Unlike China and I don't know if Korea does this too WE Japanese people have a democracy and we get to CHOOSE what we want to learn.

I've heard you all complain and claim that we distort our history but I haven't heard a single piece of evidence.

Name one lie or distortion. I'd like to hear it. Since my entire time here at AsiaFinest, I have never yet once heard anyone give any exact quotes or translations of quotes.

I've seen ( not just once) that Japanese 'scholars' claim the Nanjing Massacre never happened. In some other books, some even say it was commited by the Chinese government, not Japanese.
Also, the Japanese said they 'entered' China to 'liberate' people 'suffering' under the 'dictatorial KMT regime'.

The complaint is that certain Japanese textbooks

(1) justify Japan's militarism
-as merely self-defence against the US
-portrays Japan as fighting in behalf of all Asian people
-justifies colonization of Korea and Manchuria through economic development

(2) understate or deny many atrocities
-invasion of manchuria and asian countries is referred to as an "advance"
to even mention "comfort women", 10s of thousands of Korean and Chinese women forced to work as sex slaves for Japan's army
-initially omitted any reference at all to Rape of Nanjing (this has been changed, but some textbooks still gloss over the event)
-glosses over invasion of China in which at least 10 million Chinese civilians and 1.3 million soldiers were killed from 1937 to 1945

(3) and are aimed at creating an imperialist revival in Japanese society
-open defence and legitimization of Japan's militarist past
-clear the path for an aggressive reassertion of Japanese militarism


what do u guys think?

-------------------------------------references------------------------------------
Japanese history textbook provokes sharp controversy

Anger deepens in history book row

Nanjing Massacre Xanga
(warning-- very graphic photos--may not be appropriate for younger readers)

You have no idea what you are talking about barkerintokyo...

her book, The Rape of Nanking is critically aclaimed everywhere except in Japan...

Iris Chang doesn't exagerate.... she merely states the truth...

A few excerpts from a 1999 interview...

"For instance, I find it extremely disturbing that the newly elected governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, is an outspoken revisionist of World War II history. He told Playboy magazine back in 1990 that the Rape of Nanking was a "lie" and "a story made up by the Chinese." He's enormously popular in Japan, and he won the election by a landslide."

"Unfortunately, the education system has prevented most Japanese people from knowing the details of Japan's war in the Pacific. For decades, the Japanese Ministry of Education censored or whitewashed descriptions of the Rape of Nanking and other wartime atrocities from school textbooks through the notorious screening process that all textbooks must undergo. In fact, the Japanese school system has done such a poor job of teaching World War II history that it was reported a few years ago that some Japanese children weren't even sure which side won -- the United States or Japan."

"It's going to be painful, but the people of Japan need to learn the full dark legacy of their nation's wartime past if they are to understand how their country is being perceived internationally, and why."


link to interview:
Japanese denial and "The Rape of Nanking"

It is likely that the numbers in Chang's book are exaggerated, depending on which your criterion for the area of "Nanjing" is. To match the 200,000 casualty figure, you would have to extend the radius not just around Nanjing city and its 5 accompanying counties but also several more miles outward and also extend the time frame by a bit. If you go by the technical definition of Nanjing (urban + 5 counties) and use the timeframe of 6 weeks or so. The casualty figures are roughly 20,000-100,000, depending on which historian you are asking.

December 13, 2003 is the 66th anniversary of Nanjing Massacre in which 300,000 Nanjing citizens were killed by invading Japanese soldiers. In recent years, right-wing Japanese scholars wrote many articles denying the fact, asserting that before the Japanese invasion there were only 200,000 citizens in Nanjing.



Zhang Lianhong, professor of Nanjing Massacre Research Center in Nanjing Normal University, published an article in Beijing Daily, in which he used historical fact to show that the population of Nanjing urban area was between 367,000 and 467,000, and the overall Nanjing population was between 535,000 and 635,000.



