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Month: March 2026

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Japanese : https://i-rich.org/?p=2601

Nonoda Takahiro
Researcher
International Research Institute of Controversial Histories

On December 13, 2024, the Chinese Embassy in Japan posted the following on X: “On December 13, 1937, a brutal Nanjing massacre took place. Today is the national memorial day for the Nanjing massacre victims. Let us bear the history in mind, cherish peace and pray together for the victims to rest in peace.”

On that day in 1937, the battle of Nanjing took place, but there was no “Nanjing Incident,” let alone a great massacre, which has been verified by statements by our Institute’s researcher Ikeda and advisor Ara, disseminated by this Institute.

After I found the text posted on X on December 13, 2024, I discussed it with our Institute’s staff and sent a statement of protest to the Chinese Embassy in the names of the International Research Institute of Controversial Histories and the People’s Campaign for the Truth of Nanjing. We have confirmed that our statement was received by the Chinese Embassy, but we have heard nothing from the Embassy in response.

To find out the intention of this post made by the Embassy, I examined how far the reach of China’s posting on X has been, as means of igniting international historical controversies. As a result, we examined posts on X by Chinese Embassies in several countries of the world, but they did not carry the Nanjing Incident message. We wondered also if China had been posting continuously before 2024 and checked posts made by the Chinese Embassy in Japan in the past. We found out that the post suddenly appeared in 2024.

Keeping in mind what happened in the previous year, we paid much attention to what might take place on December 13, 2025. The Chinese Embassy in Japan posted the same text commemorating the day as “Nanjing Massacre Memorial Day,” as the previous year. What’s more, in 2025, they posted that “the Nanjing court of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East judged Tani Hisao as guilty and in 1947 he was executed by firing squad,” which appeared as if it were the truth recognized by the trial. Problems with the International Military Tribunal for the Far East have been argued not only in Japan but also overseas. As to the case of Tani, it is recorded that during the trial, the defendant’s side explained that the “grounds for a guilty judgment are not sufficient” in a publication compiled by Inoue Hisashi, one of the “pro-massacre” scholars, “Collections of Sources of the Nanjing Incident, 2 China-related materials.”

In addition, in 2025, there was a different trend from the previous year. As I had done in 2024, I examined Chinese Embassy’s X posts in several countries and found that Chinese Embassies in France, Germany, the United States and the Chinese Ambassador in Britain posted on X with the catch phrase of “We never forget 300000.” And the Ambassador’s post was excerpted by the Chinese Embassy in Britain. China’s post spread to other countries for the first time in 2025.

Fellow Sawada of this Institute pointed out that the Nanjing Massacre Museum describes Japan as a mirror-image of Chinese people’s brutality. I think the same thing is happening in the propaganda and media sphere. And that is not accidental but is carried out as planned.

It is a well-known fact that China practices censorship on information. When I visited Hong Kong on business in 2014, I saw a commercial for a CNN documentary in which the Chinese authorities detained a reporter. The same commercial was broadcast in Shanghai, but the scene of the reporter being detained instantly went blank off the screen. At that moment I was sure that they censored the scene out.

Censorship works also on the Internet. The system called Great Fire Wall shuts off overseas information and prevents information inconvenient for the Chinese government from entering China. As of 2014, Internet media like YouTube and Facebook were not available in the usual manner in China.

China’s propaganda war on the Internet has changed in 2016 when Xi Jin-ping regime started. In addition to shutting off the conventional information, China came to actively disseminate propaganda favorable to China both officially and unofficially. This policy is applied not only within China but also extends overseas. In the center of this propaganda dissemination strategy is the Cyberspace Administration of China: (CAC). According to Colville, in March 2024, the CAC directed to disseminate positive propaganda for China. It is not a mere coincidence that 2024 was the year when the Chinese Embassy started to spread the “Nanjing Massacre” propaganda.

Equally, it cannot be overlooked that in 2025 as the “ultra-right” in Chinese terms Takaichi administration started, repeated provocative remarks in Japanese were made by the Chinese diplomatic department. The afore-mentioned countries where Chinese Embassies posted “Nanjing Massacre” articles are tended to be influenced by growing nationalist parties in the world. It seems China tries to examine the respective countries’ nationalist speech by disseminating remarks degrading Japan’s “Rightist” administration.

Under such circumstances, when it comes to our country, we are in a particularly disadvantageous position in terms of the fight against the “Nanjing incident” propaganda. One of the biggest causes is the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s website that says, “On the part of the Japanese Government, we cannot deny that after the Japanese Army entered in the walled city of Nanjing (in 1937), there were murder of noncombatants and acts of plunder.” In the Diet, a similar government’s view is expressed. As our advisor Ara states, it is necessary to review the government’s view and withdraw it. In the opinion formation on the Internet, one self-claimed history scholar after another acknowledges “massacre” without defining “massacre” and the government’s view does not “deny” it. Then it becomes inevitable that “Nanjing massacre” becomes “fact,” even if it wasn’t.

We must be prepared for the steady intensification of China’s propaganda war, carefully monitoring such a situation. The first step for Japan to fend off China’s strengthened propaganda must be to declare that Japan’s positions are based on historical facts and to actively address the propaganda war. It is not easy to fight in the private sector and clearly there is a limit to it. In the face of China’s propaganda war, it is against its national interest for the Japanese government to show the white flag from the start. It is an insult without cause against not only the present but also the past Japan and Japanese people. It will not serve the world well, either.

