The Lunacy of Anti-Japanese Racism: Unmasking “Japan’s Holocaust”　Chapter 6: The Big Lie of the Massacre of 20 Million Chinese

Chapter 6: The Big Lie of the Massacre of 20 Million Chinese

“In July 1937, Japan launched a full-scale war against China, ultimately taking over the equivalent to half of the U.S. in landmass over the next year. This conflict was ignited by the Marco Polo Bridge Incident near Beijing on July 7 near Beijing when Japanese and Chinese troops clashed.”
(Japan’s Holocaust, Chapter 4, p.58)

Rigg’s assertion is completely wrong from the start. Japan did not start a full-scale war with China in July 1937.

It was China, not Japan, that started full-scale war!

When the Marco Polo Bridge Incident occurred on July 7, the Japanese garrison in China had 5,600 soldiers stationed between Tianjin and Beijing, but this was for the purpose of protecting Japanese residents, as allowed by the Beijing Protocol concluded after the end of the Boxer Rebellion. Britain, America, France, and others also had garrisons in China. Stationing foreign troops in China was completely legal. Furthermore, there was a not single incident of Japanese soldiers stationed in China harming Chinese people in the previous year, 1936. By contrast, there were 17 reported Chinese (some military others mobs) attacks on Japanese in 1936, many ending with deaths (see table on the next page).

It was impossible for the Japanese military to deal out retribution. This was because the Chinese 27th Army under Song Zheyuan’s command, stationed in North China, had a strength of about 100,000 and the Japanese government was striving to build friendly relations with the Chiang Kai-shek government.

On July 7, 135 men of the 8th Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment of the (Japanese) China Garrison Army were conducting training on the riverbed on the left bank of the Yongding River north of the Marco Polo Bridge, when several shots were fired at them at around 10:10 p.m. as the training was coming to an end. A little while later, a dozen shots were fired from the bank behind them. Japanese troops gathered and prepared for further Chinese attack. Three more shots were fired at 3:25 the next morning, and after the fourth shot at 5:30, the Japanese troops launched a counterattack. This was seven hours after the first shooting. I have documented in detail in my book, The Second Sino-Japanese War: The True Opposite Truth (Heart Publishing), that the shootings were
Successive anti-Japanese terrorist attacks in 1936

(・November 9, 1935, First Class Seaman Nakayama Hideo of the Shanghai Naval Landing Force was shot to death.)

- January 21, Consulate police Tsunoda Sentou was shot to death.
- On the night of June 30th, carpenter Iwata Gunzo was attacked by 14 or 15 Chinese people in Qingdao and left in critical condition.
- On the night of July 10th, Mitsubishi Corporation employee Sugao Kosaku was shot in the head near his home in Shanghai and died instantly.
- On August 20th, a bomb was thrown at the Shonan Hotel in Changsha. One Japanese national was slightly injured.
- On August 21st, in Beijing, Morikawa Taro (a Korean national) was beaten by soldiers of the 29th Army and seriously injured.
- On August 24th, the Chengdu Incident occurred. Two Japanese newspaper reporters were attacked by a mob and killed, and two others seriously injured.
- On September 3rd, Nakano Junzo, who ran the pharmacy “Maruichi Yoko” in Beihai, Guangdong Province, was murdered by an anti-Japanese group that broke into his home while he was eating.
- On the night of September 17th, a bomb was thrown at a Japanese store in Shantou, but it failed to explode.
- On September 18th, Second Lieutenant Koiwai Mitsuo of the first company of the Japanese army was beaten on his horse by Feng security soldiers on his way back from training at Fengtai, and a nurse was also assaulted.
- On September 19th, Officer Yoshioka Teijiro, who was on patrol at the border between the Japanese Concession and the former British Concession in Hankou, was hit in the back of the head by a Chinese man, who approached him from behind, and died instantly.
- On the night of September 23rd, several Chinese shot at four Japanese sailors walking along Haining Road in Shanghai. Second Class Seaman Taminato was killed instantly, and two were seriously injured.
- On September 27th, the Shotan Nissin Steamship Company office and warehouse in Changsha were set on fire (no serious damage occurred).
- On the night of October 21st, a member of the Naval Landing Force was attacked by five Chinese in Shanghai, his clothes ripped to shreds, and he sustained serious injuries, including teeth being knocked out.
・On November 2nd, Yamagishi Kenzo, who had lived in Changsha, Hunan for 30 years, was attacked and injured at his home.
・On November 5th, Kagoshima Shigeru, who was walking with his wife and child in Shanghai, was attacked with a knife and injured in the neck.
・On the night of November 11th, Takase Yasuji (a sailor from the Kasagi Maru) was shot while walking in Shanghai and died instantly.
・On November 25th, a clerk at Komyo Yoko in Shanghai, Hayashi Kunihiko, was hit in the shoulder by a bottle of sulfuric acid, but was uninjured. The bottle had a message attached to it saying “Kill all the Japanese.”

