The Rape of Nanking

A Historical Study

Zhang Sheng

• Publisher: De Gruyter Oldenbourg
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9783110652895
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia dell'Asia

The Massacre of Nanking took place in 1937, during the War of the Japanese Invasion of China. 75 years after the event, we are finally able to analyze and study what happened in Nanking on three levels: as an historical event, as a legal case, and as an object in the Chinese people's collective consciousness.

1 The Rape of Nanking in Light of the Japanese Army’s Overall Strategic Decisions. Observations Based in Japanese Considerations

The great massacre perpetrated by the Japanese army in Nanjing shocked the world. From then until now, there have been relentless attempts to uncover the reasons behind this tragedy. The themes that usually catch the eye are Japanese militarist education, insufficient supply in the Japanese army’s rear, as well as the related themes of the policy of local requisitioning, the grievous casualties the army had suffered in the siege of Nanjing and their psychology of retribution, slackening of military discipline, and so on. These studies have doubtlessly added to our understanding of the Rape of Nanking.

However, other works have noted that conditions such as the policy of local requisitioning were part of the overall Japanese invasion of China, but that the massacre of the inhabitants of a captured city such as Nanjing was rare indeed (of course, wherever the tip of the spear of the Japanese army landed, it caused great loss of life and property). Why did the Rape of Nanking occur even as the Japanese army was hoisting the banners of “just war”? To what extent was the Rape of Nanking a random mistake or inevitable within the overall Japanese war of invasion?

Writers have come to feel, through their considerations and studies, that one cannot accurately understand the outbreak of the Rape of Nanking separately from the overall Japanese war plan for the invasion of China. That is because the conflict between Japan and China was the primary conflict in East Asian international relations of the time, and Japan was the primary party of said conflict. If we hold tightly to the Japanese side’s thinking and decisions, we can clearly assess the strategic opportunity taken for the Japanese invasion of China.

1.1 Choosing War

The strategic reason Japan chose to launch an all-out war of invasion on China was that China had made breakthrough progress in state organization primarily to resist Japanese power; so if war hadn’t been launched immediately, it would not only have been impossible to defeat China, but China may have ultimately reclaimed sovereignty of the Northeast (Manchuria).

The “Marco Polo Bridge Incident” was previously understood as the catalyst for mid to long-range plans for the Japanese following the Eastern Conference, as reflected in the Tanaka Memorial. Shigemitsu Mamoru, Japan’s representative at the signing of the unconditional surrender, said: “Later events in East Asia and corresponding actions taken by Japan took place exactly in accordance with the steps outlined in manuals like the Tanaka Memorial, and so it is difficult to clear up foreign suspicions regarding the Tanaka Memorial” (Shigemitsu 1987, 20). The Marco Polo Bridge Incident was certainly one step in Japan’s overall invasion of China.

It is, however, undeniable that the there was a degree of “randomness” on the surface of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. Why did the Japanese launch an all-out invasion of China only six months after the “Xi’an Incident”? Why the Japanese military resolutely push forward its all-out war of invasion while people like Ishiwara Kanji (head of the Japanese Army General Staff Office at the time of the Rape of Nanking), primary planner of the “Mukden Incident,” and others opposed war at a time when China’s strength was depleted, thereby creating disadvantageous conditions for Japan’s preparations for war on the Soviet Union? I will attempt to, on the basis of fragmentary evidence, attempt to assemble a complete picture departing from a few points seldom noticed previously.

Suma Yakichiro served as consul-general of Japan in Nanjing, a position he left on January 18, 1937. On March 15, he gave a speech at the Japan Industrial Association titled “Present and Future of Japan-China Relations.” This is an important document worthy of our deep study today because it represents contemporary Japanese judgments of conditions in China at the time, and also demonstrates the logic the Japanese employed in launching their all-out war on China.

In Suma’s estimation, the Xi’an Incident demonstrated that China was now unified, and this unity created an unprecedented situation in the history of modern China: “During the First Sino-Japanese War, if you went to Sichuan, Yunnan, or other mountainous provinces, most people did not know their country was currently fighting a war with Japan. Of course, this was also attributable to reasons such as poor transportation links. It was just this China with its complete lack of concern for external affairs that, upon hearing of the Suiyuan Offensive, launched into a nationwide movement of support for the Suiyuan army in all parts of the country, with some places ceasing broadcast of dancing music for three days, and even dance halls in some places sending 20 percent of their revenues in support of the Suiyuan army; you could thus see how zealous they were. What’s more, even the inmates of a prison in one place donated funds to the Suiyuan army; this would seem unprecedented anywhere in the world. Where does this zealousness come from? I just spoke of the two levels of Chinese feelings toward Japan – anti-Japan sentiments among the common Chinese people have become very serious, and the Suiyuan Offensive is just the yardstick for measuring that seriousness.”

