Regardless, what is generally agreed upon is that several weeks into the occupation of Nanking large numbers of Chinese civilians and prisoners of war were killed. I'm going to attempt to tackle this book chapter by chapter by comparing it to the more credible works of centrist and great massacre historians.
In the introduction Tanaka rightfully critiques Chang's seriously flawed The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, arguing (quite correctly) the nature of the Holocaust in Europe differed quite substantially from what happened in Nanking. He then criticizes the Japanese government for not having a backbone and not countering Chang's “lies, hyperbole and propaganda”. Again, while his critique of Chang is somewhat correct I don't think it's the state's job to carry out the work of historians. Tanaka goes onto defend General Iwane Matsui, the commander-in-chief of the Central China Area Army and who was (in my opinion wrongly) ultimately held responsible for the massacres that occurred during and after the battle of Nanking, citing his order that

“The entrance of the Imperial Army into the capital of a foreign nation is a historic event. The attention of the world will be focused on you. You are to observe military regulations to the letter, to set an example for the future” (Tanaka, What Really Happened in Nanking, 2000, pp 3).
Evidently, this order went unheard. Tanaka emphasizes the humanitarian side of Gen. Iwane Matsui by highlighting the shrine and memorial tablet he had dedicated to KMT soldiers killed in action. Through this, Tanaka is attempting to create an image of a benevolent army which valued the life of its Chinese enemy. As noted earlier, this view is not widely held among Japanese historians, and as we will see for good reason.

Chapter 1: Defining “Massacre”
Tanaka attempts to give his own definition of a massacre, defining it as
“The unlawful, premeditated, methodical killing of large numbers of innocent people” (Ibid, pp 7).
Believing that nothing out of a combat situation occurred in Nanking, he asks then why the battle of Iwo Jima is not referred to as the “Iwo Jima Massacre” when more soldiers allegedly died there than in Nanking. There are two main issues with this. The most obvious one is that there were no mass executions of prisoners of war or captured plainclothes soldiers on Iwo Jima (the latter which Tanaka does not deny the occurrence of in Nanking). Secondly, his claim that more people were killed in Iwo Jima than in Nanking does not stand up to scrutiny when compared to the sources of the time. For instance, the Japanese Army on the 29th of December, 1937, announced 84,000 Chinese soldiers had been killed in Nanking (Masahiro Yamamoto, Nanking: Anatomy of an Atrocity, 2000, pp. 88). Tanaka disregards this estimate later on in the book, calling it an exaggeration. However, the Japanese 65th Regiment's battle report cited a similar figure of 58,774 (ibid). On the lower end, we have New York Times correspondent F. Tillman Durdin who estimated 33,000 Chinese had been killed, 20,000 of which had been executed (ibid). It should be noted these estimates do not include Japanese war dead which undoubtedly was in the several thousands. Nonetheless, it can be safely assumed there were drastic differences between the battle of Iwo Jima and the Fall of Nanking both in terms of what happened in the number of fatalities.

Tanaka uses the classifications system of Kaikosha researcher Unemoto Masami to group the victims. They are: “Combat Casualties” - battle deaths, “Combat-related casualties” - collateral damage, and “Unlawful acts” - the mass murder of civilians and prisoners of war. As I said earlier, Tanaka does not deny mass executions of plainclothes soldiers took place. In fact he classifies them as “Combat Casualties”, as in his eyes they were entirely legal. Such an interpretation is a massive distortion of international law. Japanese historian Kitamura Minoru after evaluating the illusionist school's arguments on this matter concluded that it was necessary for a court martial to be undertaken for the executions to be legal. These “mass murders” as Kitamura put it were of a continuous and large scale nature and went against the humanitarian aspect of the Hague Convention. (Kitamura, The Politics of Nanjing, 2007, pp. 86-87)

Surprisingly, Tanaka classes “individual soldiers who surrendered and were later killed” under “Combat-related”, even though “individual soldiers who were incarcerated and subsequently executed” are classed under “Unlawful”. It goes without saying that the execution of any soldier who has surrendered contradicts International Law at the time. I refer to Article 23 of the Hague convention which states it is forbidden “To kill or wound an enemy who, having laid down his arms, or having no longer means of defence, has surrendered at discretion”.
This distorted classification system is an attempt to arrive at the lowest possible figure for atrocity victims, and it's unsurprising Unemoto arrived at the figure of 3,000-6,000. This contrasts with some Japanese historians such as Tomio Hora and Akira Fujiwara, both of whom estimate 200,000 deaths, who include all battlefield deaths. Regardless, the political and revisionist slant Tanaka adheres to demands that he uses these gross distortions, for if he doesn't it confirms large scale atrocities did occur.

