Discussion and Debate Community Thread

[Condottiere 40K]

It's something I usually prefer not to think of; but you can't really ignore it, even with other events that happened during that recent period in history, like the stuff that happened under Hitler, Stalin and Mao.

And whereas the Politburo likes to use it as a propaganda stick to beat the Japanese with when they want something; the survivor descriptions are horrifying, whether the Japanese massacred fifty thousands, or in the hundreds of thousands.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

That the Chinese's best historian cannot find adequate evidence of!

What a joke. Are you just going to pull out that old tripe at every opportunity?

I dunno about that exactly. I think even Field Marshal Iwane Matsui admitted that his troops went ape at Nanking. I think the real contention is how many were killed/attacked and what role Iwane Matsui played in it.

During the Tokyo Trials there was insufficient evidence to prove that Matsui had ordered any such thing to happen, though the CCP like to repeat that it was an atrocity ordered by the Japanese. There was also insufficient evidence to prove that Matsui was being negligent, in fact this is contradicted by other statements. Orders verbally issued by Matsui prove that he ordered his officers to keep the situation under control and in his own journal he wrote that he strongly rebuked his officers for being unable to control their soldiers. A recent discovery seems to prove that Matsui never issued an order to round up combatants within the city, the written order appears to be forged. There is also zero motive for Matsui to want to kill people so if anything one could only prove that anything that occurred was not due to him. Even still they hanged him for negligence which is not a crime one can be executed for. It is true that the CCP is dubious in their claims but it is hard to find a contemporary Japanese who will not say that something went down at Nanking. Whatever happened I'm fairly convinced that Matsui was not to blame, unless evidence for the contrary is provided. The case would have been at an impasse.

"Matsui’s knowledge, combined with his failure to act commensurately with that knowledge, amounted to criminal negligence. On this count alone, Matsui was condemned"

https://www.facinghistory.org/nanjin...bility-command

[RubiconDecision]

I'm appalled at the disruptive posting of bizarre non sequiters like the Christian massacre in 1614 by the Japanese as if that is relevant to ANYTHING whatsoever to do the conversation. That's what I'm sneering at. And the Nanking reference is just as bizarre. It's as if I might massacre some Chinese in my neighnorhood tomorrow because the Japanese are apparently tainted with genocide.

By all means, please explain the relevancy of your two comments or strike the record as a gentleman would in a debate.

Otherwise it would be like shouting about the Holocaust in a modding topic strictly because the tutorial was done by a postmodern German national.

Who knew I was in danger of suicide because I'm Japanese and a Christian so I might crucify myself! Since I'm Japanese and American, perhaps on Pearl Harbor Day I can attack myself from the air!

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

My statement?

[RubiconDecision]

Nothing new; they genocided Christians a while back, as well as dissenting Buddhists.

Most of us participated in that.

This statement.

It's hard to genocide the Chinese, but they did rape Nanking.

That was more recent.

As well as this ridiculous nah-nah-nah-nah-nah statement.

If that's the case, then since Mao purged his own people, then the Chinese should be shaking in their shoes every single day because a purge could happen tomorrow for no reason.

That kind of post is so abhorrent and nutty that it deserves to be isolated and pointed out as ridiculous.

It's contemptible.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

No one wants to talk about how Iwane Matsui dindu nuffin? I'm being serious here, I don't think he was guilty of anything.

Meh I just take Condo statements for what they are. Quick words of improvised wit. I don't think he meant anything by it. It's really not the Condo way.

But regarding the Chinese thing I would be scared if I was an affluent member of the political class. A purge is bound to happen sooner or later. The economic and political elite are running off in droves and investing in foreign countries like there is no tomorrow. Xi Jinping has done a good job of securing his power within the Politburo. Bo Xilai and Jiang Zemin have been removed. Xi Jinping holds the most power of anyone since Jiang Zemin himself back in the 90's if not Deng Xiaoping himself. Xi Jinping has also created a unified command for the various branches of the Chinese military for the first time since... I dunno Empress Dowager Cixi maybe.

