From: fester@island.COM (Mike Fester)
Subject: Re: Comfort girls?
Keywords: rape of nangking
Organization: /usr/local/rn/organization
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 17:24:07 GMT

In article <1992Dec28.214852.25986@leland.Stanford.EDU> underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dwight Joe) writes:
>In article <1992Dec28.143403.8912@cbnewsh.cb.att.com> bgt@cbnewsh.cb.att.com
>(barbara.tongue) writes:
>>folks, ...
>>i'm interested in knowing all sides of the issues.  any information
>>is greatly appreciated.  does japan teach its students about this
>>period of time [WWII]?  does china?  what is the "official" story from both
>>sides?
>
>The Japanese gov't does not authorize history books to lie about WWII;
>instead, certain events in the war are simply not mentioned.  Some
>examples off the top of my head are the massacre in Nanjing, the
>biological experiments, etc.

"simply not mentioned" is, of course, nonsense. They were ordered removed from
the testbooks. The author of the texts sued, and by the time the case finally
reached the Supreme Court, the ruling was "yes the government was wrong, but 
the statute of limitations has expired, so nothing should be done about it".

>On the other hand, the Chinese gov't has gone to great lengths to
>verbally crucify the Japanese gov't and Japanese people in Chinese
>textbooks of WWII, even to the point of exaggerating facts.  Case in
>point:  massacre in Nanjing.  There is considerable dispute as to the
>number of people actually killed, but the Chinese insist on 200,000
>deaths.  The American tribunal in Japan at the end of the war officially
>concluded that only 20,000 were killed.  (I am more inclined to believe
>the American side.)

Americans at the time put the figure at 200,000. Japanese government records
indicate in the hundreds of thousands.

>(In fact, if you look up the massacre (in Nanjing) in Encyclopedia
>Britannica, you will find that it lists the figure to be 20,000 -
>200,000.  In other words, don't believe the Chinese claims.)

??? By your admission, Encyclopaedia Britannica lists a possible 200,000 killed,
and you use this as 'evidence' that China is exaggerating when it claims
200,000 killed. Well, this is certainly irrefutable, as it makes no sense.

>It's curious that although the same number of people were killed 
>(in Taiwan) by the Chinese and (in Nanjing) by the Japanese, the Chinese
>textbooks are silent are the former and maniacal on the latter.

So, your best defense of the Japanese government is that it is almost as 
forthcoming with regard to the facts as a Communists regime. Isn't that
"daming with faint praise"?

>[1] According to the December 26, 1992 (plus or minus a day) edition of
>the San Francisco Chronicle, 10 Tibetans have just been sentenced to
>5-to-9 years of prison by a Chinese tribunal.  They have been accused
>of crimes against the state.  1 of the prisoners is a commoner who
>believed in Buddhism.
>
>The other 9 are Buddhist monks and priests!!

Nobunaga slaughtered thousands of monks and priests. Chistian monks and priests
were slaughtered during the Tokugawa regimes. Monks and priests who opposed
the Japanese slaughter of their fellow Asians were thrown in jail or executed.
Must be the hideous "Japanese culture".

Or did you mean something entirely different?

Mike
-- 
Disclaimer - These opinions are not so much opinions, as pearls of wisdom. Any-
one disagreeing is either a) a snivelling, whining, mentally deficient, weak
willed, inconsequential, namby pamby tool of some vaguely defined conspiracy, 
or b) my wife.