A Japanese Historiography of the Nanjing Massacre
by Takeshi Yoshida
Japanese conception of the
Nanjing Massacre has evolved throughout the last sixty years.
To this date, there have been five phases in its progression.
The first phase was the history of the Massacre during the Asia-Pacific
War (1931-45). In this period, there was no Nanjing Massacre in the public
Japanese awareness. In spite of
commemorations of Chinese deaths after the fall of Nanjing, lantern parades took
place throughout Japan to celebrate the capture of Nanjing.
Newspapers praised the Japanese military for fighting bravely in China.
Japanese read literature that portrayed humane and courageous Japanese
soldiers fighting for the "liberation of Asia from the Western
invasion." Although
Timperley's Japanese Terror in China fully discussed Japanese atrocities in
Nanjing and was translated into Japanese, it was not widely read.
With the Japanese defeat in 1945, the second phase of the Massacre in
Japanese historiography began. At
the Tokyo War Crimes Trial (1946-48), the Japanese public learned of various
atrocities committed by the Japanese army in China, including the Nanjing
Massacre. Newspapers reported the trial in detail. For instance, the day
following the testimony of Robert Wilson, a doctor who witnessed Japanese
brutalities in Nanjing, the newspaper Asahi
reported that "...horrible acts of the Japanese Army were first revealed to
the people." Headlines such as
"Insatiate Atrocities for Three Months" (Mainichi) and "Children, Too, Were Massacred; Revealed Massacre
at Nanjing" (Asahi) were
sensational enough to attract the attention of the people in Japan.
Although the trial taught the Japanese public about the Massacre at
Nanjing, the Massacre did not become a symbol of Japanese war crimes against the
Chinese. Rather, it was a reminder
of an atrocious Japanese military that dragged Japan into a reckless war with
the United States leading to tremendous Japanese sacrifices.
Although the Massacre failed to become a public memory commemorating the
Chinese deaths in Nanjing in 1937-38, the history of the Massacre, as well as
other wartime Japanese atrocities in Asia, became a standard in Japanese
history. Accounts of events in
Nanjing appeared in elementary and junior high school textbooks that were edited
by the Ministry of Education. In
the historical academy, historians reflected upon a national education during
wartime that had facilitated people's support for the war.
They rejected historical education that was used to teach unscientific
imperial myths and morals justifying national sacrifice for the emperor and
Japanese overseas aggression.
These historians, most of whom were Marxists, began to publish studies
that they had not been able to publish during the war.
They were not only active and influential in writing but also
participated in democratic and peace movements, such as an anti-nuclear weapon
petition campaign. In postwar
Japanese historical discourse, it has been these progressives who have been most
influential. Conservatives and
nationalists have been challenging the progressive version of imperial history,
which, in their eyes of many conservatives, "demonized" wartime
Japanese history. Therefore, in
Japan, the term "revisionist" is associated with conservatism and is
at odds with the progressive view of history, whereas in the United States, the
term often refers to liberals who are fighting against conservatives.
The Cold War helped Japanese revisionists gain influence. American policy makers did not want Japan to become a
communist country, but a country that could buffer against the spread of
communism in Asia. In the early
1950s, both Japanese and American policy makers agreed that the Japanese
government should foster a spirit of patriotism that would bring the Japanese
closer together should self-defense be necessary.
This was the time when the representation of Japanese aggression in Asia
was toned down in school textbooks. The
word "aggression" was replaced with "advance" in many
textbooks in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Eventually, the description of the Massacre disappeared from textbooks
altogether.
With the reopening of China to the world in the early 1970s, the third
phase of the history of the Massacre within Japan began.
In 1971, Asahi journalist Katsuichi Honda published an article series
called "Chûgoku no tabi" in Asahi. Honda, who had been a
correspondent in Vietnam and saw many American atrocities there, wanted to
examine Japanese atrocities during the Asia-Pacific War, including the Massacre.
In his 40-day trip to China, he visited war memorials and interviewed
survivors. His articles, which
included vivid photographs of remains of human bodies and of faces of his
interviewees with tears and sorrows, were sensational and touched on something
that many people wanted to forget. Although
Honda received support from many of his readers, he also received criticism, and
even threats from others.
Revisionists such as Shichihei Yamamoto and Akira Suzuki challenged
Honda's account of an alleged killing competition between the two second
lieutenants who competed to behead 100 Chinese.
Yamamoto and Suzuki published articles in Shokun and Bungeishunjû
claiming that the competition was something like an urban myth. Suzuki's efforts
won him acclaim within the publishing world, and he received the Ôya Sôichi
Nonfiction Award in 1973.
For
those historians sympathetic to the experience of Chinese civilians and soldiers
massacred by the Japanese invaders, these repeated denials of the truth of the
Massacre and claims of Japanese innocence were outrageous.
They responded immediately, pointing out inaccuracies in the challenges
to long-standing accounts of the Massacre.
In school textbooks, the Massacre appeared again in the 1970s partly
because of the decisions made by the Tokyo District Court and the Tokyo High
Court which favored Saburô Ienaga, who edited a textbook that had previously
been disqualified for use by the Ministry of Education.
The textbook controversy in 1982 opened another phase of the Massacre's
history within Japan. The campaign
of the Ministry of Education to tone down the representation of wartime Japanese
aggression caused intense international protests. Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese governments officially
submitted protests to the Japanese government.