Really guys? Too lazy to make a China thread? So I'm gonna have to be the one to do it? Yeah I'm going to have to be the one to do it...

[Derpy Hooves]

That the Chinese's best historian cannot find adequate evidence of!

What a joke. Are you just going to pull out that old tripe at every opportunity?

Damn, who'd a thought we'd have a Nanking denier

[Condottiere 40K]

Just because I enjoy the Japanese culture and anime, doesn't mean I'm blind to their history, it's just out of politeness, I never mention the events leading up to and during the Great Patriotic War when I happen to be in their presence.

But this is a forum that does discuss military history, and because game franchise has and probably continue to do so, a focus on Japanese military history, the issue will turn up periodically.

[RubiconDecision]

Who's denying anything! What poppycock. It's the absurdity of your non sequiter as pertaining to any relevance to this discussion.

But since you made this disgusting claim I'm a denier. Chinese historicans made a monumental effort to scrutinize the records. I mean going through with a fine tooth comb to carefully memorialize the victims. No one denies it happened, it's just no respectable historian believes 300,000 victims!

Here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7126455.stm

13,000 victims after extensive research.
"Nanjing massacre victims named

China has published the names of 13,000 people it says were killed by Japanese troops in the 1937 Nanjing Massacre. The list is the most complete record of the massacre to date according to the Xinhua news agency.
Beijing claims that 300,000 people died in Nanjing and many were tortured or raped when Japanese troops invaded what was then the Chinese capital.
Japan disputes the figures and its refusal to apologise continues to sours relations between the two countries.
The eight-volume document, released to mark the 70th anniversary of the start of the massacre, lists the names, ages, occupations and addresses of the victims. "


Try harder at slander.

The latest research here.
http://china.usc.edu/new-research-nanjing-incident

Almost no reputable historians believe more than 40,000 even Chinese historians!

I know, let's bring up Bataan as if it has any relevance as well. What utter nonsense.

Using tragedy to foist bigotry is disgusting and corrupt. HUGE egarious numbers so inflated as to be nothing more than outright propaganda.

Hey, here's a thought, "Those Chinese historians must be deniers, right!"

For decades Japanese AND American historians have said 20,000. Look like even they inflated it! They were labeled deniers too. Yet the best research support 13,000.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Shame about Iris Chang (her death I mean). Though I have to say her personal opinions were rather strange. Were she alive she might well have become one of those annoying college protestors that current academia tends to be plagued by now a days. There is a weird conspiracy theory that the US government had her killed. Also claims that she received money from the CCP.

The most confusing thing about the Tokyo Trials have to be that guys like Iwane Matsui and Tomoyuki Yamashita were tried and executed. However the likes of Masanobu Tsuji was never even tried and Yasuji Okamura was straight out pardoned.

[RubiconDecision]

Shame about Iris Chang (her death I mean). Though I have to say her personal opinions were rather strange. Were she alive she might well have become one of those annoying college protestors that current academia tends to be plagued by now a days. There is a weird conspiracy theory that the US government had her killed. Also claims that she received money from the CCP.

The most confusing thing about the Tokyo Trials have to be that guys like Iwane Matsui and Tomoyuki Yamashita were tried and executed. However the likes of Masanobu Tsuji was never even tried and Yasuji Okamura was straight out pardoned.

Heck even the Emperor has some tenuous link to Nanking due to Prince Yasuhiko Asano.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince...nking_Massacre

The thing is the event was then politicized as much as the Holocaust, and used as a direct rationale, not only for the WW2 Internment Camps, but also Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the massive firebombing campaigns. For the Nanking massacre demonstrated an intolerable proof of the yellow peril. Iris Chang did her part far later to heap up coals on the event, doing incredibly criminal sloppy research, and grotesquely inflated the numbers.

