The Nanking Massacre and Iris Chang's Book The Rape of Nanking

[JoeB131]

To drive home the point about who really started the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, I quote from historian James Crowley’s seminal study Japan’s Quest for Autonomy: National Security and Foreign Policy 1930-1938, published by Princeton University Press in 1966:

Again,

Your view is that someone smacks you with a baseball bat, takes your wallet, and says he'll let you have your credit cards back if you give him a blow job, then that's a great deal.

This is what Japan offered China.

The burning of Changsha was the final straw for Wang Jengwai, the vice president of the Nationalist government and a longtime associate of Chiang Kaishek’s. Following the Nationalists’ senseless killing of at least 20,000 fellow Chinese at Changsha, Jengwai defected to the Japanese and later became the leader of one of the pro-Japanese governments set up by the Japanese in China.

Here's a picture that should tell you all you need to know about Wang...

He was right up there with Marshall Petain and Vikund Quisling...

In March 1944, Wang left for Japan to undergo medical treatment for the wound left by an assassination attempt in 1939.[23][24][25] He died in Nagoya on 10 November 1944, less than a year before Japan's surrender to the Allies, thus avoiding a trial for treason. Many of his senior followers who lived to see the end of the war were executed. Wang was buried in Nanjing near the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, in an elaborately constructed tomb. Soon after Japan's defeat, the Kuomintang government under Chiang Kai-shek moved its capital back to Nanjing, destroyed Wang's tomb, and burned the body. Today, the site is commemorated with a small pavilion that notes Wang as a traitor.[

 

[Unkotare]

That’s exactly when it’s most important, you stupid son of a bitch.

If you were an American, you would understand that.

I understand human nature..........

You mistake your own weakness for "human nature."

 

[Unkotare]

...

If you got out of the basement ......

You don't want to pursue that line of (illogical) discussion, fool.

 

[Unkotare]

Reality- Everyone at the time thought relocating the potential collaborators from the west coast was a good idea. It wasn't even a Democrat/Republican thing...

You've never even heard of Ralph Carr have you, 'historian'? Ignorant dolt.

 

[JoeB131]

You mistake your own weakness for "human nature."

Not at all. I just look at how Earl Warren (Republican) and FDR (Democrat) both assessed the situation in 1942, with the military reality of the moment.

Vs. some basement dweller with a Porn Fetish name judging 80 years later.

You don't want to pursue that line of (illogical) discussion, fool.

Dude, your screen name is a type of fetish porn... that's how small you are.

You've never even heard of Ralph Carr have you, 'historian'? Ignorant dolt.

Don't care. Really don't.

We smartly moved potential collaborators out of a war zone. That's actually a smart move. The Axis powers would have just shot them where they stood.

 

[Unkotare]

You mistake your own weakness for "human nature."

Not at all. I just look at how Earl Warren (Republican) and FDR (Democrat) both....

both unamerican, racist douchebags like you.

 

[Unkotare]

....

Vs. some basement dweller....

Still wrong, racist douchebag.

 

[Unkotare]

You mistake your own weakness for "human nature."

You've never even heard of Ralph Carr have you, 'historian'? Ignorant dolt.

Don't care. Really don't......

Don't ever bothering to try and lie about some degree in History, you ignorant douchebag.

 

[Unkotare]

...

We smartly moved potential collaborators out of a war zone. .....

No, the racist piece of shit fdr violated every Constitutional right of AMERICANS. Most German and Italian Americans on the East Coast were not thrown into fdr concentration camps, you stupid fucking hypocrite.

 

[JoeB131]

both unamerican, racist douchebags like you.

Let's see...

FDR- Saved the country from the Great Depression and Fascism
Earl Warren- Gov. of California and Chief Justice
Unkatore- Some loser who watches Scat Porn in his basement

Why, yes, the choice is obvious.

 

[JoeB131]

No, the racist piece of shit fdr violated every Constitutional right of AMERICANS. Most German and Italian Americans on the East Coast were not thrown into fdr concentration camps, you stupid fucking hypocrite.