As his listeners were all magnates with their hands on the levers of the Japanese economy, Suma continued in extreme earnestness, concluding that it was Japan’s actions that had led to the new conditions in China. “There were two goals, or maybe we should say two situations, that led to this unity. The first was oppression from Japan. Of course, I should rather say that it was just this oppression that gave China an opportunity to move toward unity; I think this is a fact beyond argument. Even though the Chinese are now saying that China’s strength is growing with the stabilization of the foundation [of] Chiang Kai-shek’s regime that we see today, there are actually two reasons afoot: the first is Japan’s invasion, and the second is… It’s actually very interesting once you start talking about it. I’ll go ahead and say it out loud: it’s Yu Youren, director of the Control Yuan.” Suma concluded that the reason behind unification was: “This so-called ‘unification’ could not be brought about on the strength of warlords or the government alone, but was as symbolized by the student movement; it was realized only after the aspiration for unification had deeply penetrated the hearts of the people and become a movement of national unanimity.”⁴

According to modern theories on nationalism, external threats and feelings of hatred for an enemy constitute a basic model for the construction of a nation-state (Gellner 2002). Suma provided anecdotal evidence backing this theory: “In 1931, that being six years ago, the nationalist government hired the German Hans von Seeckt. Chiang Kai-shek asked him two questions. The first was how to make China’s army strong, and the other was what kind of policy he should adopt toward Japan. To the first question von Seeckt responded: if China wishes to become stronger than Japan, weapons are necessary, airplanes are necessary, but from my experiences in organizing and running the German Defense Force, the most pressing task for China at present is to cultivate among the military a mentality of viewing Japan as the enemy.” Here the veracity of Suma’s evidence is not important. What is important is that this became the thread that tied his discourse together, i. e. that the unification of China was closely related to Chinese opposition to Japan, or in other words further unification of China necessarily meant intensification of anti-Japan sentiments there, in Suma’s estimation.

Suma discussed the example of his meeting with H.H. Kung: “H.H. Kung – the actual director of the Executive Yuan – said that if I wanted to get Japan-China relations on a good track, we couldn’t leave the Manchurian issue untreated. I am completely opposed to ‘establishing an aside’ in the Manchurian issue, he told me. Without a solution to the Manchurian issue, it would be impossible to have a satisfactory dialogue between Japan and China. I took this opportunity to ask him what kind of a solution he hoped for. He answered that Japanese investments in Manchuria – he is a professional investor himself – seem to be nothing more than investments. If they are indeed simply investments, then we can allow them to stay but we hope that the sovereignty of Manchuria be restored to China. If it is returned to China, then we might take the initiative to either give Manchuria ‘dominion’ over its own affairs the way Great Britain has done with Ireland or treat it the way Great Britain has treated Canada. China will take the initiative in handling this matter. You can talk until your tongues fall out, but so long as Manchuria is not returned to China, we will have nothing to discuss with you.” Suma then commented: “China is already dreaming about Manchuria. We must see this as proof for what I just said, proving that only after internal pacification and unification has China gradually come to notice Japan’s soft underbelly, and thus has started feeling us out.”

Since Chinese unification necessarily meant antagonism toward Japan, what then did Japan need to do? All those diplomatic documents that mention “peace and guidance” at every turn are full of sparkling rhetoric, but we get a clear picture of the Japanese government’s attitude in the recollections of a member of the Japanese Residents in China Association who left Nanjing at the outset of war, Shoji Tokuji:

I thought of something I said to Colonel Okido shortly before the outbreak of the war: “If the military training of the residents of Nanjing continues another two years, Japan probably won’t be a match for them.” Colonel Okido replied: “It won’t take two years. In another half year we won’t be able to take them on.” So I don’t know if it was fortunate or unfortunate that Japan launched its offensive while it still had a chance at victory. I really think this was the blessing of heaven. I deeply feel that this was the luck of the heavenly kingdom of the rising sun (Japan). At the same time I sincerely prayed that this offensive would be the last in the Japan-China conflict, that this would completely destroy the Chiang regime’s resistance against Japan, and that this was a good chance to bring Japan and China back onto the proper course of goodwill for one another.

The idea that Japan should invade before China grew so powerful as to be unconquerable was not shared only among these Japanese residents of China, but was a “public opinion” shared across the Japanese public, and was also clearly the basis of official government policy.

