The War of Resistance against Japan and the Nanjing Massacre
Japan seizes Manchuria and in 1937 launches full-scale war on China; in Nanjing its troops carry out weeks of mass killing and rape, and by 1945 the war has killed some 14 million or more Chinese.
- Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945 — Rana Mitter, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2013)
- The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography — Joshua A. Fogel (ed.), University of California Press (2000)
- The Making of the "Rape of Nanking": History and Memory in Japan, China, and the United States — Takashi Yoshida, Oxford University Press (2006)
- A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present — Andrew Gordon, Oxford University Press (2003)
- The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China — Jay Taylor, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2009)
Japan’s war in China began with the Mukden Incident of 18 September 1931, when Japanese officers blew up a stretch of railway near Shenyang and blamed Chinese saboteurs. Japan’s Kwantung Army then seized all of Manchuria and set up the puppet state of Manchukuo, with the last Qing emperor, Puyi, as its figurehead. Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government, still fighting the Communists, avoided all-out war.
- Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945 — Rana Mitter, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2013)
- A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present — Andrew Gordon, Oxford University Press (2003)
Full-scale war
On 7 July 1937 a skirmish at the Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing became a full-scale war. Japan expected a quick victory. Instead, Chinese forces fought a ferocious three-month battle for Shanghai before retreating. Japanese troops then advanced on the capital, Nanjing.
- Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945 — Rana Mitter, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2013)
- The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China — Jay Taylor, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2009)
Nanjing
Japanese forces entered Nanjing on 13 December 1937. For some six weeks they killed prisoners of war and civilians in huge numbers and committed mass rape, looting and arson. Westerners who stayed set up a Safety Zone that sheltered perhaps 200,000 to 250,000 people; one of its leaders was John Rabe, a German businessman and Nazi Party member whose diary is a key source.
- The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography — Joshua A. Fogel (ed.), University of California Press (2000)
- The Making of the "Rape of Nanking": History and Memory in Japan, China, and the United States — Takashi Yoshida, Oxford University Press (2006)
- Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945 — Rana Mitter, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2013)
The number killed is fiercely contested, and the argument is itself part of the story. The Tokyo war crimes tribunal estimated more than 200,000; the Nanjing tribunal of 1947 and today’s Chinese government say 300,000 or more. Serious historians in Japan and the West offer figures from tens of thousands to about 200,000, depending on definitions. A small but loud Japanese revisionist camp denies a massacre took place at all, which deeply angers Chinese people.
- The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography — Joshua A. Fogel (ed.), University of California Press (2000)
- The Making of the "Rape of Nanking": History and Memory in Japan, China, and the United States — Takashi Yoshida, Oxford University Press (2006)
Eight years of war
China fought largely alone until December 1941. The Nationalists retreated to Chongqing in the southwest, which Japan bombed relentlessly. In 1938 Chiang ordered the Yellow River dikes broken to slow the Japanese, a decision that flooded vast areas and killed hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians. In occupied areas Japan set up collaborationist regimes. In the north the Communists built guerrilla bases, and Japan responded with brutal “pacification” campaigns. Unit 731 in Manchuria conducted lethal human experiments and biological warfare.
- Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945 — Rana Mitter, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2013)
- The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China — Jay Taylor, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2009)
Estimates of Chinese deaths vary. Rana Mitter cites around 14 million dead and 80 to 100 million refugees; the Chinese government speaks of 35 million casualties, killed and wounded.
- Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945 — Rana Mitter, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2013)
Two ways of remembering
In China, memory of the war was muted under Mao, partly because the Nationalists had done much of the fighting and partly because Beijing courted Japan. From the 1980s, and especially after 1989, it moved to the centre of patriotic education. The Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall opened in 1985, and since 2014 13 December has been a national memorial day.
- Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations — Zheng Wang, Columbia University Press (2012)
- The Making of the "Rape of Nanking": History and Memory in Japan, China, and the United States — Takashi Yoshida, Oxford University Press (2006)
In Japan, memory has been divided. Many Japanese learned of the massacre from journalists and historians such as Honda Katsuichi and Ienaga Saburō, who fought the government for decades over textbook censorship. Others resent what they see as endless demands for apology.
- The Making of the "Rape of Nanking": History and Memory in Japan, China, and the United States — Takashi Yoshida, Oxford University Press (2006)
- War Memory and Social Politics in Japan, 1945–2005 — Franziska Seraphim, Harvard University Asia Center (2006)
A war of aggression and atrocity: Nanjing, the "comfort women", the biological warfare of Unit 731, the "Three Alls" campaign. The official Chinese figure for Nanjing is 300,000 or more killed. Many Chinese feel Japan has never fully faced its guilt, citing politicians' shrine visits and denials.
- Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945 — Rana Mitter, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2013)
- The Making of the "Rape of Nanking": History and Memory in Japan, China, and the United States — Takashi Yoshida, Oxford University Press (2006)
- Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations — Zheng Wang, Columbia University Press (2012)
Successive governments have acknowledged "aggression" and expressed "deep remorse" and apology, notably in the 1995 Murayama statement, and most Japanese historians accept that a massacre took place at Nanjing. Many Japanese feel they have apologised repeatedly and that the issue is used politically by Beijing.
- Statement by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama: On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the war's end — Tomiichi Murayama, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (1995)
- The Making of the "Rape of Nanking": History and Memory in Japan, China, and the United States — Takashi Yoshida, Oxford University Press (2006)
- War Memory and Social Politics in Japan, 1945–2005 — Franziska Seraphim, Harvard University Asia Center (2006)
A vocal minority of politicians and writers minimise or deny the massacre, call the war one of self-defence or of liberating Asia from Western colonialism, and reject the Tokyo trials as victors' justice. These views are rejected by mainstream historians in Japan and abroad.
- The Making of the "Rape of Nanking": History and Memory in Japan, China, and the United States — Takashi Yoshida, Oxford University Press (2006)
- The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography — Joshua A. Fogel (ed.), University of California Press (2000)
There is no serious doubt about mass killing and rape. Estimates differ: the Tokyo tribunal found more than 200,000 killed; many Japanese and Western scholars give figures from several tens of thousands to around 200,000, depending on the area, time span and whether surrendered soldiers are counted; China's official figure is 300,000.
- The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography — Joshua A. Fogel (ed.), University of California Press (2000)
- The Making of the "Rape of Nanking": History and Memory in Japan, China, and the United States — Takashi Yoshida, Oxford University Press (2006)
Why it matters today
The war is the deepest wound in modern Chinese memory and a living issue: in films, TV dramas, school trips, the national memorial day for Nanjing every 13 December, and in outrage when Japanese politicians visit Yasukuni Shrine or textbooks soften the story. Many families have their own stories of loss, flight or occupation.
For many Japanese the war in China is a less vivid memory than the Pacific War and the atomic bombs, and schools cover it briefly. How to remember it, and whether Japan has apologised enough, is a fault line in Japanese politics and the biggest obstacle to trust with China.