Actually, 20,000 Germans and 5,000 Italians were also detained during the war.

Of course, Germany didn't have a Navy that was about to Show up on the East Coast, either.

 

[Unkotare]

No, the racist piece of shit fdr violated every Constitutional right of AMERICANS. Most German and Italian Americans on the East Coast were not thrown into fdr concentration camps, you stupid fucking hypocrite.

Actually, 20,000 Germans and 5,000 Italians were also detained during the war.

....

“Detained,” not thrown into concentration camps. And out of how many German and Italian Americans, you disingenuous douche?

You’re no American.

 

[JoeB131]

“Detained,” not thrown into concentration camps. And out of how many German and Italian Americans, you disingenuous douche?

You’re no American.

The Germans and Italians didn't bomb Pearl Harbor or kill thousands of Americans in Bataan.

Oh, I don't deny race had a lot to so with it.

So did the fact the West coast was perceived to be under real threat.
So did the fact the Japanese really, really pissed us off.

 

[Unkotare]

....

Oh, I don't deny race had a lot to so with it.......

There was nothing else to do with it, you racist piece of fucking shit.

 

[JoeB131]

There was nothing else to do with it, you racist piece of fucking shit.

Oh, you mean THIS had nothing to do with it?

Don't be stupid.

 

[gipper]

To drive home the point about who really started the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, I quote from historian James Crowley’s seminal study Japan’s Quest for Autonomy: National Security and Foreign Policy 1930-1938, published by Princeton University Press in 1966:

Neither the Imperial army nor the Konoe cabinet intended, on July 7, 1937, to separate Hopei province [the richest province in China, the province in which Shanghai was located] from the Nationalist government; but the public pronouncements of the generalissimo [Nationalist leader Chiang Kaishek], as well as his veto of the local settlement, eventually yielded a major crisis. . . .​

The generous terms of the Konoe government, however, failed to elicit an official diplomatic reply from the Nanking government [the Nationalist government]. Instead, on August 14, the Nationalist air force bombed the Japanese naval installation at Shanghai, and that evening, Nanking announced, “China is duty bound to defend her territory and her national experience.” The China war had begun. . . .​

Prior to the outbreak of hostilities in Shanghai, the behavior of Japanese naval and diplomatic officials in this treaty port had been most circumspect [cautious, careful, considerate]. Following the killing of [Japanese] Naval Lt. Oyama, who died while presumably attempting to capture the Hunjao Airport single-handedly on August 9, the Japanese consul general apologized for Oyama’s bizarre activities; and [Japanese] Admiral Hasegawa promptly cancelled all night patrols in the international settlement in order to prevent any untoward incidents. Western officials were impressed with these efforts to avoid a repetition of the circumstances which had caused the Shanghai incident of 1932; and they were visibly distressed by the arrival of Nationalist troops in the Shanghai area, especially in the “demilitarized zone” established in 1932. . . .​

These ominous developments in Shanghai did not modify the prevailing attitudes in Tokyo. The Konoe cabinet believed that the Nationalist government would prefer a diplomatic resolution of the crisis. . . .​

In view of the cluster of decisions which characterized the policy of the Japanese government before the outbreak of the Shanghai fighting—the cabinet’s China policy of August 6, the quarantine of the [Japanese] North China Army in the Peking environs, and the belated reinforcement of the Shanghai garrison—it seems reasonable to conclude that the hostilities in Shanghai were technically provoked by the Nanking government rather than by a willful act of the Japanese army or the Konoe cabinet. . . .​

Until Chinese sources are available, it is difficult precisely to delineate the basic policy of the Nationalist government during this period. There is good reason to believe, however, that it had decided before July 7 to wage an all-out war. . . . It is conceivable that the Nationalist government had sufficient confidence in its new German-trained divisions to rely upon a field of battle in Shanghai. . . .​