Chapter 2 Population of Nanking 1937
Chapter 2 discusses the pre-occupation population of Nanking which Tanaka puts between 160,000 and 250,000. This is not necessarily incorrect, and I see no point in attempting to refute this. To his credit, he does cite relevant primary sources, such as the Smythe Survey, and John Rabe's letter to the Japanese embassy where he estimated “250,000-300,000” civilians were in the city and its immediate outskirts. Some Japanese historians such as Kasahara Tokushi include the whole Nanking Safety Administrative District (NSAD) to come to a figure of 1.5 million people (Kasahara Tokushi in “Massacres Outside Nanking City,” in The Nanking Atrocity, 1937-38: Complicating the Picture, ed. Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi). However, this area includes six counties, making it about 8,000sq km large. It would be inappropriate and irrelevant in my opinion to change the geographical boundaries of the massacre to counter Tanaka's argument.

Chapter 3 Nanking's Population Swells as Residents Return
Chapter 3 discusses the rise in population of Nanking. Again, I see no reason to refute this as this is not necessarily incorrect. It is already known that the when order was eventually brought back in February 1938 people in Nanking refugees began to return to their homes.

Chapter 4: The Mountain’s of Dead Bodies that No One Saw
Part of Tanaka’s method of disproving there were no large scale atrocities in Nanking is that he selectively chooses witnesses who saw nothing, and neglects accounts which reaffirm atrocities occurred. For instance, Sakamoto Chikashi, commander of the 2nd battalion, 23rd infantry regiment stated:
“We didn’t inspect every single home, but other than the restaurant owner, we saw no civilians, no enemy soldiers, no dead bodies. Nor did we hear any significant gunfire.” (Tanaka, 2000, pp. 22)
10th army staff officer Tanida Isamu witnessed something similar:
“On the morning of December 14, Headquarter personnel entered Nanking. In the afternoon, we established a base in a bank near a building near Nanking Road. By that time, the city was quiet. During the whole time I was stationed there I heard no gunfire whatsoever. That same day, I made a tour of Nanking, and took photographs. I did see some corpses, but only a few. The city was peaceful.” (Ibid, pp. 25)

While I see no reason to question the accounts of these soldiers, it does give the reader a misconstrued picture of what happened in Nanking, similar to the extreme position of hundreds of thousands of civilians being butchered in the city walls. For instance, in a possibly exaggerated account, Asahi Shimbun reporter Moriyama Yoshio claimed that after Nanking had fallen
“The Japanese troops herded thirty thousand Chinese, most of them old people, women and children, into the area surrounded by the city walls. After that, I’m told that they threw hand grenades down on them and shot them with machine guns from the top of the walls, killing everyone. The area within the walls was literally a mountain of corpses at the time, and it is said that the sea of blood was enough to soak one’s boots” (Honda Katsuichi, The Nanjing Massacre: A Japanese Journalist Confronts Japan's National Shame, 1999, pp.)

In a slightly more realistic tone, Asahi Shimbun reporter Imai Masataki witnessed the execution of dozens of Chinese civilians, and it’s implied the whole group numbering around 400-500 was killed in this way:
“Four or five hundred Chinese men squatted there, practically filling the whole lot. One side of the lost was made up of half destroyed, blackened brick wall. Six Chinese at a time stood and faced that wall. From twenty or thirty paces away, Japanese soldiers fired their rifles all at once into the backs of these men. Running to the fallen men, they then administered the death blow with a single bayonet thrust to the back. Their last cries rang out across the hillside. Then six more stood up.” (Ibid)

Another similar account by a Japanese reporter, Adachi Kazuo, emerged from Nanking:
“Near the Asahi Shimbun branch office was an open space where burned rubble had been cleared away. In the open space was a long line of Chinese standing under the watchful eyes of Japanese troops. Almost all of the Chinese men who stayed in Nanjing had been rounded up and branded “plain-clothes soldiers”. We managed to save one of them by testifying that he had worked for us in the days before the war. After that, the Asahi office was besieged by women and children begging us to help, but we did not have it within our power to save any others. The “plain-clothes soldiers” were shot one by one, right in front of their weeping and screaming wives and children.” (Ibid)

What can we make from these seemingly contradictory accounts? Perhaps it is that while the mass killings of civilians may be of a different scale and nature than commonly perceived, they undoubtedly did happen. With regard to these illegal killings Tanaka alleges:
“Not one of the tens of thousands of soldiers and some 150 newspaper correspondents and photographers who followed them into Nanking ever saw anything of the sort.”
Of all the claims Tanaka makes in the book this is undoubtedly one of the most absurd. The Kaikosha, a fraternity organization for former officers of the Japanese army, attempted to refute the allegations that the Imperial Japanese Army massacred hundreds of thousands of civilians in the city of Nanking by asking members to recount their experiences in Nanking. What they did not expect to receive however, were accounts of officers who either witnessed or took part in atrocities. What is ironic about this is that Tanaka was one of the interviewers in this exact study. In 1985, in the last issue of the study the chief editor even issued a profound apology:

“To repeat: 3,000-6,000 is a terrible figure; how much more so is 13,000. When we began compiling our history, we were prepared to accept Japan was not innocent. Nevertheless, we can only reflect upon such huge numbers with deep sadness. No matter what the conditions of battle were, and not matter how much that affected the hearts of the men, such large scale illegal killings cannot be justified. As someone affiliated with the former Japanese Army, I can only apologize deeply to the Chinese people. I am truly sorry. We did horrible things to you.” (Yamamoto, 2000, pp 52)
Soon after, the Kaikosha published a semi-official history based on interviews with members and concluded 15,760 civilians and 16,000 prisoners of war had been executed by the Japanese. While these figures are below the “orthodox” estimates of hundreds of thousands, they no doubt reaffirm atrocities on a large scale occurred. By arguing against those who believe mass executions did take place, he is inadvertently arguing against the army which perpetrated these atrocities.

Chapter 5: International Committee’s Statistics on Crimes Attributed to Japanese Military Personnel
In this chapter Tanaka tries to discount the 516 cases of Japanese misconduct the International Committee, the organization which reputedly sheltered 200,000 Chinese civilians during the atrocities, reported. He does provide legitimate criticism of these reported cases, such as many being based on hearsay. Additionally, many of these cases were not of a violent nature, such as Japanese troops going into a house and knocking a glass of milk over. However, these cases did disturb some Japanese politicians, such as the head of the East Asian Bureau of the Foreign Ministry Ishi Itaro:
“We received letters from Shanghai detailing unspeakable acts of violence, including lootings and rapes, committed in Nanking by our soldiers. The perpetrators of these crimes have disgraced the Imperial Army and betrayed the Japanese people. This is a matter with grave social implications… How could the men fighting in the name of our emperor behave in such a way? From that time on, I referred to those incidents as the “Nanking atrocities.” (Tanaka, pp. 30)

Tanaka resorts to personal attacks to counter the alleged insincerity of Ishi’s statement by pointing out his “feelings of hostility towards his own nation”. Part of Tanaka’s evidence to back up this claim is that whenever Ishi wrote about Japanese-Sino relations he always put “China” first. Additionally, he alleges Ishi was not impressed when he received an award from Emperor Hirohito, but expressed delight when China gave him a similar one. To Tanaka, this is a legitimate flaw on Ishi’s objectivity, but to others this is as an infantile attack on character.
This is what I have so far. I have exams at the start of May so when I get those out of the way I'll get back to this.
Cheers for reading.

The Alleged 'Nanking Massacre'
Japan's rebuttal to China's forged claims
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/unko/tamezou/nankin/alleged/index.html

Ten years have passed since the end of the Cold War, and the world is now in the midst of turmoil and crisis. In order to keep the scarcely maintained world peace, the role of the continued Japan-U.S. friendship and alliance is unshakable. Throughout the Cold War era and up to the present day, there has been some serious friction recorded, especially in the area of trade relative to the export of textiles and steel, also in the area of discussions as to increasing Japan's defense capabilities, and to restructuring of Japan's economic system. However, these items of discussion have been, without exception, items of national interest. Both nations, Japan and U.S., have tried to mutually resolve the problems and to reach the satisfactory resolutions and these efforts and achievements are universally recognized.

However, for the past few years, some peculiar anti-Japanese campaigns have been started in the U.S., and they have been escalated as the time passed. We are deeply concerned that the new serious friction between Japan and the U.S. has expanded as a result of these campaigns. The reason we express our concerns is that these anti-Japanese activities have been developed in the U.S., but aren't related directly to the national interests of either country. It is our assertion that there is someone of the third world trying to set them up from behind.

Specifically, Chinese-American Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking, which was published in July 1997 in the U.S., and the wave of anti-Japanese campaigns agitated by her claims are sitting at the center of this problem. The book's contents do not present verified facts, and furthermore, they represent the quite opposite. As a result, those Japanese who are shocked with such an injustice are not few. For this twisted representation of the historical facts of the 'Nanking Massacre',1 even a monthly Japanese magazine, called Sekai which has been a representative of the group which has admitted the 'Nanking Massacre', can't have helped but express its disagreement and published an unusual explanatory statement.

Iris Chang's book is titled as 'The Rape', and subtitled as 'The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II', and it has caused a stirring of the ears of the American people who were not familiar with the incident which happened on December 1937 in an obscure corner of the Far East. The book, which starts with unimaginable satanic atrocities and repeatedly describes such acts, has succeeded in maximizing the hatred of the readers against the Japanese. Moreover, it has caused a political problem to develop. Finally, in August 1999, the state legislature of California passed a resolution for it atrocities, citing the 'Nanking Massacre'.

