The Lunacy of Anti-Japanese Racism: Unmasking “Japan’s Holocaust”　Chapter 4: The Fiction of the Nanjing Massacre

Chapter 4: The Fiction of the Nanjing Massacre

“Taking place from July 1937 to March 1938, the Japanese forces unleashed a wave of unspeakable violence, spanning from Shanghai to Nanjing. The scale of the crimes committed is unfathomable, with a minimum of 300,000 Chinese civilians brutally slaughtered and over 80,000 women subjected to rape. These acts of savagery were carried out by the Shanghai Expeditionary Army, later renamed the Central China Expeditionary Force, consisting of approximately 200,000 soldiers. The campaign in this region lasted for five to six months, during which an average of 50,000 innocent lives were claimed each month. This reign of terror culminated with the sacking of Nanjing. All told, from Shanghai to Nanjing and the surrounding regions, Japan laid waste to 4,000 square miles of China, or the size of the state of Connecticut, during this operation.”
　 (Japan’s Holocaust, Chapter 5, p.67)

This introduction to the Nanjing Incident is written at the beginning of Chapter 5, “The Rape of Nanjing.” This description makes it seem as if a huge violent group (or groups) invaded China and committed all sorts of crimes. This kind of thinking is nothing more than a sick fantasy, more than a mere distortion of history. Let’s take a look at the background of the so-called “Nanjing Massacre”.

The Real Battle of Shanghai

First, we must point out the stark fact that the battle of Shanghai, which preceded the Nanking Incident, was not started by the Japanese military.

On August 13, 1937, 30,000 Chinese regular troops infiltrated the demilitarized zone in Shanghai and then launched an all-out attack on 4,500 Japanese naval landing troops who were responsible for protecting approximately 30,000 Japanese residents. On the 14th, the Chinese also mobilized their aircraft in the all-out attack. Under 5,000 naval landing troops were not enough to protect Japanese residents. So, a decision was made to send two divisions (40,000 troops) from the home islands. This marked the beginning of full-scale war between Japan and China, known as the “Shanghai Incident”. On August 15, China issued an order for national mobilization.

Special correspondent Hallett Abend reported the outbreak of the Shanghai Incident in the The New York Times on August 31:

“Official foreign observers and officials of various foreign governments, who participated in various conferences here in seeking to avoid the outbreak of local hostilities, agree that the Japanese exhibited the utmost restraint under provocation, even for several days keeping all of the Japanese landed force off the streets and strictly within their own barracks, although this somewhat endangered Japanese lives and properties.
‘Opinions may differ regarding the responsibility for the opening of hostilities in the vicinity of Peiping early in July,’ said one foreign official who was a participant in the conferences held here before August 13, ‘but concerning the Shanghai hostilities the records will justify only one decision. The Japanese did not want a repetition of the fighting here and exhibited forbearance and patience, and did everything possible to avoid aggravating the situation. But they were literally pushed into the clash by the Chinese, who seemed to intent on involving the foreign area and foreign interests in this clash.”

The New York Times and other Western newspapers tended to view China sympathetically and in stridently negative tones for Japan, but Abend clearly stated that the Shanghai Incident was caused by a Chinese attack.

Thus the Shanghai Incident occurred. It should also be noted that the Chinese army was guided and trained by a German military advisory group led by General Alexander von Falkenhausen. The lowlands of Shanghai were defended by thousands of pillboxes (Seecktline) built under the guidance of the Germans, so the Japanese army at the outset had a hard time. Three additional divisions were sent from Japan, but the Chinese deployed nearly 700,000 troops. The war shifted well beyond Japan’s aim of protecting Japanese residents in Shanghai to defeating the Chinese main force. Originally, Japan had no intention of forcibly conquering China, but given the rapid escalation of the Battle of Shanghai, there was no prospect of ending conflict unless the Chinese main force was crushed.

During the battle, the Chinese army “hunted for traitors,” shooting and publicly executing those suspected of being pro-Japanese. The number murdered in this “hunt” is said to have been around 4,000. The Chinese army deployed a “Supervisory Corps,” which shot soldiers fleeing the battlefield, systematically killing their own soldiers.

