Ever heard of the rape of Nanjing?
In 1931, Japan occupied a whole swath of north-east China called Manchuria. Then, in 1937, the Japanese moved to occupy as much as possible of the more-populated parts of China.
At this time, the capital of China was Nanjing and, over six weeks from mid December 1937 to mid January 1938, Japanese troops occupied the city murdering, raping and looting on a huge scale.
Since most Japanese military records on the killings were kept secret or destroyed shortly after the surrender of Japan in 1945, historians have been unable to accurately estimate the death toll of the massacre. In 1946, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo estimated that over 200,000 Chinese were killed in the incident. China’s official estimate is more than 300,000 dead based on the evaluation of the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal in 1947.The Chinese have never forgotten what they call the rape of Nanjing, but the Japanese authorities continue to downplay the massacre and most Japanese know very little about it.
I have been to the city of Nanjing [my account here]; I have seen two films on the massacre, “The Flowers Of War” [my review here] and “City of Life And Death” [my review here]; and I am currently reading “China’s War With Japan 1937-1945” by Rana Mitter [details here].
To understand modern-day China, you have to know something about the country’s “century of humiliation” from the mid 1840s to the mid 1940s. of which the war with Japan – and most especially the rape of Nanjing – is a deep part of the nation’s psyche. You can learn more here.