ESWN was kind enough to post a link to a gallery of photographs from the Yasukuni shrine as a comment on my earlier post on a Taiwanese Solidarity Union politician’s visit to the shrine.
Many of you will probably be most interested in the following picture from the adjoining museum, which contains Yasukuni’s explanation, in both Japanese and English, of the ‘Nanjing Incident,’ or as we usually know it, the ‘Nanjing Massacre.’
Since the image is a bit blurry and hard to read, I will reproduce the English below. And yes, the Japanese does say the same thing.
Nanking Operation
The purpose of the Nanking Operation was to surround the capital, thus discouraging the Chinese from waging war against the Japanese. Tang Thengzhi, commander-in-chief of the Nanking Defense Corps. ignored the Japanese warning to open the gates of the city. He ordered his troops to defend Nanking to the death and then escaped. Therefore, when the hostilities commenced, the leaderless Chinese troops either deserted or surrendered. Nanking fell on December 15.
Having seen what Yasukuni has to say about the ‘Nanjing Operation,’ let’s look at a more mainstream Japanese source. First I will post my translation the Kojien‘s entry on the Nanjing Massacre (南京大虐殺）. For those who don’t know, the Kojien is basically the most popular standard Japanese dictionary (that is, Japanese dictionary for Japanese readers, not to a foreign language), and probably the source that most Japanese would first turn to when looking up almost any term. Therefore it is arguably the most mainstream possible source.
Nanjing Massacre
In the Sino-Japanese war, about December of 1937, in and around the occupied city of Nanjing, the Japanese military massacred a large number of surrendered and captured Chinese soldiers, as well as civilians. Additionally there were incidents of such misconduct as arson, plunder, and rape.
I would also like to present the entry on the ‘Nanjing Incident’ （南京事件） from the 1970 edition of the Kadokawa Dictionary of Japanese History(角川日本史辞典). There are actually two sub-entried under ‘Nanjing Incident.’ The first refers to an incident in March of 1927 when the ‘People’s Revolutionary Army’ fired upon Japanese, British, and American troops. The second ‘Nanjing Incident’ is the one which we today generally call the ‘Nanjing Massacre.’ There is no entry for ‘Nanjing Massacre’ or any note that this is term is also used, but then for all I know the term was not yet in common use in 1970. If anyone knows one way or the other, clarification would be appreciated. Here is my translation of the Kadokawa Dictionary of Japanese History’s entry.
Nanjing Incident
1937(Showa 12). The plunder and ravaging that occured during the Japanese military’s occupation of Nanjing in the Sino-Japanese war. The Chinese army had already retreated before the Japanese entered the city, and the Japanese army went on a rampage that lasted until February of the following year, killing 42,000 Chinese, primarily women and children. Responsibility for this incident was severely pursued after the war by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East [Note: also known as the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal]
The interpretation of history provided at Yasukuni is most definitely an extreme right wing position. I am not going to offer any of my own opinion or interpretation at the moment, but I will say this; having seen both the Yasukuni/right-wing perspective and two different examples of a mainstream, literal dictionary definition of the Nanjing Massacre in Japan, it is interesting to see that they are not actually contradictory. Even the Yasukuni museum (at least in this single panel) does not deny that the Massacre took place; they simply ignore the issue. Is it actually likely that there are many people in Japan, even among the 0.3% of middle school students being taught with low quality textbooks drafted by right wing organizations, who are unaware of truth of the Nanjing Massacre?
Since ESWN’s helpfully donated link started this post, I’ll end with as an addendum with a quote from an article posted there just a day or two agotheir latest post:
There is a small number of ultra-rightists in Japan whose comments are magnified in the Asian media. I do not believe that they represent the mainstream Japanese opinion. Yet, the majority in Japan is either embarrassed, intimidated (as in: if you speak up, an ultra-rightist sound truck going to show up outside your home and/or workplace to harrass you 24 hours a day with diatribes of hatred) or too polite to say anything about these ultra-rightists so that the Asian nations now believe that those opinions are mainstream in Japan. This is why there are international crises. It is up the to the majority of the Japanese people to condemn those wayward opinions each and every time in a vociferous manner.
Is the problem really that the right-wingers are influencing popular opinion in Japan? Or are they as few as ever, but increasingly good at making their presence known in the international media? Is it true, as Norimitsu Onishi in the New York Times seems to think, that Japan is slowly but surely drifting towards the right?
PS: Curzon over at Coming Anarchy just posted a piece about why he thinks Japan no longer needs to apologize for the crimes of their Imperial period. I’m more interested in what people actually think and know already than abstractions of what they ‘should’ do, but there is obviously a connection between one and the other.
Thanks for the plug. Japan’s right wing has been been marginalized since WWII. It had a brief resurgence in the 1980s under Nakasone, and now again under Koizumi, who has blended moderate economic reform with moderate social liberalization (such as his apologies to the once-shunned Lepers) and a nationalist, pro-US foreign policy. Yasukuni is one example, less apologetic remilitarization is another.