Needless to say, it is quite understandable for American people, who have kept respect for human rights and fairness as their motto, to raise voices to 'castigate Japan and punish them' after hearing these the false representation of '300,000 Chinese massacred, 20,000 raped'. However, this serious situation should be re-examined if we calmly consider it, because the anti-Japanese campaign is based on the assumption that the 'Nanking Massacre' has surely existed. So we wonder if it is true and how they achieved to exactly verify it.

Are there any questions raised by readers of Chang's sadistic book that can possibly compete with the literature of the Marquis de Sade? We wonder if they have had the following questions :
"The book says that over 300,000 citizens were killed and the most of the corpses were burnt by kerosene within six weeks. If it were so, dozens of incinerators as large as that of Auschwitz would have been necessary. Who has ever seen such things within and around the closed space of the walled castle?"

"Also, the book claims that from 20,000 to 80,000 women were raped. We hear of the enormous number of babies born after fall of Berlin by the Russian Army. Is there a recorded account of the flood of babies that mixed Japanese and Chinese parentage after the fall of Nanking?"

For readers who are equipped with common sense, such questions must abundantly come to mind. Now, let us treat the 'Nanking Massacre' as a murder case. How many corpses have been found? Who are the victims? Who are the eyewitnesses? What are the motives of the offenders? For those basic questions, we must justly prove the facts through fair procedures in criminal suit.

Those who prosecute the 'Nanking Massacre' insist that insist that there were certain number of corpses, and focus on the testimonies of eyewitnesses and also the motives of the offenders. However, the admissibility and probative value of such claims and evidence are not acceptable in the courts of civilized Nations. Surprisingly, these facts have never been known to the western world. But only the false propaganda, which claims that the horrible incident (Nanking Massacre) occurred, is now becoming established in the U.S., as the anti-Japanese activities intended.

>>866156
>Iris Chang
Her unprofessional researches to Chinese Nanking studies was basically Italy to Germany. Attacking what she scribbled and claimed it to be official Chinese distortion basically saved the uyoku denial businesses.

For that reason, we have started the following legal approach. Namely, we have tried to treat the so-called 'Nanking Massacre', which was said to have been committed by the Japanese Army during the six weeks starting from December 13, 1937, as a 'murder case (including looting and rapes)'. Also, we have tries to precisely examine whether the crime has been proved or not and objectively verify the fact, using a method based on the Criminal Procedure Act, in view that the Prosecution has responsibility to adduce evidences to show the committed crimes.

In other words, our objective is not to prove that there was no 'Nanking Massacre', but to specify the fact that the testimonies, which claim that there was the 'Nanking Massacre', are not substantiated at all. And we take a position whereby all the facts would be clarified by doing so.

However, as for the Prosecution, all we would like to say is that we are not confronting Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking. Instead, our debate will be focused on the claims of the CCP (the Chinese Communist Party). The reason is that Iris Chang's view is based on the claims of the CCP. We perceive that the origin of the message in the anti-Japanese networks, which press Japan to take responsibilities for war crimes, lies in the CCP.

Our objections may appear to the readers rather too mild. But, the Japanese culture, which has produced the serenity of the Noh play and the Tea ceremony, may be quite opposite contrasted with the Chinese culture, which is festively decorated with gongs and firecrackers. The peculiar Chinese fantasy of such expressions as '30,000 feet of long white hair' may have produced The Rape of Nanking, and in the opposite manner, we would like to develop our arguments in brief and strictly.

For a half century after World War II, Japan has kept silence whenever and however we were falsely accused of this problem. Here, we would like to break the silence for the first time. We will not scream like the Chinese, but set forth our views purely and fairly as an accused standing in the dock of a courthouse, speaking in a low tone of voice, asking the fair judgement of the readers.

So bunch of japs killed bunch of chinks
Big deal.

People should move on and no one should give a fuck about this anymore but Chinks had to bloat the figures to make their people pissed at japs instead of their own evil govt

Japs get pissy and have to counter and some fags actually says they dindu nuffins
Like okay
This will only stop when east asia hosts another world war

>that autism
See >>866048

>>865993
>while not denying that the atrocities occurred, claim that they are mostly fabricated
Oh boy. It's a Japanese /pol/ episode.

>>865996
>>865994
My understanding is that nanking wasnt premeditated but a massive failure of command and control. also nanking is a stupid meme when compared to say the Three Alls campaign or Unit 731.

>>866486
I'm chinese and im sceptical of the figures provided by the CCP. The japanese scapegoating gives ammunition to denialists and Iris Chang didn't help.

>>866028
Damn, what a faggot. I thought holocaust deniers were bad.