The Japanese army captured the strategic town of Dachangzhen on October 27. Then the Japanese 10th Army landed at Hangzhou Bay on November 5, cutting off the enemy’s retreat. The Chinese army took flight en masse toward Nanjing. Although the main Chinese army bases from Shanghai to Nanjing were fortified, the Japanese army nonetheless quickly broke through and advanced. The Chinese army used scorched-earth tactics, or “Fortify and Burn,” as they retreated, burning down buildings and facilities that could be of use to the Japanese army.

This was reported in a special telegram sent by The New York Times reporter Tilman Durdin from Nanjing on December 7:

“Between Tangshan and Nanking barricades were ready along the highway every mile or so, and nearer the capital there raged huge fires set by the Chinese in the course of clearing the countryside of buildings that might protect the invaders from gunfire. In one valley a whole village was ablaze.”

Zhenjiang, east of Nanjing, was the former capital of Jiangsu Province, with a population of 200,000. As the Japanese army approached, Zhenjiang was engulfed in flames set by the Chinese army. The New York Times of December 8 reported that Zhenjiang was in “ruins.” Durdin’s special dispatch reported:

“The burning of obstructions within the defense zone by the Chinese continued. Palatial homes of Chinese officials in the Mausoleum Park district were among the places burned late yesterday.
The city was ringed by a dense pall of smoke, for the Chinese also continued to burn buildings and obstructions yesterday in towns in a ten-mile radius.
This correspondent, motoring to the front, found the entire valley outside the Chungshan Gate, southeast of Mausoleum Park, ablaze. The village of Hsiaolingwei,
along the main highway bordering the park, was a mass of smoking ruins, and inhabitants who had not evacuated days before were streaming toward Nanking carrying their few miserable belongings and occasionally pausing to take last sorrowing looks at their former homes.”

Japanese newspapers reported similar circumstances. The Tokyo Asahi Shimbun reported the following in its December 8 edition:

“Several hundred villages outside Nanjing have been burned down by the retreating Chinese army, and a thick cloud of graphite covers the sky. The inhabitants of the burned-down villages have fled into the evacuation zones within the city one after another with only the clothes on their backs, and residents of dangerous areas within the city have also fled to the evacuation zones in an avalanche, creating extreme congestion. Within the city, rioters have already begun looting and destroying private homes. The authorities have meted out severe punishment to the rioters, and six have already been shot, but the situation is almost beyond control.”

After the opening paragraph from Rigg’s book stated earlier, Rigg goes on:

“As the Nationalist troops retreated towards Nanking, the horizon following them was dotted with plumes of fire rising to the heavens from burning villages and towns. These grim scenes marked the relentless advance of the attacking Japanese army. ”
(Japan’s Holocaust, Chapter 5, p. 67-68)

This is, of course, a lie, that the Japanese army set fires. This is completely against what was reported in The New York Times. Depictions of the Japanese army burning down villages in Rigg’s book are not only false but fabrications. Ignorant Rigg has likely never heard of Chiang Kai-shek’s “Fortify and Burn” wartime tactic.

Chinese civilians were looted by the Chinese army during its retreat. In Rigg’s passage shown at the beginning of this chapter, he pins responsibility for looting on the Japanese army, but this completely false. The front page of the Yomiuri Shimbun, evening edition, of August 29 reported that the Chinese government treated those who resisted Chinese “requisitioning” as traitors and targeted them for execution, while the Tokyo Asahi Shimbun, evening edition, of November 14 reported that a French officer had seen many instances in which not only Chinese civilians being robbed, but when civilians outnumbered the thieves, they killed them. The Tokyo Asahi Shimbun evening edition of November 10 reported that key institutions in the Shanghai French Concession were burned by retreating Chinese soldiers and that police in the Concession engaged in a firefight with Chinese stragglers who were mingled with refugees and guerrillas.

