Nanking Massacre made up by Chiang Kai-shek, and Mao Zedong knew: Japanese right-wingers

Was the Imperial Japanese Army guilty of any war crimes? “None,” he replies. “In war, atrocities will always be carried out by a small number of individuals, but did the Japanese army systematically commit war crimes? Absolutely not.”

-- Mizushima Satoru, filmmaker of The Truth of Nanjing

Japan Focus has an expanded version of an article carried in The Independent.

David McNeill's well written article reports that:

“The evidence for a massacre is faked,” explains the president of right-wing webcaster Channel Sakura. “It is Chinese communist propaganda.” For support, he brandishes a book containing what he says are dozens of doctored photos. One shows a beheaded Chinese corpse with a cigarette stuck in its mouth. “Japanese people don’t mistreat corpses like that,” he says, stabbing the page for emphasis. “It is not in our culture.”

However, Ara Kenichi (阿羅健一), a commentator on Japan's modern history, told Japanese daily Sankei Shimbun today that Nanking Massacre was "made up by Chiang Kai-shek during war time" and that even "Mao Zedong knew about it."

Chiang Kai-shek was the head of Kuomintang, or KMT, which fought Mao Zedong's communist party during the Chinese civil war, which coincided more or less with the Japanese invasion of China.

What about the numerous accounts by Europeans and Americans who were in Nanking when Japan captured the Chinese capital in 1937?

Ara said his research indicated that all these foreigners sided with Chiang to "advocate anti-Japanese propaganda."

Ara claimed that the term "Nanking Massacre" never appeared in Chinese history textbooks during the entire Mao Zedong's reign. Mao died in 1976.

To Ara, that proved Mao Zedong "knew that Nanking Massacre was a propaganda of Chiang Kai-shek."

Ara said "Nanking Massacre" began to appear in Chinese textbooks only after the 1980s, when Deng Xiaoping became the ruler of China.

It is amusing to see the Japanese right-wingers change tones. I wonder why they now said it was by Chiang Kai-shek instead of the communists. Is that because they knew the Sino-Japanese relation is improving recently as indicated by the historical visit of the Chinese navy to Japan? Is that because they knew Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian recently renamed the so-called "Chiang Kai-shek Temple" to "Liberty Square" and started an all-out campaign to smudge Chiang? Is that because they realize that they better slap those who are now powerless than an emerging friend?

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