*There were 17 terrorist attacks in one year (18 if you add the end of the previous year). These attacks show the disgusting result of the Kuomintang government’s anti-Japanese education.)

started by Communist elements who infiltrated the 29th Army, so I would like you to take a look at my book. Furthermore, there is indisputable evidence that it was caused by the Chinese side.

On July 11, four days after the incident, the following local ceasefire agreement was signed:

1. The representative of the 29th Army express regret to the Japanese military, and declares that they would take disciplinary action against those responsible and take responsibility to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future.

2. As Chinese troops were too close to the Japanese troops stationed at Fengtai and it was easy for incidents to occur, no troops will station near the Marco Polo Bridge or the Yongding River, and security forces are used to maintain order there.

3. Considering that this incident was largely due to the leadership of the so-called Blue Shirt Society, the Communist Party, and various other anti-Japanese groups, measures will be taken in the future and crackdowns will be thoroughly implemented.

In paragraph 1, the representative of the 29th Army fully acknowledged responsibility for the incident and apologized. Furthermore, in paragraph 3, since the Communist Party and others are suspect, the Chinese promised to thoroughly implement countermeasures and crackdowns.

However, the Chinese army thereafter continued to violate this ceasefire agreement, and Japan ended up sending two divisions from homeland to protect Japanese residents–this was by no means a beginning of an all-out attack on China. On July 29, the Chinese brutally murdered 225 Japanese civilians, which became known as the “Tongzhou Incident.” American journalist Frederick Vincent Williams wrote in Behind the News in China that “This was at Tun[g]chow, the ancient city whose name will go down the centuries as one of the blackest marks against China.” Even though the voices for “punishing the violent Chinese” grew louder nationwide, the Japanese government decided on a groundbreaking peace plan (the “Funatsu Peace Plan”) without changing its policy of non-expansion, and entered into diplomatic negotiations with the Chinese.

However, on the evening of the first day of the peace negotiations (August 9), Lieutenant Oyama Isao and First Class Seaman Saito Yozo of the Japanese Naval Landing Force stationed in Shanghai were brutally murdered while on patrol, stalling the peace talks. The widely recognized book Mao, released simultaneously in 10 countries around the world, stated that the murders were ordered by Zhang Zhizhong, who was a “sleeper” Chinese Communist Party member in the Kuomintang and commander of the Nanjing and Shanghai garrisons. There is no doubt that these assassinations were the work of the Chinese Communist Party, a gang of thugs that did not want peace.

Then, four days later, on August 13, as I wrote at the beginning of Chapter 4, “The Truth About the Battle of Shanghai,” 30,000 Chinese regular troops infiltrated the Shanghai demilitarized zone and launched an all-out attack on 4,500 Japanese naval landing troops which guarded 30,000 Japanese residents. On the August 14, aircraft were also mobilized for the attack. As this was not sufficient to protect the safety of the Japanese residents, it was decided to send two divisions from Japan. On August 15, Chiang Kai-shek issued the order for national mobilization and became General Commander of Army, Navy and Air Force.

Thus, it is clear that “China launched an all-out war against Japan,” and not that “Japan launched an all-out war with China.” This is the unvarnished truth. Furthermore, Rigg writes, “ultimately taking over the equivalent to half of the U.S. in landmass over the next year.” This sounds as if Japan invaded China and tried to make China her own, but the facts do not support this bizarre statement.

Japan’s peace plan did not demand even a single piece of territory.

That Japan had no plan to “take over” can be clearly seen by looking at Japan’s peace proposal. On October 27, when victory in the Battle of Shanghai was certain, Foreign Minister Hirota informed Britain, the United States, France, Germany, and Italy that he was prepared to accept third party mediation for Japan-China negotiations. In the end, it was decided that Germany would be asked to mediate the peace process, and on November 2, Japan formally notified the German ambassador to Japan Eduard von Dirksen of Japan’s seven peace conditions. These were almost identical to the Funatsu Peace Plan, so much so that Ambassador Dirksen reported to his home country that they were “extremely moderate, and Nanking could accept them without losing face.” The German government also deemed Japan’s peace conditions reasonable, and notified Chiang Kai-shek of Japan’s conditions through German Ambassador to China Oskar Trautmann. However, Chiang Kai-shek rejected this peace proposal, as he had high hopes for the Nine-Power Conference to be held in Brussels in November. However, Chiang’s thoughtless tactic, of complaining about violations of the Nine-Power Treaty after starting a war himself, did not go over well. In the end, Chiang’s plan did not work.