Regardless of the merits of the Korean and Chinese claims against Japan, their tone appears — to both the Western and Japanese eye — irrational, needlessly emotional, and even groundless. This is galvanizing a number of moderate Japanese citizens and giving the less rabid rightists a forum on TV and in print. The result? Japan is moving slightly right. Nothing extreme — just look to the US-Japan relationship to remain strong, Taiwan to finally find a regional protector, and continuing bad relations with the Koreas and the PRC.
I guess the ultimate test is to see whether these ultra right-wingers have any political pull. It only takes a few fanatics with vision to change the world sometimes.
See, I dont see why anyone would ever ask for a Japanese apology in the first place. Japanese are so great at apologizing in general, but not fixing the problem theyre apologizing for, so their apologies are meaningless. They say “Im sorry” as a meaningless greating. And they apologize for the stupid things they do before they even do them, which truly shows how meaningless their apologies are. Its like, mooshi wake gozaimasen, but this is the way such and such is done, even if its wrong, sumimasen. I am so sorry for the mistake I am about to make, so sorry Im still going to do it! If I were Chinese, I`d let the apology thing go and just ask for money.
China wants money regardless. That’s the lion’s share of the problem.
I don’t think it’s about money at all. China gets FAR more economically out of trade with Japan than they ever could from reparations. Not to mention that Japan has been providing China with development aid in poor areas for a long time, until this year. (or was last year the end of it?) This is about nothing but pride.
Here’s what the 新しい歴史教科書 has to say about Nanking:
この東京裁判では、日本軍が１９３７年、日中戦争で南京を占領したとき、多数の中国人民衆を殺害したと認定した（南京事件）。なお、この事件の実態については資料の上で疑問点が出され,さまざまな見解があり、今日でも論争が続いている。
Incidentally, the textbook also makes a distinction between the first and second Nanking incidents.
Finally, you noted that, “Even the Yasukuni museum (at least in this single panel) does not deny that the Massacre took place; they simply ignore the issue.” This is very much the same way the textbook deals with issues. I have yet to find a single statement that could be called an outright lie; rather, there is a clever juxtiposition of facts to produce a new meaning. One of my favorite examples is a passage with reads:
（インドやインドネシア）では、戦前より独立に向けた動きがあったが、その中で日本軍の南方進出は、アジア諸国が独立を早める一つのきっかけともなった。
True, but to make a favorite, if not hackneyed comparison with Japan’s erstwhile ally, this sounds a little like Germany claiming partial credit for helping out with the establishment of the state of Israel.
I don’t think the economic benefits China gets from trade with Japan should be considered compensation for Japan’s war crimes. After all, Japan benefits too (China is the main reason Japan was able to pull out of its recession).
Germany paid $80 billion in war reparations, but Japan only lent China $30 billion in low-interest development aid, which they still have to pay back. China never demanded money from Japan, actually, even though 20 million Chinese died as a result of Japan’s invasion. It’s no wonder why they’re not too happy that Japan is ending its “development aid.”
I did not remotely imply that “the economic benefits China gets from trade with Japan should be considered compensation for Japan’s war crimes.”
What I said was that I don’t buy the theory that China is primarily interested in reparations because the damage to Chinese/Japanese relations that would be exacted by acquiring those reparations could very well cost China more in the long run, by damaging trade.
Mutantfrog:
I misread your intentions.
Well, there’s another reason to prove that it’s not about money.
I am seriously saddened both by the recent anti-japanese demonstrations AND by the callously dismissive attitudes many in the west express towards the atrocities committed during WWII.
I’m especially chilled by those who hector the Chinese people for not forgiving and forgetting. That’s easy to say when it’s not your grandparent’s generation who died such harrowing deaths at the hands of the Japanese. Raped before being mutilated before being murdered. Used live for bayonet practice. The Japanese back then had a master race mentality that allowed them to treat their neighbors as subhumans. To delight in cruelty without the stain of guilt on their souls. Please don’t insult me by telling me I’m exaggerating or being emotional. I know that there are a lot of us, but that doesn’t mean Chinese lives are cheap.
I read Iris Chang’s “The Rape on Nanking” and could not sleep. The conversation I had on the bus the day before with a Japanese boy kept replaying itself over and over in my mind. Why, he asked, are other Asian Countries so keen on “Japan bashing”? It’s all so long ago. Let bygones be bygones. (A lot of people died terrible deaths. Were raped and tortured). Yeah, but that’s war, isn’t it. People die in wars. Japanese people died too. (But your textbooks don’t reflect the extent which the Japanese people inflicted cruelty on their neighbors). Well all textbooks do that. It’s just the way it is. (But the Germans faced up to their atrocitis). But what they did was really bad isn’t it. That’s different.
The odd thing about the spat is China’s rage: After all, they won the war, Japan lost.
Britain’s dislike of the Germans is tempered by the fact that they defeated the Germans fair and square. You can’t be that mad against somebody you’ve defeated twice.
Perhaps the reason behind China’s rage is that she wants to forget that the Communist Party and the KMT avoided fighting the Japanese as much as possible, in the best Chinese tradition of letting ‘the barbarian fight the other barbarian’ (allowing the US to defeat Japan in the Pacific and Britain in Burma) in order to focus on the civil war after the Japanese defeat.
