Chinese History: The Nanjing Massacre

It is worthy to mention China’s reaction to the shift in United States policy after the Cold War, which became deeply embroiled in historical polemics when public discourse framed the Massacre in a solely political, rather than moral, fabric of analysis. By excluding Beijing from the peace settlement with Japan and by encouraging Japan to remilitarise, the US now appeared to be in close collusion with its own former enemy and posed a direct threat to the new government in China. What transpires within this context, therefore, is that the Massacre came to be invested with very different meanings. When the national monthly Xinhua Yuebao in 1951 published an article on the Massacre, which it termed the ‘first great wartime Japanese atrocity in China,’ the author seemed more interested in revealing the American crimes during the Japanese atrocities in Nanjing. More specifically, the article called attention to …show more content…
The journal’s editor accentuated the ‘present significance’ of such a historical event by printing along the photographs of Japanese atrocities such banners as ‘Remembering the Nanjing Massacre. Resolutely Stop American Imperialists’ Remilitarisation of Japan!’ The history movement reflects enduring public anger at Japan’s wartime atrocities, inflamed by publicized accounts in China of Japanese historical revisionism, right-wing activism, and potential remilitarisation. The use of history as an object lesson to serve the present could not have been more blatant.

In light of this, it would be all to easy to assume that the degree of unanimity with which the Chinese publicly remember the Nanjing Massacre today is a natural reflection of the widely shared views of Japanese militarism. These memories have not been static, but rather have metamorphosed over time in postwar history according to the profound shifts in China’s domestic and international politics. Countering this simplistic treatment, the Massacre historian must be