Meanwhile it was so horrific to the Chinese, it was seized upon as the perfect vehicle for propaganda.

Honor the victims with the Truth, not fabrications to justify the genocide that was then visited upon the innocent Japanese-Americans and Japanese civilians in WW2. 13,000 is bad enough as it stands as a horrific war crime, that there's no justification to make it 300,000.

This is one of the greatest injustices to the Japanese who were corporately blamed world-wide for an event that was restricted to the Imperial Japanese Army stationed in Nanking and who actually committed the atrocities. Instead it became a clarion call to destroy the Japanese, even when their surrender was inevitable.

Much of what you learn that purports to be history is oft repeated wartime propoganda that has been heard so often that it becomes truth...when it's a lie.

The IJA were often maniacs, who were largely peasants, NOT descended from the samurai. They had been fed complete nonsense that directly contradicts Bushido. Then committed all kinds of atrocities as ersatz wannabee feudal warriors. Nothing could be further from the truth.

What should have happened is, "OK, you want to pretend to be samurai. You then are given permission to commit seppuku. Go right ahead. It will save us money and eradicate your filth from the Earth."

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Any ideas who forged Iwane Matsui's order to execute all captured combatants? Was it the Americans or was it one of his subordinates?

The biggest problem of the Tokyo Trials has to be this bit:
document "without proof of its issuance or signature" AND
"The tribunal shall not be bound by technical rules of evidence...and shall admit any evidence which it deems to have probative value"

I've spoken with Americans and a Canadians (some military), a Brit (historian) and a couple Japanese (not sure if historians or enthusiasts) regarding this. Some of them told me it was no better than a kangaroo court. The Canadian guy I was talking to disagreed but he was unable to answer some of my questions. In a talk in class one girl said that an officer was not likely to violate orders issued by a superior but I didn't have the heart to say that Gekokujo was a common occurrence in WW2. Such was the case with certain officers like Masanobu Tsuji, who was never even considered for a trial. Having looked into Japanese military organization some of the allegations by Matsui that he had no control over certain armies appears to be true. In fact Matsui was nominally in charge of strategy and operations for multiple armies, but some of them he could not control directly and were supposed to act independently. Moreover I managed to find out that Matsui was considered a political appointment. His knowledge of Chinese and his contacts within the Chinese government were supposed to let him make diplomatic overtures with the Chinese, obviously he failed. Tokyo removed him the first chance that they got. Mind you the class was taught by a Chinese prof who encouraged us to read the evidence (actually he gave us a bunch of different viewpoints written by different people" though I did not ask, his opinion seems to be very much towards the usual Nanking opinion

But here is my question. Do you see Japan's apology over Nanking a result of certain lobbyists within their government or was this a sincere apology based on facts? I don't think that Japan has said that they were sorry for the deaths of 400,000 Chinese. They just said "sorry for Nanking" more or less and will pay the survivors of assault for their troubles. Or do you think this was a calculated move by the current PM to entertain his detractors over his "military" policy.
I do hate it every time the CCP riles up the Nanking sentiments whenever they want to push something, basically spitting on their graves. I've actually had a few Chinese-Americans say this as well, though I would only imagine that they are very much anti-CCP.

EDIT:
this link is very interesting, watch the video and read some of the testimony
the command responsibility theory just sounds insane though. I don't see how any fallible human being is supposed to know everything his soldiers do at all time.
This isn't even really applied in the modern day, for example a Canadian officer claimed in an interview that no one had been killed in a recent air strike in Syria (or Iraq) but the news team was able to give a convincing case that at least 1 or 2 people had been killed. Sounds minor and lacking intent I know.
https://www.facinghistory.org/nanjin...bility-command

[RubiconDecision]

The Japanese have made over 15 public apologies over the years as official statements, yet folks persist in saying they haven't on this forum. I actually went through and documented these official statements, as well as treaties that were signed, as well as a mechanism for legal processes to sue. The fact is lots of governments got huge sums of money, that was SUPPOSED to get to victims, but never did. Then on top of that, private donations for doing this has been around and not taken advantage of, despite being publicized often.

