Does Japan censor the Rape Of Nanking?

Does the Japanese government censor any references to the Rape of Nanking? And is it true that the average Japanese person has no idea as to the level of atrocities committed by Imperial Japanese soldiers in China?

I’ve lived here for the past eight years, so here’s what I know:
History classes in Japanese schools only go back as far as WWII. There is little discussion on the causes on the war and mostly focuses on Pearl Harbor (a defensive move) and Hiroshima/Nagasaki. All the ugly tidbits (Nanking, Korea, treatment of POWs, etc…) have been cleanly snipped away.
I have some friends who studied overseas and were surprised at how little they knew about their past.

To answer your question; I’m not sure if it’s an official censorship or a lack of willingness to discuss the details of a shameful past.

The government has control over the public school curriculum. All textbooks used in public schools must be approved by the government. Parents mostly seem to approve of this, since it results in a very homogeneous and “fair” education.

The government does not censor the textbooks to the extent of removing references to Naking. But the curriculum does not provide for much 20th century history to begin with, and the section on WWII seems to be dominated by the discussion of the atomic bomb. I attended Japanese public schools up to 8th grade and came out thinking that WWII was mostly Japan getting bombed by the US. The message was “war is bad, war kills innocent people, Japan is good because we have no nuclear weapons and our constitution says we can’t fight any more wars.”

In addition, last year the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform submitted a new textbook to the government for approval. This one actively denies that the Rape of Nanking took place. It also portrays the invasion of Korea as a legitimate police action. This textbook was approved. This has predictably become a major political issue but they haven’t done anything about it so far. It’s one of the many approved textbooks and I don’t think any school has chosen to use it, but it’s still a shocking incident.

I think Marky’s got a pretty good idea, but I’ve only been here 7 yrs. It’s not censored. I’ve heard vague mention of it on TV, but definitely, it is not a major topic of discussion in school. In the movie RAMPO (I think you can probably get it in a video store in their foreign films section - don’t confuse it with RAMBO), There are a few scenes with soldiers walking down streets, and one where a military officer is censoring the writer’s manuscript, indicative of the power that the military had then. I wouldn’t be surprised if nobody in Japan knew what the hell was going on outside in the rest world.

Can you imagine though if it were a major discussion topic in schools though? How hard would it be then to be proud as a member of that society (let’s avoid the argument surrounding the distinction between a nation’s people as a whole and a nation’s military)?

I think the topic was avoided because of pride, perhaps too much, on the part of “the powers that be.” But because of that, even future generations will be ignorant of the matter. So the issue that Japan’s neighbors have with Japan formally apologizing for war atrocities may never be resolved, unless there are some much more proactive steps in education.

There was a writer who made an account of Japan’s “Great Pacific War.” He was quickly fingered as a pinko who would have the nation lend it’s parliament to the commies. I can’t remember all the details too well, but his book was denied publishing, and he took a case all the way to the Supreme Court. He finally got it published, but not until years after. His descriptions of the actions of Japanese infantry in China and Mongolia are horrific acocunts of war. Japan’s peace constitution was adopted (forced) and today many people think of it as a monument to Japan’s being attacked with atomic bombs, not to keep its own military ambitions in check. Funny how quickly things change.

There are certainly people who do know about “things,” and trhere are references to it, but it’s like a dirty little secret that nobody wants to confront.

If hiding the truth was intentional, the reason was most likely to ensure that the Japanese people were protected from the military’s actions.
Not explicitly censored, but nonetheless…

scr4, good to get your perspective on this too. That book you linked, I don’t think a single local education board has accepted it. Though there are some holdouts I’m sure, most education boards have gotten hip to the skip and realize that picking a book like that would be bad PR (gov’t influence at play here?)

Teachers unions are notorious as “left-wingers” who are/were particularly critical of the military regime of the era, but they nor their contemporaries have a lot of influence in what books are used. Kinda odd situation.

I don’t mean to be taking up all the space here, but I wanted to clarifty something I typed.

