Fujiwara Akira: The Nanking Atrocity ... An Interpretive Overview
This article is slightly adapted from a chapter by the late Fujiwara Akira, an emeritus professor at Hitotsubashi University until his death in 2003, which first appeared in Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, ed., The Nanking Atrocity 1937-38: Complicating the Picture (New York and London: Berghahn Books, 2007). Fujiwara wrote one of two introductory chapters to this volume about the Nanking Massacre, the seventieth anniversary of which will be observed in December.
In this essay, Fujiwara provides a concise narrative of Japan’s decision to escalate the “China Incident” into a full-scale war by July 1937. This ultimately led to an assault on China’s wartime capital of Nanking by imperial armed forces, who captured it in December. Fujiwara also gives a trenchant, critical account of the Nanking Massacre (a.k.a. “the Rape of Nanking”), plus an admittedly partisan yet nonetheless fair analysis of right-wing views in Japan today that downplay or deny this atrocity. On this last point, Fujiwara argues that Japanese deniers and nationalistic revisionists seek to build a public consensus that will allow their nation to re-emerge as a military power uninhibited from waging future wars based on putatively unwarranted feelings of guilt about the past.
The English translation of Fujiwara’s chapter, completed in 2002, seems prescient in the light of subsequent events in violation of Article IX of the postwar Constitution: 1) Japan dispatched armed troops to Iraq in January 2004 and extended their mission in December of 2004 until July 2006. 2) Self-Defense Forces have been providing logistical support to US military forces in the form of fuel supplies despite well-founded allegations that these are being redirected to Iraqi battlefields. 3) Earlier this year, former Prime Minister Abe sought to “reinterpret” Article IX into non-existence based on proposals from a panel of advisors hand-picked for precisely that purpose.
One major article of postwar leftist faith is that Japan must never again become a “normal nation”-- in the sense of exercising its sovereign right to wage war-- because imperial armed forces at Nanking and elsewhere proved that they could not be trusted to behave in a lawful, humane, and responsible manner. The present essay constitutes Fujiwara’s final testament to this article of faith, prepared for an international readership.
Note that, as translated by Wakabayashi for Japan Focus, this essay omits endnotes and macrons over long vowels in Japanese terms. A small number of Chinese terms-- such as Nanking, Amoy, Hsiakwan, and Kwantung Army-- are romanized in Wade-Giles because they have found their way into the English language in that form. All other Chinese terms are rendered in pinyin. Bob Wakabayashi
Prelude
Modern Japan’s aggression against China began with the Meiji-Qing or First Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, and continued with the Twenty-one Demands of 1915, the Shandong Expeditions of 1927-28, and the Manchurian Incident of 1931-3. But an all-out war of aggression began with the 7 July 1937 armed clash at Marco Polo Bridge outside Beijing. Culpability for turning that minor skirmish into an all-out war lay with Japan-- primarily the imperial government and central army authorities. Although a local truce settled the affair on 11 July, Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro’s government expressed “grave resolve” in passing a cabinet resolution to send more troops on that same day. Konoe, an imperial prince, flaunted his regime’s belligerence by inviting the media to his official residence and calling on them to foster national unity. Based on this cabinet resolution, commanders hastily sent two brigades from Manchuria and a division from Korea to northern China, the General Staff prepared to send three divisions from Japan, and the Army Ministry halted all discharges. At that time, two-year recruits received an early discharge in July-- before their active duty actually ended-- to go home for peak months of farm work when the labor of young men was sorely needed. By rescinding this provision, the government showed that Japan was gearing up for war in earnest.
