Chinese people should know that Nanking Massacre was Chiang Kai-shek’s propaganda strategy with paid Western journalists – Chinese documents exist

It seems that Chinese people today really believe the “Nanking Massacre with 300,000 death toll” claim. Sadly, they are fooled by their own ancestors.

From the time of the Sino-Japanese war, Chiang Kai-shek (蒋介石) used “Nanking Massacre” as a main element of his information strategy against the Japanese army.

“From the beginning, the Nationalist government was militarily on the losing side, and did utmost efforts in propaganda, which started before the fall of Nanking on Dec 13, 1937,” explains Professor Higashinakano Shudo of Asia University, who examined thoroughly the historical resources of the Ministry of Information (Central Propaganda Bureau) of the Chinese Nationalist Government (中国国民党中央宣伝部).

Chinese Central Propaganda Bureau (中国国民党中央宣伝部)

Firmly believing that “propaganda is another factor in deciding victory or defeat in a modern warfare besides military force,” the Central Propaganda Bureau fabricated materials to denounce the enemy (Japan), trying to isolate her internationally. It propagated that Japan was inhuman, attempting to make Japanese themselves hate Japan and feel mentally defeated. 

Central Propaganda Bureau was reorganized into International Propaganda Division (国際宣伝処), and developed vigorous propaganda campaign. 

The following is the organization structure of the International Propaganda Division, which Professor Higashinakano discovered at Guomindang Historical Documents Archive (国民党党史館) in Taipei. On the top right, it says “top secret (極機密).” On the left, it says “Hong Kong office,” “London office,” and “New York office,” as sub-organizations overseas.

Source: Higashinakano Shudo, “Nanking Incident: Deciphering Classified Documents of 

the Nationalist Government,” 2006, p.16.

“An Overview of Propaganda Operations (verbal report)” （宣伝工作概要口頭報告） in January 1938 says the following:

“International propaganda involves editing of propaganda communications in various languages such as English, French, and Russian… Especially, we focused on propaganda operations and anti-enemy propaganda. Regarding propaganda operations, we lead international groups, secretly manipulate national diplomacy, contact various journalists and conduct war propaganda through them – all have been going smoothly…” 

Hollington K. Tong (Dong Xianguan、董顕光), vice-director of the Central Propaganda Bureau,　wrote in his autobiography that his relationship with the foreign journalists in Nanking turned into a “pure friendship, going beyond an official relation.” (Higashinakano Shudo, 2006, p.98).

Westerners paid by Chinese Nationalist Government to spread “Nanking Massacre Story”

 

Only five western correspondents remained in Nanking after the city fell. 
One of them was F. Tillman Durdin of New York Times. Durdin left Nanking on December 15 (three days after the fall), and wrote about the “widespread killing of civilians” on December 18. However, this was a mere hearsay, written based on the memo of Professor Miner Searle Bates of the University of Nanking (Takemoto and Ohara, 2000). 

Who is Miner Seale Bates?

 

Source: Higashinakano, 2006, p.118

The newspaper article with his portrait, on the left, was found among the documents on Nanking at Yale University. The  caption says:

 “Dr. Miner Seales Bates, above, of Hiram, O., professor of history at Nanking University and adviser to the Chinese central government” (Higashinakano, 2006).  

There is a letter that Professor Bates sent “to friends” from Shanghai, which reads as follows: 

“The book uses a statement which I prepared on the 15th of December to be utilized by the various correspondents leaving Nanking on that date.”

“Correspondents” here indicates the five Western journalists including F. Tillman Durdin and Archibald Steel (Chicago Daily News). “The book” indicates “What War Means,” which has been proven to be a propaganda book of the Central Propaganda Bureau (Higashinakano, 2006).

It shows that Professor Bates, while being an influential member of the International Committee, as well as a missionary, wrote the original manuscript for Nanking Massacre propaganda. 

 

Harold Timperly paid by Chinese to edit the propaganda book “What War Means” 

 

Harold Timperley of Manchester Guardian edited “What War Means” (1938), which informed the world widely of the “Nanking Massacre.” Timperley has also been identified as an adviser to the Chinese Nationalist government. 

Zeng Xubai (曽虚白), head of the International Propaganda Division (国際宣伝処処長), wrote autobiography “Zeng Xubai Zichuan (曽虚白自伝)” which says as follows: 

“Conveniently, Timperley was one of the three important persons who attended the ‘resistance committee’ in Shanghai when we were engaging in anti-Japan international propaganda there… 

"We decided that, in the present international propaganda operations, Chinese must not come forefront, and that we must find international friends who understand our thinking as well as strategy in the war, and who would become our spokesmen. 

"Timperley was an ideal candidate. As a start, we decided to pay money and ask Timperley and Smythe, via Timperley, to write two books as record of witness on Nanking Massacre by the Japanese army, and to publish them… Afterwards, Timperley acted accordingly… two books were fast-selling items and achieved the objective of propaganda” (Kitamura in Sakurai, 2010). 

It was later found that the book also contained a part written by Professor Bates (Higashinakano, 2006).  

This propaganda book is, of course, not based on facts; nevertheless, Professor Bates testified as one of the few third-country witnesses at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (Tokyo Trial) that there was a massacre. Consequently, it was believed that a massacre occurred, and General Matsui and General Ishine were declared guilty, and were executed by hanging (Mera, Inoue, Imamori, 2012). 

