Page 2 of 2 The rape and revision of
Nanjing By David McNeill
and igniting a movement to remember the
massacre among the Chinese Diaspora in North
America.
Chang, who committed suicide
three years ago, is the inspiration and unofficial
patron saint to most of the new movies, a galling
development for her enemies in Japan. Her book was
picked apart by Japanese conservatives who accused
her of exaggerating, sloppy research and - the
biggest sin - failing to distinguish between the
truth and wartime Chinese propaganda. She also
largely ignored the work of
courageous Japanese scholars and journalists such
as Honda Katsuichi, who authored a 1970s
(Japanese) bestseller based on interviews with
survivors and witnesses, and Fujiwara Akira, until
his death the dean of Nanjing scholars. Japanese
publishers cite her errors as the reason why the
book, released in 1997, has never been translated
into Japanese.
The damage runs deep, say
historians. "Iris Chang reopened the issue and
brought it to the attention of the international
community," says Mark Selden, research associate
in the East Asia Program at Cornell University.
"But her careless research and overstatements
opened the way for neo-nationalists to discredit
[in Japan] not only the book but - guilt by
association - much of the solid scholarship that
Japanese researchers were producing."
Whatever about the book's faults, it did
dig up a stinking political corpse that had been
buried for years, and drew attention to the
overlooked Rabe diaries, another key source for
many of the new film projects. "The Nanking
holocaust was swept under the carpet by all
concerned for geopolitical reasons," Spahic told
journalist Thomas Podvin this year. "Her book more
than any other event changed that forever."
For better or worse then, Chang has helped
push the issue out of academia and into popular
culture, where its impact will be far less
predictable, or manageable. At the very least,
anti-Japanese sentiment is likely to be inflamed
in China, where nationalist passions are already
high. A tsunami of bad publicity is also certain
to come from Europe and America, as Tokyo is fully
aware.
"It is a delicate issue so we hope
filmmakers will not create negative emotional
reactions," says government press secretary Sakaba
Mitsuo. He says a joint academic committee set up
with China to study the issue in a "non-political
way" will clarify what happened in Nanjing. "We
expect much of this study group, so we hope the
movies don't make the work of the experts
difficult."
That seems unlikely. Few of
the millions who will see the movies are likely to
appreciate that much of the most sophisticated
research on the atrocities committed by Japanese
troops during World War II occurs in Japanese
academe, although only a tiny fraction appears in
English. Or that decades of official censorship
and fudging have left many young Japanese woefully
ignorant of what took place. No doubt the movie
makers will retort that Japan is reaping what it
sows by allowing a small clique of
ultra-nationalists, emboldened by support in
Kasumigaseki, to hold sway over the debate about
Nanjing.
As for Mizushima and other
deniers, how will they react to taking such a
monumental beating in the propaganda war? "I think
that it will reinforce their siege mentality,"
says Nakano Koichi, a political scientist at
Tokyo's Sophia University. He says that many of
the people behind Mizushima's production overlap
with those who took out a full-page paid
advertisement in the Washington Post in June this
year, rebutting accusations made against the
Japanese government and on the issue of sex
slaves.
"They seem to think that they are
the sole possessor of 'truths' and 'historical
facts' under siege [by the anti-Japan Chinese
among others], and that those 'truths' will
prevail, if only they are widely and correctly
disseminated in the international community,
particularly to the American audience. Of course,
they are only deluding themselves, and they end up
digging a deeper hole for themselves."
Will any of these movies be seen in Japan?
As yet, none is scheduled. A spokesman for a major
distribution company, who wished to remain
anonymous, said releasing them here would be
"difficult" though not impossible. "It will depend
on the impact they have abroad."
Sakura's
Mizushima, meanwhile, says his movie does not have
an official release date, although the company
plans to show the first two-hour installment to
invited journalists in mid-December. The
documentary is one of a three-part series,
starting with the disputed Tokyo Trials and the
1947 execution of seven war criminals by the US
occupation, including Matsui Iwane, the man
accused of orchestrating the Nanjing invasion.
Mizushima could be found filming the
executions in a Tokyo studio this month in the
Nikkatsu Studios. His set designer had recreated
the execution gallows and actors were rehearsing
by being dropped through trapdoors. "It is very
emotional. I hope this will make the Americans
regret what they did," he said. "But I don't
suppose it will."
What might we expect
from parts two and three? He gives some hints in
his reply to a key question: Was the Imperial
Japanese Army guilty of any war crimes? "None," he
replies. "In war, atrocities will always be
carried out by a small number of individuals, but
did the Japanese army systematically commit war
crimes? Absolutely not."
Sidebar: The
Nanjing Massacre While the details and the
number of deaths continue to be debated, most
historians agree that the Nanjing massacre - also
known as the Rape of Nanjing - was an atrocity in
which 80,000 or more Chinese civilians and
surrendered soldiers were killed (the
International Military Tribunal on the Far East in
1946 considered credible a figure of 200,000) and
tens of thousands of women raped following the
Japanese capture of the city.
Despite
compelling documentary evidence, eyewitness
accounts - including some by Japanese soldiers -
and photographic evidence, Japanese revisionists
continue to reject charges that war crimes and
atrocities occurred there. The country's
undigested war history continues to poison one of
the world's most important bilateral
relationships. Recent anti-Japanese riots in China
have forced Beijing and Tokyo to set up a joint
education panel to narrow major differences of
interpretation over wartime events.
Some
on the Japanese side argue that Nanjing has become
so politicized - particularly the often-cited
figure of 300,000 deaths inscribed in the Nanjing
memorial - that measured academic discussion has
become almost impossible. "It is very difficult
indeed," says Kitaoka Shinichi, a law professor at
Tokyo University who is part of the Japanese
delegation to the panel. "But we have to find some
way of narrowing the gap between us."
"Neo-nationalist scholars such as
Higashinakano and Fujioka Nobukatsu oppose such
discussions, arguing that Japanese academics have
nothing to gain by talking to their Chinese
counterparts. "There is no point in talks," says
Fujioka. "The Chinese government has decided there
was a massacre - so what good can come out of
them?"
Higashinakano and Fujioka are the
leading figures in what critics have called the
maboroshii-ha, or illusion school, of
Nanjing and Asia-Pacific War research which
rejects all allegations of war crimes in the
taking of the city and indeed the 15-year war.
Higashinakano says 30,000 published photos of
events from the massacre are faked.
The
two professors' work is criticized by many
academics in Japan and even by some within the
revisionist school, who say that while the
casualty figures remain disputed, their research
lacks credibility. "There are a lot of crazy
people on both sides who collect around the
Nanjing debate," says Hata Ikuhiko, a history
professor at Nihon University who wrote the
seminal 1986 book Nankin Jiken (The
Nanjing Incident). Hata argues that roughly
40,000 Chinese died in the taking of the city,
although he disputes the application of the term
"massacre" to the simultaneous killing of captured
soldiers and says wartime Chinese propaganda
inflated the casualty figures.
David
McNeill writes regularly for a number of
publications including the Irish Times and the
Chronicle of Higher Education. He is a Japan Focus
coordinator.
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