Japan’s hard line created a sense of crisis in China. Chiang Kai-shek of the Guomindang (GMD) Nationalist government met with Zhou Enlai of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on 17 July to discuss stepped-up efforts for a united front, and Chiang made a speech on the need for resolve in resisting Japan. The Chinese people’s will to resist heightened as two more armed clashes broke out in the north China tinderbox. By 27 July, reinforcements from Korea and Manchuria had arrived, as did naval air force units, and Emperor Hirohito issued Army Chief of Staff Order 64. It read: “Along with its present duties, the China Garrison Army (CGA) shall chastise Chinese forces in the Beijing-Tianjin area and pacify [i.e., occupy] strategic points.” The emperor used the term chastise that Prime Minister Konoe later made famous. On 27 July, the government decided to send reinforcements from Japan proper. Chief of Staff Order 65, issued by the emperor, called for sending three divisions and mobilizing another 209,000 men plus 54,000 horses. Real fighting began on 28 July with a general offensive in the north that saw imperial troops occupy Beijing and Tianjin.
This course of events was the converse of that which began the Manchurian Incident. In September 1931, the imperial government and central army authorities had wanted to settle that conflict quickly whereas field armies were intent on expanding it. Now, in July 1937, it was the government in Tokyo that escalated the war by sending massive reinforcements to northern China even though field armies had reached a settlement on 11 July. Ishiwara Kanji, Chief of the General Staff Operations Division, reversed his hawkish views of Manchurian Incident days, and was now an exception among central army authorities in opposing the extension of operations to China. More typical of that group was Army Minister Sugiyama Hajime, who sided with Prime Minister Konoe, Foreign Minister Hirota Koki, and other civil government hawks. Even so, the initiative for future army decision making would ultimately lay with local commanders who zealously pushed for escalation despite their gravely flawed grasp of conditions in China. Blind to the patriotism forging national unity there, they persisted in disparaging the Chinese military and people in the belief that “one telling blow,” or quick decisive victory, would make the enemy sue for peace.
In August 1937, naval marine units took the war to Shanghai on the pretext of protecting Japanese civilians against popular Chinese unrest. Army hawks dismissed opposition from more cautious elements such as Ishiwara Kanji, and boldly extended the scope of operations from northern to central China. Hirohito, as he himself would relate in 1946, sought to expand the war at this time by sending even more units from Manchuria. He berated Ishiwara for weakness and was instrumental in transferring units from Qingdao in northern China to Shanghai. Thus the central government started what became a full-scale war by dispatching huge army units, but offered no justification worthy of the name, saying only that imperial forces would “chastise the unruly Chinese”-- a slogan that Konoe issued in lieu of formally declaring war. There were 3 main reasons for pursuing this conflict as an “incident” rather than as a war: (1) Even at this late date, army and government leaders felt convinced that “one telling blow” would end it; they did not dream that a major, long-term conflict would result. (2) Japan had no compelling reason for war. “Chastise the unruly Chinese” was hardly a war aim that would whip up popular support at home. (3) With the premiership of Hirota Koki from March 1936 to February 1937, the army and navy had begun pursuing armament expansion programs that relied on imports of strategic matériel from the United States, a neutral power. Japan could not go on importing these key items easily under international law if it formally became a belligerent state by declaring war on China.
Central army leaders in Tokyo had no plan to attack the capital of Nanking when they dispatched troops to Shanghai in August; in this, they differed from Matsui Iwane and Yanagawa Heisuke, who later led the assault on Nanking. Instead, leaders in Tokyo expected a quick local settlement like that which had ended the Shanghai Incident of January to May 1932. This time, a Shanghai Expeditionary Army (SEA), or Shanghai Expeditionary Force (SEF), was assembled on 15 August 1937 under Matsui’s command. It had strictly limited orders: “to protect imperial subjects by destroying enemy forces in and around Shanghai and occupying strategic points to the north.” Nanking, it bears noting, is roughly 300 kilometers west of Shanghai. The SEA’s initial strength was hastily set at two divisions, and a heavy artillery unit joined within two weeks. Three and a half more divisions joined in September, and one more in October. Thus the SEA comprised the Third, Ninth, Eleventh, Thirteenth, Sixteenth, One Hundred-first, and One Hundred-sixteenth divisions. The Tenth Army was formed under Yanagawa’s command in October. It comprised three and a half divisions: the Sixth, Eighteenth, One Hundred-fourteenth, plus part of the Fifth. This Tenth Army was not supposed to attack Nanking either. Its mission, like that of the SEA, was to destroy Chinese armies and protect Japanese nationals in the Shanghai area-- nothing more.
