Japanese film discredits Nanjing massacre
Posted: 11 December 2007 1345 hrs


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TOKYO - As China tries to keep memories alive of the Nanjing Massacre, which started 70 years ago this week, a Japanese film-maker is doing his part to convince the world it never happened.

Several films have come out to mark the anniversary of the massacre, which started on December 13, 1937 after Japanese troops stormed the then Chinese capital also known as Nanking.

"Nanking," a Chinese production with Hollywood backing, has hit cinemas in Asia and the West, inspired by late US writer Iris Chang's book "The Rape of Nanking" documenting the horrors.

In Japan, director Satoru Mizushima is working on "The Truth of Nanking," the first of a three-part series alleging the massacre did not happen.

"I absolutely believe it did not happen. The allegation suddenly popped up at the Tokyo tribunal," which tried Japanese war criminals after World War II, Mizushima told AFP.

China, which has likened the bloodshed to the Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany, says about 300,000 civilians were massacred, and earlier this month published a list of 13,000 victims.

Allied trials of Japanese war criminals mentioned 140,000 victims.

While Japan has apologised for wartime atrocities in Nanjing and elsewhere, it has never officially put a figure on the number of dead.

Surveys show a majority of Japanese concede their country committed wrongs during the war, but some Japanese nationalists, who have been wielding growing influence since the late 1990s, insist the massacre is Chinese propaganda.

"For example, Chiang Kai-shek held 300 press conferences in the 11 months following the fall of Nanjing," Mizushima said, referring to the leader of the anti-communist Republic of China which was once based in the city.

"He told the international media, 'Japan did this, and Japan did that.' But there was absolutely no mention of Nanjing. Not a single word."

"This and many other things provide solid evidence the so-called massacre did not happen," Mizushima said.

While his opinions are not in the mainstream, a number of leading Japanese politicians have questioned wartime history.

Former premier Shinzo Abe, who stepped down in September, drew controversy for hedging on whether he accepted the legitimacy of the US-led Tokyo trials. His grandfather was arrested but not tried as a war criminal.

A group of conservative lawmakers, headed by a former education minister, also issued a report in June dismissing the Nanjing massacre as a fabrication, angering the Chinese government.

Mizushima, who runs a small broadcasting company, said he had collected 1.8 million dollars in donations from 5,000 supporters to produce the trilogy.

He said it would portray the seven Japanese who were hanged for war crimes, including wartime premier Hideki Tojo, as "martyrs" who took the blame to save the motherland.

"If you see the film, you will know Hitler and Tojo were absolutely different," said Mizushima.

"I have high respect for the Chinese culture. But I firmly believe the Chinese government needs to be condemned for its propaganda and teaching children lies under its anti-Japan education policy," he said.

According to Mizushima, the massacre is an excuse for the United States to place the blame on Japan while ignoring its own wartime deeds, including the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Mizushima lamented the materialism of post-war Japan, now the world's second largest economy and one of Washington's closest allies.

"After the war, Japan has come to look like a carbon copy of the West," said Mizushima.

"People are consumed by their immediate desires, want more things and want them now. They lost the sense that our ancestors live with us to this day," he said. "Japan became a very sad nation after the war." - AFP/ra

Yes it did.b

Nanjing Incident merits deeper discussion, study
The Yomiuri Shimbun

Thursday will mark the 70th anniversary of the Nanjing Incident. Already 70 years have passed since the controversial incident took place. This is a good time for both Japan and China to deepen a cool dialogue on history.

On Dec. 13, 1937, when the Imperial Japanese Army occupied Nanjing, the then capital of China, a great many Chinese citizens became victims of the occupation.

In Nanjing on Thursday, the anniversary of the fall of Nanjing, the Memorial Hall to the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre will reopen after completing a two-year large-scale expansion project. At the same time, a ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of the event will be held.

Japan-China relations have improved thanks to former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to China last year and the visit paid to Japan in April by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. China has been avoiding blatant criticism of Japan, out of apparent consideration for the changing situation. China did not make any negative comments even when the Defense Agency was upgraded to a ministry in January.

