Nanking and the 2nd Sino-Japanese War 1937

Taking the Chinese Capital Led to Full-Scale Atrocities

Michael Streich

March 7, 2009

The second Sino-Japanese War began in 1937 after the Japanese, jointly occupying Tientsin, provoked the Chinese into confrontation. Japanese aircraft bombed Shanghai and began an invasion of the city. To their surprise, soldiers of the Nationalist government under General Chiang Kai-shek defended bravely and with a stubborn will. Despite their heroic attempts, however, Shanghai fell on November 37 and the Japanese army, under the command of General Matsui Iwane, began its march to Nanking, the Chinese capital. What happened at Nanking would be called “the forgotten holocaust,” a public massacre of hundreds of thousands.

 

Expansionism and Bushido

 

With an expanding population following the decades after World War I, Japan looked to China as a solution to feed her people. Additionally, the lure of dominance, an Asian sort of Manifest Destiny, according to Iris Chang, fit into the determination that Japan was destined to rule Asia. Ever since the Meiji Restoration, Japan “adopted the Samurai ethic of bushido as the moral code for all citizens.”

 

Japanese successes were already a source of historical pride. The First Sino-Japanese War yielded land gains from China including Formosa (today Taiwan). The 1905 Russo-Japanese War showed that an Asian nation could obliterate a Western power, Admiral Togo’s sinking of the second Russian fleet at Tsushima a clear example.

 

Every facet of Japanese culture and society focused on a military orientation that stressed the superiority of Japan, preached a hatred of the Chinese, and subsumed any individuality into the national cult, much like Hitler would do in Nazi Germany. Japanese boys were taught early in life the importance of total obedience. Personal weakness was never tolerated. All of this was reinforced by Shinto, the state religion.

 

The Nightmare of Nanking

 

H. J. Timperley, writing in the July 19, 1938 Times, points out two significant facts in his report on the Japanese massacres in Nanking. The first fact quotes informants stating that Japanese generals “were angry at having to complete their occupation under the eyes of neutral observers…” These observers included foreign diplomats, including those of Nazi Germany, who were repulsed and appalled by the extent of the slaughter. This large-scale massacre was completed openly, in front of the world.

 

Secondly, Timperley targets Japanese officers: “The most damning point in this ghastly story is…that such outrages were allowed to continue beneath the eyes of the responsible officers for a period of months.” These outrages included mass killings, 57,000 alone on the slopes of Mufu Mountain. POWs were used for bayonet practice, were decapitated, machine-gunned, and burned alive. Thousands of women were raped and then murdered.

 

After the Japanese took Shanghai, they marched toward Nanking, killing anyone along the path. The Chinese city of Suchow was reduced from a population of 350,000 to less than 500. A three-pronged maneuver encircled Nanking, protected on two sides by the Yangtze River. Although they outnumbered the Japanese, most of the Nationist troops surrendered.

 

At this moment, Lt. General Asaka Yasuhiko, a member of the Imperial family, arrived from Tokyo to take command from the ailing Iwane. One of his first orders was to kill all POWs. Although there may be some question as to whether he himself issued the order, he did not rescind it once troops began to systematically kill the Chinese soldiers.

 

At the time the massacres were being carried out, Prince Konoe, the Japanese Prime Minister, stated that his government hoped that China would “…extend a hand of cooperation with Japan. (The Times, December 15^th, 1937) The Japanese government did its best to erase Nanking from the historical record. According to Iris Chang, writing in 1997, Japan has never apologized for the atrocities committed in Nanking in late 1937 and into 1938. Memories of the event continue to plague Sino-Japanese relations in the post modern era.

 

Sources:

 

Iris Chang, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II (Basic Books, 1997).

“Nanking Only A Beginning,” The Times, London, December 15, 1937.

H. J. Timperley, “The Terror in China: Japanese Outrages,” The Times, London, July 19, 1938.

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