During World War II, the primary strategy of the Chinese forces, led by Chiang Kai-Shek, was to constantly retreat inland to tire out the limited resources of the Japanese. Shortly after the war broke out, Chiang decided to retreat from the then-capital of China, Nanking. While this may have been an effective military strategy, by doing this, Chiang left Nanking at the mercy of the Japanese.
Once the soldiers were dealt with, the Japanese turned their attention to the civilians. Crowds of
innocents were shot upon at random, with some reports claiming that the roads were dyed red with
Women were not spared either. It is estimated that between 20,000 to 80,000 women were raped during the massacre shortly. Shortly after their raping, they were killed by the soldiers to eliminate any potential witnesses. The sexual abuse wasn't just committed by the Japanese, however. Oftentimes when the soldiers found a full family of civilians, they forced the males in the family to rape the females. Husbands raped their wives, brothers raped their sisters, all while the rest of the family was forced to watch.
The Rape of Nanking lasted from mid-December 1837 to early-February 1838, and the destruction it caused took decades to recover from. Even today, it is still a controversial issue between the Chinese and Japanese governments, and will likely remain that way for years to come.
http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/nanking.htm
http://www.history.com/topics/nanjing-massacre
Very interesting post Charles! The death tolls and war crimes from the Rape of Nanking are staggering, and it's truly saddening as well as eye-opening to see how much death and injustice resulted from the war. Although I was aware of the event, I was confused as to why the event is so obscure, and not talked about. I looked further into this and found that despite having a higher death toll than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined, or even the total civilian lives lost in all European countries during the war, the Rape of Nanking did not come to world consciousness due to politics. The People's Republic of China and Taiwan both did not talk about the incident because they were competing for trade with Japan, and did not demand any wartime reparations. The United States also wanted to remain on good terms with Japan, and thus did not expose the incident as well. As a result, Japan was able to escape the blame for huge war crimes and huge amounts of innocent killings. A question relating to the Holocaust point you mentioned was: how long does it take for nation's to forgive or let go of these horrible tragedies? Or is it even possible to forgive these events?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newsweek.com/exposing-rape-nanking-170890
First off Charles, very nice post. Similar to Andrew I had heard of this event but really did not know that many details about it. To respond to your question Andrew, I think that nations or people in general can and should never let go of these tragedies. It is important, as the motto goes, to "never forget." People must always remember atrocities to ensure that it will never happen again. As for forgiving what happened, it is important to remember that a whole people should not be condemned forever because of what their ancestors did. While some people might hold perfectly justifiable grudges because they were scarred by the event or feel very strongly about it, the majority of people need to understand that the people alive today did not commit the act 70 years ago. For example, I personally, and I would say most other Jews have nothing against German people today. Of course we, as any reasonable person should be, are against Nazism, but it is necessary to understand that most Germans are not Nazis. Some people will not have anything to do with German stuff, from German made cars to even German shepherds. It is just too difficult for them to get over it, which is understandable. However, it is important to move on so that progress can be made in the positive direction.
DeleteI'm very glad you did a post on this Charles! I often feel that we don't cover much of Asian history -- despite the US being directly impacting the lives of Pacific Asians during WWII. While we briefly covered this event in class, I had really wanted to learn more in depth, so I am glad you decided to blog about it. The death toll was, and is still, staggering of 200,000 to 300,000 in just six weeks. Andrew's addition that more Chinese people died in in these weeks than when the US dropped 2 atomic bombs only further emphasizes this scale. While studying WWII, I often find myself focusing on the atrocities the Nazis committed, often forgetting about the war in the east. However, after studying the two countries, I realized they share incredibly similar ideologies of a superior race (Japanese in Asia, and Aryans in Europe), as well as the desire for lebensraum (or as the Japanese would refer to as "Asia for Asians"). Additionally, just as the Nazis registered and marked the people in areas the conquered (for example all Jews had to wear the star of David), so did the Japanese label the Chinese. In December 1938, Chinese women had to register with the Japanese government.
ReplyDeleteA site I found helpful in explaining the anti-Chinese sentiments the Japanese fostered/the history before the Rape of Nanjing can be found here: http://academic.mu.edu/meissnerd/nanking-rape.htm