Warcrimes in Nanking 1937

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Kim Sung
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#241

Post by Kim Sung » 13 Dec 2007, 09:56

Today, in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre, a new memorial has been built in Nanjing.

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http://www.wenweipo.com/news_print.phtm ... 0712130009
Last edited by Kim Sung on 13 Dec 2007, 13:40, edited 1 time in total.

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#242

Post by Kim Sung » 13 Dec 2007, 10:04

China's official newspaper China Daily's special edition on the 70th anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre

China Daily Editorial on the 70th Anniversary of the Najing Massacre

Ceremony for the victims

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Re: Warcrimes in Nanking 1937

#243

Post by Peter H » 22 Apr 2008, 11:22

According to Jung Chang the siege of Changchun in 1948 resulted in the worst death toll for a Chinese city in the 20th Century.

http://houdiniinthedesert.blogspot.com/ ... gchun.html
Almost as sad, in fact, is a similar massacre ordered eleven years later by a Chinese general, Lin Biao, presumably (according to Jung Chang and Jon Halliday's version of events) at the behest of that arch Malthusian, Mao Zedong. Lin's actual words used on May 30th 1948 were "turn Changchun into a city of death". This was achieved by blocking all food going into the city and refusing exit to anyone, man, woman or infant in arms. Towards the end of the five-month-long agony, starving mothers were coming out to offer their babes to the soldiers who barred their exit, while begging to be killed themselves. Changchun's mayor's estimate was of 170,000 survivors out of an initial population of half a million, a higher death toll than even the highest estimate of the Nanjing massacre.

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Re: Warcrimes in Nanking 1937

#244

Post by Peter H » 25 Apr 2008, 06:40

Trial of Tani Hisao,Japanese 6th Division commander at Nanking

From: http://www.300000.org/nanjing/index6.htm

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Re: Warcrimes in Nanking 1937

#245

Post by Peter H » 25 Apr 2008, 06:44

Same source as above

Execution,26th April 1947

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Re: Warcrimes in Nanking 1937

#246

Post by Peter H » 11 May 2008, 03:07

From Japan Focus.sub article:

http://japanfocus.org/products/details/2724
The Nanjing Massacre and Structures of Violence in the Sino-Japanese War

Substantial portions of the Nanjing Massacre literature in English and Chinese—both the scholarship and the public debate—treat the event as emblematic of the wartime conduct of the Japanese, thereby essentializing the massacre as the embodiment of the Japanese character. In the discussion that follows, I seek to locate the unique and conjunctural features of the massacre in order to understand its relationship to the character of Japan’s protracted China war and the wider Asia Pacific War.

Just as a small staged event by Japanese officers in 1931 provided the pretext for Japan’s seizure of China’s Northeast and creation of the dependent state of Manchukuo, the minor clash between Japanese and Chinese troops at the Marco Polo Bridge on July 7, 1937 paved the way for full-scale invasion of China south of the Great Wall. By July 27, Japanese reinforcements from Korea and Manchuria as well as Naval Air Force units had joined the fight. The Army High Command dispatched three divisions from Japan and called up 209,000 men. With Japan’s seizure of Beiping and Tianjin the next day, and an attack on Shanghai in August, the (undeclared) war began in earnest. In October, a Shanghai Expeditionary Army (SEA) under Gen. Matsui Iwane with six divisions was ordered to destroy enemy forces in and around Shanghai. The Tenth Army commanded by Gen. Yanagawa Heisuke with four divisions soon joined in. Anticipating rapid surrender by Chiang Kai-shek’s National Government, the Japanese military encountered stiff resistance: 9,185 Japanese were killed and 31,125 wounded at Shanghai. But after landing at Hangzhou Bay, Japanese forces quickly gained control of Shanghai. By November 7, the two Japanese armies combined to form a Central China Area Army (CCAA) with an estimated 160,000-200,000 men.

