Libel suit over Nanjing Massacre book finalized with compensation order

Friday 06th February, 05:50 AM JST

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bobcatfish at 06:06 PM JST - 6th February

how do you get the line down the left when you paste what someone else has said?
stipend at 10:35 PM JST - 6th February
kakikaki - That's quite an opinion. If you are near as interested in what actually happened I might suggest:
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 'The Rape of Nanking' by Iris Chang
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My copy went to the library just yesterday, coincidentally, otherwise I'd have been happy to give it to you.

At Youtube what MindBrain has on offer is highly recommended. It's a proper documentary. One hour.

If your mind is already made up I wouldn't suggest this, but seek out your Chinese friends who may be from the mainland. Say what you will about China but those I've spoken to know their history.

williamsmith

But there is no physical evidence for the numbers claimed by the Chinese government, none.

.. where have you been looking?
bobbafett at 12:13 AM JST - 7th February

for anyone who wants to deny it just type Nanking into a Google image search. The content is really bad including woman and girls photographed after being raped, murdered, and mutilated.

Oh it happened alright.
shouganaika at 12:17 AM JST - 7th February

I agree with realist and stipend. I strongly disagree with williamsmith and gamera
bobbafett at 12:25 AM JST - 7th February

here is a good youtube link about Nanking and Japan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoW2WYdOsvg
OssanAmerica at 01:04 AM JST - 7th February

But there is no physical evidence for the numbers claimed by the Chinese >government, none.

Actually that's true. No bones have been found to support the claimed numbers of 300,000 and when China (under the KMT) tried to bring up Nanking as a charge during the Tokyo War Trials they were unable to do so for lack of evidence. It's interesting that at that time the claim was 100,000 deaths. Actual on site reports which were guesses used "tens of thousands". Atrocities probably did occur but the death toll has been over exaggerated over time, as well as the degree of atrocities to go with it. All that makes the issue emotionally and politically charged and all the more difficult to untangle in an objective historical investigation.
NeoJamal at 01:27 AM JST - 7th February

Very sad indeed. Unfortunatley, those historians are mainstream in Japan. Childish move. You don'[t bring the honor back to the nation by denying atrocities. Look at the Germans: they gained their honor back and are now respected by all Europeans.

Who needs honour? The Coalition states that invaded Iraq e.g. US, UK, Australia and Poland have the best international relations (in their minds) without ever admitting that the invasion was aggression. How many politicians from those countries that advocated or executed the war have been tried for Crimes Against Peace? NONE.

On the otherhand Germany which refrained from joining the war because of their renewed respect for human life from reflecting on their role in WWII (unlike Japan ROAR ROAR 'FREE' THE IRAQIS) get no commendation for their noble restraint. If Germany have such a good global relationship why hasn't it been given a permanent seat in the UNSC?

We should give those "historians" a taste of their own medicine. It could be fun to see the reactions if some foreign historian decides to demonstrate that Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn't happen and that it is a lie to galvanize japanese opinion.

Denial of the 2 atomic bombings that caused as much death as the Nanking Massacre will be a very human reaction by the perpetrating nation, the large scale of destructiona and loss of human life would be overwhelming for any person. However Americans have more than eagerly justified the carnage. If justification is the more civilised alternative to denial of massacres then Japanese historians should welcome this approach in their study. One could justify that the Rape of Nanking had a profound effect on the future birthrate of China. But for the massacre, the residents of Nanking who would've otherwise died from the massacre will have bred and their offsprings would've died slowly (opposed to a quick strike of the blade) from starvation during the Great Leap Forward or could've participated in violence and killed other Chinese, in their way the death toll would've exceeded the massacre. Is such revision un-warranted? Well, such reasoning seems to work for A-Bomb apologists. Whose authority is it to say Japan can't justify its own unscrupulous actions just like Allied nations, whose citizens largely let their own nation's transgressions 'till this day slide with optimism that, whatever justification made in support for them are true.
stipend at 02:40 AM JST - 7th February

OssanAmerica

Atrocities probably did occur..

Probably? Tension occurs because Japan continues to whitewash this. The barbarism at Nanking shocked even Nazi Germany to which there is documentation. The Asahi newspaper in Japan proudly proclaimed the "Rape of Nanking" and reported atrocities almost daily. Probably everybody knew - at that time.

