Public Statements By Chinese Government and Leaders During The War
Massacre affirmationists point to reports from the United Press and Reuters that indicate that, as early as December 16, 1937, three days after Nanking fell, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek announced, in Hankow, "Chinese army casualties on all fronts exceed 300,000. The loss of civilian life and property is beyond computation."
Massacre denialists argue however that the Kuomintang Ministry of Information, Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong never mentioned the Nanking massacre in the years between the fall of Nanking and the Japanese surrender.
For example, Kazuo Sato asserts that Chiang Kai-shek broadcast his radio addresses hundreds of times to the Chinese people between the fall of Nanking and the end of World War II, but he had never mentioned about the "Nanking Massacre" even once. Satoru Mizushima asserted that "Chiang Kai-shek held 300 press conferences in the 11 months following the fall of Nanjing. He told the international media, 'Japan did this, and Japan did that.' But there was absolutely no mention of Nanjing. Not a single word."
In 1938, several months after the "massacre," nationalist Chiang Kai-Shek appealed to the West for support in his struggle against the Japanese occupation. In his appeals, he mentioned the "cold blooded" Japanese aerial bombardment of Canton, but did not mention a "Nanking massacre." Neither a publication by General He Yingquin, one of the top-ranking Nationalist officers and former minister of defense, Modern Chinese History: The Conflict with Japan, which contains military reports covering the period between 1937 and 1945 nor China Year Book 1938, published by the "North China Daily News & Herald (Shanghai)," which chronicles official Chinese speeches and events, mention the occurrence of a massacre in Nanking.
Higashinakano points out that the July 9, 1938 issue of China Forum, which was published by the Ministry of Information seven months after the fall of Nanking, carried a feature entitled "One Year of Sino-Japanese War: Review Questions for Study Groups." One of the questions was "What was the attitude of China after the fall of Nanking? The answer (intended to serve as a model) was "General Chiang Kai-shek said on December 16, 1937: 'No matter how the present situation may change, we must not surrender but march onward.'" No mention was made of a massacre.
Higashinakano further argues that Mao Zedong, who criticized Japanese military strategy in one of his famous lectures, stated that Japanese troops committed a strategical error by not annihilating enemy soldiers in Nanking but did not mention a massacre.
Read more about this topic: Nanking Massacre Denial
Famous quotes containing the words the war, public, statements, government, leaders and/or war:
“Revolution begins with the self, in the self.... We’d better take the time to fashion revolutionary selves, revolutionary lives, revolutionary relationships. Mouth don’t win the war.”
—Toni Cade (b. 1939)
“Constitutional statutes ... which embody the settled public opinion of the people who enacted them and whom they are to govern—can always be enforced. But if they embody only the sentiments of a bare majority, pronounced under the influence of a temporary excitement, they will, if strenuously opposed, always fail of their object; nay, they are likely to injure the cause they are framed to advance.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Science is a system of statements based on direct experience, and controlled by experimental verification. Verification in science is not, however, of single statements but of the entire system or a sub-system of such statements.”
—Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970)
“[F]rom Saratoga [N.Y.] till we got back to Northampton [Mass.], was then mostly desert. Now it is what 34. years of free and good government have made it. It shews how soon the labor of man would make a paradise of the whole earth, were it not for misgovernment, and a diversion of all his energies from their proper object, the happiness of man, to the selfish interests of kings, nobles and priests.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“In an ideal society, mothers and fathers would produce potty- trained, civilized, responsible new citizens while government and corporate leaders would provide a safe, healthy, economically just community.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“The trumpets sound, the banners fly,
The glittering spears are ranked ready;
The shouts o’ war are heard afar,
The battle closes thick and bloody;
But it’s no the roar o’ sea or shore
Wad mak me langer wish to tarry;
Nor shout o’ war that’s heard afar,
Its leaving thee, my bonnie Mary.”
—Robert Burns (1759–1796)