A book based on primary-sourced documents reveals the grim reality: Verifying the Testimony of Victims of the Nanjing ‘Massacre’ (Kawano Motoo) (Tentensha). Within every testimony, by 29 victimized civilians published in “The Road to Nanking” (Honda Katsuichi) (Asahi Shimbun), not a single witness supported the claim that the Japanese military massacred civilians. If there had been any attacks, they would have been done by Chinese troops. After all, when an attack occurred, Japanese troops were still quite a distance away–it was retreating Chinese troops who were doing the “attacking”.

Rigg says, “As the retreating Chinese troops retreated westward, they could do nothing to protect the people they left behind,” but this should be corrected to, “As they retreated, they did nothing but rob their own defenseless citizens.”

The Truth of the Nanking Massacre

On December 9, the Japanese army broke through the compound fortifications outside Nanking and dropped a letter from an airplane, addressed to the commander of the Nanking defense forces. Commander Matsui Iwane advised them to surrender:

“Japanese Army, one million strong, has already conquered Jingnan. We have surrounded the city of Nanking … The Japanese Army shall show no mercy toward those who offer resistance, treating them with extreme severity, but shall harm neither innocent civilians nor Chinese military personnel who manifest no hostility. It is our earnest desire to preserve the East Asian culture. If your troops continue to fight, war in Nanking is inevitable. A culture that has endured for a millennium will be reduced to ashes, and a government that has lasted for a decade will vanish into thin air. This commander-in-chief issues a warning to your troops on behalf of the Japanese Army. Open the gates to Nanking in a peaceful manner and take the aforementioned action.”

For “the aforementioned action,” the Chinese were asked to bring their response to the sentry line on Zhongshan Road and Kuyong Road by noon on December 10. However, as no response arrived by the deadline, the Japanese military began shelling. Nanjing was surrounded by a long 34 km wall, over 10 meters high and 5-10 meters thick, with 19 gates. The area would just fit within the Yamanote Subway Line, or Hyde Park, New York. The Japanese army attacked in an attempt to secure a breakthrough, and they succeeded in breeching as early as December 12, entering the city on December 13. On the night of the 12th, Commander Tang Shengzhi ordered a retreat, but the order was not properly communicated to the soldiers. Some soldiers were late in retreating and nearly 10,000 soldiers took off their military uniforms and fled to the “Safety Zone” set up by the International Committee for the safety of the residents of Nanjing. Early on December 13, it was discovered that Chinese forces had withdrawn from Nanjing. Each Japanese division, based on previously distributed orders, sent one regiment to enter the city and sweep the inside of the city. Some people think that there was a deadly battle inside Nanjing, but in reality there was none. For example, Professor Lewis Smythe of Nanjing University, who served as Secretary General of the International Committee, wrote to his family in a letter dated December 20, “Tuesday morning, the 14th, we got up and felt the fighting was over.” In the letter, he wrote that the on the morning of 14th, not a single gunshot was heard.

The 200,000 citizens who remained in Nanjing were all gathered in the “Safety Zone,” and on January 1, a residents’ self-governing committee was formed.

In contrast, reporter Durdin wrote the following The New York Times, dated December 18:

“Wholesale looting, the violation of women, the murder of civilians … turned Nanking into a city of terror. … Any person who ran because of fear or excitement was likely to be killed on the spot … Many slayings were witnessed by foreigners.”

Reporter Steele wrote a very similar article, published in the December 15 issue of the Chicago Daily News.

Durdin and Steele, along with other reporters, left for Shanghai on the USS Oahu, which departed on the 15th, to leave the dangerous battlefield that was Nanking. They were supposedly in Nanking on the 13th and 14th. However, they completely fell for someone’s fake news. The source of that fake news is now completely clear, Professor Miner Bates of Nanking University, a member of the International Committee. He had prepared a statement for reporters who were leaving Nanking on December 15. This is why Durdin’s The New York Times article and Steele’s Chicago Daily News article are almost identical in content.

The reason why Durdin’s article is so at odds with the Smythe’s letter to his family is because Durdin’s article was based on Professor Bates’ notes and not on what Durdin saw himself.