The imperial army’s foremost priority throughout the 1930s was to prepare for war with the Soviet Union. Army leaders had no wish to commit large forces in China for the long term, and most were convinced that this “incident” would end after they scored one major victory. But events at Shanghai shocked them. Shells ran perilously low. By 8 November, casualties had skyrocketed to 9,115 killed and 31,125 wounded. Reinforcements, which had never been anticipated, were sent repeatedly. The Third and Eleventh divisions, for example, had to be totally replenished. Army leaders shifted the war’s main theater from northern to central China in October and the Tenth Army landed behind Chinese lines at Hangzhou Bay on 5 November. Only that daring move broke the bloody stalemate at Shanghai, but Chinese units beat a hasty full retreat to avoid encirclement and annihilation. Japan, then, did not deliver the “one telling blow” to wipe out enemy forces, and thus could not achieve victory in this “incident.”
On 7 November, two days after the Tenth Army landed, it and the SEA combined to form a Central China Area Army (CCAA) under Matsui’s overall command, with Imperial Prince Asaka Yasuhiko taking over the SEA. At its height, this newly-formed CCAA numbered an estimated 160,000 to 200,000 men. The reorganization signified that Japanese forces were not just on an expedition to Shanghai, but would operate in a broader “central China area.” Even so, the CCAA was still an “impromptu amalgamation,” not a formal battle formation, as reflected in its mission. Its orders read: “Destroy enemy forces in the Shanghai area, break their will to fight, and thereby bring an end to the conflict.” The Chief of the General Staff also stipulated a line of demarcation: “in general, east of the Suzhou-Jiaqing line.” In other words, the CCAA was ordered to remain in the area east of Lake Tai; that is why it received no support-and- supply units. Also, six of the CCAA’s ten and a half divisions were “special divisions,” limited in maneuverability, weak in firepower, and manned by second- or third-pool reservists hastily assembled. They were not officers and men on the active list, in the fighting prime of their early twenties. Their abrupt recall to active duty came in their mid- to late-thirties, or even early-forties-- long after they felt their military obligations were over and they had returned to civilian life as bread-winners. Hence, morale and amenability to military discipline were often poor.
When the entire Chinese army began to retreat, the CCAA ignored orders and gave chase westward toward Nanking. Eguchi Keiichi cites SEA Chief of Staff Iinuma Mamoru’s diary to show that, as early as 18 August, SEA commander Matsui Iwane already aspired to capture the enemy capital although central army leaders had no such plans, and even before the CCAA came into being. Matsui, disgruntled by the narrow scope of SEA operations, had to be chastised: “orders for military operations are no different from imperial rescripts; it is impudent to criticize these.” But later that same day Matsui openly declared: “We must resolve to order troops into action as needed based on our traditional spirit of ‘instant engagement, instant victory’ by shifting our main forces from northern China to Nanking. We can debate the issue of where best to deliver the knock-out blow, but right now we absolutely must make Nanking our main target.”
After the Chinese flight began in November, frontline troops came to share the newly promoted CCAA commander Matsui’s aspirations; they craved the glory of being first to enter Nanking. Their egregious forced marches, exacerbated by the absence of support-and-supply units, meant that the rank-and-file had to rely on plunder to survive en route. On 20 November, Imperial Headquarters (IH) was set up for the first time since the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War-- a decisive step both strategically and symbolically. Belittling the China war as a mere “incident,” yet unable to win it, Japan had no choice. Given de facto wartime conditions of mass troop deployment and naval support, the coordinating of the two services’ chains of command required an IH under the 1889 Imperial Constitution. Unlike the IH in wars before Hirohito’s reign, however, this one was a purely military body in 1937. No civilian cabinet member, not even the prime minister, could join its deliberations. Instead, an ad hoc liaison council handled communications between the government and IH to ensure that cabinet acts of state conformed with the emperor’s supreme command. Thus began the most enormous, expensive, and deadly war in modern Japanese history-- one waged without just cause or cogent reason.