Reference:

  1. Sawada Kenichi, Root of “Japan-like” and Reconciliation, statement, International Research Institute of Controversial Histories, February 2026
  2. Ikeda Haruka, “Japan’s Speech Sphere and the Nanjing Incident,” statement, International Research Institute of Controversial Histories, August 2025
  3. Ara Kenichi, The Nanjing Propaganda in the 80 years after the War, statement, International Research Institute of Controversial Histories, October 2025
  4. Colville, Alex (2025-04-21), “Bringing AI Down to Earth,” China Media Project, Retrieved 2025-04-23.

Published on

Written by Ikeda Haruka, published by Tenden-sha, 2020
Reviewed by Sugihara Seishiro, President, International Research Institute of Historical Controversies

Author Ikeda Haruka claims in the book that he is not a historian, but he truly deserves to be called a historian as the author of such an excellent book of historical study. Even today, when it has been completely verified that the alleged Nanjing Incident did not take place, many self-asserting historians do claim that there was a Nanjing Incident. It seems that designating someone as “historian” is not at all reliable.

In gist, historical study can be everyone’s business. That is, anyone can find the meaning of events by rightfully reconstructing the true past based on verified sources and historical materials, without loudly claiming to be a “historian.”

This book focuses on the missionaries stationed in Nanjing at the time of the takeover of Nanjing by the Japanese military whom none of Nanjing Incident researchers have paid attention to and clarifies that the starting point of everything related to the alleged Nanjing Incident were those missionaries’ words and actions. Since the missionaries had the intention to support the Chinese Nationalist Party Army, the Nationalist Party Government including Chiang Kai-shek, realizing the missionaries’ intention, used them and advertised especially in the United States that the Nanjing Incident did take place with the intention to put Japan and the Japanese Army in a disadvantageous position.

As fruits of their efforts, American newspapers sensationally reported the alleged Nanjing Incident as fact. Based on such newspaper articles, during the so-called Tokyo Trials, the incident was vigorously condemned, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Nanjing siege operation Matsui Iwane was sentenced to death and executed.

However, everything ensued from the wrong information provided in the false reporting by the missionaries.

And the author says that the indifference to the missionaries and Christians at that time damaged seriously the process of information analysis and also affected negatively the further studies of the Nanjing Incident, leading to the prolonged confusion in unravelling the truth.

The Christians had their own religious mission and passion, which became the reason for their sympathy and friendship with Chiang-Kai Sheck and his wife Soong Mei-ling, both of whom clearly manifested their strong Protestant faith, drastically changing the course of history. This author points out: “Currently thinking of the tri-partite relationship among Japan, the United States and South Korea, Japan is indifferent to the existence of the Christians in South Korea, who are nearly 30% of the entire population, quite different from Japan with only 1% Christian population, but South Korea has special relationship with the Chrisitan United States.” This is a very suggestive viewpoint.

Incidentally, since there is one point I feel discontent with as inference of historical study, let me point it out.    

The author states in the Introduction of the book:

“More than seventy years have passed since the end of the War. During all this time, the Nanjing Incident has been studied from every angle and perspective and yet, even today, no consensus has been reached when it comes to the fundamental question of whether the Incident really took place, let alone the number of victims.

Those who claim that the Nanjing Incident did take place cite incidents of massacres committed by the Japanese military. However, among these claims, not one incident can be convincingly shown to be a “massacre” with clear information as to the time and place of occurrence, perpetrators, victims and how and why it took place.

On the other hand, those who deny the Nanjing Incident claim that the Nanjing Incident was merely anti-Japan propaganda created by China, showing no decrease in the civilian population within the walled city of Nanjing, existence of Westerners who participated in the anti-Japan propaganda and activity records of the Chinese international propaganda organs. However, there is no clear answer to the fundamental question: Why did many third-party Westerners present at the scene at the time leave records of the incident in one form or another?  In either case, of affirmative or denial, we will never reach a reasonable conclusion if we continue to study the issue in the same way as we have so far.”

It is true that the author emphasizes the existence of missionaries and clearly shows that their purpose and the source of all fallacies rest on their false reporting which I can admit greatly contributes to ending the controversy over the existence of the Nanjing Incident. However, I don’t think that it is true that without asserting this author’s study, the controversy over whether the Nanjing Incident actually took place or not will never reach a definitive solution.

Those arguing in favor of the existence of the Nanjing Incident do not have any evidence of massacre cases or primary historical sources to prove it. If so, isn’t it the proper scholarly way to admit that there was no such incident. However, those supporters of the existence of the incident keep alleging that there was a Nanjing incident, refusing to follow the usual practice.   Thus, they keep affirming   that the event took place. n the first place, there was no Nanjing Incident and naturally there is no primary historical source to verify the incident. Even though this is the reality, those who keep alleging that there was Nanjing incident have a problem with their morality as scholars. Such a person lacks intelligence and psychological candidness to pursue the truth as a scholar and ignores social responsibility nonchalantly. A person with such a flawed human nature is in the wrong.

Therefore, the controversy of the Nanjing Incident has a reliable solution, but since the author does not mention this point, I would like him to do so clearly.it is not that there is no conclusion available through controversy but that I want this author to clearly mention this point. I say this because a person with ill intentions may not withdraw their assertion that there was a Nanjing Incident even after they read this book. In either way, this book proves that the wrong assertion of the Nanjing Incident derives from the false reporting on the part of missionaries who were within Nanjing City at the time when the Japanese Army besieged it and clearly explains how the lies spread. This is an extremely useful book of historical study. I believe this book to be worthy to be read by people all over the world.