Page 1 of
2 Nanjing wounds bleed 70 years
on By Ronan Thomas
LONDON - This July, ceremonies in China
and intensive coverage by the international media
will mark the anniversary of one of Asia's most
brutal 20th-century events. Across Asia, this will
be controversial, painful and angering. History
will be denied and obfuscated by some, used
cynically by others to fuel-inject nationalist
sentiment.
This year the world will mark
the 70th anniversary of the so-called Second
Sino-Japanese War, Japan's bid for Asian
dominance, starting with its invasion of Chinese
territory in 1937 and
culminating in its defeat in
the ashes of August 1945.
Above all, the
focus this year will be on Nanjing. Japan's
actions during the siege and capture of the
Chinese city in mid-December 1937 will come under
the harshest critical scrutiny. The brutal Rape of
Nanking (as the name of the city was then usually
transliterated), with the unrestrained butchery by
Japanese soldiers of an estimated 300,000 Chinese
souls, remains an indelible stain. It continues to
affront world history.
These Sino-Japanese
wounds still fester 70 years on. On the one hand
Chinese are justifiably resentful that Japan's
power elites continue to outrage its Asian
neighbors by honoring war criminals in Tokyo's
Yasukuni Shrine. The teaching of history in most
of Japan's schools is light on Japanese war
responsibility, to put it mildly.
Some
Japanese historians and political figures continue
to avert their eyes from atrocities such as that
in Nanjing; some even justify the actions vocally.
On the other hand, China's remarkable economic
revanche and growing geopolitical ambitions make
local Asian policymakers fidget nervously. Some
Japanese, East Asian and international observers
also complain of a growing Chinese nationalism
that ignores huge suffering unleashed under
communism in the country's recent past.
Roots of a massacre The
motivations for Japan's entry into China in 1937
may be disputed by both protagonists, but the
facts played out on the ground are not.
An
undeclared war between Japan and Chiang Kai-shek's
Nationalist China broke out in July 1937. Between
July and November that year, Japan went on to
occupy the entire Yangtze Valley and a large
proportion of northeastern China.
Yet the
roots of the Nanjing atrocity are to be found much
earlier. In 1868, as Japan's shogunate ended, the
Meiji Restoration unfolded. Under the Emperor
Meiji, Japan embraced Western approaches and
industrial technologies after hundreds of years of
self-imposed isolation. Like Otto von Bismarck's
Germany, then an ascending great power, Japan
wanted its place in the sun. As the 19th century
ended, Japan had begun to emulate other Western
powers, particularly the United States and
Britain, in terms of defense expenditures.
Tensions with the West increased after the
US acquired the Philippines in 1898. Japan's
victory in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894, in the
1904-05 Russo-Japanese War, its acquisition of
Korea in 1910, and US acquiescence in the division
of Manchuria into spheres of influence boosted
Tokyo's confidence exponentially. Then came World
War I. When an armistice was reached in 1918, the
map of regional Asian geopolitics had altered
beyond recognition.
Russia was removed as
a serious imperial power in Asia for more than a
decade. In the inter-war years, after the
Washington Naval Conference of 1921-22, Japanese
regional power increased still further. It gained
former German possessions in China and the
Pacific; unlike the European nations, its
industrial capacity had been untouched by war and
performance was buoyant. Its navy was strong and
growing stronger.
With the temporary
removal of serious regional rivals, Japan turned
unchecked in the late 1920s toward China. Chiang
Kai-shek's Kuomintang (KMT) government had just
emerged pre-eminent out of civil war and the
claims of competing warlords. But his grip was
shaky. And it was northeastern China, specifically
Manchuria, that appealed most to Japanese
nationalists keen to establish their country as a
"pure" East Asian hegemon.
Similarly to
Adolf Hitler's concept of Lebensraum - a
living space for Nazi Germany based on the
acquisition of territory and control of other
nations' raw materials - a confident Japan viewed
a weakened China as an obvious candidate. Japanese
nationalism was to trump all other versions in
Asia. It began a policy of intervention in
Manchuria and Mongolia with loose control from
Tokyo. This was to have profound consequences
later when Japanese politicians failed to rein in
ambitious commanders steeped in martial thinking
and catching the national mood at home.
Then the Great Depression intervened.
Japan was hit particularly hard as the world
economic order crumbled. It was thus, like Germany
and Italy, particularly susceptible to the rise of
totalitarianism, in Japan's case the warrior code
of Bushido updated for the 1930s. Japan saw
parallels between itself and Nazi Germany. The die
was cast. It was to be expansion or death.
Thus Japanese democracy faltered as the 1930s
began. Radical Japanese nationalists carried out
political assassinations; officer groups attempted
coups d'etat; successive civilian governments fell
as the reforms from the Meiji era disintegrated.
Inter-service fratricide led to a military
takeover; by 1936, civil politicians were being
replaced by soldiers. The lure of China now proved
irresistible to the new military power base in
Tokyo.
Incidents, incidents
Japanese government and military policy
toward China in the 1930s was predicated on
manufacturing pretexts to subvert Chinese power
and slice territory up salami-style. In September
1931, with the so-called Mukden Incident (at
today's Shenyang), Japan deliberately sabotaged a
section of Manchuria's railway system - operated
by Japan under franchise since 1905 - blaming
Chinese bandits.
This brazen pretext was
the occasion for Japan to seize all of Manchuria
during 1931-32, creating a puppet state it called
Manchukuo out of what was left, a vassal entity
(1932-45) at the head of which was placed the last
emperor of China, Pu Yi.
The rout of
Nationalist China was only just beginning. From
1931-37, Japanese forces advanced steadily into
KMT territory - with international censure but no
action. By 1932 a Chinese backlash against
Japanese nationals living in Shanghai - the First
Shanghai
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
