A Japanese Historiography of the Nanjing Massacre

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 "Ch?goku 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 Bungeishunj? claiming that the competition was something like an urban myth. Suzuki's efforts won him acclaim within the publishing world, and he received the ?ya S?ichi 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 Sabur? 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 Sh?ichi Watanabe and Keiichir? 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 ch?sa kenky?kai, Nankin jiken genchi ch?sa h?kokusho [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.