{"id":3794,"date":"2015-03-11T01:00:06","date_gmt":"2015-03-11T05:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dontow.com\/?p=3794"},"modified":"2015-05-23T10:40:43","modified_gmt":"2015-05-23T14:40:43","slug":"nanjing-massacre-its-significance-for-our-current-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/2015\/03\/nanjing-massacre-its-significance-for-our-current-generation\/","title":{"rendered":"Nanking Massacre: Its Significance for Our Current Generation"},"content":{"rendered":"

What does Nanking Massacre mean to the current generation? To the average American, it probably means nothing and is something they probably have never heard of before. To the average Chinese American, it probably also doesn\u2019t mean very much except that it might be something that they have heard their parents or grandparents mentioning it during some family meals or gatherings. To the Japanese who are under 45 years old, they probably also don\u2019t know much about it. Is the Nanking Massacre just a historical relic of the past that has no significance in the 21st century, or is it something that has deep significance not only for China, but also for the U.S., Japan, and the whole world?
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\nWhat Was the Nanking Massacre?<\/strong> To address the issue raised in the title of this article, let\u2019s first briefly discuss what was the Nanking Massacre. During the Second Sino-Japanese War (1931-1945), Japan on September 18, 1931 invaded Manchuria, the northeastern part of China. Then she invaded Peking on July 7, 1937. After a three-and-a-half month ferocious battle from mid-August to late-November 1937, Shanghai fell. Then on December 13, 1937 the Japanese Imperial Army marched into Nanking, the then-capital of China. Since the Chinese Nationalist troops already began their western retreat to set up a war-time capital in Chongqing, Nanking was basically left defenseless. Nevertheless during the next six weeks, the Japanese Imperial Army ruthlessly massacred about 300,000 Chinese, most of them being civilians with many women and children, and also raped more than 20,000 Chinese women and girls, ranging in age from younger than 10 to older than 80. Thousands and thousands of Chinese were slaughtered using all kinds of gruesome killing methods, such as chopping off heads in execution style, bayoneting live people in competition, burying people alive in mass graves, locking people up in buildings and then torching the buildings, raping and then killing women and girls. It was one of the most massive and inhumane massacres in the history of mankind.<\/p>\n

Was That History Documented?<\/strong> That part of history was well documented by many Chinese, Japanese, and Western eyewitnesses, including educators, missionaries, businessmen, foreign diplomats, soldiers, and the press, and real-time films of many of the atrocities were smuggled out of China and then shown in the Western mass media and also shown to Western political leaders. One example is the 105 minutes of film that the American episcopal priest John Magee, also the Chairman of the Nanking Committee of the International Red Cross Organization, took in December 1937 (https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=H7R5N6qWScU<\/a>). Furthermore, this part of history was also well recorded in many contemporary diaries, such as those of John Rabe (a German), Minnie Vautrin (an American), and Tsen Shui-fang (a Chinese). However, in spite of this overwhelming amount of evidence, Japan has continued to deny the very existence of the Nanking Massacre, making claims that it was nothing but a natural consequence of war, or the numbers were hugely exaggerated, or that the whole thing was fabricated by the Chinese.<\/p>\n

Do People Know About That Part of History?<\/strong> For about 60 years from 1937 to 1997, overwhelming majority of the people in the world, outside of China, did not know much about the Nanking Massacre, and most likely had never heard of it. It was only after Iris Chang in 1997 published her best-selling book Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II<\/em>, then more people outside of China have heard of the Nanking Massacre, but it was still a very small minority. Another 17 years later, now 77 years have elapsed since the Nanking Massacre and 69 years have elapsed since the end of WWII, still not only that most of the Japanese, aside from the older Japanese, don\u2019t know anything about that part of history, most of the people in the U.S. and the West also have never heard about that part of history.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/strong> The people in Japan don\u2019t know about that part of history, because the Japanese government does not want to admit that their country could have inflicted such terrible and inexcusable acts toward other human beings. In their history textbooks, this part of history is completely whitewashed. This part of history is also essentially not discussed in American high school history courses (or high school history courses of other countries of the Western world). Why the American people, and the people of the Western world in general, also don\u2019t know about this part of history? This is even more puzzling taking into account that the U.S. was the country that controlled and shaped the reconstruction of Japan after WWII. So what role did the U.S. government play?<\/p>\n

