The Rape of Nanking

“Kill all, loot all, burn all.” This was the Japanese policy towards China dealing with the massacre (Sheng-Ping). To begin, the term genocide has eight unique stages, various interpretations, and a specific root. In Japan, opposing perspectives on who was to control Nanking created tension between the Japanese and Chinese. The horrendous actions inflicted on the Chinese resulted because of eight specific stages. Sadly, genocide will not end unless nations across the world work together to put an end to this horrifying concept. The genocide of Japan, directed by the malice of the Japanese military regime, was based on the idea that any enemy soldier who surrendered was considered criminal, and therefore, many people perished because

Most people in the world never seem to realize the mass number of raping or killings that are going on around them. Meanwhile, during the holocaust, no one understood how much it was happening around them then either, except for the people it was happening to. Most people are aware of the savagery that occurred during the holocaust in Germany, but few have ever even heard of Nanjing, much less the rape of Nanjing. Both genocides share very close similarities, and they both also share their differences.

The tight control of the Japanese Army promoted resistance from the civilians of South East Asia. This occurred in areas of strategic importance for the Japanese. Starvation and brutality towards civilians in territories led to outbreaks of political violence and strong resistance. The civilians of Malaya met the Japanese forces with strong resistance in the form of guerilla warfare and sabotage to capture Japanese outposts and encourage social revolution. As Falk argues the Japanese responded to the networks of resistance by ‘drawing out forces and firing on them unexpectedly’, leading to the death of over 50,000 people in Malaya. It is evident that the increase in political violence led to a considerable amount of occupied death in territories of South East Asia.

In December of 1937, the Japanese Imperial Army invaded Nanking, China. They killed 300,00 out of the 600,000 people in China’s capital city. The six-week rampage by the Japanese is now known as the Rape of Nanking and the single worst atrocity during WWII era in either the European or Pacific theaters of the war.

Throughout The Rape of Nanking, the brutal massacre of thousands of innocent Chinese citizens is brought forth through the invasion of this ancient city taken over by the Imperial Japanese army. Iris Chang illustrates the graphic details of the murder and rape of these victims through the perspectives of different sides of the attack. Chang; furthermore, ties in the mass genocide and destruction displayed throughout the book with the example of the Japanese government’s desperate attempt to cover up the incident and the reluctance of the survivors to discuss it. In addition, the horrifying events of The Rape of Nanking only further motivated an uncontrollable desire for aggression, violence, and imperialism in the Asian community evidently

After the world war I allied countries had signed the treaty of Versailles. Japan had felt left out because it wanted to include a part about racial equality. They felt that they weren't being treated equally. So Japan had started to take control and conquer land in southeast Asian countries. They wanted to spread their rule and race. The U.S. didn’t agree with Japan’s action and over the years tension has developed between the two countries. Japan bombed Pearl Harbor because of their nationalist mindset, America’s embargo of oil, and the fear of being attacked by the United States because of its growth.

What did all of this have to do with the U.S.? Well, because the U.S. had ties with East Asia, politically and economically, the decisions Japan were making were also affecting the U.S. So, America took it upon itself to increase military and financial aid to China. The reason this decision was made was to cut off oil shipments and raw materials to Japan. This is what really angered the Japanese.

Mrs. Wen, in her testimony of the Japanese atrocities at Nanking in 1937, she writes “ Japanese troops arrived, all of them armed with guns, knives, force me to take off my pants, I would be killed if I didn’t, I personally watched as the Japanese troops massacred many people” (Doc A). In stating this, the author means that the Japanese soldiers went through every house and shooting every civilian they could and raping women without hesitation. Mr. Taketa, in his testimony about life in Japan before the atomic bomb was dropped, he claims that “the Japanese people were forced to endure poverty and suffering” (Doc D). The author means that Japan’s government starve their people to death and let them suffer, as part of their culture. Furthermore, the Japanese were known by their way of killing their prisoners. These brutalities by the Japanese soldiers were considered inhumane. Thus, President Truman should have dropped the atomic bombs on Japan because the cruel actions of the Japanese needed to be stopped, and save innocent

The massacre is significant because it would pave the way for the future of any relations between China and Japan. Their relationship is very strained already because Japan has not issued a mutually accepted apology for its war crimes (Yew). Neither country is willing to give in due to denial in Japan and anger in China (Yew). The Nanking Massacre should be taught in schools alongside the Holocaust because even though the Holocaust was extermination, both of these tragic events show hatred at its core: Nazis against the Jews and the Japanese against the Chinese.

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

They slaughtered thousands of Chinese civilians during the rape of Nanking in 1937. It was necessary for America to drop the bomb.

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

The belief, subtly reinforced by racist stereotypes, that the behaviour of Japanese forces, from attacks on Chinese cities in 1937 through Pearl Harbour to the Bataan death march...nullified any humanitarian consideration for the Japanese people (Kyoko + Mark Selden, 1989, book)

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

In his work “Right to Kill, Right to Make Live” Takashi Fujitani compares and contrasts the Japanese treatment of colonialized Koreans leading up to World War II with the American treatment of the Japanese residents following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. This work highlights how both the Japanese and the Americans treated the Koreans and Japanese Americans, respectively, and offers several different viewpoints. Thus, this work is exceptionally important and provides incredible insight into both cultures and the harsh reality of wartime. Additionally, Fujitani also explains how the Korean and Japanese populations are still influenced today.