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The Nanjing Massacre. Changing Contours of History and Memory in Japan, China, and the U.S.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Takashi Yoshida
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In Japan, China, the United States and beyond, arguably no Japanese wartime atrocity against China is more widely known than the Nanjing Massacre. Whatever the significance of mere name recognition, however, the history and memory of the Nanjing Massacre are profoundly complex. Indeed, even the phrase “Nanjing Massacre” (hereafter NM) remains contested, and to this day there are circles within which the words cannot be spoken without stirring deep feeling and disagreement.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 4 , Issue 12 , December 2006 , e14
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Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
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Copyright © The Authors 2006

References

Notes

[1] This essay summarizes Chapter 10 (“War Over History and Memory”) of my The Making of the “Rape of Nanking”: History and Memory in Japan, China, and the United States (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 129-153.

[2] Tilman Durdin, for example, reported that at least 33,000 Chinese were killed during the Battle of Nanjing. See “Japanese Atrocities Marked Fall of Nanking After Chinese Command Fled,” New York Times, 9 January 1938, p. 38. In contrast, in The Nanjing Incident (Nankin jiken), published in 1997, Kasahara Tokushi defined the NM as the atrocities which occurred during both the Battle of Nanjing and the ensuing occupation, namely from December 4, 1937, until March 28, 1938. He estimated that the Japanese Army and Navy killed between 100,000 and 200,000 Chinese soldiers and civilians in Nanjing and its six counties. See Kasahara Tokushi, The Nanjing Incident (Nankin jiken), (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1997), pp. 214-28.

[3] These numerous “masochistic” museums provoked the neonationalist backlash in many spheres including the call for textbook revision and the decision by the Yasukuni Shrine to renovate its war museum, the Yushukan. Until the first national war museum, the Showakan was built, these museums highlighting Japanese atrocities had few competitors.

[4] Kasahara, The Nanjing Incident, p. 224, n46 and n47.

[5] Onodera Toshitaka, Sengo hosho saiban toso no kadai to tenbo (Problems and Prospects in Postwar Legal Struggles over Compensation), pp. 13-15.

[6] Nishio Kanji, et al., eds., New History Textbook (Atarashii rekishi kyokasho), (Tokyo: Fusosha, 2001), pp. 270, 296.

[7] See, particularly, Iris Chang, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II (New York: Basic Books, 1997). For a more detailed analysis of Chang's volume, see Takashi Yoshida “Refighting the Nanjing Massacre: The Continuing Struggle over Memory,” in Nanking 1937: Memory and Healing, eds. Fei Fei Li, Robert Sabella, and David Liu (M.E. Sharpe, 2002), pp. 166-71. On the role of racism in wartime Japan and the United States, see John Dower, War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986).