U.S. Policy Toward China Since 1949:<\/strong> Beginning shortly after the end of WWII, because of the possibility of the Chinese Communist Party winning the civil war in China, the U.S.-China relationship has not been good. For about 70 years, with the possible exception during the short period before and after the Nixon visit to China, the U.S. policy toward China has been to surround, isolate, and weaken China. As China became stronger from both the economic and military perspectives, especially during the last 5-10 years when China has become the world\u2019s second largest economy, the U.S., instead of adopting a policy that could lead to a win-win-win situation (the third win is for world peace), has adopted a very antagonistic policy toward China, and has recruited countries like Japan, Philippines, and Vietnam to serve as her front-line pawns to implement her antagonistic policy.<\/p>\n

There are many happenings that one can point to for reaching the above conclusion. Due to length limitation, this article gives only a few examples.<\/p>\n

Shortly after the end of WWII, the U.S. did not prosecute any of the Japanese scientists, doctors, or leaders who led Japan\u2019s deadly, inhumane, and massive biological and chemical warfare. Why? It was in exchange for getting their knowledge and data associated with developing those weapons of mass destruction. This has been documented in several books and articles, including those by American medical historians. Unfortunately, it is still not a well-known fact to the American public. The U.S. likes to use double standards. On August 26, 2013, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said \u201cThe use of chemical weapons in attacks on civilians in Syria last week was undeniable and that the Obama administration would hold the Syrian government accountable for a \u2018moral obscenity\u2019 that has shocked the world\u2019s conscience.\u201d But on the much more massive use of biological and chemical weapons that Japan unleashed on China during WWII, do we hear Kerry or Obama mentioning moral obscenity?<\/p>\n

The U.S. also decided not to prosecute Emperor Hirohito even though he was a hands-on emperor who was fully aware of and approved what Japan did during the war. If the Emperor of Japan did not do anything wrong, then that helps the Japanese people to feel that their country also did nothing wrong, and Japan was the victim, and not the aggressor. Therefore, Japan does not need to acknowledge and apologize for the so-called atrocities of WWII.<\/p>\n

On December 25, 1953, the U.S. had no right at all to decide unilaterally to include the Diaoyu Islands as part of the Ryukyu Islands whose administrative rights would be handed over to Japan in 1972. This complicity by the U.S. helped to create a dispute which should not have existed in the first place. Furthermore, especially in the last few years, the U.S. has on many occasions stated an internally inconsistent foreign policy: On the one hand, the U.S. says that she doesn\u2019t take a position regarding the territorial sovereignty of these islands, but on the other hand, she says that these islands are covered under the Japan-U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty. In other words, the U.S. is willing to go to war in Asia that it has no moral or legal reason to be involved, unless the reason is to weaken China at all cost.<\/p>\n

Several Japanese prime ministers, including current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and many Cabinet members have visited the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, where 14 convicted and executed Japanese WWII war criminals are enshrined. How would we feel if the German chancellor pays homage at a memorial site for Adolf Hitler? On numerous occasions, Japan\u2019s political leaders have made statements denying various atrocities committed by the Japanese Imperial Army in Asia during WWII. They have denied the Nanking Massacre, as well as other atrocities such as Comfort Women (euphemism for sex slaves), biological and chemical warfare, live vivisections, and slave labor. This is in spite of overwhelming evidence, including documented interviews by the Japanese teacher\/journalist Tamaki Matsuoka with over 250 former Japanese soldiers, most of whom were stationed in Nanking during the Nanking Massacre period (see her 2010 documentary film \u201cTorn Memories of Nanjing\u201d). But where are the moral outcries from our U.S. political leaders, especially keeping in mind that they always emphasize the importance of human rights, and it was the U.S. who guided and oversaw the reconstruction of Japan?<\/p>\n

Manipulating Public Opinion Regarding China:<\/strong> In order to justify such antagonistic policy toward China, the U.S. government and mass media have consistently been negative and critical of Chinese government actions, so that a negative spin is usually given to almost everything that is happening in China. They accuse China of many things, such as:<\/p>\n