Rape of Nanking
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Nanking Massacre, commonly known as the Rape of Nanking and known in Japan as the Nanjing Incident, refers to a six-week period following the capture of Nanking, then capital of the Republic of China, on December 9, 1937. International military tribunals convened at the end of World War II determined that, during this period, the Imperial Japanese Army committed atrocities such as rape, looting, arson and the execution of prisoners of war and civilians rising to the level of war crimes. These findings and other allegations are disputed by some Japanese historians and government officials who claim that the entire incident has been grossly exaggerated or even fabricated for the purposes of political propaganda. As a result of the ongoing controversy over Japanese efforts to deny, explain away or minimize the scale of the atrocities, the incident remains a stumbling block in Sino-Japanese relations as well as the relations of other countries, especially East Asian ones, with Japan.
Estimates of the death toll vary widely. Aside from the absence of accurate, comprehensive records of the killings, other contributors to the wide variance in estimates of the death toll include differences in definition of the geographical area, time period and nature of the killings to be counted. The Nanking Massacre can be defined narrowly to count only those killings happening within the Nanking Safety Zone, more broadly to include killings in the immediate environs of Nanking, or even more broadly to include the six counties around Nanjing, known as the Nanjing Special Municipality. Similarly, the time period of the massacre can be limited to the six weeks following the fall of Nanking or it can be defined more broadly to include killings from the time the Japanese Army entered Jiangsu province in mid-November until late March 1938. Variations in estimates based on the nature of the killings revolve around the question of whether the killings of captured Chinese soldiers and suspected guerrillas constituted legitimate executions.
The International Military Tribunal of the Far East estimated 260,000 casualties; China's official estimate is 300,000 casualties, based on the evaluation of the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal, while a few historians believe upwards of 340,000. Japanese historians estimate the death toll much lower, in the vicinity of 100,000-200,000. A minority claim 40,000 or even deny that a widespread, systematic massacre occurred at all, claiming that there were a small number of deaths that were either justified militarily, accidental or isolated incidents of unauthorized atrocities. These denialists claim that the characterization of the incident as a large-scale, systematic massacre was fabricated for the purpose of political propaganda.