At present, 70 years after the event, the Nanjing Incident is not on the bilateral political agenda.

However, there still is a deeply rooted anti-Japanese sentiment among the Chinese public. Surfing China-based Web sites reveals anti-Japanese opinions being expressed by Chinese youth across the country.


Taught to hate?


Since the mid-1990s the Chinese government has been reinforcing its anti-Japan patriotic education. At many memorial halls to the war of resistance against Japan in China, including the Memorial Hall to the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre in Nanjing, the exhibitions and sizes of the halls have been repeatedly expanded.

At the same time, the Chinese government has repeatedly announced its view that patriotic education is for developing a sense of citizenship in young people for the future and that there is no anti-Japanese education. If that is true, there may be many things that China has to rethink.

At war of resistance memorial halls throughout the nation, photos and other materials that emphasize brutal acts by the Imperial Japanese Army have been displayed. It has been revealed by reexaminations of the incident by Japanese scholars that these exhibitions include quite a few fabricated photos made and used by the then ruling Chinese Nationalist Party for its resistance war campaign.

A suprapartisan association of Diet members formed to ask China to remove unfair photos from such memorial halls was launched in June and has already started its activities. The Japanese government, too, should urge China to review such exhibitions as they may invite misunderstanding.


Dispute over numbers


The Chinese government's official tally of victims of the Nanjing Incident has not been revised from 300,000.

Indeed, when the Japanese forces wiped out the remaining Chinese soldiers hiding in the city, many executions and violence against civilians obviously took place, according to records and testimonies from the time.

However, there are theories that the number of victims was about 40,000 and that only a fraction of those deaths were murders that violated international law.
Recently, even some Chinese scholars say scholarly debate should be deepened on the number of victims. Such a flexible stance has been aired even in China.

The Nanjing Incident is an important area for bilateral joint studies on history conducted by Japanese and Chinese historians. It is necessary for Japan and China to jointly proceed with empirical research toward the final report to be compiled next year.


(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Dec. 11, 2007)

(Dec. 11, 2007)

is it true that only less than 40000 killed? why people exaggerated to 300000?

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/editorial/20071211TDY04305.htm

what's wrong with the documentary film? specifics?

I think the Japanese still look down upon CHinese , since their still regard CHinese as a backward and inferior people .
When Chinese become great and superior , I think Japanese will look them in a different light .

UN , but is Chinese had aspiration to become great and superior again like their forbears ?

When Chinese become great and superior , I think Japanese will look them in a different light .

I think chinese ppl is not inferior people.
Japan stiil admire Confucius teachingm past civilization ..so on that the chinese lost.
indeed, even today in Japan, Japan has more chinese past tradition alive than china.



it has nothing to do with that of future.
china should take past sprits back ...that is before CCP

Manila Massacre
The Manila massacre, February 1945, refers to the atrocities conducted against Filipino civilians in Manila, Philippines by retreating Japanese troops during World War II. Various credible Western and Eastern sources agree that the death toll was at least 100,000 people.

Sook Ching Massacre
This happened in Singapore and Malaya. Japanese sources admit that some 5,000 civilians were killed during the 'Sook Ching' or 'purging' of anti-Japanese sentiment. Some estimates put this figure at closer to 50,000. The truth is unlikely ever to be known until all. There are many reports of civilians being cut down in the streets and some instances of the kind of outrage which took place in China, notably at the still-disputed Rape of Nanking - disputed by some Japanese, that is.

The Sook Ching Massacre is only one of many major war crimes committed by the Imperialist Japanese from the annexation of Manchuria in 1931 to the end of World War II in 1945. It is a major event in Asian Holocaust, where over 15 million Chinese, Korean, Filippino, Indonesian, Burmese, Indochinese civilians, Pacific Islanders and Allied POW were killed.

Angry at the Japanese atrocities in Nanjing during WWII, German diplomat Georg Rosen sent Magee's film to Nazi government and requested film be shown to Hitler to prove that Japanese army was a "Violent Killing Machine".

Also Pearl Harbour didn't happen. Oh yeah and the Atomic Bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were fake too.

The End.

Now fu-k off troll