With Chinese forces in flight, Matsui’s CCAA, with no orders from Tokyo, set out to capture the Chinese capital, Nanjing. Each unit competed for the honor of being the first to enter the capital. Historians such as Fujiwara Akira and Yoshida Yutaka sensibly date the start of the Nanjing Massacre to the atrocities committed against civilians en route to Nanjing. “Thus began,” Fujiwara wrote, “the most enormous, expensive, and deadly war in modern Japanese history—one waged without just cause or cogent reason.” And one that paved the way toward the Asia Pacific War that followed.

Japan’s behavior at Nanjing departed dramatically from that in the capture of cities in earlier Japanese military engagements from the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 forward. One reason for the barbarity of Japanese troops at Nanjing and subsequently was that, counting on the “shock and awe” of the November attack on Shanghai to produce surrender, they were unprepared for the fierce resistance and heavy casualties that they encountered, prompting a desire for revenge. Indeed, throughout the war, like the Americans in Vietnam decades later, the Japanese displayed a profound inability to grasp the roots and strength of the nationalist resistance in the face of invading forces who enjoyed overwhelming weapons and logistical superiority. A second reason for the atrocities was that, as the two armies raced to capture Nanjing, the high command lost control, resulting in a volatile and violent situation.

The contempt felt by the Japanese military for Chinese military forces and the Chinese people set in motion a dynamic that led to the massacre. In the absence of a declaration of war, as Utsumi Aiko notes, the Japanese high command held that it was under no obligation to treat captured Chinese soldiers as POWs or observe other international principles of warfare that Japan had scrupulously adhered to in the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War, such as the protection of the rights of civilians. Later, Japan would recognize captured US and Allied forces as POWs, although they too were treated badly.

As Yoshida Yutaka notes, Japanese forces were subjected to extreme physical and mental abuse. Regularly sent on forced marches carrying 30-60 kilograms of equipment, they also faced ruthless military discipline. Perhaps most important for understanding the pattern of atrocities that emerged in 1937, in the absence of food provisions, as the troops raced toward Nanjing, they plundered villages and slaughtered their inhabitants in order to provision themselves.

Chinese forces were belatedly ordered to retreat from Nanjing on the evening of December 12, but Japanese troops had already surrounded the city and many were captured. Other Chinese troops discarded weapons and uniforms and sought to blend in with the civilian population or surrender. Using diaries, battle reports, press accounts and interviews, Fujiwara Akira documents the slaughter of tens of thousands of POWs, including 14,777 by the Yamada Detachment of the 13th Division. Yang Daqing points out that Gen. Yamada had his troops execute the prisoners after twice being told by Shanghai Expeditionary Army headquarters to “kill them all”.

Major Gen. Sasaki Toichi confided to his diary on December 13:

. . . our detachment alone must have taken care of over 20,000. Later, the enemy surrendered in the thousands. Frenzied troops--rebuffing efforts by superiors to restrain them--finished off these POWs one after another. . . . men would yell, ‘Kill the whole damn lot!” after recalling the past ten days of bloody fighting in which so many buddies had shed so much blood.’”

The killing at Nanjing was not limited to captured Chinese soldiers. Large numbers of civilians were raped and/or killed. Lt. Gen. Okamura Yasuji, who in 1938 became commander of the 10th Army, recalled “that tens of thousands of acts of violence, such as looting and rape, took place against civilians during the assault on Nanjing. Second, front-line troops indulged in the evil practice of executing POWs on the pretext of [lacking] rations.”

Chinese and foreigners in Nanjing comprehensively documented the crimes committed in the immediate aftermath of Japanese capture of the city. Nevertheless, as the above evidence indicates, the most important and telling evidence of the massacre is that provided by Japanese troops who participated in the capture of the city. What should have been a fatal blow to “Nanjing denial” occurred when the Kaikosha, a fraternal order of former military officers and neonationalist revisionists, issued a call to soldiers who had fought in Nanjing to describe their experience. Publishing the responses in a March 1985 “Summing Up”, editor Katogawa Kotaro cited reports by Unemoto Masami that he saw 3-6,000 victims, and by Itakura Masaaki of 13,000 deaths. Katogawa concluded: “No matter what the conditions of battle were, and no matter how that affected the hearts of men, such large-scale illegal killings cannot be justified. As someone affiliated with the former Japanese army, I can only apologize deeply to the Chinese people.”

