 Eighty years
ago this year (2017), Japan’s Imperial Army seized the Chinese capital city
of Nanking. Following months of brutal fighting from Shanghai westward,
Nankin’s capture was perhaps the ultimate military victory in the Imperial
Army’s history. Perhaps echoing Acton’s observation that power tends to
corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, the victory would also be
the most controversial, with allegations of weeks of mass executions, rapes,
looting and arson quickly surfacing.
This controversy, which poisons relations between China and Japan to this
day, was largely forgotten in the English-speaking West until the 1997
publication of Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking. Based on extensive
research, vivid prose and passion, The Rape of Nanking assured that the
events at Nanking (now called Nanjing) would be forgotten no more.
Chang’s book was itself engulfed in controversy, reaping bitter invective
and criticism along with lavish praise.
Playing a leading, but undisclosed role in the denunciation was Japan’s
Foreign Ministry, which financed and promoted a ‘public relations’ campaign
aimed at discrediting and vilifying Chang and her book. This campaign ran
ten years, beginning shortly after publication of The Rape of Nanking and
continuing four years after Chang’s death in 2004. The writings of several
internationally noted academic historians were included in this campaign.
These writings were falsely advertised by the Foreign Ministry’s public
relations apparatus as a ‘modern, objective and scientific’ approach to
events in Nanking, but the reality is far different. Instead, through
consistent exaggeration, error and misquoting, these writings distort
history by fashioning a fictionalized and stereotyped version of Iris Chang
and The Rape of Nanking.
The Foreign Ministry’s undisclosed role and the resultant historical
distortions are discussed in greater detail in the attached article -
Nanjing Echo: Illusion, Subterfuge and Public Relations in the ‘Rape of
Nanking’ Debate.
Randy Hopkins |
