tokyo War Crime Tribunal defined the period of the massacre to the ensuing six weeks. More conservative estimates say the massacre started on December 14, when the troops entered the Safety Zone, and that it lasted for six weeks. Historians who define the Nanking Massacre as having started from the time the Japanese Army entered Jiangsu province push the beginning of the massacre to around mid-November to early December (Suzhou fell on November 19, and stretch the end of the massacre to late March 1938.[citation needed]

Schools of thought

Revived international interest in the Nanking Massacre

Iris Chang's book, The Rape of Nanking, renewed global interest in the Nanking Massacre. The book sold more than half a million copies when it was first published in the US, and according to The New York Times, received general critical acclaim.[11] The Wall Street Journal wrote that it was the "first comprehensive examination of the destruction of this Chinese imperial city", and that Chang "skillfully excavated from oblivion the terrible events that took place". The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that it was a "compelling account of a horrendous episode that, until recently, has been largely forgotten." The text, however, was not without controversy. Chang's account drew on new sources to break new ground in the study of the period, but it also included numerous errors of fact and mislabellings of photographs, which were seized on by Japanese ultra-nationalists as evidence that the Nanking Massacre was a fabrication which sought "to demonize the Japanese race, culture, history, and nation."

Massacre affirmation vs. massacre denial

Takashi Hoshiyama characterizes opinion in Japan about the Nanking Massacre as "broadly divided into two schools of thought: the massacre affirmation school, which asserts that a large-scale massacre took place, and the massacre denial school, which asserts that, a certain number of isolated aberrations aside, no massacre took place."

Hijacking of the debate by layperson activists

David Askew asserts that the debate over the Nanking Massacre has been hijacked by "two large groups of layperson activists".

"Chinese" are turned into a single, homogenised voice and portrayed as sinister and manipulative twisters of the truth, while the similarly homogenized "Japanese" are portrayed as uniquely evil, as cruel and blood-thirsty beyond redemption, and as deniers of widely accepted historical truths.

Both positions are victimisation narratives. One depicts the Chinese as helpless victims of brutal Japanese imperialism in the winter of 1937–38, while the other depicts the gullible Japanese, innocent in the ways of the world, as victims of Chinese machinations and propaganda in the post-war era.

Three schools of thought

The Great Massacre School not only accepts the validity of these tribunals and their findings; it asserts that Japan must stop denying the past and come to terms with Japan's responsibility for the war of aggression against its Asian neighbors. Members of this school have drawn the attention of the Japanese public to atrocities committed by the Japanese Army during World War II in general and the Nanking Massacre in particular in support of an anti-war agenda.

The Illusion School, by and large, rejects the findings of the tribunals as a kind of "victor's justice" in which only the winning side's version of events are accepted.

In contrast to the diametrically opposed camps described by Hoshiyama and Askew, Ikuhiko Hata posits a third group with a position which falls between the two extremes. Hata characterizes Japanese interpretations of the Nanjing Incident as falling into three schools of thought, based upon the number of casualties: the Illusion School (maboroshi-ha) which denies the massacre and argues that only a few POWs and civilians were killed by the Japanese military in Nanjing; the Middle-of-the-Road School (chūkan-ha), which holds that between several thousand and 38,000–42,000 (as estimated by Hata Ikuhiko) were massacred; and the Great Massacre School (daigyakusatsu-ha), which asserts somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 were massacred in Nanjing.

Professor Masaki Unemoto at Boei University in Japan and other massacre denialists however claim that this was only a plan; Nakajima did not write that the POWs had actually been executed. According to denialists, there are records showing that the 7,000–8,000 POWs, about whom Nakajima wrote, were not killed, but sent to the concentration camp in Nanking. The History of the Battle of Nanking, published in Japan as a compilation of historical documents, referred to various records of those days and then concluded, "After taking all of these into consideration, it is clear that these 7,200 POWs were sent to the Central Concentration Camp in Nanking and locked up in it." 

Concentration camp in Nanking

According to Masaki Unemoto, the records also show that the concentration camp received about 10,000 POWs in total, including the prisoners sent by Nakajima. Many of the 10,000 POWs were later released, hired as coolies or sent to the concentration camp in Shanghai. Nearly 2000 of them became soldiers for Jingwei Wang's pro-Japanese government. Higashinakano points out that one of these captured POWs was Qixiong Liu, a Chinese soldier who was found hiding in the Nanking Safety Zone, who was employed as a coolie for a time, and later became the commander of a brigade for Jingwei Wang's pro-Japanese government.

According to massacre denialists, many Japanese veterans testified that "Accept no prisoners" had always meant "Disarm them and let them go home" and they actually had done so, if there was no compelling reason to send them to the concentration camp. A staff officer Onishi told, "They could go home walking. There never was any military order or divisional order to kill POWs." And according to the veterans, Kesago Nakajima was removed from his post because he had been found appropriating the equipment of the residence of Chiang Kai-shek in Nanking for his own use.

Higashinakano writes that in Nanking there was no execution of POWs who had surrendered and been captured in military uniform.

Alleged humane treatment of Chinese POWs

Massacre denialists point to a number of anecdotes which they assert demonstrate Japanese kindness and generosity toward Chinese POWs in Nanking after the fall of the city.

A chief of infantrymen who fought the battle of Nanking testified, "We defeated the enemies and saw thousands of them dead on the ground outside the walls of Nanking and near the gates. But finding a Chinese soldier still alive, our captain gave him water and medicine. The Chinese soldier folded his hands and said "Xie xie" (Thank you) with tears welled up in his eyes. In this way, our infantry company saved 30–40 Chinese soldiers and let them go home. Among them there were many who cooperated with us and worked for us. When they had to part from us, they were reluctant to leave, shed tears and then went home."