A fatal blow . . . except that incontrovertible evidence provided by unimpeachable sources has never stayed the hands of incorrigible deniers. I have highlighted the direct testimony of Japanese generals and enlisted men who documented the range and scale of atrocities committed during the Nanjing Massacre in order to show how difficult it is, even under such circumstances, to overcome denial.

Two other points emerge clearly from this discussion. The first is that the atrocities at Nanjing—just as with the comfort women— have been the subject of fierce public controversy. This controversy has erupted again and again over the textbook content and the statements of leaders ever since Japan’s surrender, and particularly since the 1990s. The second is that, unlike their leaders, many Japanese citizens have consistently recognized and deeply regretted Japanese atrocities. Many have also supported reparations for victims.

The massacre had consequences far beyond Nanjing. The Japanese high command, up to Emperor Hirohito, the commander-in-chief, while closely monitoring events at Nanjing, issued no reprimand and meted out no punishment to the officers and men who perpetrated these crimes. Instead, the leadership and the press celebrated the victory at the Chinese capital in ways that invite comparison with the elation of an American president as US forces seized Baghdad within weeks of the 2003 invasion. In both cases, the ‘victory’ initiated what proved to be the beginning not the end of a war that could neither be won nor terminated for years to come. In both instances, it was followed by atrocities that intensified and were extended from the capital to the entire country.

Following the Nanjing Massacre, the Japanese high command did move determinedly to rein in troops to prevent further anarchic violence, particularly violence played out in front of the Chinese and international press. Leaders feared that such wanton acts could undermine efforts to win over, or at least neutralize, the Chinese population and lead to Japan’s international isolation.

A measure of the success of the leadership’s response to the Nanjing Massacre is that no incident of comparable proportions occurred during the capture of a major Chinese city over the next eight years of war. Japan succeeded in capturing and pacifying major Chinese cities, not least by winning the accommodation of significant elites in Manchukuo and in the Nanjing government of Wang Jingwei, as well as in cities directly ruled by Japanese forces and administrators....

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Re: Warcrimes in Nanking 1937

#247

Post by Peter H » 19 Nov 2008, 14:09

Article by Richard C. Bush III,a Sino-Taiwan expert,rumored to be joining the Obama Adminstration in 2009:

http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2007/ ... _bush.aspx
Thoughts on the Nanjing Massacre

Seventy years ago this December 13th, the Japanese Imperial Army began its seizure of Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China. Japanese troops killed remnant Chinese soldiers in violation of the laws of war, murdered Chinese civilians, raped Chinese women, and destroyed or stole Chinese property on a scale that will never be known. The violence and destruction was extensive, despite the efforts of some Japanese to minimize the scale. We know this because there was a relatively large foreign community in Nanjing at the time that bore witness to the carnage. Other Japanese have themselves worked assiduously to reconstruct the historical record.

Similar disasters occurred in other towns of the Lower Yangzi and in East China, but what happened in Nanjing has become emblematic of the narratives of the inhumanity of the Japanese aggression and the sorrow of Chinese victimization. Those narratives continue to this day. Indeed, Timothy Brook writes of Nanjing that “the politics of memory are so powerful at this site that what actually happened in December 1937 almost doesn’t matter to the kind of record either side chooses to create.”1

Beneath the plane of political memory, the history of the war, of which the Nanjing Massacre is one small part, raises other questions that are pertinent to the present day. There is the issue of why the Japanese army behaved with such apparent barbarism in seizing places like Nanjing and thereafter defending its occupation against Nationalist and Communist insurgencies.

