From: yunson@lpf.umd.edu (Yunson Du)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.china
Subject: Japanese Imperial Army Was Invited by CCP?
Date: 4 Sep 92 16:09:08 GMT
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park

Dave McLane posted his followup in scj. Please reply
to scj in order to be effective.

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Article: 18002 of soc.culture.japan
From: davidg@aegis.or.jp (Dave McLane)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Followup: Chinese communists & Japanese Imperial Army
Date: 3 Sep 92 02:04:38 GMT
Organization: Aegis Society, Kyoto Japan

Last week I made mention of how some people in the discussion groups
I lead said that the original entry of the JIA into China was at the
request of the then rebel, now current communistic government in
order to defeat the nationalists. Followup's asked for sources of
their idea so I asked them for details this week.

First off, the two people with the most definite informaiton said I
was mistaken in using 'invited'; 'tricked would be a better word.
Sorry about that. 

As I think I may have mentioned before, one woman was born in Manchu
and came to Japan when she was 14. She said that IHE people tend to
forget that China was a very poor place before the war and she felt
that Japan was helping the economics situation by taking over
Manchu. This is not to say that the militaristics JIA didn't get out
of hand and so terrible things, but only that it wasn't always
Japan's intention. But she had to hard information to present, just
her personal rememberances of living as child of an administrator
in Manchu.

The other person is now about 55 and was thus 10 at the time: he
remembers begging chewing gum from American G.I.'s in the streets of
Osaka. He said that a few years ago NHK had a special TV documentary
on the infamous Marco Polo brigde incident in which it was claimed
that after some shots were fired, the local commander looked around
and found 2 or 3 of his men missing. While actually they had gone to
take a piss (always a good idea under stress :-), he reported them
missing to his commander and the commander ordered him to open fire.
The Chinese nationalists claimed that no shots had been fired, but
later, according to a secret document, it was shown that the Chinese
communists had fired the shots to bring the JIA into their war
against the nationalists. He says further evidence can be found in
//Sekimatsu Kara Mita Daitoa Senso// (loosely translated as "The
Great East Asia War: Views from the End of the Century") and
contains a collection of articles by various professors at Japanese
universities. 

Both these people feel the current Japanese government doesn't owe
the current Chinese government an apology. They feel that an apology
is owed to the Chinese people but they don't see any way of this
happening as the current Japanese government is controlled by
(paid) politicians and there is no way for them to express themselves.

[In another group there is a woman who is now 71 and remembers well
the sound of the planes firebombing Osaka/Kobe but this is too
painful for her to talk about and the other members of that group
respect her aversion to discussing the matter in any detail.]

Again, please note: This is not my opinion. I am only reporting
what people told me. My part is to ask them questions. 

Dave

--
Dave McLane 
JUNET: davidg@aegis.or.jp (ONLY within Japan: post otherwise)
Nagaokakyoshi, Kyoto Japan Tel: +81-75-951-1168 Fax: +81-75-957-1087

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Yunson Du
University of Maryland
College Park, MD