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Unit 4—Handout 19
Brookings Northeast Asia Commentary | Number 14
“Thoughts on the Nanjing Massacre” Richard C. Bush III, from
Professor Yang Daqing’s article “Atrocities in Nanjing, Searching for
Explanations”
. . . The fi rst explanation was that a breakdown in discipline, caused by supply shortages, led Japanese
troops to engage in atrocities. But as reports accumulated of brutality in other parts of China, observers
soon set aside the specifi c circumstances at Nanjing in late 1937 and came to a different and more general
conclusion. That is, it was deliberate Japanese policy to strike terror into the hearts of Chinese. A third view
was more social and cultural, captured in the term “militarism.” From this perspective, Japanese soldiers
were products of a transitional society, neither traditional nor modern, and that the declining norms against
violence that restrained them in Japan disappeared once they arrived in China.
Among the factors George Washington University Professor Yang Daqing cites:
• The Japanese Imperial Army had suffered a long-term decline of discipline. In the climate
of more liberal trends in the 1920s Taisho period, offi cers responded by demanding absolute
obedience of recruits through inhumane means. That in turn, it is argued, led to the need for
those recruits to transfer aggression elsewhere. The poor Chinese were a convenient outlet
once aggression in China began.
• The offi cer corps was changing in a radical direction. Younger offi cers tended to have lived in
military institutions from an early age. They often had links with ultra-nationalist groups. And
they tended to disrespect civilian institutions.
• The Japanese Army had a general contempt for the Chinese and had a lower standard for treatment
of Chinese POWs as opposed to Western ones.
• Due to the rapid expansion of the army in the summer of 1937, most of the troops sent to the
Shanghai-Nanjing front were reservists. Their quality was relatively low and there was a high
replacement rate due to heavy losses.
• In their drive to carry out their orders to seize Nanjing, fi eld commanders overlooked the need
to ensure adequate logistical preparation (particularly food), enough rest for troops, suffi cient
military policeman to maintain order and to issue clear orders for the treatment of POWs
and civilians.
Yang concludes that all of these institutional factors, which refl ect an accumulation of poor decisions,
contributed to the scale of the Nanjing atrocities. He also fi nds that battlefi eld psychology played an
exacerbating role. Japanese soldiers had become terrifi ed during the heavier-than-expected losses in the battle
for Shanghai. Revenging the death of fallen comrades was one response. Even according to the Imperial
Army’s own rules of engagement, there were violations of discipline.
Yang Daqing, “Atrocities in Nanjing, Searching for Explanations,” in Scars of War: The Impact of Warfare on
Modern China. Vancouver: UBC P, 200. 76-96.
Source: http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2007/12_nanjing_bush.aspx
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