The implicated person in the altering of orders is Isamu Cho, a rabid nationalist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isamu_Ch%C5%8D

He's almost certainly to blame for numerous war atrocities, but committed seppuku in Okinawa June 22, 1945. He arguably has one of the blackest hearts in history, and is surely burning in Hell.

https://books.google.com/books?id=X8...anking&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=Bc...anking&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=vb...anking&f=false

Cho directly countermanded the orders of the commander-in-charge Matsui Iwane's orders which were "no prisoners were to be executed..."

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Regarding Yasuji Okamura. Why was he pardoned by Chiang Kai-shek? From what I understand Chiang wanted Yasuji to become one of his officers in his war with Mao. However I can't seem to find what Yasuji Okamura was doing during the civil war. Or was he pardoned for another reason altogether? Because as I have read Yasuji's orders can very much be interpreted as criminal (I mean the were criminal but you know what I mean).

[RubiconDecision]

No idea. I do know that lots of captured surrendering IJA ended up dying as war criminals and were not allowed to be repatriated. As you can imagine, some primitive justice took place and given the circumstances, it was understandable.

EDIT: Here's an incomplete list of war apologies from Japan. As you can see it's quite detailed and nothing new.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ssued_by_Japan

You might look in this topic in which I systemically prove that much of taught WW2 history from an American perspective is war propaganda. This link details The Treaty of San Francisco 1951, which forced the Japanese to pay war reparations to various nations, in huge amounts, which then was supposed to get to civilians and soldiers who had suffered during WW2.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post14687153

Then on top of that, I systematically proved there was an extermination order from Guadalacanal in which "no Japanese prisoners are to be taken alive", identical to what happened in Nanking.

To make matters even worse, Allied troops in the Pacific Theatre massacred wounded in hospitals as a normal course of action, even killing medical personnel.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post14684994

There's lots of admissions by Allied soldiers who just couldn't take that kind of atrocity to their grave without unburdening themselves.

On top of which there's clear evidence that ~75% of Allied troops in the Pacific Theatre actually frequented captured Comfort Women, including child prostitutes, even gangraping them or gangraping civilians in Okinawa and elsewhere. So instead of freeing and repatriating the Comfort Women, they used them as prostitutes and replicated the very same system that the IJA had created.

Practically every atrocity visited upon the 13,000 in Nanking, was then directed upon Japanese civilians and soldiers in more than ten to twenty fold. Yet all of that is excused and accepted.

There was a massive cover up as the antibiotics used to treat all of these soldiers and prostitutes and was administered by Allied medical personnel, and some officially complained. MacArthur was incensed even though he knew that prostitution was a necessity of war, but then when word leaked to Congress, he put his foot down.

There were organized brothels bought by vets who then were able to hide some of it. The cash was enormous since it was a monopoly. They actually bolstered the numbers of these new and old Comfort Women, getting organized crime involved.

It's extremely sordid. There was at the minimum 55,000 Comfort Women for the Allied troops, and that number grew to 70,000 since there were 350,000 Allied troops to service. You can find articles on occasion in reliable newspapers online beginning around 1995 as the story broke.
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/27/wo...pagewanted=all

Gradually more and more Comfort Women came forward admitting they were forced into prostitution for this purpose, as well as documentation by feminist academicians concerning this forgotten chapter of WW2 history.

Once the system was set in place, it was then replicated in Korea and the Philippines. It's worse than you possibly imagine.

http://www.mintpressnews.com/comfort...ustice/196467/
It persisted AFTER WW2 in Korea, and God knows in the Philippines.

