Japanese and American War Atrocities, Historical Memory and Reconciliation: World War II to Today

Volume 6 | Issue 4 | Article ID 2724 | Apr 01, 2008 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Japanese and American War Atrocities, Historical Memory and Reconciliation: World War II to Today Mark Selden Japanese and American War Atrocities, relatively little analysis of United States Historical Memory and Reconciliation: atrocities, less criticism or recrimination for World War II to Today that nation’s commission and denial of atrocities, and still less demand for Mark Selden reparations? What are the consequences of this difference for the two nations and the contemporary international relations of the War Crimes, Atrocities and State Terrorism Asia Pacific? The controversies that continue to swirl around Among the war crimes and atrocities the Nanjing Massacre, the military comfort committed in World War II, the Nanjing women, Unit 731 and other Japanese military Massacre . or Rape of Nanjing, or Nankin atrocities rooted in colonialism and the Asia Daigyakusatsu, or Nankin Jiken (Japanese) or Pacific War are critical not only toNanjing Datusha (Chinese) . remains the understanding the dynamics of war, peace, and most controversial. These different names terror in the long twentieth century. They are signal alternative Japanese, Chinese and also vital for understanding war memory and international perceptions of the event: as denial, with implications for peace and regional “incident”, as “massacre”, as “rape”, as accommodation in the Asia Pacific region and “massive butchery”. the US-Japan relationship. [1] The Nanjing Massacre is controversial not This article offers a comparative framework for because the most basic facts are in doubt, understanding war atrocities and the ways in although historians continue to contest the which they are remembered, forgotten and number of deaths and the interpretation of memorialized. It examines a number of high certain events. Rather it is controversial profile atrocities in an effort to understand because of the shocking scale of the killing of their character and the reasons whyChinese civilians and prisoners of war in a recognizing and accepting responsibility for single locale, because of the politics of denial, their actions have been so difficult. Neither and because the relationship between the committing atrocities nor suppressing their massacre and the character of the wider war memories is the exclusive property of a single remains little understood despite the nation. The issues examined here begin with outstanding research of Japanese and other atrocities committed during the Asia Pacific scholars and journalists. [2] War and continue to the present. Japanese neonationalists deny the very What explains the fact that Japanese denial and existence of a massacre and successive postwar refusal to provide compensation to victims has Japanese governments have refused to accept long been the subject of sharp domestic and responsibility for either the massacre or the international contention, while there has been wider war of aggression in which ten to thirty 1 6 | 4 | 0 APJ | JF million Chinese died, explaining why these to which I return below, is particularly issues remain controversial. To understand why instructive. Germany, like Japan, was defeated the Japanese government continues to fight this by a US-led coalition, and the US played a key and other war memory battles in ways that role in shaping institutions, war memories, and poison its relations not only with its Asian responses to war atrocities in both Germany neighbors but also with the United States and and Japan. [3] Nevertheless, the outcomes in European nations requires reconsideration not the two nations in the form of historical only of contemporary Japanese nationalism, but memory and reconciliation in the wake of war also of the Cold War power structure that the atrocities have differed sharply. US set in place during the occupation. To unravel the most contentious memory wars The US insulated Japan from war responsibility, in the Asia Pacific, I begin by offering a first by maintaining Hirohito on the throne and comparative framework for assessing Japanese shielding him from war crimes charges, second and American war atrocities. I examine Japan’s by protecting the Japanese state from war Nanjing Massacre and the American reparations claims from victims of colonialism, firebombing and atomic bombing of Japanese invasion, and atrocities, and finally by using its cities during World War II as each nation’s troops and bases both to guarantee Japan’s signature atrocities. In each instance, I cast the defense and to isolate it from China, the Soviet issues in relation to the wider conduct of the Union, and other US rivals. war, and in the American case consider the legacy of the bombing for subsequent wars Before turning to this issue, one other question down to the present. At the center of the should be posed: more than six decades since analysis is the assessment of these examples in Japan’s defeat in the Pacific War, by what right light of