The massacre that made Japan the enemy of the International Community
By: Ioannis Dedes
Tags: History, Government, Life, Politics, Economics

The massacre that made Japan the enemy of the International Community

The Rape of Nanjing and the International Response

The Japanese atrocities in the Second Sino-Japanese War

It’s 1937. The Empire of Japan is trying to fulfil its aspirations of further expansions and the Chinese government is trying to resist. The first Sino-Japanese War had ended in 1895, with the win of the Japanese forces and the loss for the Qing Dynasty of China.

At the most recent war, the stakes were higher and the need to win the war was more urgent than ever. Japan was pursuing the imperialist policy that had started with the beginning of the century and after the Great Depression of 1930, had committed the Invasion of Manchuria in China, one year later, establishing a puppet government by the name of Manchukuo; according to many historians the second war between the two powers started in 1931. China, on the other hand, was concerned since it was a smaller military power but simultaneously, had started being offered help by the United States of America; since the expansion of Japan was threatening US interests in the Pacific waters.

In 1931, the Mukden Incident, in which the Japanese military had accused Chinese troops for blowing up a railway train, although there was plenty of evidence that depicted the Japanese accountable in purpose; in this way they could declare war and justify their attack. This time, in 1937, the beginning of the war had been located at the Marco Polo Bridge in July, when a dispute between Japanese and Chinese troops in Peking led to a full-scale invasion; by many it was regarded as the beginning of WWII in Asia.

The foreign aid that the Chinese government would receive wasn't enough for the early period of the war and that led the Japanese forces to capture the cities of Beijing, Shanghai and the Chinese Capital of Nanjing in 1937. The text focuses on the last victory which was also been named as the Rape of Nanjing, due to the brutality and inhumane acts that the Japanese military forces showed.

This wasn’t a typical victory for the Japanese forces and it has been justifiably alternatively named the Nanjing Massacre, since for 6 weeks the soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army were constantly murdering disarmed combatants and civilians, with an estimated number of over 300,000 people. Widespread rape and looting were also some acts that not only violated the civilians’ human rights but for many, showed the real ‘face’ of the Japanese to the international powers. The debate with the accurate number of people killed had been an important issue until the end of the 20th century, due to the fact that the Japanese had kept secret or destroyed all evidence and there are many estimations for the death toll by both sides.

The question one might ask is why the United States didn’t intervene and prevented this massacre. To provide an answer, one has to understand the context of the events and the significance of the reaction by the other global powers. As stated before, the United States were concerned about Japan’s expansion and violation of Chinese borders, but couldn’t react with a strong intervention mainly due to the Great Depression of 1930, the inefficient naval force and the trade relations with Japan. Firstly, the impact of the depression was still disturbing and Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt were obliged by the American population to focus on the domestic affairs of the economy.

Secondly, the severe impact of the Depression was also clear in the military sector, where the US lacked a credible naval force. In this particular case, provoking a conflict in the Pacific by supporting China and directly opposing Japan would be a move that would find the US unprotected for any attack. Additionally, the American interests and security weren’t directly affected by the attacks of Japan and their close economic and trading ties with the US, urged the latter to not jeopardise their trading well-being.

For these reasons, the United States chose to issue a non-recognition doctrine on the 7th of January, 1932, declaring that there wasn’t any American recognition to an agreement that violated Chinese borders. It was an indirect moral condemnation for Japan’s actions, introduced by the Secretary of State Henry Stimpson. He clearly stated that “It would seem that the responsibility for determining the course of events with regard to the ending of the situation rests largely upon Japan…”.

Historians such as Richard Story, stating that “…it exacerbated nationalist feeling in Japan, was of no practical help to China, and advanced America’s own interests in no way at all”, support that the Stimson Doctrine wasn’t necessary and didn’t clearly show that the US was completely neutral. This neutral stance would ultimately end with the Japanese attack in Pearl Harbor, on the 7th of December in 1941 and the article cited below can show how the United States recovered and joined the war.

Therefore, when Chiang Kai-Shek supported a policy of ‘selling territory to buy time’, he waited for an international response in the Japanese bombings but it wouldn’t be answered by the United States and moreover, it wouldn't definitely be answered by the British and the French. In July, he appeared to the Western Powers and a Nine-Power Treaty Conference was organised in October 1937, two months after the bombing in Shanghai and before the massacre. Despite the fact that the great powers of Britain, France, Japan, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, and China joined the conference, Japan refused to attend, since the leaders were aware of the issue that would be discussed.

The Treaty was signed under the auspices of the Washington Conference in 1921–1922, which promoted stability and peace-making. However, there’s nothing wrong with stating that the treaty failed overall, since Japan went on to devastating and brutal attacks with the appalling atrocities at the massacre.

This was an event that immediately put Japan in the ‘column’ with the most notorious countries at the time and ‘opened the eyes’ of the global powers for the future of peace-making. Even Japanese historian Akira Iriye states that “The rape of Nanjing would make it all but possible for Japan to still be accepted as a respectable member of the international community”.