If the logic underlying the decision of the Nationalist government to provoke a major military incident in Shanghai eludes precise identification, there is ample evidence that it was based on unwarranted estimates of the diplomacy of the Western powers and of the capabilities of its German-trained divisions. By mobilizing all Nationalist troops north of the Yangtze on July 9, Chiang deliberately conveyed the impression that he was planning to concentrate his forces in the Paoting pass. . . . Consequently, when the Shanghai incident broke out in mid-August, the Nationalist army seemed to command an overwhelming superiority. (pp. 340-346)​

When the Japanese overcame the Nationalists’ “overwhelming superiority” and took Shanghai when they counter-attacked in response to Chiang’s assault, incredibly, the Soviets, the British, the French, FDR, and FDR’s allies in the American press condemned Japan for its supposed “aggression”!

However, as we just read from Crowley above, and as other scholars have documented, the Japanese were not the aggressors in that battle. The Japanese did not want to attack Shanghai. The Japanese had been trying to defuse the tense situation in Shanghai when the Nationalists bombed the Japanese naval facility in Shanghai and then attacked a small Japanese garrison because they thought they could easily overrun the garrison before the Japanese could get reinforcements to the area. But, the 2,000-man garrison fought with unbelievable courage and held off the 30,000-man Chinese army that attacked it just long enough for reinforcements to arrive. However, this incident did not lead to an all-out battle for Shanghai. A compromise was reached, and Shanghai returned to some sense of normalcy.

But, this situation changed when Chiang Kaishek decided to attack the Japanese section of Shanghai with two divisions. The Japanese brought in more reinforcements and an enormous battle ensued, ending with the Nationalist forces being expelled from Shanghai and the Japanese taking control of the city (Peter Harmsen, Storm Clouds Over the Pacific, 1931-1941, Kindle Edition, Casemate Publishers, 2018, locs. 1413-1453; see also Mark Peattie, Edward Drea, and Hans van de Ven’s The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945, Stanford University Press, 2013).

Chiang Kaishek’s reasons for picking a fight with the Japanese at Shanghai remain a subject of debate. Peter Harmsen:

Chiang may have genuinely thought that by concentrating his best troops in a shock attack on the meager Japanese garrison in Shanghai, he would be able to score a quick, dramatic victory that could rally the nation.​

Japan, on the other hand, only entered the battle reluctantly. The army already felt overstretched in the north of China, and for the wrong reasons. Many Japanese generals considered the Soviet Union to be the main threat and the one that most resources had to be directed towards. The Chinese themselves understood this was the case, and on occasion admitted so in public. “Japan had no wish to fight at Shanghai,” Chinese General Zhang Fakui, one of the top field commanders during the struggle for the city, said in a post-war interview. “It should be simple to see that we took the initiative.” (Storm Clouds Over the Pacific, loc. 1453)​

Finally, let’s review a few other facts that bear repeating:

-- For several years prior to mid-1938, the Nationalists, led by Chiang Kaishek, were getting weapons from Nazi Germany and had hired active-duty German officers to train their troops. Nationalists forces often even wore the trademark German helmet (Harmsen, locs. 1050-1066, 1161-1174, 1416-1429). (At the time, relations between Germany and Japan were very strained.)

-- Most of the time that the Japanese were fighting the Nationalists, they were also fighting the Soviet Union, until 1941, and during most of the period from 1931-1941, the Soviets were helping both the Nationalists and the Communists (Harmsen, locs. 1086, 1205, 1586-1602).

-- In the 1920s, the Nationalists agreed to form an alliance with the Communists in order to obtain Soviet support (Harmsen, locs. 480-494).

-- When Chiang assumed the leadership of the Nationalists, he resumed the alliance with the Communists, after having failed to eradicate them, and accepted support from the Soviet Union in the hope of defeating the Japanese. Says Harmsen,

Chiang, however, did not forget his pledge [to the Chinese Communists] to channel all his resources into the battle against Japan. With the backing of the Communists, and perhaps more importantly their Soviet masters, he now felt confident about facing up to the Japanese enemy. (Harmsen, loc. 1205)​

-- In the fall of 1937, the Soviets began providing the Nationalists with military equipment, including military aircraft and pilots (locs. 1586-1602). Observes Harmsen,

At the same time, Soviet military aircraft arrived, flown by Soviet pilots. By the time Shanghai was captured by the Japanese in November, the aviators had taken to the skies over the lower Yangtze and the Soviets had become an . . . important part of the war. (Harmsen, locs. 1586-1602)​

-- Taking off from Nationalist airfields, Soviet bombers carried out bombing raids on Japanese bases in China and Saipan (Harmsen, locs. 1743-1769).