[HNN Editor: This article continues at length.]
Read entire article at Japan Focus
In this essay, Fujiwara provides a concise narrative of Japan’s decision to escalate the “China Incident” into a full-scale war by July 1937. This ultimately led to an assault on China’s wartime capital of Nanking by imperial armed forces, who captured it in December. Fujiwara also gives a trenchant, critical account of the Nanking Massacre (a.k.a. “the Rape of Nanking”), plus an admittedly partisan yet nonetheless fair analysis of right-wing views in Japan today that downplay or deny this atrocity. On this last point, Fujiwara argues that Japanese deniers and nationalistic revisionists seek to build a public consensus that will allow their nation to re-emerge as a military power uninhibited from waging future wars based on putatively unwarranted feelings of guilt about the past.
The English translation of Fujiwara’s chapter, completed in 2002, seems prescient in the light of subsequent events in violation of Article IX of the postwar Constitution: 1) Japan dispatched armed troops to Iraq in January 2004 and extended their mission in December of 2004 until July 2006. 2) Self-Defense Forces have been providing logistical support to US military forces in the form of fuel supplies despite well-founded allegations that these are being redirected to Iraqi battlefields. 3) Earlier this year, former Prime Minister Abe sought to “reinterpret” Article IX into non-existence based on proposals from a panel of advisors hand-picked for precisely that purpose.
One major article of postwar leftist faith is that Japan must never again become a “normal nation”-- in the sense of exercising its sovereign right to wage war-- because imperial armed forces at Nanking and elsewhere proved that they could not be trusted to behave in a lawful, humane, and responsible manner. The present essay constitutes Fujiwara’s final testament to this article of faith, prepared for an international readership.
Note that, as translated by Wakabayashi for Japan Focus, this essay omits endnotes and macrons over long vowels in Japanese terms. A small number of Chinese terms-- such as Nanking, Amoy, Hsiakwan, and Kwantung Army-- are romanized in Wade-Giles because they have found their way into the English language in that form. All other Chinese terms are rendered in pinyin. Bob Wakabayashi
Prelude
Modern Japan’s aggression against China began with the Meiji-Qing or First Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, and continued with the Twenty-one Demands of 1915, the Shandong Expeditions of 1927-28, and the Manchurian Incident of 1931-3. But an all-out war of aggression began with the 7 July 1937 armed clash at Marco Polo Bridge outside Beijing. Culpability for turning that minor skirmish into an all-out war lay with Japan-- primarily the imperial government and central army authorities. Although a local truce settled the affair on 11 July, Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro’s government expressed “grave resolve” in passing a cabinet resolution to send more troops on that same day. Konoe, an imperial prince, flaunted his regime’s belligerence by inviting the media to his official residence and calling on them to foster national unity. Based on this cabinet resolution, commanders hastily sent two brigades from Manchuria and a division from Korea to northern China, the General Staff prepared to send three divisions from Japan, and the Army Ministry halted all discharges. At that time, two-year recruits received an early discharge in July-- before their active duty actually ended-- to go home for peak months of farm work when the labor of young men was sorely needed. By rescinding this provision, the government showed that Japan was gearing up for war in earnest.
Japan’s hard line created a sense of crisis in China. Chiang Kai-shek of the Guomindang (GMD) Nationalist government met with Zhou Enlai of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on 17 July to discuss stepped-up efforts for a united front, and Chiang made a speech on the need for resolve in resisting Japan. The Chinese people’s will to resist heightened as two more armed clashes broke out in the north China tinderbox. By 27 July, reinforcements from Korea and Manchuria had arrived, as did naval air force units, and Emperor Hirohito issued Army Chief of Staff Order 64. It read: “Along with its present duties, the China Garrison Army (CGA) shall chastise Chinese forces in the Beijing-Tianjin area and pacify [i.e., occupy] strategic points.” The emperor used the term chastise that Prime Minister Konoe later made famous. On 27 July, the government decided to send reinforcements from Japan proper. Chief of Staff Order 65, issued by the emperor, called for sending three divisions and mobilizing another 209,000 men plus 54,000 horses. Real fighting began on 28 July with a general offensive in the north that saw imperial troops occupy Beijing and Tianjin.
