Nanking Massacre 1937(南京大屠殺)
The Nanking Massacre or Nanjing Massacre, also known as the Rape of Nanking, refers to a six-week period following the Japanese capture of Nanking, then capital of the Republic of China, on 9-12-1937. During this period, 20-80,000 women were raped and nearly 300,000 Chinese civilians were murdered by soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army.
Eyewitness accounts of Westerners and Chinese present at Nanking in the weeks after the fall of the city state that over the course of six weeks following the fall of Nanking, Japanese troops engaged in rape, murder, theft, arson, and other war crimes. Some of these accounts came from foreigners who opted to stay behind in order to protect Chinese civilians from harm, including the diaries of German John Rabe and American Minnie Vautrin. Other accounts include first-person testimonies of the Nanking Massacre survivors, eyewitness reports of journalists (both Western and Japanese), as well as the field diaries of military personnel. An American missionary, John Magee, stayed behind to provide a 16 mm film documentary and first-hand photographs of the Nanking Massacre.
A group of foreign expatriates headed by John Rabe had formed the 15-man International Committee on November 22 and mapped out the Nanking Safety Zone in order to safeguard civilians in the city. Rabe and American missionary Lewis S. C. Smythe, secretary of the International Committee and a professor of sociology at the University of Nanking, recorded the actions of the Japanese troops and filed complaints to the Japanese embassy.
In 2007, a group of around 100 Liberal Democratic Party of Japan (LDP) lawmakers again denounced the Nanjing Massacre as a fabrication, arguing that there was no evidence to prove the allegations of mass killings by Japanese soldiers. They accused Beijing of using the alleged incident as a "political advertisement". Japan questions if the Rape of Nanjing even occurred; a Japanese produced documentary film released just prior to the 60th anniversary of the massacre, titled" The Truth about Nanjing", denies that any such atrocities took place. These disputes have stirred up enmity against Japan from the global Chinese community, including Taiwan.
The memory of the Nanking Massacre has been a stumbling block in Sino-Japanese relations since the early 1970s. Bilateral exchanges on trade, culture and education have increased greatly since the two countries normalized their bilateral relations and Japan became China’s most important trading partner. Trade between the two nations is worth over $200 billion annually. Despite this, many Chinese people still have a strong sense of mistrust and animosity toward Japan that originates from the memory of Japanese crimes such as the Nanking Massacre. This sense of mistrust is strengthened by the misconception that Japan is unwilling to admit to and apologize for the atrocity.
Chinese sources list the total number of military and non-military casualties in WW2, both dead and wounded, at 35 million. Most Western historians believed that the total number of casualties was at least 20 million. The property loss suffered by the Chinese was valued at 383 billion US dollars according to the currency exchange rate in July 1937, roughly 50 times the GDP of Japan at that time (US$7.7 billion).Attempt to erase history and war crimes in school textbooks: The PRC joined other Asian countries, such as South Korea, North Korea,and Singapore, in criticizing Japanese history textbooks that "whiten" Japanese war crimes in WW2. They claimed that the rise of militarism became evident in Japanese politics. Why want to erase the fact of history? their action revealed their long term strategy to brain wash their school children on justification of the war.
Visit and paid respect to war criminals by the nation's top leaders: Muchanti-Japanese sentiment has raised, and this has been exacerbated by burgeoning feelings of Chinese nationalism and former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to the Yasukuni Shrine(靖国神社) . Although Koizumi openly declared – in a statement made on 22-4-2005 in Jakarta- "deep remorse" over Japan's wartime crimes (the latest in a series of apologies spanning several decades), many Chinese observers regard the apology as insufficient and not backed up by sincere action. (source: wikipedia). The frequent visit to the WW2 war criminals proved that their apologies were not sincere.
The Japan denied the Nanjing Massacre(or Nanking Massacre) is an act of inhuman, and disrespect to the victim families, a total insult to the victim of their war crimes in WW2. An attempt to alter the history,in order to brainwash their school children is a reflection of their bad faith and non-sincere action of apology. The paying of respect to the war criminals at Yasukuni Shrine by the nation's top leader is adding salt to the pains of their war crime victims.There is ground for worry by the victim countries.
Yasukuni Shrine( 靖國神社)
Yasukuni Shrine (靖国神社 Yasukuni Jinja) is a Shinto shrine located in Chiyoda, Tokyo,Japan. It is dedicated to the Kami (spirits) of soldiers and others who died fighting on behalf of the Emperor of Japan.Of the 2,466,532 people contained in the shrine's Book of Souls, 1,068 were convicted of war crimes by a post World War II court. Of those, 14 are convicted Class A war criminals.
On 17 October 1978, 14 Class A war criminals (convicted by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East), including Hideki Tojo, were enshrined as "Martyrs of Shōwa" (昭和殉難者 Shōwa junnansha), ostensibly that they were on the war dead registry. They are listed below, according to their sentences:
- Death by hanging:
- Lifetime imprisonment:
- 20-year imprisonment:
- Died before a judicial decision was reached (due to illness or disease):
All imprisoned war criminals had commuted sentences, or released by 1958.
The enshrinement was revealed to the media on April 19, 1979, and a controversy started in 1985 which continues to this day.
An English-language sign at the shrine describes Japan as being "forced" into World War II by deliberate strategy of the US President Roosevelt, using trade embargoes to force resource poor Japan into war. A big lie by Japan, America become involved in WW2, was because of the unannounced military strike by Japanese navy planes against USA naval base at Pearl Harbor on 7-12-1941, Sunday morning. An evidence that Japan intentionally erase their involvement in WW2 and war crimes.
(Photo credited to Jeff Windham in 2007).
The Pearl Harbor Attack
Warning Note: This documentary film on Nanking Massacre is purely documentary, unlike the early documentary film " Nanking" which I saw in DVD. Initially I was undecided whether to post this in the blog. But The Nanking Massacre is a true story that no human being will deny the wrongdoing and the crime committed. They are very cruel.......If you are under 18 , or cannot stand the seeing of human violation, please avoid watching this film.
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