Regarding the December 13 letter to his family published in “Eyewitnesses to Massacre,” Smythe stated:

“[Monday morning, December 13] Well on our way home at one we found that the Japanese had reached Kwangchow Road. We drove down there and met a small detachment of about six Japanese soldiers, our first – but far from our last! (At the corner of Shanghai Road and Kwangchow Road, they were searching a bus, but not harming the people.) … Sure enough we found a detachment of about 100 sitting on the south side of road, and a large group of Chinese civilians on the opposite side looking at them. We tried to explain to the officer the Zone and drew it on his map of Nanking, note it was not on his map. He said the Hospital would all right if there was no one in there that shot at the Japanese.”

Japanese troops which entered the city were extremely orderly and did not harm residents at all. Then we go to the description of the following day, which I quoted earlier: “Tuesday morning, the 14th, We all got up and felt the fighting was over.” Where is the evidence in the The New York Times article, that: “The large-scale massacre and atrocities in Nanjing… led to frequent murders, large-scale looting, rape of women, and the murder of non-combatants… turned Nanjing into a city of terror”? Isn’t this a complete lie–fake news?

I will show you another piece of evidence demonstrating the nonsensical basis of the “Nanking Massacre”. Minnie Vautrin, a member of the International Committee for the Safety Zone and a professor at Jinling Women’s University, wrote the following in her diary:

“At 4:30 Plumer Mills wanted me to go with him down to Hausimen [Hanhsi Gate] to see the Presbyterian compounds there–I to act as keeper of his car. All are in good condition save for a few broken window panes. Japanese soldiers had been in but had not looted. I sat in the car while Plumer went in and talk to the gatemen. On our way back saw one dead body on road near Hillcrest. Remarkably few bodies around, considering the terrible shelling city has been through. ”
　
She went further into Nanjing by car, but did not see any acts of violence by the Japanese army. In other words, she saw no fighting, let alone any atrocities. Together with Smythe’s above-mentioned account, these are extremely valuable statements, in that these were from people who were on the scene at the time of the so-called “Massacre”. Incidentally, these statements are from people who are no friend of Japan.

Now, let me introduce further evidence that proves that there were no major battles within the city, and that there were no killings of civilians: the “burial records.”

The Chinese army withdrew from Nanjing, abandoning the bodies of its soldiers without disposing of them. In order to catch soldiers who had fled to the Safety Zone, the Japanese army carried out a “civilian separation” operation, and issued “good citizen certificates” to those who demonstrated that they were not secretly soldiers. Once the hunt for soldiers out of uniform had ceased, the work of burying the bodies of abandoned Chinese soldiers began. The Japanese army accomplished this though the Nanjing Autonomous Committee (its chairman was Tao Xishan), which was established on January 1. The Japanese paid 30 sen for each body buried. The actual work was contracted out to a charity organization called the Red Swastika Society. The Red Swastika Society prepared daily burial reports and received payment. The reports included the date, time, location, number of people buried, whether male or female and number of children buried. The burial records compiled from the Red Swastika Society were later submitted to the “Tokyo Trials” as materials to be used to prosecute the Japanese.

The total number of bodes recorded is 41,330. The Japanese Special Agency knew that this was a significantly inflated figure, but it tolerated this because it also provided financial support to the Autonomous Committee. In reality, it appears that the number buried was less than half of what was claimed. In any event, the number of bodies recovered from inside the castle was only 1,703, which is only 4.3% of the total. Moreover, 8 women and 26 children were found among the bodies recovered inside the castle. The Japanese did bombard inside the castle from December 10 to 12. Bodies found within the castle were likely unintended victims of bombardment. However, if a major battle or massacre of civilians had taken place inside the castle as Rigg and other claim, there should have been more than 1,703 bodies.

