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In the country's grand tradition of protesting any accusations of historical wrongdoing (linked principally for the "OH NO YOU DI'N'T" factor in the U.S. slavery comparison) with lots of non-apology words like "regrettable," "unfortunate," and "SAYS WHO?", members of the Japanese PM's own party have downgraded the 1937 Nanking Massacre as not being all that big a deal, really, as the Chinese are clearly milking the deaths of only 40,000 people or so for political sympathy.
Problem is, that number was reached by a crack team of Japanese historians, none of whom were even close to most other estimates of anywhere from 50,000-300,000 Chinese citizens killed in the Japanese occupation of the city. Hit the jump and see what you think.
As you probably gathered, much as I love its culture, products and proclivities for making up wonderfully entertaining weirdness, I'm gonna have to side against Japan here right off the bat.
Nariaki Nakayama, head of the group created to study World War II historical issues and education, said documents from the Japanese government's archives indicated that about 20,000 people were killed - about one-tenth of the more commonly cited figure of 150,000 to 200,000 - in the 1937 attack. China says that as many as 300,000 people were killed.
[...]Nakayama said the study, which was initiated in part because this year is the 70th anniversary of the battle, determined there was no violation of international law.
Toru Toida, another member of the group, demanded that photographs portraying the Japanese military in a negative light be removed from Chinese war memorials.
"We are absolutely positive that there was no massacre in Nanking," Toida said.
I will not post any of the more graphic Wiki images for the shock value, because this is a pretty deeply emotional issue, and I'd rather not be one of those bloggy douches who makes a point with pictures of slaughtered children to make sure you hate whosever side I'm not on. I do believe that Japanese politicians are damn good at semantic swaparound, polite backpedaling, and saying what's necessary without issuing an iota of actual apology for their actions; I'm beyond pissed off that they have the stones to demand sympathy for being portrayed as bad guys here when many more sources than political hangers-on have accumulated evidence that the PR "victims" murdered tens or hundreds of thousands of civilians.
I'll be fair and emphasize that this was not right out of the Prime Minister's mouth, and hope that the usual cosmetic "Oh, naughty underling--he didn't mean it, international community!" firings follow. Till then, I'm going to go play Resident Evil 4 and make things' heads blow up.
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