This course of events was the converse of that which began the Manchurian Incident. In September 1931, the imperial government and central army authorities had wanted to settle that conflict quickly whereas field armies were intent on expanding it. Now, in July 1937, it was the government in Tokyo that escalated the war by sending massive reinforcements to northern China even though field armies had reached a settlement on 11 July. Ishiwara Kanji, Chief of the General Staff Operations Division, reversed his hawkish views of Manchurian Incident days, and was now an exception among central army authorities in opposing the extension of operations to China. More typical of that group was Army Minister Sugiyama Hajime, who sided with Prime Minister Konoe, Foreign Minister Hirota Koki, and other civil government hawks. Even so, the initiative for future army decision making would ultimately lay with local commanders who zealously pushed for escalation despite their gravely flawed grasp of conditions in China. Blind to the patriotism forging national unity there, they persisted in disparaging the Chinese military and people in the belief that “one telling blow,” or quick decisive victory, would make the enemy sue for peace.
In August 1937, naval marine units took the war to Shanghai on the pretext of protecting Japanese civilians against popular Chinese unrest. Army hawks dismissed opposition from more cautious elements such as Ishiwara Kanji, and boldly extended the scope of operations from northern to central China. Hirohito, as he himself would relate in 1946, sought to expand the war at this time by sending even more units from Manchuria. He berated Ishiwara for weakness and was instrumental in transferring units from Qingdao in northern China to Shanghai. Thus the central government started what became a full-scale war by dispatching huge army units, but offered no justification worthy of the name, saying only that imperial forces would “chastise the unruly Chinese”-- a slogan that Konoe issued in lieu of formally declaring war. There were 3 main reasons for pursuing this conflict as an “incident” rather than as a war: (1) Even at this late date, army and government leaders felt convinced that “one telling blow” would end it; they did not dream that a major, long-term conflict would result. (2) Japan had no compelling reason for war. “Chastise the unruly Chinese” was hardly a war aim that would whip up popular support at home. (3) With the premiership of Hirota Koki from March 1936 to February 1937, the army and navy had begun pursuing armament expansion programs that relied on imports of strategic matériel from the United States, a neutral power. Japan could not go on importing these key items easily under international law if it formally became a belligerent state by declaring war on China.
Central army leaders in Tokyo had no plan to attack the capital of Nanking when they dispatched troops to Shanghai in August; in this, they differed from Matsui Iwane and Yanagawa Heisuke, who later led the assault on Nanking. Instead, leaders in Tokyo expected a quick local settlement like that which had ended the Shanghai Incident of January to May 1932. This time, a Shanghai Expeditionary Army (SEA), or Shanghai Expeditionary Force (SEF), was assembled on 15 August 1937 under Matsui’s command. It had strictly limited orders: “to protect imperial subjects by destroying enemy forces in and around Shanghai and occupying strategic points to the north.” Nanking, it bears noting, is roughly 300 kilometers west of Shanghai. The SEA’s initial strength was hastily set at two divisions, and a heavy artillery unit joined within two weeks. Three and a half more divisions joined in September, and one more in October. Thus the SEA comprised the Third, Ninth, Eleventh, Thirteenth, Sixteenth, One Hundred-first, and One Hundred-sixteenth divisions. The Tenth Army was formed under Yanagawa’s command in October. It comprised three and a half divisions: the Sixth, Eighteenth, One Hundred-fourteenth, plus part of the Fifth. This Tenth Army was not supposed to attack Nanking either. Its mission, like that of the SEA, was to destroy Chinese armies and protect Japanese nationals in the Shanghai area-- nothing more.
