Essay on The Japanese Rape of Nanking, China

“In 1933, Japan occupied Jehol Province, not including Chahar and Hopei, and wanted the Hopei as a demilitarized zone” (Hua-ling 56). In 1935, the Japanese forced the Chinese to withdraw from their stations in Hopei and Chahar and also ended all activities in the area. In September, Foreign Minister Hirota Koki, presented The Three Principles of Hirota to the Chinese government demanding that China should stop using American and European influence to maintain friendship, China should recognize Manchukuo, and that Japan and China mst establish a common defense against communism (Hua-ling 58). After Japan withdrew from the League of Nations, they were no longer going for world peace (Morley 72). “The Nanking Massacre refers to an exceedingly horrible massacre of civilians by the Japanese army during a six-week period from December 1937 to January 1938 after its occupation of Nanking, then the capital of the Republic of China” (Taso). General Iwane Matsui, the commanding officer in Shanghai, and the cabinet argued that the capture of Nanking would convince the nationalist government to settle the incident (Morley 74). Even before the Rape of Nanking, the Japanese had tried to use their power to force China to do things against their

During world war two, the Imperial Japanese army forced an estimated 200,000 women into sexual slavery. This is just one of the many atrocities committed by Japan during world war two. Even though many say that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were inhumane, the US was completely justified because the future casualties were minimized and Japan and its allies committed atrocious war crimes.

The Fifteen-Year War was a time of great turmoil and uncertainty in Japan. Various facets of the country were tested and driven to their limits. During the occupation, race and gender began to evolve in ways that had not exactly be seen before. War had a tremendous impact on every part of the life of a Japanese citizen. Both men and women began to fill roles that were completely novel to them. Race became a part of the definition of who people were. As the war progressed and American troops landed on Japanese soil for occupation, more drastic changes occurred. Economic hardship and rations befell the people of the Land of the Rising Sun. Prostitution began to rear its ugly head and rape transpired. Through memory, research, and vivid

The United States put Japanese people in camps, stealing their rights, and placed them in inhumane facilities that no human being should be forced to withstand.

The humiliation caused by the defeat in the Sino-Japanese War of 1895 stirred up nationalism in China as well as resentment against European-powers. It was believed that the Europeans were driving China’s domestic and foreign policy and that is was important to reclaim China for the Chinese to return to Confucian values. In 1898, the situation escalated when a group called the “Boxers” (officially “Righteous Harmony Fists”) began a rebellion in north China in the Shantung Province. In this province, Germans dominated the rail lines, factories and coal mines

Japanese soldiers are widely remembered as being cruel and indifferent to the fate of Allied prisoners of war. Cruelty could take different forms, from extreme violence and torture to minor acts of physical punishment, humiliation and neglect. Some prisoners were made to hold a heavy stone above their heads for many hours. Others might be forced into small cells with little food or water.

After the thousands of deaths in the well known Pearl Harbor and slightly lesser known rape and massacre of Nanking, attack and for the most part subsequent conquering of the Philippines, Guam,

The most gruesome tales have come to light by the people who survived the merciless actions of the Japanese soldiers. For instance, Tang Shunsan who witnessed and survived the mass murder of Nanking when he left the safety of his hideout behind due to his simple curiosity. Tang and his fellow shoemaker apprentices hid in their house where they converted the doorway so it looked like “...from the outside, a smooth, unbroken wall”(nanking 2). The Japanese soldiers never would have known he was there had he not ventured out into the open to satiate his curiosities of what a Japanese man looked like. Once discovered, he was taken to a large grave for the Chinese people they had killed, and, “...to Tang’s horror, a competition began among the soldiers-a competition to determine who could kill the fastest”(nanking 3 pg. 85). With luck on his side, Tang survived the competition when “ the soldier decapitated the man directly in front of Tang”(nanking 4) and instead of moving out of the way, “Tang also toppled backwards and dropped, together with the body, into the pit”(nanking

The war crimes Japanese soldiers inflicted upon the people of Nanking are one of the most heinous examples of this idea of extermination, resulting in the loss of an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 lives. Thousands of women were raped, forced to take pictures with their assailants in pornographic poses, shamed and seen as being dirty, viewed as being subhuman. Soldiers were warned to eliminate the women they had raped, disposing of the evidence of what they had done. “‘Perhaps when we were raping her, we looked at her as a woman,’ Azuma [a soldier] wrote, “‘but when we killed her, we just thought of her as something like a pig’” (50). Rape was often rooted in superstition, the belief that the violation of virgins would provide strength and

World War II was a devastating war, whether you were directly in the war zone, or away from the battlefield, you were impacted greatly. Flyboys is a book written by James Bradley, in this book Bradley tells stories of World War II using first-hand accounts. In chapter five, Bradley discusses “The Rape of China” which was a battle that took place in 1937 during the beginning of World War II. In this battle, the Japanese fight the Chinese and destroy China. Both Japan and China had very different moral beliefs on fighting in the war. China believed that the soldiers needed to “be courteous,” and to also be “neither selfish nor unjust” to civilians (Bradley 54). Meanwhile, the Japanese had totally opposite policies known as the “Three Alls” meaning

They took Manchuria and turned it into one of their own states by the name of Manchukuo. After the invasion of Manchuria, in 1937, the Japanese continued their expansion. They took over more of China killing some 300,000 people. By the end of World War II, China would suffer over fourteen million losses. The League of Nations, an early form of the United Nations, highly rebuked these hostile actions.

The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang exposed the atrocities of the Japanese military during the World War II in the Chinese capital city, Nanking. Iris Chang is a Chinese American who was born and raised in the United States. She depicts the inhumane violence committed by the Japanese army during the war through various records and interview materials of survivors. From the perspective of Japan, victim, and the America and Europe, she states how Japan, bold by the silence

Japan started a campaign into China taking land. Japan pushed and took many supply ports on

1. The Nanking Massacre, also known as the Rape of Nanking, lasted six weeks. It started on December 13th, 1937, the day the Japanese invaded and captured Nanking, which is now the city of Nanjing. During this period, the Imperial Japanese Army killed civilians and injured Chinese soldier. There are no official death tolls but there is an estimate of 200 000 to 400 000 deaths. There were 20 000 to 80 000 women raped. Once one of China’s most modern and prosperous cities, the industrial city of Nanking took decades to recover from the devastation it experienced.

In the early 1930, before the start of WWII itself, Japan was already fighting and invading China. This was because Japan saw China was beginning to gain power and could possibly take back land Japan had taken in earlier war. As this happened, Japan began to lose power and, eventually, became desperate for resources and led to the eventual attack on Pearl Harbor.