This has been a subject of discussion virtually since the time of the Nanjing Massacre, as George Washington University Professor Yang Daqing carefully elucidates. The first explanation was that a breakdown in discipline, caused by supply shortages, led Japanese troops to engage in atrocities. But as reports accumulated of brutality in other parts of China, observers soon set aside the specific circumstances at Nanjing in late 1937 and came to a different and more general conclusion. That is, it was deliberate Japanese policy to strike terror into the hearts of Chinese. A third view was more social and cultural, captured in the term “militarism.” In this perspective, Japanese soldiers were products of a transitional society, neither traditional nor modern, and that the declining norms against violence that restrained them in Japan disappeared once they arrived in China.2

Using the outpouring of evidence in recent decades, Professor Yang has developed a far more nuanced and textured explanation for Nanjing than those early efforts. And for the most part, they focus on the dysfunctional operation of institutions either in the short term or long term. Among the factors he cites:


The Japanese Imperial Army had suffered a long-term decline of discipline. In the climate of more liberal trends in the 1920s Taisho period, officers responded by demanding absolute obedience of recruits through inhumane means. That in turn, it is argued, led to the need for those recruits to transfer aggression elsewhere. The poor Chinese were a convenient outlet once aggression in China began.
The officer corps was changing in a radical direction. Younger officers tended to have lived in military institutions from an early age. They often had links with ultra-nationalist groups. And they tended to disrespect civilian institutions.
The Japanese Army had a general contempt for the Chinese and had a lower standard for treatment of Chinese POWs as opposed to Western ones.
Due to the rapid expansion of the army in the summer of 1937, most of the troops sent to the Shanghai-Nanjing front were reservists. Their quality was relatively low and there was a high replacement rate due to heavy losses.
In their drive to carry out their orders to seize Nanjing, field commanders overlooked the need to ensure adequate logistical preparation (particularly food), enough rest for troops, sufficient military policeman to maintain order, and to issue clear orders for the treatment of POWs and civilians.
Yang concludes that all of these institutional factors, which reflect an accumulation of poor decisions, contributed to the scale of the Nanjing atrocities. He also finds that battlefield psychology played an exacerbating role. Japanese soldiers had become terrified during the heavier-than-expected losses in the battle for Shanghai. Revenging the death of fallen comrades was one response. Even according to the Imperial Army’s own rules of engagement, there were violations of discipline.

To locate the cause of atrocities in problematic institutions is not to excuse them at all. But if one purpose in studying the past is to prevent future tragedies, it is important to locate the true cause of the tragedy.

Nanjing raises another question, besides the horrors that occurred during the Japanese takeover. And that is, how was the tiger of Japanese aggression unleashed in the first place? Here again, the answer lies in defective decision-making processes.

The story begins in September 1931 and the takeover of China’s three northeastern provinces (together, forming the region known as Manchuria) by the Japanese Kwantung (Guandong) Army. This unit had a modest geographic presence in China, deployed as it was on the Liaodong Peninsula and along the Southern Manchurian Railway. Its officers had both nightmares of peril and dreams of ambitious expansion. Japan faced adversaries in the capitalist West, communist Russia, and a resurgent Nationalist (and nationalistic) China. The Great Depression had shown the dangers of economic interdependence. Increasingly, Japanese, including these officers, came to believe that their country would be better served by self-reliance. The starting point was China’s northeast, a land of agricultural and industrial promise.

The fact that the civilian government in Tokyo was pursuing a foreign policy of cooperation and a defense policy of arms control with the West, plus a moderate approach to China, did not faze these officers. If the government would not adopt a policy to seize Manchuria, they would start the seizure and force the government to follow. The “right of supreme command” gave the military considerable power and made it accountable to no one but the constitutional monarch, who reigned but did not rule. This defective constitutional structure created a climate that made it easier for headstrong Kwantung officers to take independent action. And that is exactly what they did, in the Mukden Incident of September 18th (Mukden is now known as Shenyang). They fabricated a Chinese attack on a railway train and used that as a pretext to begin the takeover. The officers were counting (correctly) on their expansionist action getting receiving support from a national media and nationalistic public opinion, each feeding on each other. The Kwantung Army would continue to create faits accomplis in China, and the civilian government capitulated at every turn, in part because of a real fear of assassination by radical, right-wing groups.