As a result, the Japanese government promised that it would take steps to
correct the textbooks. Such
government actions that yielded to "foreign intervention" offended
revisionists and motivated them to once again challenge wartime Japanese
history, including that of the Massacre, which they considered to have been
"written by the left" in the postwar period.
In 1984, Masaaki Tanaka wrote “Fabrication of Nanjing Massacre,"
which claimed that the Massacre was merely a myth created by the Tokyo trial and
by the Chinese government. His work
relieved those who were troubled by the postwar portrayal of wartime Japan.
Even distinguished scholars, such as Shôichi Watanabe and Keiichirô
Kobori, both college professors, admired Tanaka's work.
The progressives, again infuriated, set up The Study Group on the Nanjing
Incident in 1984. It had some twenty members, including historians, journalists,
lawyers, company employees, and others, and it met at least once a month. The
members of the group actively published their studies on the Nanjing Massacre,
such as Nankin Daigyakusatsu [The
Nanjing Massacre] (1985), Nankin jiken chôsa
kenkyûkai, Nankin jiken genchi chôsa
hôkokusho [The report of a field trip to Nanjing] (1985).
Since 1984, the members of this study group have published twelve books
exclusively discussing the Nanjing Massacre.
Ultimately, revisionists realized that it was impossible to deny the
truth completely. Even an
organization of war veterans now officially acknowledges that at least 10,000
illegal killings took place, that is, at least 10,000 Chinese were massacred in
Nanjing [Nankin senshi (1989)]. The
revisionists have altered their strategy. They
began by claiming that the indiscriminate killing of 200,000 people insisted on
by the Tokyo Trial or the 300,000 deaths insisted on by the Chinese government
never took place. They now argue
that the Nanjing Massacre was a fabrication because relatively few people were
killed, and that of the deaths that did occur, only a small number were illegal
under the laws of war. In addition,
they argue that the incident was no more terrible than many other atrocities
committed by various nations in 20th-century history.
In their opinion, the event in Nanjing does not deserve the special
attention it has received.
With the death of Hirohito and the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989,
the fifth phase of the history of the Massacre within Japan has begun.
Although revisionist claims have not changed since the 1980s, they have
gained new supporters. Since many of them have been successful in their own careers
and have had ready access to the media, the revisionists have been able to make
louder noises than ever. For
instance, Nobukatsu Fujioka, professor of Education at the University of Tokyo,
a new face in the debate, has repeatedly claimed, both in books and newspapers,
that more than 200,000 civilians could not possibly have been "massacred
unless ghosts were killed." His
claim is only based on what his predecessors argued in the 1980s.
Revisionist claims are based not on historical materials, which confirm
mass atrocities in Nanjing in 1937-38, but on their own wish to describe how
"just" Japan stood up to an "unjust" Western invasion for
the sake of Asian people. In other
words, "Japan" and "Japaneseness" are the issues behind
their claims. In their minds,
"the Japanese" should be proud of "Japan" regardless. Japan must have a national history that can be respected by
its people. Revisionists regard
progressive accounts of imperial Japanese history, especially as they appear in
the textbooks, as full of masochism, darkness, and apologies.
To revisionists like Fujioka, progressive views deeply discredit Japan
and destroy national pride. Fujioka
and his allies even claim that progressive views are a Communist version of
Japanese history. They cannot believe that their fellow Japanese, the
progressives, are focusing on such shameful parts of the Japanese past such as
the Nanjing Massacre, military sex slaves, and chemical and biological warfare.
To revisionists, progressives are a psychological aberration that they
will never understand.
Today all Japanese school textbooks mention the Massacre. Of seven junior high school textbooks that have been used
since spring 1997, every one mentions the Massacre. In six out of the seven textbooks, the estimate of Chinese who
were killed is at least 200,000; four of them also introduce the Chinese
official figure of 300,000. Only
the textbook by Teikokushoin, whose share is 2% of the total market, does not
mention any numbers, although it says that "the Japanese killed very many
Chinese including women and children."
Moreover, today revisionists have enemies not only in Japan, but also in
China and in the United States. Continuous
revisionist challenges actually increased the number of published historical
accounts of the Massacre published around the world. Iris Chang and James Yin, for instance, might not have studied
the Massacre as much detail as they did, if revisionists had never claimed
preposterously that the Massacre was mere fabrication.
It is unfortunate to say, however, that revisionists will continue to
claim that the Massacre was fabricated by the Tokyo trial and the Chinese
government and has been facilitated by "unJapanese" Japanese
progressives. To these people, war
is like a game played by states; killing is regrettable, but justifiable in war.
Fujioka and his contemporaries even
praise Truman's decision to drop atomic bombs that killed Allied POWs, Chinese,
Koreans, and Japanese because the bombs prevented Japan from being divided by
the United States and the Soviet Union. They
are much too preoccupied with "nation-state" oriented thought.
However, the bright side of the long historiographic conflict over the Massacre is that the history and memory of the Massacre have clearly been internationalized, and peoples, whatever ethnic or national origin, have been working together to remember the Massacre in order to prevent from another massacre in world history. Histories used to be, and in a sense still are, "nation-state" oriented. They privilege the role of a certain nation's "subjects," and they at best undervalue, and at worst ignore, the horrible experience of others. People, however, should realize that grief over the death of loved ones is the same regardless of nationality or ethnicity; they should try to create a history that can be shared by not just a nation, but others all around the world.