The article showed that since the 1980s, right-wing Japanese scholars have been arguing the population number of Nanjing. These scholars maintain that only 200,000 citizens lived there before Nanjing was occupied by Japan in World War II, concluding therefore that it was impossible for the Japanese army to have killed 300,000 Nanjing citizens, and that the "Nanjing Massacre" never happened.



Many fair-minded scholars argued with the Japanese over this, but they still insist their opinion is correct in some newly published academic papers.



According to Zhang Lianhong, after the Kuomintang government set up its capital in Nanjing in 1927, the geographic boundary of Nanjing changed a lot. In 1927, Nanjing only included the urban area. In March 1935, 21 townships formerly under the jurisdiction of Jiangning County were merged into Nanjing, so Nanjing extended its boundary. Later, the number of Nanjing citizens increased a lot, reaching 1.015 million by June 1937.



After the August 13, 1937, when Japanese aggressor troops launched a large-scale offensive against Shanghai, Nanjing was also under threat of war. Many Nanjing citizens moved to other cities for security. From August to November 1937, 48.9 percent of its citizens moved to other areas, and 17.6 percent of its rural citizens moved to other places. At the beginning of November 1937, more than 547,000 citizens still lived in Nanjing. A Japanese military spy report revealed that more than 530,000 citizens lived in Nanjing in late October of 1937.



After the Japanese army occupied Shanghai, many people, mainly government officials, started a second migration. During that period, traffic facilities were not enough to take all citizens who wanted to move to other cities from Nanjing, so travel tickets were extremely expensive, and many Nanjing citizens could not afford to leave. On November 23, 2003, the Nanjing government announced that more than 500,000 citizens stayed in Nanjing.



In early December 1937, Tang Shengzhi, commander of the Nanjing defense army, closed all the gates of Nanjing and blocked off travel to other cities, so it became impossible for Nanjing citizens to leave after December 1937. In this period, some people moved to the city from rural areas, but this movement did not change the overall population number of Nanjing.



After the August 13 Incident of 1937, many refugees came to Nanjing, many of whom want to go further to hinterland. However, due to limited transport facilities, most refugees were not able to leave Nanjing before the city was occupied. There was no exact number of the refugees flooding to Nanjing per day, but if it was assumed as 1,000, the number of people contained in Nanjing was 30,000.



No exact statistical data shows how many Chinese soldiers stayed in Nanjing after the Japanese army occupied it, but it is estimated that more than 116,919 Chinese soldiers and officers participated in the war defending Nanjing and more than 47,382 soldiers were reported lost, of whom less than 10,000 died during the war. Therefore, at least 37,000 Chinese soldiers stayed in Nanjing City after the Japanese army occupied it.



In conclusion, before the Japanese army occupied Nanjing, the following people stayed in Nanjing: original Nanjing citizens (300,000 to 400,000); refugees (more than 30,000); and Chinese soldiers and officers (more than 37,000). Therefore, 367,000 to 467,000 people stayed in Nanjing urban area before occupation. Plus the rural population of 168,000, the overall Nanjing population should number between 535,000 and 635,000.



Some Japanese scholars ignore the fact that the Nanjing population included both the city population and rural population. It is unfair to ignore the rural area because the massacre happened in both city and country areas.

By the way, if you want to see evidence of this absolutely mind boggling head in sand denial syndrome, go to amazon.com and browse for books on japanese war atrocities. Everyone will have page after page of 1 star ratings by the same Japanese nationals over and over again claiming they were lies. I swear its a concerted effort to rate the books down since it is the same usernames that rates all of these books down, sometimes more than once. Compare that to books on the concentration camps, and it's quite the sobering picture.

American and British aren't angry b/c its not their grandparents and parents who were killed .....by Japanese soldiers...

barkerintokyo,

y would korea or china complain if japanese textbooks did not distort facts?

You can continue to believe your beloved Mao and your Kim Jong Il. Your beliefs are exactly the same as them.

Japan is not an agressor anymore. You continue to look at us like we're evil when we have repented and we are now just as innocent and perhaps more innocent than the Chinese and Koreans.