Hence, a field unit of the Japanese Imperial Army initiated a major change in Japanese foreign and security policy, in violation of central direction from Tokyo, both the civilian authorities and the military high command. Mid-ranking officers started Japan’s shift from a basically status-quo power to a revisionist power.

The beginning of the China War in July 1937 is another story of flawed decision-making, but of a much different sort. Not all the details are yet available, but the main theme is that conflict could have been avoided and was almost avoided.

The China War “began” as a result of an incident on July 7th that occurred at Lugou Bridge (Lugouqiao), known as Marco Polo Bridge in English. The bridge is in the southwest of Beijing (then known as Beiping). It seems clear that this relatively minor incident was not designed as the premeditated trigger for expansion of Japanese military control of North China, either by the Japanese high command or by local commanders (as in the Manchurian case six years before). Indeed, the military conflict that ultimately resulted was at odds with Japan’s fundamental security strategy of creating economic self-sufficiency in preparation for a war with the Soviet Union. The direction of Japanese policy during the last four months of 1936 and the first half of 1937 was to avoid conflict with China, not to foster it. Indeed, some improvement in Japan-China relations would serve Japan’s basic security goal. China on the other hand had been moving toward a challenge of Japan ever since a Manchurian warlord had kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek in December 1936 and Chiang had agreed to begin to form an anti-Japanese united front with the Communists.

The Marco Polo Bridge Incident escalated into a crisis in which each side—or elements in each side—placed emphasis on showing resolve and gaining a predominance of forces in the Beiping area. Chiang Kai-shek, more than Japanese leaders, stimulated this spiral. He had the option of accepting a settlement worked out and agreed to by his local commander, but he chose not to. On the Japanese side, officers in the army’s operations division initially proposed intervention after the Incident, but the cabinet rejected the idea. Policy-makers vacillated on the central question of whether to mobilize forces in Japan for deployment to North China. At every step when there was progress toward a local agreement, the mobilization order was suspended or cancelled. On the other hand, at both at the national level and at the local level, each side made moves that increased the mistrust of the other. The spiral toward conflict was probably irreversible by July 25th.

Perhaps war would have come eventually. Perhaps there was no way to reconcile the interests between a resurgent, nationalistic China and a hegemonistic Japan, particularly a Japan that had created a puppet state in China’s northeast region. Yet the bulk of the evidence demonstrates that Japan did not intend a major military expansion in China in July 1937, and that a minor incident at Lugou Bridge stimulated a much bigger and dangerous game of chicken. Leaders made miscalculations that meant that war began sooner rather than later.

Chiang Kai-shek made another gamble in the summer of 1937, one that turned into a fatal miscalculation. On August 7th, he decided that he would attack Japan’s limited forces in the Shanghai area instead of contending with the Imperial Army’s considerable power in North China. To that end, he deployed his finest units to the Shanghai front. But Japan quickly reinforced its Shanghai force and was able to overcome the initial and substantial Chinese advantage. After weeks of fierce fighting, Japan landed units at Hangzhou in early November, outflanking the Chinese units at Shanghai. Chiang’s armies withdrew to the west. At first they tried to defend Nanjing at all costs but then suddenly abandoned the capital to the Japanese. In view of Chiang’s strategic blunder, does he bear some responsibility for putting the defenseless people of East China—and Nanjing itself—in dire harm’s way? It is hard to avoid that conclusion.

Japan’s China war demonstrates how critical the flawed decisions of leaders and the dysfunction of military institutions can be, and not just in East Asia. Countries that engage in brinksmanship can fall off the brink. High-stakes gambles that go wrong can have devastating military outcomes and create profound civilian suffering. Unaccountable subordinates can make irreversible policy without superiors knowing it. And although war is always hell, it will be a lot more hellish if the institutions that support the war-fighter perform badly. Those are lessons that are as true today as they were in China in the 1930s and 1940s.

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Re: Warcrimes in Nanking 1937

#248

Post by Arek » 13 Apr 2009, 20:11

Hi

I am looking for information, what reaction of international community have been made, when news from occupied Nanking have reached press and diplomats from "eastern" countries? I know that there have been some resolution of League of Nations, but don`t know what exactly.