“Documents of the Nanjing Safety Zone”

In Chapter 1, I briefly mentioned the International Committee for the Nanjing Safety Zone. This committee was formed by 15 foreigners who remained in Nanjing, and its chairman was John Rabe, the branch manager of the German company Siemens, but day to day operations were managed by American Protestant missionaries. Their leader, missionary Wilson Mills, was the one who planned and initiated the committee. Under the pretext of protecting civilians, the committee accepted complaints from citizens and made demands of the Japanese military, and a record of these activities was published under the supervision of an organization affiliated with the Kuomintang, “Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone” (Kelly & Walsh, Shanghai). This collection lists 26 murders, 175 rapes, 131 robberies, and 75 cases of arson.

One might believe that there were “26 murders”, but if read carefully, one will see that only one of the “murders” had an actual eyewitness. For this particular case, a note was attached, “We have no right to protest against legitimate executions by the Japanese Army.” In other words, the author of the report made a point of saying that this was a legitimate execution and not an illegal “murder”. The other cases were hearsay reports or unsigned. In other words, not one of the 26 “murders” can be proven as such.

Next, let’s look at the alleged rapes: 175 of them reported by the international committee! Rigg writes that more than 80,000 people were raped between Shanghai and Nanking. 175 vs. 80,000! What is Rigg thinking? Rigg has military experience and taught at a military college, but what he has to say is shoddy and childish, because an army that rapes 80,000 people cannot be a real army at all. Rigg believes that the Japanese army did nothing more that massacre and rape. Really, only an anti-Japanese racist would shamelessly write such ridiculous things. Rigg doesn’t even see that an undisciplined army is an extremely weak army–an army that could not have possibly forced a numerically larger force to retreat.

American missionary authors of “Documentary of the Nanking Safety Zone,” even with their anti-Japanese bias, could not come up with more than 175 alleged cases of rapes. The missionaries likely had more common sense compared to Rigg.

Moreover, these 175 cases are extremely suspicious. Of these cases, 130 were said to have occurred during the day, but if Japanese troops were caught committing rapes in broad daylight in the city of Nanjing, they would have been punished with death. Japanese army discipline was strict. The other cases reportedly occurred at night. Leaving the barracks or bivouac without permission is a serious violation of military regulations. Furthermore, electricity was not fully restored in the city until the end of the year, so it would have been extremely dangerous on the streets of Nanjing to go out at night, where, for Japanese soldiers in Nanjing for the first time, everything was unfamiliar. It should be clear that the “175″ cases of rape were fabrications.

I should add one more thing. After the war, the American occupation force landed in Japan. In the 12 days between August 30 to September 10, 1945, 10,000 or so American soldiers committed 1,326 rapes within Kanagawa Prefecture alone. These figures were investigated by the Japanese police and reported by the Japanese government to the Occupation Army Headquarters–these are extremely reliable numbers. By contrast, even if we assume that 175 rapes actually occurred in Nanjing, it is one-tenth of the number of rapes committed by the US military in similar circumstances. At the time of the US occupation, peace was completely established in Japan.

As for reports of arson, these are completely false as well. This is because the Japanese military needed to quickly establish law and order in Nanking. The authorities were even wary of accidental fires. If a Japanese soldier accidentally started a fire, this would have been aiding the Chinese, as they burned anything of military value, and the careless soldier would have been severely punished. Clearly, instances of fires in the city were the work of Chinese soldiers in hiding. The “Documents of the Safety Zone” blames Japanese soldiers for arson, without any effort to investigate.

However, the “Documents of the Nanjing Safety Zone” tells us something else important and that is the population of Nanjing. As I wrote in the Preface, the population of Nanjing was 200,000 when the Japanese army entered the city. This was based on an announcement made by Police Chief Wang Gupan on November 28, and the International Committee operated on this number. The “Documents of the Nanjing Safety Zone” records that the population was 200,000 on December 17, 18, 21, and 27, and then it rose to 250,000 on January 14, and it continued to increase thereafter. The important point is not the accuracy of these population figures but that the members of the International Committee shared an understanding between them that the population did not decrease. That the population increased to 250,000 on January 14 was based on a survey conducted from December 24 to the end of the year. The result of the survey, after separating civilians from those suspected of being soldiers, showed that that the population was higher than expected.