In March 1937, military attaché to the Japanese embassy in China Kita Seiichi, Japanese China Garrison Army Staff Officer Wachi Takaji, and Ohashi Kumao reported to the Japanese Army Staff Headquarters: “The Chiang Kai-shek regime’s policy of resisting Japan will, we’re afraid, remain in place until Manchuria is restored. It would be an extremely great error to think that concessions in North China will eliminate the policy of resistance against Japan… We cannot assume that ordinary means will reverse the above-mentioned worsening of Japan-China relations.” They also tentatively raised the possibility of declaring war on the Soviet Union, noting: “Before launching war on the Soviet Union, we should deal China a blow to damage the foundations of the Chiang regime” (Japanese Ministry of Defense War History Bureau 1987, 293). Thereafter news began to spread in Tokyo that “on the night of the seventh evening of the lunar calendar, something like the Mukden Incident will be reenacted in North China” (Imai Takeo n.d., 16)

On July 6, 1937, after the Japanese had admitted that “there is the possibility for imminent crisis in the conflict between the Japanese and Chinese armies in the vicinity of the Lugou [Marco Polo] Bridge,” Japanese Prime Minister Hirota Koki proposed to a meeting of the Cabinet that it would be unlikely that rash wishes for restoration of amity between Japan and China would end in success in the current whirlpool of resistance to Japan and anti-Japan sentiments. Although this gravely dissatisfies Japan, it would nevertheless seem that we have no choice but to resolutely push forward the correct policy: “All cabinet members expressed assent” (Japanese Ministry of Defense War History Bureau 1987, 297). Thus the Marco Polo Bridge Incident became an inevitability amid otherwise ostensible randomness.

1.2 Choosing Nanjing

Japan chose Nanjing as its objective because at the time the Japanese believed it to be the center of Chinese resistance to Japan. Short of capturing Nanjing, the thought went, it would be impossible to punish China for its resistance to Japan and force the country to change policy.

At the outset of the war, Japan’s military focus was North China. But then tensions emerged in Shanghai, which Shigemitsu Mamoru analyzes thus: “The sensitivity toward the Japan-China conflict in North China was reflected in Shanghai, where anti-Japan agitations immediately became widespread.” He did not mention that Chinese anti-Japan sentiments were the result of Japan’s long-term invasion, but rather said that Japan needed to invade because China was resisting Japan; this logic was common across military and political circles in Japan at the time. Shigemitsu, however, was clearly deeply versed in how the Japanese military acted, adding: “The army will create an incident in the North, and the navy will inevitably also provoke some conflicts in Shanghai” (Shigemutsu 1987, 129 – 130). As a result, the war’s focus quickly shifted to the Yangtze River Delta, posing a threat to Nanjing.

When the Battle of Shanghai broke out, however, Nanjing still hadn’t been listed as a target for attack. On August 15, 1937, the Japanese Shanghai Expeditionary Army was given orders to “coordinate with the navy, annihilate all enemies in the vicinity of Shanghai, occupy Shanghai and primary battlefronts in the northern region, and protect the subjects of the empire” (Wang and Guoshan 2006, 1). The Japanese Central China Area Army was formed on July 11 of that same year. Chinese forces in Shanghai were near collapsing at that time, but the Central China Area Army was still not commanded to advance to Nanjing: “The Central China Area Army’s orders were to coordinate with the navy to break the enemy’s willingness to fight and annihilate enemies in the vicinity of Shanghai to find an opportunity to end the war” (Wang and Guoshan 2006, 4). That same day, Japanese military officials designated the combat range of the Central China Area Army as “principally the area to the east of the line running between Suzhou and Jiaxing” (Wang and Guoshan 2006, 6). On November 20, the deputy commanding officer of the General Staff Headquarters telephoned Matsui Iwane to inform him that the army had exceeded its predesignated combat range (Wang and Guoshan 2006, 9). On November 24, the original combat range of the Central China Area Army was abolished (Wang and Guoshan 2006, 10), indicating that high Japanese officials had set their sights on Nanjing. That same day, the Central China Area Army issued these orders: “Coordinate with the China Area Fleet to rapidly seize Nanjing” (Wang and Guoshan 2006, 20).