Any reaction of USA and Great Britain? Maybe USSR?

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Re: Warcrimes in Nanking 1937

#249

Post by David Thompson » 13 Apr 2009, 21:36

Arek -- I wish I could give you a short answer to your question, but at the moment I can't.

The official US diplomatic correspondence on the Nanking massacre is part of a much larger collection of documents dealing with the US, China and Japan during the same time-frame. These volumes have been scanned and put online by the University of Wisconsin. Unfortunately, many of the US diplomatic documents are only available on a page-by-page view (with several thousand pages to go through), in various magnifications, and aren't collected together in large, batched pdf files.

The volumes which may help you are:

United States Department of State / Foreign relations of the United States diplomatic papers, 1937. The Far East, Volume III (1937)
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... RUS1937v03
United States Department of State / Foreign relations of the United States diplomatic papers, 1937. The Far East, Volume IV (1937)
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... RUS1937v04
United States Department of State / Foreign relations of the United States diplomatic papers, 1938. The Far East, Volume III (1938); events in Nanking mentioned at pp. 16, 37-38, 48-50, 52, 54, 56-57, 65-66 73-74, 78, 94, 96, 176-77
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... RUS1938v03
United States Department of State / Foreign relations of the United States diplomatic papers, 1938. The Far East, Volume IV (1938); events in Nanking mentioned at pp. 91-92, 221-222, 224, 226-234, 244-245, 247-249, 258-259, 260-263, 265-267, 269, 278-280, 282-283, 291-292, 300, 354, 368-369, 383-384, 479, 573, 585, 589
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... RUS1938v04

To find what you're looking for in this collection, you have to go through the indices to the volumes, where you find information buried under subheadings of index entries like Japan or Undeclared war between Japan and China -- "Nanking" or "Representations to Japan and US efforts concerning violations of rights and interests in China and losses from various incidents and bombings, question of", containing many page entries.

The general online FRUS collection of the University of Wisconsin can be seen here:

Foreign Relations of the United States
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... FRUS.FRUS1

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Re: Warcrimes in Nanking 1937

#250

Post by Arek » 13 Apr 2009, 22:52

Oh yes, FRUS I love it :wink:

When I will make some summary of that I will have posted it here.


Thanks for help.

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Re: Warcrimes in Nanking 1937

#251

Post by David Thompson » 14 Apr 2009, 04:22

Arek -- See also:

Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United States, Japan: 1931-1941 vol. I, pp. 384-397 (with League of Nations resolutions)
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... S193141v01
Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United States, Japan: 1931-1941 vol. II, abrogation of commercial treaty and economic measures against Japan at pp. 187-273
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... S193141v02

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Re: Warcrimes in Nanking 1937

#252

Post by Peter H » 17 May 2009, 23:02

"Critics fuel success of Nanjing massacre film"

http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090 ... 59847/1002
Paul Mooney, Foreign Correspondent

BEIJING // A sombre film about the Nanjing massacre seven decades ago has become a box-office hit, with ticket sales boosted by criticism on the internet that Japanese soldiers are portrayed too sympathetically.

City of Life and Death tells the story of the occupation of Nanjing in Dec 1937 by Japanese troops who carried out a massacre over the ensuing six weeks. Chinese sources say 300,000 were killed; some scholars say the number is closer to 90,000.

Bitterness in China remains strong, exacerbated by a feeling the Japanese have never sincerely apologised and that Japanese textbooks have whitewashed the war. The government has maintained a balancing act over the years, using Japanese guilt as a bargaining chip, while deftly keeping anti-Japanese sentiment from exploding and damaging bilateral relations.

Known as Nanjing! Nanjing! in Chinese, the movie was shot in black and white with hand-held cameras, and is the most objective movie about the war released in China. Lu Chuan, 38, the director, spent four years making the film, including two years researching history books, the letters and diaries of Japanese soldiers, Japanese military video archives, and the recollections of Chinese and western survivors.

“I tried to figure out the truth,” he said. “I think that hiding the truth is not going to solve the problem.”