In any case, the International Committee assumed that the population did not change since there had been no reports of a massacre or an actual massacre. This is what the “Documents of the Nanjing Safety Zone” show.

The strange belief that 200,000 lives were saved in Nanjing

Rigg offers a bizarre interpretation for the fact that the population in the Nanjing Safety Zone did not decrease.

“The scale of the killings and rapes in Nanking would have been more widespread if it had not been for efforts of the expatriate community, led by of all people a Nazi member named John Rabe, who chaired the “International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone.” Alongside individuals such as American Professor Minor Bates, Rev. Charles Riggs, Rev. John McGee, and Professor Minnie Vautrin, they, along with others, helped Rabe set up a precinct to protect civilians. Through their diplomatic skills and international pressure, they managed to keep the Japanese forces at bay, resulting the saving of approximately 200,000 lives. However, beyond the safety zone, most Chinese suffered horribly.”
(Japan’s Holocaust, Chapter 5, p.88)

He says that the 200,000 Nanjing civilians who fled to the Safety Zone were saved by diplomatic means and international pressure from the “International Committee” chaired by Rabe. And the Chinese outside the Safety Zone suffered horribly. This shows, at best, ignorance.

On December 8, Tang Shengzhi ordered all residents to evacuate to the Safety Zone, and enforced rules, stating that anyone wandering around the city without permission would be shot. Therefore, apart from a very few exceptions with special circumstances, there were no Chinese outside the Safety Zone. There were no civilians outside of the Safety zone, therefore, there were no Nanking “massacre”.

The “International Committee” claimed diplomatic means and international pressure saved them, but all embassy staff, including American embassy staff, had left Nanjing and did not return until January. There was no one in Nanking to apply the kind of pressure the International Committee supposedly had on the Japanese military. Or rather, if we talk about international pressure in general, Western newspapers and Western governments were generally hostile to Japan anyway, so the idea that all 200,000 Nanjing civilians were saved is nothing more than a fantasy. If such pressure was effective, the Japanese army would not have been able to commit massacres and rapes in the battles of Shanghai, Beijing, or anywhere else. Also, the International Committee itself consisted of only a dozen or so unarmed members, so it did not have the power to prevent intrusion into the Safety Zone and prevent massacres.

The situation in Shanghai, however, was a little different. In Shanghai, when the fighting reached the Chinese town of Nanshi, south of Shanghai, a French priest, Father Jacquinot, established a safety zone to accommodate Chinese people. This safety zone was close to the French Concession, and the French Concession authorities, including the French army, freely cooperated with the Japanese army, so the Japanese army recognized the International Committee in Shanghai as capable of maintaining neutrality. When fighting actually reached Nanshi, Chinese soldiers who fled into this zone were disarmed by the International Committee. However, in Nanjing, there was no one capable of maintaining neutrality of the Safety Zone, so the Japanese army only respected the safety of the self-declared Safety Zone as long as there were no Chinese military within it. Unlike the one in Shanghai, Japan did not officially recognize the Safety Zone in Nanjing.

To say that the lives of all 200,000 residents of Nanjing were saved is really the same as saying that the Nanjing Massacre never happened. The contradiction in this book cannot be more clear: 200,000 Nanjing citizens were saved thanks to the International Committee yet 300,000 were massacred.

For your reference, in 1997, the “Nanjing Massacre 60th Anniversary Symposium” was held in Tokyo. When Kasahara Tokuji, a representative of the massacre group, said that if the victims in the suburbs of Nanjing were added, the total number would be about 300,000, Chinese representative Sun Zuowei strongly denounced this, saying, “The number 300,000 is only for Nanjing City. Please do not expand the area or time period as you wish.” Had Rigg said that 200,000 people were “saved” at that occasion, he would have been chided by Sun Zuowei, “Don’t talk nonsense!”