-- After a Soviet air raid on a Japanese base on Saipan, Chiang Kaishek and his wife hosted a banquet to honor the Soviet pilots (Harmsen, locs. 1755-1769).

-- In November 1938, Nationalist soldiers, without warning, began burning the city—the Chinese city—of Changsha, 200 miles southwest of the Nationalist stronghold of Wuhan, as part of Chiang Kaishek’s scorched-earth policy to deny the Japanese any spoils when they took the city. “At least 20,000 were buried in mass graves outside the city,” notes Harmsen (Harmsen, locs. 2196-2210).

The burning of Changsha was the final straw for Wang Jengwai, the vice president of the Nationalist government and a longtime associate of Chiang Kaishek’s. Following the Nationalists’ senseless killing of at least 20,000 fellow Chinese at Changsha, Jengwai defected to the Japanese and later became the leader of one of the pro-Japanese governments set up by the Japanese in China.

-- Finally, when the Nationalists were retreating from Xuzhou in June 1938, they killed at least 400,000 of their fellow Chinese by breaching the Yellow River dyke at Huayuankou in order to flood the Japanese path to Wuhan (Harmsen, locs. 1895-1907). The flood engulfed three entire cities: Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu. 400,000 is the rock-bottom death toll estimate. A post-war Nationalist commission concluded that 800,000 Chinese were killed by the flooding. Some scholars put the death toll at over 1,000,000. Although JoeB argues that the Yellow River Flood Atrocity was “different” because the people “only” died by “drowning,” instead of being shot or bayoneted, we can only imagine what leftists would be saying if the Japanese had committed this atrocity. And, by the way, drowning can be a terrifying and painful way to die (People Describe What It Feels Like to Drown).

Well, we all know anything argued by Joey is totally illogical. After all, a demented statist mind can’t function logically.

 

[JoeB131]

Well, we all know anything argued by Joey is totally illogical. After all, a demented statist mind can’t function logically.

The guy just wrote a long paragraph about why the Chinese were the bad guys for resisting a Japanese invasion.

What I find amusing is that you think the Chinese should have been totally cool with the Japanese invading their country with tanks and bombs and guns, but man, if some Mexicans show up and want to do menial work, you'll scream about an "invasion".

 

[gipper]

Well, we all know anything argued by Joey is totally illogical. After all, a demented statist mind can’t function logically.

The guy just wrote a long paragraph about why the Chinese were the bad guys for resisting a Japanese invasion.

What I find amusing is that you think the Chinese should have been totally cool with the Japanese invading their country with tanks and bombs and guns, but man, if some Mexicans show up and want to do menial work, you'll scream about an "invasion".

In your world the state is justified in drowning a million of it’s people, to save the state from a foreign invader. Totally illogical heinous tyrannical and well dumb.

 

[JoeB131]

In your world the state is justified in drowning a million of it’s people, to save the state from a foreign invader. Totally illogical heinous tyrannical and well dumb.

Oh, is it a million now? I'm wondering how this happens, when you have a disaster like Katrina, which was bad, but only a couple of hundred people drowned, but supposedly millions drowned in this event the apologists make up.

 

[gipper]

In your world the state is justified in drowning a million of it’s people, to save the state from a foreign invader. Totally illogical heinous tyrannical and well dumb.

Oh, is it a million now? I'm wondering how this happens, when you have a disaster like Katrina, which was bad, but only a couple of hundred people drowned, but supposedly millions drowned in this event the apologists make up.

Why do statist like it when the state mass murders innocent people?