For this reason, the film has irked many Chinese, who have grown up on decades of propagandistic and melodramatic films about the war, in which all Japanese are portrayed as buffoons and monsters.

The main point of contention is a single character in the film. Kadokawa, a sensitive Japanese soldier who becomes increasingly haunted by what he experiences – the bloody massacre of nationalist soldiers, the wanton execution of unarmed civilians, including women and children, and the gang-rape of young Chinese women. In between the scenes of violence, Japanese soldiers are seen playing on a beach, singing and acting like normal people.

“For most Chinese, it’s the first time they’ve seen [the] Japanese portrayed in this way,” said an assistant producer, Isabelle Glachant.

Cybercitizens lashed out at the movie even before it was released on April 22. Lu received an e-mail from one viewer who called it “garbage” and threatened to kill him. Another viewer wrote on the Sina website he felt angry after seeing the film, which he said portrayed the war through the eyes of a Japanese soldier – “a Japanese movie made by Chinese director”.

During a 15-city tour Lu was hit by searing questions from audiences and journalists. Some called him a “traitor”. Hideo Nakaizumi, who plays the troubled Kadokawa with intensity, came under attack from viewers, who pressed him to condemn the massacre. “I never met this kind of thing before,” Lu said. “It was like being in a court.”

Lu said he is pleased by the strong box office; 300,000 to 500,000 people have watched the film each day since its opening, more than 120 million in total by last weekend. However, he has also been affected by the negative reaction.

“I’m becoming more and more depressed because you just don’t know what will happen each time you stand at the entrance to a theatre or attend a media conference,” he said. “I thought I did the right thing. I didn’t want to provoke people or be seen as against the country.”

Supporters deny the movie whitewashes Japan’s atrocities. “Lu Chuan has indeed humanised Japanese soldiers, but he’s not beautified them,” Chen Laihan, a commentator, wrote on his blog.

Brutality is present throughout the 130 minutes, and China’s normally noisy moviegoers have been silent during screenings. The only sound heard by this reporter during several showings was the soft crying that punctuated some of the sadder parts. In fact, many young people say they cannot bring themselves to go to the cinema.

“I just can’t bear to go see it,” said Sandy Zhao, a 25-year-old bookstore manager, wincing as she echoes a common response by young people. “I hear some of the scenes are just too horrible.”

Observers said they are not surprised by the negative reaction.

Ma Rongrong, a film critic for Sanlian Life Weekly, praised the movie for its frankness, but admitted even she found herself feeling doubts during a powerful scene in which Japanese soldiers perform a haunting ceremonial dance to commemorate fallen comrades. “When I saw that, I was a bit uncomfortable.” She said the Chinese reactions were the product of their education and cultural background. “Our education was very narrow,” she said. “We were taught that the Japanese invaded China, they were very evil, they were demons.”

Ma said her grandmother told her the Japanese had brutally occupied her home town and that she grew up on movies and TV programmes in which Japanese soldiers were portrayed as lacking a conscience.

Experts hail the approval of the movie by the film bureau, ministry of foreign affairs and the propaganda department, as a turning point in China’s attitude towards Japan, and a sign of a more mature policy.

The propaganda department has listed the film among 10 that people should see this year during the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China.

“This proves China is becoming more open and confident,” Ma said. “The change may appear to be slow, but things are moving forward.”

She said Lu Chuan’s purpose in making the movie was to get Chinese to look at the war from a new and wider perspective. “If this film gets people discussing what happened, then he has succeeded.”

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Re: Warcrimes in Nanking 1937

#253

Post by Arek » 11 Jun 2009, 13:37

I would like to make some short summary of Nanjing Massacre theme in the League of Nations.