Names of Western collaborators recorded on Chinese Document

 

The following is the “Overview of Propaganda Operations of Foreign Affair Section” in the top-secret document of the Central Propaganda Bureau (中央宣伝部「外事課工作概況」). It records journalists who cooperated with propagation operations. The table indicates: a) Steel, b) Smith, d) Dirdin who wrote the first news report on “Nanking Massacre.”

Source: Higashinakano, 2006, p.50.

As these first-degree historical materials show, Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek started Nanking Massacre propaganda, paying the Western journalists and "friends." This was a clear propaganda. 

Nevertheless, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is still using the same propaganda after 80 years, adding more lies, and uses the same method of spreading it by appealing it to the international community, such as registering it at UNESCO, building Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall, organizing study tours to Nanking for Westerners who has little knowledge of the real war situations in Asia.

CCP does this to divert attention of people on their own atrocities that it has committed in the past and is committing now [e.g. cultural revolution by Mao Zedong, Tiananmen Square incident, violent oppression in Tibet, etc, killing at least 65,000,000 as of 1997 (Stephane Courtois, "The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, cited in Sakurai, 2010), and cruelty continues today in Tibet, Uygur, Inner Mongol], and to divert frustration of Chinese people living in China against their own government. (=Make enemy outside and unite). People should be wise enough to realize this.

Sources:
Higashinakano, Shudo. Nanking Incident: Deciphering Classified Documents of the Nationalist Government. 2006. 
Takemoto, Tadao, and Ohara, Yasuo. The Alleged ‘Nanking Massacre: Japan's Rebuttal to China's Forged Claims. 2000. Available on Amazon in English. The reviews are filled with CCP-brainwashed people's comments, but the book is based on historical data and research. Everyone including Chinese people should read this book if s/he wants to know about the real situations in Nanking back then Highly recommended. →　https://www.amazon.com/Alleged-Nanking-Massacre-Rebuttal-Japanese/dp/4944219059　 
Kitamura, Minoru, in Sakurai, Yoshiko, ed., Japan, Brush Up Your Knowledge on the History. 2010. 
Mera, Koichi, Inoue, Yasuo, and Imamori, Sadao. Japan, Wake Up from MacArthur’s Curse! 2012.

APA Hotel should not remove books on "Nanking Massacre" because fabrication is on Chinese side

In talking on APA Hotel issue / "Nanking Massacre", someone said in twitter, 

"In Nanking after the Japanese occupation, a total of 200,000 people were killed. 
This estimate is not exaggerated because burial groups buried the bodies of 150,000. (excerpt from Tokyo Tribunal, Nanking Massacre Trial)"

But here is the details of the figure:
 
"The testimony of the Survivors of the Nanking Massacre”, Chinese material, read “out of 340,000, 150,000 were slaughtered individually and separately, and were buried by charitable organizations. According to the burial lists, “from Dec 1937 to autumn of 1938, the Advance Benevolence Society had buried 112,226 and the Red Swastika Society 43,071, respectively”. 

However, the numbers were not true.

First, the Advance Benevolence Society suspended its activities from Dec 1937 to Aug 1938. There was no proof showing that the Advance Benevolence Society was engaged in the burial jobs. Above all, the burial list of the Society was written in 1946, 9 years after the incident. Thus, the statement “Advance Benevolence Society had buried 112,226” was pure fabrication.
 
Second, the Red Swastika Society expressed its intention to bury the corpses, but it was not done until one month later when Japan permitted their request, and the burial started at the end of Jan 1938. J. Rabe wrote in his diary that the burial started on Feb 1. Rabe also wrote on Feb 15, 1938, “until now, 200 bodies were buried in a day.” By the end of Feb, about 5000 were buried. 

The corpses were carried far to designated burial places. It was absolutely hard labor to dig frozen ground more than 2 meters deep by hand in the severe Nanking winter. They had to dig more than 2 meters deep, otherwise hungry wild dogs could dig them out. 

In March, burials per day increased, because extra 30 Sen was paid per corpse to bury day and night before spring came and corpses started to rot. (Note: Since burying cost money and labor, Japanese army was involved, and paid expenses to the Chinese self-government committee, who then paid for the burying job done by the charitable organizations. It was 30 Sen per each corpse at the beginning, comparable to buying 1 kg of rice.)

The Red Swastika Society buried 600-800 corpses a day. According to the number of working days submitted to the Tokyo Trial, the actual working days were 22 days from the end of Jan to the end of Feb, and 10 days in March. 

Thus actual burials would be about 4400 by the end of Feb, and about 6000~8000 in March, thus total number would be from 10,400 to 12,400. This figure almost coincides with the article in the Nanking City Government General Condition, that said 9364 were buried from Jan 1938 to April.
 
Therefore, it was simply impossible and ungrounded for the Advance Benevolence Society and the Red Swastika Society to have buried 155,297 bodies.
The Tokyo Trial quoted the two burial lists of these two organizations as the strong evidence for massacre by the Japanese Army. Yet, the lists were total fabrication.

The CCP has been so insistent on “massacre of more than 300,000 in Nanking by the Japanese Army,” that many people have misunderstood as if there are many definitive proofs. However, this shows that the Chinese investigation was not capable of proving even about 10,000 of murders.


Source: Takemoto Tadao, Ohara Yasuo, "The Alleged ‘Nanking Massacre: Japan’s Rebuttal to China’s forged claims”, 2000