Professor Minoru Kitamura of Ritsumeikan University raises important questions about Japan's rampage in Nanjing in 1937-38, but sadly comes up with misleading, biased and unconvincing answers. Promises to the contrary, there is nothing impartial about his narrative. Much of it rests on innuendo and unsubstantiated interpretations he passes off as "common sense."
As the 70th anniversary of Nanjing approaches, it is telling that what happened there remains the subject of vituperative debate and political agendas. Some Japanese political leaders such as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe advocate a revisionist nationalism that constructs a vindicating wartime narrative in order to nurture national pride among young Japanese. This logic is widely disparaged by progressives such as Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oe who wonder how misrepresenting the past and encouraging collective amnesia about war responsibility tallies with national pride.
Along with the "comfort women" and Unit 731 tragedies, Nanjing has become a symbol of went wrong in Imperial Japan. As evidence and testimony piled up, nationalists appropriated the discourse to advance various agendas, and history has clearly suffered. In the case of Nanjing, the Chinese government has asserted that the Japanese massacred 300,000, a figure most scholars outside China regard with skepticism. However, the important point is not to settle on an iconic number of deaths. What Japanese soldiers did in Nanjing was horrific by any measure and there is more than enough irrefutable evidence to demonstrate what they did. Even if they slaughtered only 10,000, it would constitute a war crime and massacre.