{"id":7665,"date":"2026-02-01T08:00:58","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T00:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=7665"},"modified":"2026-02-01T09:03:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T01:03:11","slug":"355-nanjing-massacre-dead-to-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=7665","title":{"rendered":"355. The Nanjing Massacre"},"content":{"rendered":"

Waiting for Divine Redemption<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

1\u00a0<\/sup>Out of the depths I cry to you, O\u00a0Lord. 2 <\/sup>Lord, hear my voice!<\/strong><\/span>
\nLet your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

3\u00a0<\/sup>If you, O\u00a0Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?<\/strong><\/span>
\n4\u00a0<\/sup>But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

5\u00a0<\/sup>I wait for the\u00a0Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope;<\/strong><\/span>
\n6\u00a0<\/sup>my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning,<\/strong><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0more than those who watch for the morning.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

7\u00a0<\/sup>O Israel, hope in the\u00a0Lord! For with the\u00a0Lord\u00a0there is steadfast love,<\/strong><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0and with him is great power to redeem.<\/strong><\/span>
\n8\u00a0<\/sup>It is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.<\/span> [Psalm 130<\/span>, NRSV<\/em>]<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

[L] Chinese prisoners captured near Mufu Mountain. All of them would be murdered within a few days. [R] Chinese children murdered by Japanese soldiers, their bodies dumped into a pond.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The\u00a0Nanjing Massacre<\/strong>\u00a0(also known as the\u00a0Rape of Nanjing<\/strong>) was the mass murder of Chinese civilians, noncombatants, and surrendered prisoners of war, as well as widespread rape, by the\u00a0Imperial Japanese Army<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Nanjing<\/a>, the capital of the\u00a0Republic of China<\/a>, between 1937-38.[1] This year marks the 88th<\/sup> anniversary of the most bestial massacre carried out by the Japanese nation bent on a sick militarist policy. Their crimes against humanity fill the darkest page of human history and forever soil the annals of human civilization. They leave behind an odorous trail of shame.<\/span><\/p>\n

In late 1937, as the Jap<\/span>anese invading troops approached Nanjing, Chiang Kai Shek\u2019s Kuomintang army fled, leaving only 10,000 peasant-conscripts to defend the city. The Japanese army stormed in and unleashed a frenzy of mass-killing and rape, leaving a trail of utter destruction of a scale quite unheard of in world history. The degree of inhuman cruelty shocked even those German Nazis living in China at the time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Within weeks of the Japanese army having swept into the ancient city of Nanking, they not only looted and burned the defenseless city but systematically raped 80,000 women and children, tortured and murdered more than 300,000 Chinese civilians. Amazingly, this massacre, considered one of the worst\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>wartime atrocities<\/a>\u00a0in history<\/em><\/strong>,[2] continues to be denied by the Japanese government whose policy has consistently been: \u201cdeny, deny, and deny<\/em>\u201d.<\/em> Their mantra is admit nothing, deny everything. To this day, the official Japanese posture remains a shameless, near comical, denial in the face of massive and uncontroverted historical records from multi-national sources of UNESCO recognition.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Japanese invasion of China began in July 1937 (so the Chinese war-resistance is 14 years, longer than WWII), and pushed quickly through China after\u00a0capturing Shanghai<\/a>\u00a0in November. As the Japanese soldiers marched on Nanjing, the capital at the time, they went on a killing frenzy, unleashing atrocities in a terror campaign, including\u00a0a sick \u201ckilling contest<\/a>\u201d\u00a0among themselves and massacring and torching entire villages.[3] While the German Nazis talked about \u201cprocessing\u201d or \u201chandling Jews\u201d in their genocidal campaign, the Japanese had their efficient \u201cmopping-up operations\u201d in rounding up Chinese prisoners and all male civilians in Nanjing for mass execution.[4]<\/span><\/p>\n

Japanese Denials Despite Solid International<\/strong> Records<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

To this day the massacre remains a contentious topic in\u00a0Sino-Japanese relations<\/a>, as Japanese nationalists and historical revisionists, including top government officials, have either denied or minimized the massacre. Japanese right-wing politicians, including the late PM Shinzo Abe and the current female PM Sanae Takaichi, are well known deniers of Japanese war crimes, including even the existence of the Nanjing Massacre. Nothing is mentioned in school books so that the new generations, if ever they should accidentally come across such materials, tend to treat all this as misinformation. So much so, in fact, that young Japanese have practically been socialized into believing that Japan is a victim of war, with the two atomic bombs bearing iconic symbols of that narrative.[5]<\/span><\/p>\n

At the time, General Iwane Matsui was in command of the Japanese Central China Area Army. Prince Yasuhki Asaka was installed as temporary commandeer in the Nanjing campaign. After the war, Matsui and several other commanders at Nanjing were found guilty of war crimes and executed. Other Japanese military leaders in charge at the time of the Nanjing Massacre escaped trial either because they were already killed or had committed\u00a0ritual suicide<\/a>. Asaka, who gave the order to \u201ckill all captives\u201d, was granted immunity as a member of the imperial family and never tried. The Japanese emperor Hirohito who ordered the invasion of China never had to face trial and could even enjoy a trip to Disneyland in the U.S. The beginning of the corrosive American duplicity may easily be traced to when they became the celebrated \u201cvictor\u201d of WWII.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>Safety Zones Set Up by Foreigners<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Minnie Vautrin, a farm girl from Illinois dedicated herself to the education of Chinese women at Ginling College in Nanjing. She turned the school into a sanctuary for ten thousand women and girls.<\/span><\/p>\n

John Rabe was a German diplomat and businessman best known for his efforts to stop Japanese war crimes and protect Chinese civilians during the Nanjing Massacre. He set up a Nanking Safety Zone (\u5357\u4eac\u5b89\u5168\u5340<\/strong>) on the eve of the December 13, 1937 Japanese breakthrough in the Battle of Nanking. It was a demilitarized zone set up in an attempt to protect Chinese civilians. Rabe’s Safety Zone is credited with saving at least 200,000 lives.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We Shall Never Forget: Books, Movies, Memorials<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

The Jews never let the world forget the Holocaust. They made many movies and documentaries, built museums and held exhibitions to keep the world aware of the atrocity towards the Jews by German Nazis during WWII. Precious little, however, was publicised to the world concerning the atrocity committed by Japanese invaders of China during the same time. There was for a long time almost a complete silence on the heinous Japanese crimes in the Nanjing Massacre which in some respects, was far worse than the Holocaust.<\/span><\/p>\n

The diaries of John Rabe bear powerful witness to the massacre and constitute an important historical source. See \u201cNanjing Massacre: The Diaries of John Rabe: An important historical record of the Nanjing massacre<\/em><\/strong>\u201d at<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/news.cgtn.com\/news\/3d67544d31594464776c6d636a4e6e62684a4856\/share_p.html<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n