Comments

Posts

Post 1945 section of joint Japan-China history project will not be made public

Japanese and Chinese scholars published the results of a three-year joint history project the other day, and the international media has put is focus on the disagreement over the death toll of the Nanking Massacre.

Here’s an excerpt from the AP article by Mari Yamaguchi:

The massacre was one of the worst incidents during Japan’s invasion of China in the first half of the 20th century, with Beijing claiming as many as 300,000 people died, but Tokyo saying the toll was far less.

The report was written by Japanese and Chinese historians appointed by the two governments. In it, Japanese scholars confirmed Japan’s Imperial Army “massacred” war prisoners, soldiers and citizens in the city of Nanking, now called Nanjing, in the December 1937 attack, and committed repeated rapes of women, arson and looting.

But the two sides failed to agree on the death toll.

The Japanese listed figures ranging from 20,000 to 200,000, citing differences on the definition of “massacre,” the area and the span of the event. China, which compiled data from records of domestic and international tribunals, put the death toll at more than 300,000.

Absent from the article is a real evaluation of the views of the Japanese historians. The average international reader will be left with the impression that the Japanese are once again trying to “whitewash” history.

It is disappointing that the AP article and other English language articles about this story don’t go into detail and note that credible historians who are not right-wing nationalists do have widely differing views of the death toll. Few outside China take the 300,000 figure seriously, unless one greatly increases the time frame and area of land involved to a point beyond what anyone would reasonably consider a single massacre in a single city.

Japanese media reports have mentioned the Nanjing disagreement but have also touched a rather interesting thing about the report. Although it was meant to involve post war history, it is completely missing anything about the period after 1945. The Associated Press didn’t think it was worth including in their article, but the AFP actually bothered to mention it:

The report did not disclose the outcome of discussions on post-World War II history at the request of the Chinese side.

Japanese media attributed the exclusion to China’s caution on sensitive events including the bloody military crackdown on pro-democracy protests at Tiananmen Square in 1989.

In other words, China is fine with joint-history projects as long as they don’t include any period of history in which the People’s Republic of China existed. Reflection on past wrongdoing is something only other nations should engage in. The Japanese side, wanting to better relations with China, seems to have meekly agreed with this view and will not to make the post-1945 section public.

—

Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

15 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - February 2, 2010 at 3:42 pm

Categories: Politics Tags: history, nanking

k9

as far as i know, the period of nanking massacre was 6 weeks~2 month(international military tribunal for the far east) but china say it was 4 month.(300,000 were killed and 80,000 women were raped.)

300,000 ÷　120days = 2,500 killed/day
80,000 ÷　120days = 667 raped /day

if this is correct,it seems to be really efficient and brutal action more than slaughterhouses. i dont disclaime involvement of jp army in the massacre but i feel the casualty figure alleged by china is little exaggerated.
japanobserver

It’s good that the two parties are working together to create a mutual understanding. However, this comes as hypocritical, when China accuses Japan of Whitewashing its history when they conveniently leave out the Tiananmen Massacre and other controversial issues. If this is a history project, both sides should look at it squarely.
jcu

i’m not too familiar with the history of this but some comment about the post.

why is it disappointing that the AP does not go into detail about non right wing historian? their job is not to save face for japan but to just report on topic at hand, which is only the historians involved in the project.

where is source few outside of china do not agree with 300,000 number? if you have army in one of the highest population cities in the world with no regard for shooting, it is possible.

LB

if you have army in one of the highest population cities in the world

Assuming said army beamed down into a fully-populated city and immediately sealed the gates and started shooting…

However what actually happened was the army took weeks advancing in the face of armed opposition towards that city, giving plenty of notice that they were coming. The city was not totally abandoned by any means, but a hell of a lot of people, including the ROC government and most of the Chinese army, left the city well before the Japanese showed up. red Cross officials in Nanking at the time the Japanese entered gave the population of the city and all the surrounding countryside that could conceivably be called “Nanjing” as significantly less than the number the Chinese later claimed were massacred there.

In other words, the Japanese army would have had to have killed every man, woman and child within Nanjing’s walls, plus all those living outside the walls within several miles of the city and more, to reach the Chinese casualty claims. Not possible as we know there were Chinese living in the city after the massacre who had also been living there before, and in the surrounding areas. I also seriously doubt that Chinese from outside Nanjing said “hey, I hear there’s a slaughter going on – wanna go watch?” which then led to an influx of Chinese into the city in sufficient numbers so as to give the Japanese Army 300,000+ civilians to kill.

The Chinese numbers simply cannot be made to add up, and pointing that out is hardly support for the actions of the Japanese Army.

Uranus

and your statistics are from where

LB

I said where: Red Cross officials in Nanking at the time the Japanese entered. Observations were made, reports submitted. These reports are freely available online and in actual paper format just in case you do not trust the “internets”.
http://www.chirimotsumoreba.net Jordan

For a balanced, unbiased look at this subject from a Chinese scholar check out Daqing Yang’s “The Challenges of the Nanjing Massacre” in Joshua Fogle’s book The Nanjing Massacre in history and historiography.

Most scholar that aren’t aligned with the CPC note that the 300,000 victim figure is almost certainly made up.

Tbrot

As Stalin put it: One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is just a statistic.