The imperial army’s foremost priority throughout the 1930s was to prepare for war with the Soviet Union. Army leaders had no wish to commit large forces in China for the long term, and most were convinced that this “incident” would end after they scored one major victory. But events at Shanghai shocked them. Shells ran perilously low. By 8 November, casualties had skyrocketed to 9,115 killed and 31,125 wounded. Reinforcements, which had never been anticipated, were sent repeatedly. The Third and Eleventh divisions, for example, had to be totally replenished. Army leaders shifted the war’s main theater from northern to central China in October and the Tenth Army landed behind Chinese lines at Hangzhou Bay on 5 November. Only that daring move broke the bloody stalemate at Shanghai, but Chinese units beat a hasty full retreat to avoid encirclement and annihilation. Japan, then, did not deliver the “one telling blow” to wipe out enemy forces, and thus could not achieve victory in this “incident.”
On 7 November, two days after the Tenth Army landed, it and the SEA combined to form a Central China Area Army (CCAA) under Matsui’s overall command, with Imperial Prince Asaka Yasuhiko taking over the SEA. At its height, this newly-formed CCAA numbered an estimated 160,000 to 200,000 men. The reorganization signified that Japanese forces were not just on an expedition to Shanghai, but would operate in a broader “central China area.” Even so, the CCAA was still an “impromptu amalgamation,” not a formal battle formation, as reflected in its mission. Its orders read: “Destroy enemy forces in the Shanghai area, break their will to fight, and thereby bring an end to the conflict.” The Chief of the General Staff also stipulated a line of demarcation: “in general, east of the Suzhou-Jiaqing line.” In other words, the CCAA was ordered to remain in the area east of Lake Tai; that is why it received no support-and- supply units. Also, six of the CCAA’s ten and a half divisions were “special divisions,” limited in maneuverability, weak in firepower, and manned by second- or third-pool reservists hastily assembled. They were not officers and men on the active list, in the fighting prime of their early twenties. Their abrupt recall to active duty came in their mid- to late-thirties, or even early-forties-- long after they felt their military obligations were over and they had returned to civilian life as bread-winners. Hence, morale and amenability to military discipline were often poor.
When the entire Chinese army began to retreat, the CCAA ignored orders and gave chase westward toward Nanking. Eguchi Keiichi cites SEA Chief of Staff Iinuma Mamoru’s diary to show that, as early as 18 August, SEA commander Matsui Iwane already aspired to capture the enemy capital although central army leaders had no such plans, and even before the CCAA came into being. Matsui, disgruntled by the narrow scope of SEA operations, had to be chastised: “orders for military operations are no different from imperial rescripts; it is impudent to criticize these.” But later that same day Matsui openly declared: “We must resolve to order troops into action as needed based on our traditional spirit of ‘instant engagement, instant victory’ by shifting our main forces from northern China to Nanking. We can debate the issue of where best to deliver the knock-out blow, but right now we absolutely must make Nanking our main target.”
After the Chinese flight began in November, frontline troops came to share the newly promoted CCAA commander Matsui’s aspirations; they craved the glory of being first to enter Nanking. Their egregious forced marches, exacerbated by the absence of support-and-supply units, meant that the rank-and-file had to rely on plunder to survive en route. On 20 November, Imperial Headquarters (IH) was set up for the first time since the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War-- a decisive step both strategically and symbolically. Belittling the China war as a mere “incident,” yet unable to win it, Japan had no choice. Given de facto wartime conditions of mass troop deployment and naval support, the coordinating of the two services’ chains of command required an IH under the 1889 Imperial Constitution. Unlike the IH in wars before Hirohito’s reign, however, this one was a purely military body in 1937. No civilian cabinet member, not even the prime minister, could join its deliberations. Instead, an ad hoc liaison council handled communications between the government and IH to ensure that cabinet acts of state conformed with the emperor’s supreme command. Thus began the most enormous, expensive, and deadly war in modern Japanese history-- one waged without just cause or cogent reason.
[HNN Editor: This article continues at length.]