The Japanese decision to expand the goal from Shanghai to Nanjing was to a great extent related to the personal resolution of Matsui Iwane. In his diary entry from August 16, 1937, he writes: “Our forces should rapidly attack the objective of Nanjing. We must meet up with the Central China Expeditionary Army (about five divisions), and we will inevitably topple the Nanjing government in one blow” (Wang 2005b, 23). Thereafter, he sent an unbroken chain of messages to the Japanese government and highly placed officials in the military, asking for reinforcements. On September 23, Ishiwara Kanji’s departure and his replacement by the more radical Shimomura Sadamu must have given hope to Matsui that his wishes were going to be fulfilled. On October 14, seizing the opportunity of a visit to Shanghai by an administrative officer in the navy, he said: “With the tenacious resistance being put up by enemy forces in the Jiangnan region, if we want to finish this war in a month or two, it will be extremely difficult to close that paragraph” (Wang 2005b, 97). He was laying the foundations for subsequent expansion of the war. On October 20, he asked Lieutenant Colonel Suzuki of the General Staff Office, currently in Shanghai, to tell everyone important in the General Staff Office: “Our ultimate military objective is Nanjing” and “the crux of our strategy in the final analysis is to attack Nanjing” (Wang 2005b, 129). He completely ignored the opinions coming from Japanese commanding authorities at the time. On November 15, Matsui used the opportunity of working under General Staff Office Strategy Department section chief Masaaki Kagesa and Ministry of the Army Military Affairs Bureau director Shibayama Kenshiro to demonstrate to his superior officers the inevitability of an attack on Nanjing, which “they have basically come to understand” (Wang 2005b, 103 – 104). This gave rise to pressure on all sides. At that time the Central China Area Army had broken out of its established combat range and was already fighting its way toward Nanjing. After the Japanese government and military had finally resolved to attack Nanjing, Matsui writes in his diary: “I elatedly feel that those opinions I did my utmost to stir up are finally having their effect” (Wang 2005b, 140).

Matsui’s unwavering opinion that Nanjing must be occupied and that the center of resistance to Japan must be cleared away was broadly shared across all walks of life in Japan at that time:

When common residents of Nanjing began military training, I thought, that’s nothing too special, so I didn’t pay much heed. But two or three years later, I noticed that the facial expressions of young adults in Nanjing had become stern, that the light of vitality overflowed from their eyes, and that they stood in powerfully erect posture when working. When I mentioned this observation to Colonel Amamiya, he said: “Everyone who’s been through military training is like that; it’s nothing special.” That’s when I realized the true force of education. Thereafter I paid more attention to the results of Chinese military training, and as a result I realized that their military training was quite serious and thorough. I couldn’t help but perceive a kind of threat (Shoji 1940).

This is how the Japanese consulate-general in Nanjing reported on conditions in that city following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident: “As the extent of the war grows and expands, the mentality of resistance to Japan in Nanjing has surged to the extreme… radical anti-Japan-ists have begun exerting pressure on our citizens here. Scenic spots in Nanjing’s suburbs as well as some mountains in its periphery, previously open to unrestricted sightseeing, have now been forbidden to Japanese, under the pretext that they are restricted military areas. All cinemas in the city are playing anti-Japanese propaganda films, wantonly inciting the feelings of the masses, making the anti-Japan mentality grow stronger on the daily, tension rampant over every quarter of the city” (Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Diplomatic Archives 2001, 205 – 207).

Staff officer Tanaka Shinichi also describes the significance of occupying Nanjing in his diary: “An attack on Nanjing is necessitated by none other than the disregard for Japan’s efforts to put Japan and China back on the road of support and guidance. The ultimate goal behind Commander Matsui’s inducing their surrender is also this… We must never relax in punishing the regime that resists Japan… The world is currently in a period of transformation. If we understand current world conditions, then we must see that China can only successfully organize itself as a nation on a foundation of amity toward Japan…The emergency in China is a tragedy in East Asia, but to put an end to this tragedy, Japan cannot avoid performing a thorough surgery. Seen in this light, the occupation of Nanjing is merely the prelude to t...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Foreword by the First Author
• Foreword to the Updated and Revised Edition
• 1 The Rape of Nanking in Light of the Japanese Army’s Overall Strategic Decisions. Observations Based in Japanese Considerations
• 2 Changes in the Order of Life for Nanjing Residents Before and After the Massacre
• 3 Westerners in Nanjing During the Massacre
• 4 The “German Perspective” on the Rape of Nanking Based in German Diplomatic Documents
• 5 The “American Perspective” on the Rape of Nanking
• 6 The Rape of Nanking in Japanese Historical Sources
• 7 Food Issues During the Rape of Nanking. Focusing on the Safety Zone
• 8 Property Losses of Nanjing Residents during the Rape of Nanking. An Initial Analysis Based on Extant Materials in China
• 9 Initial Study of PTSD Among Rape of Nanking Victims
• 10 The Nanjing Trials
• 11 The Rape of Nanking Cases in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East Trial Arguments and Their “Legacy”. Based in a Study of Cross-examinations
• References
• Postscript
• Postscript to the Revised Edition