Whole problem oscillate round reporting by Chinese permanent delegate in LoN Hoo Chi - tsai and then well known Wellington Koo. These reports were most often treating about bombardment of cities and death of civilians, as well as using of posion gas by Japanese Army. Initially in december 1937 there were no petition from chinese side that would inform international community in League of Nations about events that have happened in Nanking. But this was also caused by Brussels Conference of signatories of Nine Power Treaty, in November 1937. The Conference practically have made no action to stop hostilities in China, and prime minister Chamberlain have even said that whole Conference "was waist of time". The most tragic result of that Conference was cancelling whole dispute about war in China until February 1938. The League of Nations and its special Advisory Comittee for the Far East headed by Wilhelm Munters, Latvian minister of foreign affairs, also cancelled its meeting arguing that if nor Brussels Conference made any binding decision, the LoN neither could.
We have to know that Advisory Comittee was the first instance of any chinese complaints about japanese warfare, and now that Comittee was to have a break in the time when Nanking have been seized by IJA. Second thing about that Comittee is that western powers have been looking on the work of it with relief, because the conclusion of that powers was that, if whole problem of war in China would be discussed in lower rank Comittee in League of Nations, there would be no danger of compulsion of giving some special(maybe military) help to China. Especially, that mood in that countries was not to provoke Japan to further action, maybe against their estates in the Far East.

Before and after December 1937 China have many times appealed for help in the name of art.XVII of Covenant of League of Nations. Such move could not succeed, as no one from League of Nations was ready or just wanted to make actions like resolving sanctions against Japan or to give miltary help to China. Even humanitarian aid for China was generating conflict inside the League. So that, really in 10th February Advisory Comittee have come together, but chinese delegate made no attention there to crimes in Nanking.

From then on, we can observe realisation of tactic made by Chiang Kai-shek. He have told his delegats in LoN that the most important thing is to inform international community about using of poison gas by Imperial Japanese Army and bombardment of civilan by japanese airplanes. Chiang was convinced that especially Euoropeans will make some reaction when these 2 things will be proved by Chinese in LoN. In an effect, any information about Nanking Incident was only a few supplements of reports that informed the League about posion gas and bombardment. When Koo made first relation including Nanking in February 1938 he was not good prepared for it, as he was just reading reprints from New York Times and The Times that were describing atrocities commited in Nanking. Another pronouncement of chinese delegation in Geneva have been made in September 1938 when in the plenary session of Advisory Comittee they have made an report titled Violences commises á Nankin.

We don`t know now whether giving serial reports about crimes in Nanking would be better way for Koo and Hoo Chi-tsai to force western powers to make some reaction to situation in China. Koo have fought for respecting art. XVII of Covenant of League of Nations, and in the same time as we know he had instructions from Chiang Kai-shek to inform mainly on using gas and bombardment. Can we suppose that applying other tactic by China in LoN based on reports about war crimes would give better effect? We don`t know that. The fact is that people who are talking that China made no report to international community about events in Nanking are making a mistake.

There have been no reaction of LoN on reports that portrayed situation in Nanking, as well as there habe been no hard reaction for full scale war in China. Western powers were much more worried about their interests in the Far East and their estates in that region in the time of war and theye were rather preparing for making new deals and treaties with victorious Japan.

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Arek
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Re: Warcrimes in Nanking 1937

#254

Post by Arek » 27 Jun 2009, 13:22

Please excuse me for 2nd posting.

What are the most popular websites that are including +300.000 victims of Nanking, and such, that are denying whole incident?

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Arek
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Re: Warcrimes in Nanking 1937

#255

Post by Arek » 30 Aug 2009, 22:49

Really sorry for 3rd posting but I would like to ask, if there are some sources, except Iris Chang, that describe the most incredible things about atrocities in Nanking, like this:

[quote="I. Chang "The Rape of Nanking" s. 95"]Chinese men were often sodomized or forced to perform a variety of repulsive sexual acts[...]At least one Chinese man was murdered bacause he refused to commit necrophilia with the corpse of woman in the snow[...]The Japanese drew sadistic pleasure in forcing Chinese men to commit incest-fathers to rape their own daughters, brothers their sisters, sons their mothers[/quote]

These are such unusual cases, that it would be better to have some other source than Chang`s book.


And 2nd question.

When Prince Asaka took command before taking of Nanking from Matsui`s hands, what kind of troops did he lead then? Only SEF?And Matsui whole Central China Army?

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