At any rate, the people of Japan and its army more than paid the price for all the atrocities Japan commited. Arguing over the number of people who were masscred does not absolve Japan of its actions. It seems this is all just all about saving face.

Level3

At least they have historians doing the counting rather than politicians and activists. They can come up with any numbers they want.

Left wing activists claim over 600,000 dead in Iraq War 2 (using counting methods derived from “6 Degrees of Separation”) Those who support the war can claim up to 3,000,000 lives have been saved (and use pre-war UN and Amnesty Int’l data, which they don’t even trust themselves, to do so)

All such figures are pretty worthless except to let you know the extreme edges of the possible range, often with an extra zero or two added in.

But then, are the government-approved historians from a semi-totalitarian, certainly information-controlling China really expected to be apolitical and come up with a result different from the official one? Or the Japanese for that matter?

I’d only trust a committee of historians not on government funding, from a neutral country, and they can’t have human emoitions.
Thus, I demand a committee of Swiss robot historians.

LB

You know, this whole discussion would be moot if the Germans had invaded China. Then we would have detailed records of every single bullet expended, every person killed, where, and in what position the body fell. There would be exactly zero room for debate as to numbers.

No-one kept records like the Germans – as they learned to their chagrin at Nürnberg.

http://www.squidoo.com/Ryoma-Sakamoto Eric

Actually, keeping detailed records and statistics is something the Japanese have in common with the Germans. The Japanese of course are also very good at burning records.

At any rate, the Japanese and Chinese have a lot in common, both historically and culturally. The Chinese are obviously both inflating the number of victims and being very hypocritical here–their recent history is hardly an open book–but, the fact that two East Asian nations have two different versions of their shared history is not surprising.

Most Western countries try to be objective about their own history and transmit a balanced account of the past, warts and all, but they usually come up short. People are people and everyone wants to believe the best about themselves. But, in East Asia, the basic assumption that historians should report their own country’s history objectively and give equal attention to the dark parts as the noble is not really a given. I’ve often heard Japanese express the opinion that it is impossible for two different countries to share the same version of history.

In the case of the Nanjing Massacre, the simple truth is that the Japanese army committed many cruel atrocities in and around Nanjing, but both sides continue to play a numbers game.

There’s an interesting book called Japanese Historians
and the National Myths, 1600-1945: The Age of the Gods and Emperor Jinmu. You can get it on Amazon.

ponta

“in East Asia, the basic assumption that historians should report their own country’s history objectively and give equal attention to the dark parts as the noble is not really a give”

Or rather in the west as well as in the east there was a tendency to believe there was “objective account” of historical events as if viewed from nowhere. But more and more people (in a post modernist world) realize a historical narrative is always from a specific perspective.(though it does not mean intersubjective agreement is impossible)

“What is History For? “by Beverley Southgate is an interesting book in this regard.

(And to illustrate, look at the accounts of Hiroshima, for instance, there are several narratives and there are still controversies, even among American historians.)

In the case of the N@njing Massacre, both Japanese and Chinese side agree that “the Japanese army committed many cruel atrocities in and around N@njing”. That is important.

“both sides continue to play a numbers game.”

It is not accurate to say that they are playing number games;they are trying to find the accurate numbers, but since they don’t agree as to which evidences they use, how to evaluate the evidences, how to count civilians, the time frame and area of land involved etc., they disagree as for the death toll.

I think it is a good idea and fair to present multiple accounts and unfair to repress the other accounts just because they don’t
fit for political purpose:the readership should be given an opportunity to examine the debates.

SushiCat

(1)
Why hasn’t the current Chinese government done a study to
see hom many millions of innocent people starved to death
in the 1950s and 1960s, as a direct result of Chairman Mao’s
failed policies?

(2)
Why were war crimes and crimes against humanity charges
against those responsible for the dropping of atomic
boms on civilian populations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
If the Japanese or the Germans had developed and used
the atomic bomb in the same manner, they would have been
charged with war crimes for sure.

SG

Haha. Look, I do not mean to be blase about it, or say that dropping nuclear weapons is cool, but I mean, really…

The winners of a war get to decide the rules. That is just sort of how it works… The Allies won and, guess what, they decided not to punish themselves for it.

Surprise, ne?

hiho

“One of the Japanese experts on the team said the Chinese side was not prepared to discuss historical facts without taking political influences into consideration.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRnXjdyz_38

Post 1945 section of joint Japan-China history project will not be made public

Recent Comments

Further Reading

South Korean Government Demands That International Hydrographic Organization Use “East Sea”

Japanese Documentary About Sea Shepherd’s Protest Activities in Taiji (English Subtitles)

Babies Born on March 11th Receive Special Present

Washington Times Freelancer Slams Former Employer, Fails to Ethically Disclose Relationship?

Christopher Johnson Attempts to Silence Criticism of His “Gaijin Gulag” Article (Legal Threats!!!)

Tabloid Reports About Yu Darvish’s Love Life: Kirara Asuka & Miho Koga?

Does K-Pop Group KARA Have Ties to North Korea?

Tokyo Gate Bridge

Sara Errani Admits She Avoided Tennis Tournament in Tokyo: Feared Radiation

Chinese Workers Who Survived March 11th Tsunami Return to Tohoku

Categories

Archives

Subscribe

Japan Blogs

Korea Blogs

Linkroll

Other Asia Blogs