The Volatility of the Nanjing Massacre

China and Japan’s erratic past can be traced back to the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894. This war ended a year later with the Treaty of Shimonoseki in which Japan forced China to cede Taiwan and to allow Korea to become an independent state. It was this initial clash that made the Second Sino-Japanese War a foreseeable event. Looking to expand its empire, Japan launched a full-scale invasion of China’s mainland in 1937. Japan’s occupation ended in 1945 when the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki bringing an end to the Second World War on September 9, 1945. Japan officially surrendered all troops in China and returned Manchuria and Taiwan. Of all of the terrible atrocities that occurred during the war, the Nanjing Massacre stood out. This event hindered an alliance because each side was not willing to accept the other’s viewpoint or input. Hence, the massacre was so volatile because the event played a key role in Japanese and Chinese foreign and domestic policy.

The communist regime that took control of China in the 1949 used the Nanjing Massacre to bolster support and reform. The Chinese Communist Party utilized the Masssacre as a tool to bring citizens together against the Japanese. The rallies encouraged anti-Japanese sentiments, which in turn, ensured national loyalty to China . Issues such as the Massacre and continual abasement of the Chinese people sparked fervor in people to stand up against the Japanese. Demonstrations in China brought people together and established as a new sense of nationalism in China.

The CCP also called on the youth generation for support. This generation was a major factor in anti-Japanese demonstrations because the well educated possessed the necessary knowledge to make clear and formulated opinions. Student speakers spoke out against Sino-Japanese friendship and encouraged anti-Japanese feeling. These gatherings demonstrated that not only political bureaucrats but also Chinese youths wanted reform in Sino-Japanese relations . When the students realized that the CCP was to blame for the lack of development of the state, the government flooded society with propaganda. Instead of political officials conferencing with each other privately about issues, there are crowds of young citizens speaking out publicly. With the youth generation now involved in the whole situation surrounding the massacre, the issue’s level of volatility grew tremendously.

Another tactic used by the Chinese government to arouse anti-Japanese sentiments included the building of the Memorial of Compatriot Victims of the Japanese Military’s Nanjing Massacre in Nanjing. It can be argued that the Memorial was constructed solely to commemorate those who were lost, but evidence suggests that the underlying motivation was to arouse anti-Japanese emotions. On one side, China forgave Japan for the war. China demonstrated this by dismissing war reparations and accepting public apologies by the Japanese. China contradicted previous actions by making it mandatory for young students to visit the Memorial. The CCP wanted people to come out of the memorial with a new sense of urgency to be loyal citizens to China.

In response to China’s tactics for arousing anti-Japanese sentiments, Japan lashed back and defended their international reputation. Japan showed that they were not going to allow China to dictate the whole situation in an example involving the Memorial. “Victims 300,000” is engraved in stone at the beginning of the memorial . The Japanese protested furiously to the engraved “Victims 300,000” that stood at the entrance of the Memorial. Many Japanese griped that this number was too high and that in reality, it was in the low thousands. Some Japanese even argued that the death count in the “Nanjing Incident”’ only amounted to a couple of hundred casualties. Throughout Japan’s continuous denial, China has stood boldly by this number. This debate demonstrated how “the numbers game” created initiated debate between China and Japan.

In the late 1980’s China and Japan created a mutually beneficial economic alliance. In the 1970’s, China was far behind Western nations in technology, science and economics.