Schools during the war were basically military academies. Teachers were training students to become sailors and soldiers. I don’t know exctly how the turnover came about, but after the war, teachers in Japan were suddenly very left-leaning. It might have been due to activity of the re-established communist party and legalization of unions.

I’m gonna shut up here for a bit because I could go on an on about this if I don’t put a sock in it. :smiley:

It’s true about teachers union being left-wing. It may date back to the “gakuen funso” of the 60s when college students started spending all their time protesting against government and school authorities.

But they aren’t free to throw out the government approved textbooks and teach what they want. They get in trouble if they don’t follow the curriculum. Parents want their kids to learn everything they are “supposed to” learn (i.e. things that will be on the high-school/college entrance exams) and not waste time on anything else.

Even private schools are requied to provide approved textbooks, I believe. The one I went to during 9th grade gave us our government approved textbooks but never used them in class.

That’s the same as in the US, fundamentally. There’s a list of books that a board of education can choose from. Most of my history classes though didn’t ever get up to WWII, come to think of it. How odd. It wasn’t until high school that we ever got to study the Vietnam war.

Gakuen Funso? That late? I was under the impression that they had unionized and strengthened their cadres well before that, but that the Gakuen Funso had just “militarized” them.

(Thata looks so funny in roman characters, wish this board would supoport Kanji fonts)

OK, I admit I’m not sure at all about when Japanese teacher became primarily left-wing. I wasn’t even born during Gakuen Funso, but I’ll ask my father some time and let you know.

I wasn’t either. But it’s within the realm of possibility that it was during time. Really wouldn’t be that hard to find out, I’ll bet I’ve got some material at home on it. You ask your father, I’ll ask my books.

Kuroashi , I understand what you mean about trying to keep it short - My original post went on for three more paragraphs before I cut it down to get straight to the point.

One point I wished I had left in was that the Japanese today really don’t have any idea why Koreans demonstrate in Seoul. They don’t know why relations with China are poor. They seem to be blissfully ignorant of their past and wonder why we “can’t just all get along.”
Only when people are educated on all the issues can there be an understanding of how to work through the problems for better relations. Denying the past denies this oppertunity.

I wrote it better the first time. Damn…

Yeah. Good point. The problem is, over time, it’s not a matter of denial; just plain not knowing.

So what do you think? Does the government have a resposiblity to, what, create a fact-straightening committee that will tell everyone what really happened, on prime-time TV? Should the government make a point of approving only books that make explicit mention of, for example, the Rape of Nanking? Maybe.

But how likely is it? I know people, in fact, som are my dear friends, who subscribe to the idea that the attack on Pearl Harbor was defensive, and I can see where they’re coming from. How likely is something as radical as government presenting an admission of horrendous acts by Japanese military personnel, even if it was over 50 years ago?

This’ll be a thorn in the side of happy relations between Japan and it’s neighbors for centuries, sadly. Since Murayama, every PM except Mori and Hashimoto has mouthed apologies, but as long as the dirty ol’ batards in the LDP are around…

I gotta learn to prune my arguments like you, Marky

Yet one more reason why my children won’t be going to Japanese high schools.

Like many people, I didn’t know that many of the drugs that are illegal today were legal and commonly available in the early 20th century until I was out of the public school system. Seems like something important enough to mention in the history books, doesn’t it? We learned about the prohibition of alcohol and it was generally shown to be a mistake, but we are left with the assumption that drugs have always been illegal. I don’t know if that’s changed since 1990 (when I graduated), but it certainly seems like our government is hiding details of one of it’s biggest mistakes.

In Japan they call it “The Date with Nanking that Went Bad.” At least that’s what I heard on SNL news.

Marc

IMHO, that comment was inappropriate, especially for a GQ.

I’m not sure who is behind this site, but it purports to be a Japanese website debunking Iris Chang’s Rape of Nanking book. Rape of Nanking. I believe that Iris Chang is the latest in a long string of books/research covering the Rape of Nanking.

