Question: Do Japanese citizens acknowledge that Japanese soldiers committed atrocities at Nanking?
About the article "Nanking Massacre", section "Japan".

Candidate passages:
Many historians recognize that widespread atrocities were committed by the Imperial Japanese Army in and around Nanking (now Nanjing), China, after the capital's fall to Japanese troops on 13 December 1937.
This event and associated atrocities breeds considerable anger in many Chinese today.
The Japanese textbook in question only briefly mentions the atrocities committed and refers to Nanking Massacre as follows: many Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed or wounded by Japanese troops (the Nanking Incident).
Documentary evidence has raised doubts about the actual number of victims claimed by the incident.
The debate continues even today" (p. 49).
[http://www.tsukurukai.com/05_rekisi_text/rekishi_English/English.pdf] While the use of the word "incident" is standard Japanese historiographical terminology for focal events, such as Tiananmen "Incident" （天安門事件） rather than massacre, it is objected to by Chinese as a deliberate playing down of the events in question.
Other textbooks, which are used in an overwhelming majority of Japanese schools, are more direct. 
The Japanese did respect the Zone to an extent; no shells entered that part of the city leading up to the Japanese occupation except a few stray shots.
During the chaos following the attack of the city, some were killed in the Safety Zone, but the atrocities in the rest of the city were far greater by all accounts.
Japanese soldiers committed atrocities in the Safety Zone that were part of the much larger Nanking Massacre.
The International Committee appealed a number of times to the Japanese army, with John Rabe using his credentials as a Nazi party member, but to no avail.
From time to time, the Japanese would enter the Safety Zone at will, carry off a few hundred men and women, and either summarily execute them or rape and then kill them.
The Japanese army claimed that there were guerrillas in the Safety Zone due to the fact that anyone not wearing a uniform could enter. 
Over the following six weeks, the Japanese troops committed the Nanking Massacre, commonly known as the Rape of Nanking.
The duration of the massacre is not clearly defined, although the violence lasted at least until early February 1938.
Estimates of the death count vary, with most reliable sources holding that 40,000 to 300,000 Chinese civilians were massacred in this period.
During the occupation of Nanking, the Japanese army committed numerous atrocities, such as rape, looting, arson and the execution of prisoners of war and civilians.
The executions began under the pretext of eliminating Chinese soldiers disguised as civilians, and a large number of innocent men were intentionally misidentified as enemy combatants and executed as the massacre gathered momentum.
A large number of women and children were also killed, as rape and murder became more widespread. 
Lewis Strong Casey Smythe (born 1901) was an American Christian missionary to China who was present during the Nanking Massacre.
Smythe received his BA from Drake College in 1923 and his Ph.D. in Missions and Christian Theology from the Chicago Divinity School in 1928.
He married Margaret Lillian Garrett in 1924.
In 1928, the Smythes went to Nanking, sponsored by the United Christian Mission Society.
Smythe served as Professor of Sociology at Nanking University until 1951.
He was in Nanking during the Battle of Nanking and its aftermath, the Nanking Massacre.
He served as Secretary of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone from December 14, 1937 to February 10, 1938.
In that role, he and the Committee's chairman, John Rabe, recorded the atrocities committed by Japanese troops and made daily reports complaining to the Japanese embassy.
Smythe reported that the Japanese embassy continually promised to do something about the atrocities but it was February 1938 before anything effective was done to restore order to the city.
After the end of World War II, Smythe was among members of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone who testified about the Nanking Massacre to the International Military Tribunal of the Far East.
He subsequently worked as an adviser to several organizations and wrote several articles and books relating to social change in China.
In the documentary film "Nanking", Smythe was portrayed by actor Stephen Dorff. 
In Japan, the Nanking Massacre touches upon national identity and notions of "pride, honor and shame."
Yoshida argues that "Nanking crystallizes a much larger conflict over what should constitute the ideal perception of the nation: Japan, as a nation, acknowledges its past and apologizes for its wartime wrongdoings; or .
.
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stands firm against foreign pressures and teaches Japanese youth about the benevolent and courageous martyrs who fought a just war to save Asia from Western aggression."
Recognizing the Nanking Massacre as such can be viewed in some circles in Japan as "Japan bashing" (in the case of foreigners) or "self-flagellation" (in the case of Japanese).
The majority of Japanese acknowledge that Japanese troops committed atrocities during the Nanking Massacre.
Some Japanese officials and writers have openly denied the incident, claiming it to be propaganda designed to spark an anti-Japan movement.
In many ways, how "atrocious" the massacre was is the touchstone of left/right divide in Japan; i.e., leftists feel this is a defining moment of the Imperial Japanese Army; rightists believe Perry's opening of Japan and the atomic bombings are far more significant events.