Just as China’s rage reflects a bitter feeling that they failed dismally against Japan, so they never show any gratitude to the US and the UK, despite the heavy casualies the allies took in the Pacific theatre.
Chinese war films almost never reflect the allies’ contribution.
I believe Japan’s ambiguity about war guilt is influenced by what they see as the bad faith of the Chinese government, which opens and closes the tap of anti- Japanese feeling depending on its wider political agenda (currently to block Japan’s access to the UN security council).
It’s striking that Japan has never been under the same pressure as Germany to express remorse. But that’s the Americans’ fault for forgiving many serious war criminals (eg the Emperor!)
Reparations is an interesting issue. Japan and German, whatever nominal reparations they paid, were the beneficiaries of massive US capital flows under the Marshall and other plans.
The Chinese weren’t – but then they were Communists, allies of the Soviets etc. Mao was completely uninterested in trading political compromise for financial capital.
I think the core of the anger from the West is China’s Communist Party’s reluctance to make amends to its own population for the Great Leap and the Cultural Revolution.
As members of a democracy we find that hard to stomach. I suggest many feel that the Party has been a far crueller enemy to China than Japan. At heart, we are still waiting for China to become a liberal democracy.
One more thing I’d like to add is the shock of seeing young, intelligent, educated Chinese amongst the most fanatical Japan haters. The ordinary people seem a lot less excited about the issue. It shows that modernization doesn’t always bring the rationality you’d expect.
Great posts above – thanks esp for the translations from Japanese.
“the shock of seeing young, intelligent, educated Chinese amongst the most fanatical Japan haters”
No, the hatred goes right through the population.
Just a few points.
The Communist party does like to use anti-Japanese sentiment because it legitimises their hold on power. They claim credit for having driven the Japanese out of China, and with all the mistakes they’ve made since then, it’s not surprising that they retreat to the last resort of rascals, patriotism.
Chinese intellectuals have traditionally been extremely patriotic (even jingoistic) because (and this is my personal belief) they see themselves as the guardians of Chinese civilisation. Young intellectuals are also extremely idealistic because they know nothing of the world, only what they read in textbooks. Chinese in the real world may still hate the Japanese, but it’s tempered by their realisation that not everything is as it seems and by a more basic preoccupation with carrying on their lives.
You have to understand that, no matter how enlightened or educated they may be, all Chinese share the single nationalistic aim of restoring their country to its former greatness. Virtually no Chinese would ever question this goal. As the ‘victim of imperialism’, it never occurs to them that, viewed from another angle, their aspirations look very much like great power aggrandisement. (When Mao invaded Tibet and Xinjiang, this was simply a rightful ‘taking back’ of what had been unfairly taken away, no matter that China had only gained these territories by invasion, and quite recently, too — 18th century. Taiwan is viewed in a similar light.) This is what China’s modern agenda is all about. Look forward to more problems in future, especially as China seeks the energy sources it needs to become a modern, powerful country.
Personally, I feel great antipathy to the Chinese rioters. I believe they are motivated by nothing more than racial hatred (an apology and righting of Yasukuni will not cause Sino-Japanese friction to go away) and that they are being manipulated by the Chinese government.
But one can only be frustrated that Japan’s future relations with Asia (perhaps even ultimately its national prosperity and national existence) re being held hostage by a small group of extremists.
Yasukuni and the war criminals that were secretly enshrined there is an issue that has to be resolved. If Yasukuni is Japan’s national shrine, the Japanese government should have some say about who is enshrined there. If it is a private organisation then it should not be regarded as Japan’s national shrine and the PM shouldn’t be visiting it. Japanese politicians are ingenuously hiding behind the fact that the shrine has been put in a grey area. One cannot blame the Chinese for thinking that the whole thing is deliberate. If Japanese politicians have the gall to make surreptitious visits, why haven’t they got the balls to clean up the situation? Japan may end up paying dearly for the intransigence of a few dyed in the wool nationalists and jingoists who don’t represent the mass of the Japanese people or their interests.
I’m Japanese.
Why even our new genration can not have good relationship each other?
Why we also need to be attacted by not only old generation but new generation?
I was shocked when I knew Chinese people attacked japanese people who live in China.
At that time, I was just in Hong Kong.
I wanted to go to Shenjeng with my HK friends.
But, my friend told me not to go there.
I didn’t know why I can’t go at that time.
Yasukuni problem is not related that Chinese people can attack Japanese people.
I thought most chinese people don’t know Yasukuni well.
It’s not good to attack people without knowing problem well.
I really can say Japan never go back to Imperializm.
If Chinese people can spend time by chatting, playing, travelling Japan with us, they can feel our calm atmosphere by themselves.
They just don’t know current Japanese people.
I hope new generation don’t have any hostility each other.
We Japanese don’t have such hostility to China
I like China, culture, history, movie, music, foods, many many..
I have many friends there.
I want to visit them freely.
I really hope we can have good relationship in the future.
Nanking fell on December 13 ,1937 by the ono unit at 3:10 am
today is the anniversery
saw it in the news in HK