Probably, is a start. Maybe you'd like to have look at the links above. Iris Chang's book is great. It puts it all in perspective. It's well researched it's been well received.
kakikaki at 04:27 PM JST - 7th February

Basicly I don't know what was going on, as nobody knows it. . .other then a handfull of peeps. Which in return can't have the howl knowledge and truth in their hands as they couldn't witnesses 150.000 women being raped.and 300.000peeps being killed with their own eyes. I am not denying whats so ever, on the contrary all I want to know is the truth.But I won't swallow every thing the chinese authorities wanted the world to believe in that extend, the same peeps who caused the Yellow River flooding which killed more chinese civilians then in Nanjing.
kakikaki at 04:37 PM JST - 7th February

Iris Chang is also no reference . . . doesn't know more then anybody else allready knew. even wiki has a good link on this for once: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheRapeofNanking(book)#Criticism
stipend at 05:40 PM JST - 7th February

Peeps? You pulling my leg? Dehumanizing people is what made the atrocities possible. These were vibrant, living people, each with a soul and a purpose. Like you, like me.

People.

Another (informed) opinion kakikai? Iris Chang wrote a book. Have you read it?
amerijap at 07:22 AM JST - 8th February

Definitely, this is, without a doubt, one of the most tragic events that were marginalized in the history of WWII. The saddest fact is that there are still some conservative folks in Japan who claim to be professional scholars, despite their gross errors and misrepresentations in their works, slandering the real victim for their own sake to become influential figure in mainstream media and academic/political arena. I still don't understand why these laypersons who do not have academic credentials are regarded as an expert in the East-Asian studies.
kakikaki at 11:29 AM JST - 8th February
@stipend. Yes my friend I read the book and it was crap . . . good materials for a movie, but every thing she researched was allready widely known and documented by many professional historians world wide. What I don't like about her and the book is the fact that she states at the beginning that she won't comment on the whys and hows of the japanese army intentions that time. . .but then portrays all japanese people, all j-generations as evil bastards with a malific culture that is only layed out to kill and destroy other poeple . .nonsense

I want to know the howl facts about Nanjin. By those means I want to know fully and unconditionaly how many women and innocent peeps had been killed by torture and rape. . .and how many had been killed by shelling, in action.

The only facts we know for sure are:
1. Japanese troops did summarily execute some thousands of male Chinese in civilian clothes arrested in Nanjing after its capture, on the pretext that these were soldiers illegally disguised as civilians; and
2. After the capture of Nanjing, Japanese troops did run amok for a time,(due to the absense of the leader ship> committing a number of crimes against the civilian population, including murder, rape, plunder and destruction of property.
The question is whether the Japanese misdeeds in the weeks after the capture of Nanjing were really on the scale claimed by Chinese governments (300,000 innocent persons illegally killed, according to the maximum claim).

The best evidence appears to show that some tens of thousands of Chinese were killed in and around Nanjing during and after its capture, over and above the normal casualties of battle. The great majority of these appear to have been Chinese males summarily executed by Japanese forces on the grounds of being soldiers disguised as civilians; some of them may have been such, others may have been entirely innocent civilians. The legality of executing soldiers dressed in civilian clothes and hiding out among the civilian population is a matter for debate, and may depend on whether such persons had participated in hostilities while in civilian dress.

All this won't excuse anything, but it's so comfortable for the chinese and the west to portray the japanese as subhumans that are infested with evil through their malifique culture.

The irony for Cheng is that she should be fully aware that the massacers of hundred thausend/ milions of chinese killed during the Mao revolution are complete identical to Nanjin.

So it's not a japanese only problem but what happened in Najing is just a mirror of what human beings are capable to do in general.

Something the chinese completely ignore, as well as the japanese revisionists and many western elitists . .bloody double standard
stipend at 06:19 AM JST - 9th February

My goodness.. you are a crafty devil aren't you!

From denial, to dehumanization, to revisionist, to distraction. If you are a scholar show us what you've got. Otherwise, it is clear you are not interested in the truth at all.
kakikaki at 01:52 PM JST - 9th February

@stipend Oh sorry I don't believe the two books you have read and stories your grandpa has told you . . . then tell me where your great truth comes from . .from the chinese web or your school book.