The Nanjing Massacre
History & Historiography
Oradour-sur-Glane, Nanjing, the Holocaust. And tomorrow, perhaps, Srebrenica. Wars leave deep scars behind them, not just on the human bodies of their survivors, but equally in the collective memory, in the 'national imaginaire'. There are obvious differences in scale, magnitude, and significance between these three sets of traumatic events. No one would deny that. What they may have in common is the special status they have acquired in national (or transnational) histories and historiography. They challenge the historian to reconsider endlessly his approaches, methods, and hypotheses.
* By CHRISTIAN HENRIOT
The book edited by Joshua Fogel addresses what has become a focal point of historical debate and, less fortunately to, of political and ideological dispute and polemics in Sino-Japanese relations. The Nanjing Massacre stands out as the most symbolic case of Japanese military atrocity during the Sino-Japanese War. Although there is no doubt about the extent of the extreme violence that engulfed the city in late 1937, the historical events themselves, and the historical inquiry attached to them, tend to lose ground to issues of national pride, victimization, and political manipulation on both sides. This is not to say that, all things being equal, there must be an acceptable middle ground somewhere. Unfortunately, there can be none. There can be none because the stakes are partly beyond the historian's reach. Why is that so? This book provides an answer.
Fogel's book is divided into three major parts. Mark Eykholt reviews and discusses the issues and problems in the Chinese historiography. Done superbly, it boils down to this: the Nanjing Massacre was obfuscated in the turbulent civil war years, when neither citizens nor government were really prepared to address wartime legacies, however painful. At the Tokyo trial, it was one among other testimonies of war crimes cited. What had happened in China was essentially peripheral to Western concerns. After 1949, the issue was shelved, despite scholars' early and genuine attempts to recover the memory and the documents of the massacre. It was a small icon in Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-monitored official history. The event only took centre stage in the wake of the infamous Japanese 'history textbook' revision and the uproar it generated among former victims of Japanese aggression. Yet, the Chinese government was slow to respond, evidently cautious in view of the economic aid received and expected from Japan. Thereafter, each new instance of Japanese 'historical deviation' followed the same script of denunciation campaigns and formal protests in China, apologies from Japan, and return to normalcy. In other words, the Chinese government chose to instrumentalize the event when it suited its interests, but left little margin for the expression of genuine action by its population or dispassionate research by its scholars.
Takashi Yoshida examines the other side of the coin, namely Japanese historiography and all the related debates and denial attempts that surround the Nanjing Massacre. Two main points stand out: firstly, the historiography produced by Japanese scholars is by far the most thorough, compelling, and reliable study material of the Nanjing Massacre. All specialists know that. It is unfortunate that this historiography remains largely ignored, even in Japan itself, but more evidently in the West (including by such authors as Iris Chang) and in China. Secondly, there are constant and systematic efforts made by various groups, mostly from the far right or nationalist groups, to deny the Nanjing Massacre ever occurred. These efforts represent the ripples of an underlying and deeper current among Japanese conservative politicians determined to whitewash Japanese responsibility and crimes during the war. These attempts sometimes extend beyond occasional 'blunders' by politicians into the larger public realm by way of journals and mangas. Takashi Yoshida observes that however massive the research-based scholarship on the Nanjing Massacre, it will never prevent the media from seizing and giving prominence to any controversial statement or publication by people from the 'revisionist' groups. It is and will always be the duty of historians to join in an endless battle as their opponents are not motivated by academic concerns but by ideological objectives.
The last section of the book tries to move from the study of the event in the various historiographies to 'reflections on historical inquiry'. This is the weakest part of the book as this section's author, Yang Daqing, fails to come up with original or convincing arguments for either the topic of the book or for historical inquiry. While the author does point out interesting questions (e.g. methodological challenge, transnational history), he does not match them with an adequate level of discussion. There are too many platitudes and inaccuracies, not to mention the incompleteness (for instance in discussing the available sources) and clumsy statements (p. 159, 'to condemn Japanese aggression' and 'moral judgement': is this the historian's job?). What this reader regretted most was the total ignorance of the large body of literature about the issue of 'revisionism' by European scholars, especially the work of Pierre Vidal-Naquet (e.g. The Assassins of Memory, available in English in print and on the Internet). Considerable ground has been covered by scholars involved in serious battles against what they refer to as 'negationists'.
These minor criticisms notwithstanding, the volume edited by Joshua Fogel offers all students of the Nanjing Massacre, the Sino-Japanese War and, more generally, to all students of traumatic events in history, an excellent coverage of the issues, challenges, and traps that await the historian at work. For a long time, it will remain required and essential reading by which to approach Sino-Japanese relations in the twentieth century. *
- Fogel, Joshua A. (ed). The Nanjing Massacre in History and
Historiography, Berkeley: The University of California Press (2000), 264
pp,
ISBN 0-520-22007-2.
Professor Christian Henriot is director of the Institut d'Asie Orientale and is attached to the History Department at Lyon University. The history of China is his specialty.