Here is a link to her book Iris Chang

I’m trying to choose my words with care, I can’t find a cite and I read the book over a decade ago. Simon Leys, a respected China scholar, published author, and long term China resident journalist during the 1970’s, wrote on the Nanking Massacre (I believe it was Chinese Shadows). Certainly it was a massacre of horrific proportions. That is not in dispute, but he did make the case that based on the records at the time, eyewitness accounts, both the Nationalist and Communist views, those of foreigners who witnessed the atrocities, etc, at that time the death toll was IIRC estimated around 100,000. It was not until over a decade later after the Nationalists had fled to Taiwan and the Communists were in power, that both the Nationalists and Communists inflated the body count to the current 200,000-300,000 for political purposes. This could be one of those cases where a truely horrific event was inflated to appear even worse (when there was no need for the inflation), and critics jump on the exaggeration as proof that the entire incident did not take place.

My first year in college I took a class on Chinese film taught by a visiting Chinese professor (from the University of Nanjing, as it happens). There were three or four Japanese one-year exchange students in the class with me.

One of the movies we watched in class was Red Sorghum, which features graphic scenes of Japanese cruelty to the Chinese during WWII. But more than any scene from the movie I remember seeing all of my Japanese friends start to cry. At the end of the movie they said “We didn’t know, we didn’t know these things happened.” One of them told me that her grandfather had served in China during WWII, but he never spoke about it. Another wrote in her Livejournal that night that she had never felt so ashamed of her country, and worried now that any Chinese person she met would hate her for being Japanese since their people had suffered so much at the hands of the Japanese.

As their reactions were of shock, horror, and shame rather than anger or denial I don’t think these young women could ever have been taught that atrocities like the Rape of Nanjing did not happen, or that the Japanese troops treated Chinese civilians with kindness. If they had been told these things in school, I don’t think a movie would have been enough to convince them otherwise. I think they were instead genuinely and innocently ignorant, which is not the best situation but is better than being deliberately misinformed. At least my friends were willing to believe the truth when they were finally exposed to it.

While it is true in the past that the Vietnam War was rarely covered in U.S. History classes, from my experience of working in a public library, that is not true as much anymore. At least in California, teachers seem to be integrating lessons about postwar U.S. History into the curriculum better, although conservatives contend that American school kids should be learning more about Thomas Jefferson, than Lyndon Johnson.

Regardless, you would find few U.S. history teachers in public schools here who would teach that the US behavior in WWII was far from reproach.

The last two posts indicate that after wars, education tends to omit rather than intentionally obfuscate. While that may be less of a sin, the results are not helpful. In China, propaganda, or news, leads people to views that differ from those in the US or Japan, because people get fed different propaganda. One example is the Dalai Lama (I know I’m going a bit off course here, but bear with me). In the US he is regarded as a holy refugee who should be respected if not revered. In China, he is thought of as a murderer because he directed the killing of PLA infantry when they moved in on Tibet. I don’t want to take this conversation in another direction, but this indicates how differently people can interpret the same events.

The Rape of Nanking (Or the Bad Date - It’s important to be open minded here, and a sense of humour even for the most heinous bits of history is not harmful if taken in the right dosage) will probably not be taught in schools in Japan for a while. They’ve just cut the curriculum content again starting this year. It’s going to take a lot for schools to start teaching history from the perspective of other countries. The only thing I really learned about the Vietnam War in school was that it produced the Vietnam Paradigm, which is nothing more than the “Cold Feet Effect.” No mention really of the impetus behind “stopping the Commies in Vietnam before we gotta stop at the Golden Gate Bridge.”

An education revolution just ain’t gonna happen though, anywhere, without a serious regime shift. Anything short of an education revolution would not be enough for the “truth.” Governments (that’s all governments) won’t risk weakening their stance without perceived need. Germany sits too close to its neighbors not to be reminded of its history, so it can’t really be compared with Japan, or anywhere.

It seems like what the Japanese government is doing is whitewashing its own WWII past in the high shool history books. For example, invasion of China is said to be “in-out,” or something along those lines.

Generally speaking though, the Nanjing Massacre is just a reflection of what the IJA was doing overall in places such as Korea and China. An example of this is the IJA Unit 731, a biological warfare unit that experimented on living people.