OPEN QUESTIONS FOR HIS EXCELLENCY HU JINTAO,PRESIDENT OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
May 5, 2008
As enthusiastic supporters of friendly relations between Japan and the PRC, we would like toextend the warmest of welcomes to President Hu Jintao on the occasion of Your Excellency’svisit to Japan.
For some years, our organization has been engaged in an investigation into the events thattranspired in Nanking in connection with the Battle of Nanking, which took place inDecember 1937. We are profoundly concerned about the PRC’s position on and approach tothese events. Additionally, we are exceedingly uncomfortable with the duplicity of the PRC in
its pursuit of friendship with Japan on the one hand, and actions that are most unfriendly innature — the expansion and renovation of the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall in 2007 — onthe other. Recent research has proven that there is absolutely no basis for the claim that there
was a massacre in that city. We respectfully request Your Excellency’s responses to fiveimportant questions, which follow.
1. Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong never referred to a massacre inNanking. He made exactly one mention of the Battle of Nanking during a lecturedelivered at Yan’an six months after the conflict, reproduced in On Protracted War.
Chairman Mao criticized the Japanese for failing to annihilate Chinese troops after having
surrounded them. If there had been slaughter in Nanking of a magnitude so great (300,000civilian victims) as to prompt the description “holocaust of the century,” there is not theslightest chance that he would have been silent on the matter. What are Your Excellency’s
thoughts on the facts presented here?
2. In November 1937, during the Second United Front and prior to the Battle of Nanking, theNationalist Party established a new section at the Central Propaganda Bureau — theInternational Propaganda Section. We would like to direct Your Excellency’s attention toa top-secret document entitled “Outline of International Propaganda Operations,” whichstates that the International Propaganda Section held 300 press conferences in Hankou
between December 1, 1937 and October 24, 1938 (a period that includes the Battle ofNanking); they were attended by 35 foreign journalists and diplomats, on the average.
How does Your Excellency explain the fact that not once during any of these 300
conferences was a statement or announcement made to the effect that a massacre had been
perpetrated, or that prisoners of war had been unlawfully killed in Nanking? Does Your
Excellency, too, find these circumstances extraordinary?

3. The International Committee administered to the civilians remaining in Nanking, whowere gathered in the Safety Zone. Records of the International Committee’s activities
were published in 1939 as Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone by a British company inShanghai, under the auspices of the Nationalist Government’s Council of International
Affairs. According to those records, the population of Nanking prior to its occupation by
the Japanese was 200,000. That figure remained unchanged, at 200,000, throughout theremainder of 1937. By the end of January, it had increased to 250,000. These statistics
completely and utterly destroy the credibility of any accusation of a massacre that claimed
300,000 victims. What are Your Excellency’s views on this matter?
4. Among the records in the aforementioned Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone aredetailed complaints about misconduct attributed to Japanese military personnel. They
include a total of 26 murders, only one of which was witnessed (to that account isappended a note describing the “murder” as a lawful execution). Can Your Excellency
reconcile these records with the PRC’s claim of a massacre with 300,000 victims?
5. Photographs purported to be evidence of a massacre in Nanking are on display at theNanjing Massacre Memorial Hall, at other exhibitions, and in printed publications.
However, Analyzing Photographic “Evidence” of the Nanking Massacre byHigashinakano Shudo (Soshisha, 2005) and other recent scientific research reveal that
there are no photographs attesting to a massacre in Nanking. If Your Excellency is awareof photographic evidence of a massacre, please have it forwarded to us so that we may
examine it.
On the basis of the factual information contained in these five questions, we are completely
and totally convinced that there was no massacre in Nanking. We would greatly appreciateYour Excellency’s responses to our questions. Please note that we have selected theopen-question format precisely because the matter at hand is clearly one of the prime
concerns of many citizens of Japan and the PRC. Our hopes for friendly relations between ourtwo nations, for all generations to come, rest in Your Excellency’s hands.
COMMITTEE FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE FACTS ABOUT NANKING
Chairman:
KASE Hideaki
Secretary-General: FUJIOKA Nobukatsu
Auditor :TOMIZAWA Shigenobu, MOTEKI Hiromichi
Members:
ARA Kenichi, UESUGI Chitoshi, KOBAYASHI Taigan,
SUGIHARA Seishiro SUGIYAMA Kouichi, TAKAIKE Katsuhiko,
TAKAYAMA Masayuki, HANAOKA Nobuaki,
HIGASHINAKANO Shudo, NISHIMURA Kohyu,
MIZOGUCHI Ikuo, MIYAZAKI Masahiro