Nanking death toll (from 1937 Japanese occupation) 'a lie' | BBC

[Ediacara]

Nanking death toll 'a lie'

A senior Japanese politician has said claims that Japanese troops killed 300,000 Chinese civilians in the Nanking massacre in 1937 are a "big lie".

Takami Eto, a former cabinet minister of the governing Liberal Democratic Party, was giving a speech in western Japan.

China has long contended that 300,000 people died in the Japanese occupation of the eastern city of Nanking, which is now known as Nanjing.

Most historians say the figure is at least 150,000.

But nationalist Japanese politicians and academics say the figures have been inflated and some even question whether the massacre took place at all.

More at the BBC

[JohnKleeb]

1. I am pretty sure the liberal democratic party in Japan is the conservative

one people.

[Ediacara]

2. yes

AFAIK it is.

[JohnKleeb]

3. thought so

I hate parties like that. They confuse the living hell out of me. In Britain its pretty easy to understand conservatives=conservative, labour=a labor like party even with how blair acts, progressive democrats= a all around progressive party, ulster unionists= idiots heh, and sinn fein=people for being united with Ireland.

[revcarol]

4. A "holocaust-denier" type of politician.

Heaven knows what the death toll was, but there WAS a massacre.
Some Japanese are very reluctant to admit their crimes of the past.They refuse to admit they had Korean sex slaves. They refused to admit, until recently, that they had used POW's as slaves in mines. This seems even more prevalent than in Germany. In Germany, at least the younger generations are finally coming to grips with their Nazi past, after many years of denial.

I guess every nation has trouble with the bad parts of the past. We are only just now admitting our genocide of native Americans. And according to Bush, those black people came to America because they love freedom!!

[teryang]

5. The Japanese are in denial

They have been for some time. The crimes of earlier generations have hidden from more recent Japanese generations. When confronted with irrefutable proof of the crimes of their former government they still refuse to accept it.

[molok555]

7. I'm married to a Japanese

Have lived there for awhile, have many Japanese friends and study its history as my hobby and I would have to agree with you.

Right now we're living in Viet Nam and my wife was shocked to hear that many (older) Viet Namese HATE the Japanese. She had NO idea about the Japanese presence here. And her dad was a history teacher and she knows more than most about the past. For most Japanese, it's merely a vague notion that some soldiers many, many years ago were led to do some terrible things by terrible leaders. That's about the extent of it. Having said that, the Japanese educational system fails on more levels. Their knowledge of the world is limited. VERY limited. It's not that they're stupid. That's like saying the average American is stupid. It's that they, as members of a wealthy country, have no need to learn these things.

Before I moved to Japan, I held the stereotype of Americans as 'morons' (as many do), but now I know better. It's a trend in ALL the post-industrial nations: dumbing down. Why care/learn about the world and about the past? I got my money, I got my entertainment, I got everything I could ask. Everyone always hammers Hollywood and the mainstream American media. Guess what? Japan is just as bad, if not worse.

[teryang]

9. I lived in Korea for a while

And observed Japanese reactions to S. Korean attitudes, from that perspective.

Your comments are very insightful.

On edit:

My mother in law, although Korean, was forced to learn to read and write Japanese in grade school during the colonial period. Korean was forbidden.

[0007]

6. It appears not one country or race is without a dark side

We try so hard to be human.

[kemamusa]

8. Honorable Japanese

These thugs also claims that 200,000 Korean women who were taken to Pacific fronts during WWII as Comfort Women (sex-slaves) simply didn't exist or volunteered for the glory of the Japanese Emperor.... Of course, they also claim that almost a million Korean forced laborers who worked like slaves and died by thousands in Japan during WWII were also "fantasy". Many of these Koreans simply want recognition, yet Japan still does not recognize them and therefore no compensation.
The most inhumane act of the Japanese government is when they denied the compensation to 20,000 Koreans(accounting for 10% of all victims) who were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki by American atomic bombs.
Japan likes to tout "honor" so much, but when it comes to WWII and their dirty deeds, Japan is the victim and attrocities they committed are simply dismissed for "lack of proof"... It's funny that millions of surviving Korean, Chinese, Phillipino and other Asian eye-witnesses are ignored simply because of their "subjectivity"... Ironic, isn't it?

[On the Road]

10. Strangely Enough,

the portion of China that Japan actually occupied (Manchuko) probably has the least resentment against the Japanese.

My girlfriend's parents and grandparents grew up in Manchuko under the Japanese. Her grandmother horrified the family once by saying that the Japanese time was very good. Nanking, on the other hand, was the capital of China at the time. It was the headquarters of the enemy and the Japanese army committed terrible atrocities.

Li-Ping (my girlfriend) spent seven years in Japan, and was frequently asked whether she had any resentments against China. Japanese are definitely aware of Nanking.