A New Take on Nanjing 1937

By Eleanor Albert

Last week, a Foreign Policy article reflected on a new joint report from the Chinese and Japanese governments in regard to the Nanjing Massacre. In December of 1937, the Japanese Imperial Army, after invading China from the north in Manchuria, finally reached the southeastern capital of Nanjing. The Massacre is also known as the Rape of Nanjing (or Nanking whether one is using pinyin or the Wade Gilles translation spelling) and claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians. Soldiers of the Japanese army were also responsible for the rapes of an estimated 20,000 to 80,000 Chinese women. This historical event is often described as China’s Holocaust – for obvious reasons.

The Nanjing Massacre carries tremendous controversy with it, particularly due to Japan’s lack of recognition and even denial of the event. Despite Japan’s defeat in 1945 at the close of WWII, discrepancy continued. As a result, the Nanjing Massacre has long been a wrench in Sino-Japanese relations, as well as an obstacle in establishing stability in Southeast Asia.

Last week’s report does not clarify the number of total lives lost, nor did the Chinese and Japanese governments come any closer to agreeing on an estimate – a disappointment in historical terms. However, the report was not a lost cause. For the first time, Japan took full culpability for the extent of its violence and the tragedy inflicted on China – a political victory.

All former empires have had difficulty making concessions and taking responsibility for aggression, yet the joint report between China and Japan promotes new optimism for Southeast Asia.

With the economies of China and Japan ranking in the top two and three in the world, second only to the United States and Japan’s and China’s growing importance in the international community, the two nations play key roles in security and stability in Southeast Asia. Although the report shows a mere concession by the Japanese, the acceptance of guilt will hopefully be symbolic enough for China, as well as Taiwan, Korea, and other former Southeast Asian colonies of Japan, to push aside decades of controversy and look forward to partnership in the future.

(Iris Chang, a Chinese-American historian and journalist, published The Rape of Nanking in 1997 that provides an account and explores lost details of the massacre. A film, of the same title, was also made in 2007, inspired by Chang’s book.)