One article details that a woman forced into prostitution for American GIs made ~2$ after servicing 42 soldiers.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/18355292/n...ls-after-wwii/

Each women on average serviced between 15-60 johns per day. It's complete barbarism.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

I'm not at all versed in the topic of comfort women. But I do recall the book that came out two years ago in which the Korean writer (Park Yuha) basically did not blame all of the abuse inflicted towards women on the Japanese. The backlash, especially among Koreans was quite large. I personally don't see how saying "many of the women chose to do so" is a minimization. Were it that he denied the existence of comfort women, but he did not. Park Yuha, a Korean woman, was basically shouted down by a mob for not aligning with the accepted evidence 100%. Even worse when institutions join the fray and start shouting... through large megaphones. Actually I think the South Korean government wants to prosecute her for hate speech. Admittedly I have not read the book so I don't know how far she pushed it, but that's no reason to charge her with a crime.

[RubiconDecision]

Yeah, I haven't read her work, only know of it because of other reading. She's become a pariah because she's Korean and did her own research and found damning collaboration. It's true that in even in modernity due to famines that Asian families sold their daughters into slavery because they couldn't feed them. What were they to do? It's a horror. Then the child might luckily become a servant to another family because far worse sexual slavery could happen. It's possible that some of that and other cowardly collaboration worked hand-in-hand with the Comfort Women.
Oshin (2014) is a Japanese film discussing the practice. It's a tear-jerker. Rough to watch.

The more you dig into the subject by doing your own research, the more horrifying things you find of Man's Inhumanity to Man. It's not just the Japanese, but then the very same sorts of things happening by all soldiers with war attrocities, but in the most ugly way, war propaganda departments then used Japanese actions by the IJA to justify any form of psychological warfare as listed above. It's some of the earliest terror campaigns and it's being done by Allied troops. And then even if you expose this with quotes from books, then folks say, "Yeah, buddy, you weren't there. It was necessary. Those Japs wouldn't give in. They were all carrying grenades. It was better to firebomb a million and have unheard of destruction to break Japanese will, then allow one soldier to die."

Bull manure. It's a load of steaming horse crap because surrendering IJA soldiers were shot and bayonetted just like Nanking.

One is justified by the winners, while the losers are villified as ALL having done what happened in an isolated incident involving 13,000.

With the Comfort Women, it's inexcusable because the very women that were enslaved by the IJA, then were not only not repatriated, but their numbers added to, even though children were among them. It's sickening stuff. In Korea, there are cases of American Comfort Women in the Sixties! Women who had been forced by organized crime to be prostitutes, and under the direction of the Korean government, and aided and abetted by the US military. Shocking stuff.

I doubt it ever becomes common knowledge because when the Smithsonian even tried to show that the Atomic Bombs were likely unneccessary, they were shut down by aging embarrassed veterans of WW2. It's the politicization of history which is just like propaganda coming out of Communist nations in the Sixties. How weird.

There are quotes from soldiers that initially they had some IJA soldiers surrendering, and when this happened, the soldiers they surrendered to got furloughs, so it was system in which the best at that task then got merit pay. When that accumulated too much, they cut the furloughs and then stopped the furloughs, and what do you know, the IJA magically stopped surrendering and get shot and bayonetted instead. It's that kind of disgusting outright murder that happened.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

I think the big shocker coming out of Park Yuha was that she said the Japanese government was not directly responsible for the acquisition of comfort women. Whether this is true I do not know, but that it would lead to her being smeared across academia and the media and to criminal charges being put against her is my issue.

[RubiconDecision]

Well during that period, in truth the zaibatsu were in control, not really the impotent government. The most shocking of all events was these criminals zaibatsu were jailed (quite rightfully) as the only way to change Japanese culture and politics post-WW2. But then MacArthur freaked out, because in the power vacuum the Communists dug in. So the most bizarre release in history occurred. It would be like releasing Nazis to start up all over again...openly.