The International Committee supported the Chinese Army

Most people believe that the International Committee for the Safety Zone, mainly comprised of American missionaries, was acting on humanitarian motives, but in fact this is not true, as revealed in The Truth of the Nanking Massacre Revealed by Primary Sources: Breaking the Spell of the American Missionary View of History.

The chairman of the International Committee for the Safety Zone was the German, Rabe, but the Safety Zone was founded by missionary Mills, and it was actually run by 13 missionaries. Vautrin’s diary, Days of the Nanking Massacre, states that founder Mills said the following at a meeting of fellow missionaries on the day before the first meeting to establish the Safety Zone:

“Thursday, November 18 [1937] … Confidential. At our meeting, Mr. Mills expressed the longing that instead of having all educated people trek westward that it would be far better for a group to go down and try to encourage and comfort the Chinese army and help them to see them what disorder and looting among even a small group means to China.”

The real intention of missionary Mills, who proposed the Safety Zone, was to “support the Chinese army” for the purpose of evangelization. However, the important thing is that this was not just Mills’ personal opinion.

On May 6, 1937 (two months before the Marco Polo Bridge Incident), at the general meeting of the National Christian Council held in Shanghai, in response to the appeal of Chiang Kai-shek’s wife Soong Mei-ling, a resolution was passed that Christians (Protestants), whether individuals or groups, would fully cooperate with Chiang Kai-shek’s “New Life Movement”. The New Life Movement advocated the three revitalizations in life: militarization, production, and artistic (rationalization). Chiang Kai-shek stated this in a speech on October 2, 1933.

“Militarization means spreading military organization, military discipline, military behavior, and life into politics, economics, and education, and thus turning the whole of society into a fighting force, ultimately achieving the goal that the masses are the military, the military is the masses, life is combat, and combat is life.”

In other words, fully cooperating with the New Life Movement meant fully collaborating with Chinese militarization. This was the reality of American Protestantism in China.

Colonel Huang Renlin (general secretary) was responsible for implementing the New Life Movement, Chiang Kai-shek’s confidant. On November 18, Vautrin’s diary states that: “Colonel J. L. Huang was called up and he said he would come over at once – you remember he was in charge of O. M. E. A. [Officers' Moral Endeavor Association, i.e., the "New Life Movement"] for a number of years and now has been in put in charge of the Social Service work for the army … [Hwang told Vautrin his plan to support and protect the Chinese army].”

In other words, Mills’ support for the Chinese army was planned based on the policy of the National Christian Council, and was conveyed to Colonel Huang Renlin, a confidant of Chiang Kai-shek. Mills and Huang Renlin were in cahoots.

They tried to protect stragglers hiding in the Safety Zone as “prisoners of war,” but when they found out that this was not acceptable under international law, they lied, saying, “I can absolutely guarantee that there are no groups of disarmed Chinese soldiers in this zone at present.” (Document to the Japanese Embassy, “Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone,” dated December 18, 1937). In reality, Chinese soldiers were hiding in refugee camps under the jurisdiction of American missionaries, and they were even hiding weapons.

The New York Times (January 4, 1938) carried the following article:

“American professors remaining at the Gingling College in Nanking as foreign members of the Refugee Welfare Committee were seriously embarrassed to discover that they had been harboring a deserted Chinese Army colonel and six of his subordinate officers. The professors had, in fact, made the colonel second in authority at the refugee camp. The officers, who had doffed their uniforms during the Chinese retreat from Nanking, were discovered living in one of the college buildings. They admitted their identity after Japanese Army searchers found they had hidden six rifles, five revolvers, a dismounted machine gun and ammunition in buildings.”

The lives of 200,000 civilians were not saved by the International Committee’s support of Chiang Kia-shek’s soldiers but because the Japanese army did not massacre anyone at all.

The Japanese army ordered refugees to return home on February 4, 1938 and the Safety Zone was disbanded. So, did this mean that there was an increase in murders, rapes, and so on? There are almost no records of such things. It would appear that the International Committee fabricated “incidents”.

Incidentally, we will discuss the “photographs” that are often used as evidence of so-called genocide in the next chapter, Chapter 5.
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