principles of international law does an American critically address issues of developed over many decades from the late the Nanjing Massacre and Japan’s wartime nineteenth century, notably those enshrined in atrocities? Stated differently, in the course of the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials, and the those six decades US military forces have Geneva Convention of 1949, that identify as repeatedly violated international law and acts of terrorism and crimes against humanity the slaughter of civilians and noncombatants by humanitarian ethics, notably in Korea, states and their militaries. [4] It is only by Indochina, Iraq and Afghanistan. In the course considering crimes by the victors as well as the of those decades, Japan has never fought a war, vanquished in the Asia Pacific War and other although it has steadfastly backed the US in wars that it is possible to lay to rest the ghosts each of its wars. Yet Asian and global attention of suppressed memories in order to build continues to focus on Japanese war atrocities foundations for a peaceful cooperative order in and their denial, while paying little attention to the Asia Pacific. those committed and denied by the United States. But first, Nanjing. Attempts to gauge war atrocities and to The Nanjing Massacre and Structures of understand the ways in which they areViolence in the Sino-Japanese War remembered and suppressed, require the application of universal standards asSubstantial portions of the Nanjing Massacre articulated in the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials. literature in English and Chinese—both the In an age of nationalism, it is particularly scholarship and the public debate—treat the important to apply such standards to the event as emblematic of the wartime conduct of conduct of one’s own nation. The German case, the Japanese, thereby essentializing the 2 6 | 4 | 0 APJ | JF massacre as the embodiment of the Japanese committed against civilians en route to character. In the discussion that follows, I seek Nanjing. “Thus began,” Fujiwara wrote, “the to locate the unique and conjunctural features most enormous, expensive, and deadly war in of the massacre in order to understand its modern Japanese history—one waged without relationship to the character of Japan’sjust cause or cogent reason.” And one that protracted China war and the wider Asia paved the way toward the Asia Pacific War that Pacific War. followed. Just as a small staged event by Japanese Japan’s behavior at Nanjing departed officers in 1931 provided the pretext for dramatically from that in the capture of cities Japan’s seizure of China’s Northeast and in earlier Japanese military engagements from creation of the dependent state of Manchukuo, the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 forward. One the minor clash between Japanese and Chinese reason for the barbarity of Japanese troops at troops at the Marco Polo Bridge on July 7, 1937 Nanjing and subsequently was that, counting paved the way for full-scale invasion of China on the “shock and awe” of the November attack south of the Great Wall. By July 27, Japanese on Shanghai to produce surrender, they were reinforcements from Korea and Manchuria as unprepared for the fierce resistance and heavy well as Naval Air Force units had joined the casualties that they encountered, prompting a fight. The Army High Command dispatched desire for revenge. Indeed, throughout the war, three divisions from Japan and called up like the Americans in Vietnam decades later, 209,000 men. With Japan’s seizure of Beiping the Japanese displayed a profound inability to and Tianjin the next day, and an attack on grasp the roots and strength of the nationalist Shanghai in August, the (undeclared) war resistance in the face of invading forces who began in earnest. In October, a Shanghai enjoyed overwhelming weapons and logistical Expeditionary Army (SEA) under Gen. Matsui superiority. A second reason for the atrocities Iwane with six divisions was ordered to destroy was that, as the two armies raced to capture enemy forces in and around Shanghai. The Nanjing, the high command lost control, Tenth Army commanded by Gen. Yanagawa resulting in a volatile and violent situation. Heisuke with four divisions soon joined in. Anticipating rapid surrender by Chiang Kai- The contempt felt by the Japanese military for shek’s National Government, the Japanese Chinese military forces and the Chinese people military encountered stiff resistance: 9,185 set in motion a dynamic that led to the Japanese were killed and 31,125 wounded at massacre. In the absence of a declaration of Shanghai. But after landing at Hangzhou Bay, war, as Utsumi Aiko notes, the Japanese high Japanese forces quickly gained control of command held that it was under no obligation Shanghai. By November 7, the two Japanese to treat captured Chinese soldiers as POWs or armies combined to form a Central China Area observe other international principles of Army (CCAA) with an estimatedwarfare that Japan had scrupulously adhered to 160,000-200,000 men.

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