The very same criminals then forms unshakable bonds of collaborative monopolies, creating a strangehold on the Japanese economy that persists today. So if you hate the Japanese, and what happened in WW2, then buy Japanese products or even if your company actually works in conjunction with these same Japanese zaibatsu, well that is the very definition of hypocrisy.

Some of the Comfort Women were war slaves taken from captured towns and villages and relocated and they included Allied nurses across the Pacific. Some were probably sold into slavery, either by force from collaborators in various countries, or organized crime, or both. Then others were prostitutes by dire circumstances as there was no other way to survive.

http://www.wunrn.com/2007/09/comfort...pan-us-troops/

In Dec. 6, 1945, Lt. Col. Hugh McDonald, a
senior officer with the Public Health and Welfare Division of the US
occupation’s General Headquarters, wrote of the US knowledge in the forced use
of women as sex-servers. In his memorandum he wrote on the subject, “The girl
is impressed into contracting (the RAA) by the desperate financial straits of
her parents and their urging, occasionally supplemented by her willingness to
make such a sacrifice to help her family. . . It is the belief of our
informants, however, that in urban districts the practice of enslaving girls,
while much less prevalent than in the past, still exists.”
“These recruiters were actively assisted by
the military police (kempeitai) and local police, to ensure that the girls and
women ‘volunteered’. It is indisputable that these women were forced, deceived,
coerced and abducted to provide sexual services to the Japanese military,”
states the 1994 report, Japan – Comfort
Women: An Unfinished Ordeal: Report of a Mission by Ustinia Dolgopol and
Snehal Paranjape for the International Commission of Jurists, Geneva, Switzerland.
The postwar Japanese sponsored brothels
serviced US military men for almost a year from August 1945 until General
Douglas MacArthur closed the program in the spring of 1946 as occupied Japan
began to attempt rebuilding from its 3 million dead and nine million homeless.

But after the war, if you research the Recreation and Amusement Association, then that was orchestrated by the occupied Japanese government, much like the Vichy French. There were huge numbers of assaults and open rapes without penalties. (Think Germany post-war by the Russians). So the Japanese government freaked out, created a brothel system, which was aided and abetted by the US Military, and then they hired more prostitutes. Now what were the circumstances of that?? Well one could say it was voluntary, but given the grotesque number of johns per woman (averaging 40+) a day to earn little more than a pack of cigarettes, then I call BS that it was voluntary. It wouldn't make sense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recrea...nt_Association

[Visna]

Who's denying anything! What poppycock. It's the absurdity of your non sequiter as pertaining to any relevance to this discussion.

But since you made this disgusting claim I'm a denier. Chinese historicans made a monumental effort to scrutinize the records. I mean going through with a fine tooth comb to carefully memorialize the victims. No one denies it happened, it's just no respectable historian believes 300,000 victims!

Here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7126455.stm

13,000 victims after extensive research.
"Nanjing massacre victims named

China has published the names of 13,000 people it says were killed by Japanese troops in the 1937 Nanjing Massacre. The list is the most complete record of the massacre to date according to the Xinhua news agency.
Beijing claims that 300,000 people died in Nanjing and many were tortured or raped when Japanese troops invaded what was then the Chinese capital.
Japan disputes the figures and its refusal to apologise continues to sours relations between the two countries.
The eight-volume document, released to mark the 70th anniversary of the start of the massacre, lists the names, ages, occupations and addresses of the victims. "


Try harder at slander.

The latest research here.
http://china.usc.edu/new-research-nanjing-incident

Almost no reputable historians believe more than 40,000 even Chinese historians!

AFAIK it varies greatly depending on geographical area and the duration. If you want to "downplay" you only count pretty much downtown Nanking itself during a few weeks. If you want to "upplay" (for lack of a better word) you include all the seperate regions in the Nanking municipality and count the time from when the IJA entered in mid-November and stretch it to late March-early April.
There are lies, there are damn lies, and then there are statistics.