On December 2, as the fall of Nanjing was approaching, Ambassador Trautmann met with Chiang Kai-shek again to discuss peace, and Chiang Kai-shek replied that he would consider it if it was the same as the previous proposal. However, Nanjing fell shortly thereafter, and additional Japanese demands were raised regarding the peace terms, and as a result, it was not possible to keep it the same as the previous proposal. The peace terms decided at a Japanese cabinet meeting on December 21 were as follows:

1. China should abandon its pro-Communist and anti-Japanese and Manchuria policies and cooperate with Japan and Manchuria in a joint anti-Communist policy.

2. A non-military zone would be created in each required area with a special organization set up there.

3. An economic agreement would be reached among Japan, Manchuria, and China.

4. China would be required to pay an indemnity to imperial Japan.

(Attachment)
Details of the conditions for Japan-China peace negotiations

1. China will officially recognize Manchukuo.

2. China will abandon its anti-Japanese and anti-Manchu policies.

3. A demilitarized zone will be established in North China and Inner Mongolia.

4. North China will establish an appropriate organization under Chinese sovereignty to realize the coexistence and co-prosperity of Japan, Manchuria, and China, and will be granted broad authority, especially to achieve economic cooperation between Japan, Manchuria, and China.

Nowhere does this say that Japan will “take over” China, or that Japan will demand territory, or any rights or interests. In fact, in terms of territory, Japan was the first westernized country to return its concessions to China. The peace plan did not demand a single sliver of territory. At this point, Japan had not occupied territory “equivalent to half of the United States.” Japan in fact occupied “4,000 square miles of China, an area the size of the state of Connecticut” (p.67). In other words, Japan occupied Beijing, North China, Shanghai, Nanjing, and some other crucial parts of China. Despite this, the peace terms were that everything, including North China, would be under Chinese sovereignty, and Japan did not claim a single piece of territory for herself.

As I have said before, it was China that started this war and expanded it. It is clearly a complete lie to say that Japan invaded and took over Chinese territory, as Rigg claims. The problem with the peace terms, though, is the demand for reparations. This was added to the originally proposed terms, and in my personal opinion, I think this was a foolish move. However, I think that Japanese government added reparations because they succumbed to public opinion. Anyway, even if this was the case, the peace terms cannot be considered aggressive or “aggression” at all. The actual fact is that Japan intended on building a friendly and cooperative relationship with China.

The mystery of how 4.39 million suddenly became 20 million

As I wrote in the preface, in 1947, two years after the end of the war, the Chinese Nationalist government (Chiang Kai-shek’s government) announced that the number of civilian deaths in the Sino-Japanese War was 4.39 million. It is simply a mystery as to how this figure exploded to nearly five times that number, 20 million. The 20 million figure was probably based on the figure announced by the Communist government. In 1985, the Chinese Communists claimed 20 million military and civilians died. Furthermore, 10 years after that, in 1995, 35 million died.

Anyone who is rational will get an odd feeling in seeing large changes in the number of civilian deaths. First of all, Chinese deaths are often exaggerated. For example, a typical Chinese exaggeration is “a legendary wizard with extremely long hair of 3,000 jyo (丈) length.” Therefore, we must assume that the figures announced by the Kuomintang government are also quite exaggerated or inaccurate. The number of Chinese civilian deaths is said to be 4.39 million, but this is clearly an exaggeration when compared to the number of military deaths, 1.32 million, announced the previous year in 1946. This is because the Japanese military did not engage in indiscriminate attacks on civilians.

First of all, I explained in detail in Chapter 4 that depictions in Rigg’s book of Japanese soldiers killing and raping Chinese civilians who were unable to escape during the Japanese military advance are completely wrong. Rather, I have shown that these were victims of retreating and defeated Chinese soldiers. This leads us then to estimate that the majority of the “4.39 million civilian deaths” were caused by fleeing, defeated Chinese soldiers. Let’s take up the Yellow River flooding operation as a typical example of the Kuomintang military’s callousness to the suffering it inflicts on its own people.

The Kuomintang army caused the Yellow River to burst from its levees and killed 1 million Chinese.

In April of the year after Japanese entry into Nanjing, 1938, Japan discovered that 500,000 to 600,000 soldiers of Chiang Kai-shek’s army had gathered in Xuzhou, and a plan was made to surround and annihilate them (Operation Xuzhou) and launched in May. The Japanese force numbered about 200,000, too few to surround the Chinese army, but they forced the Chinese army to retreat. To avoid pursuit, the Chinese army carried out an extremely cruel operation, of destroying the Yellow River levees. As a result, 54,000 square kilometers of land in three provinces, Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu, were flooded. The flooded area covered 11 cities and 4,000 villages. Farmland in the three provinces was destroyed along with any crops. It is said that 1 million people drowned and 6 million people were injured. (There are various claims on the extent of the damage.) In any case, it was the Kuomintang army that carried out such an inhumane operation, even though they knew that tremendous hardship would be inflicted on the people.

When flooding occurred, the Kuomintang, as usual, used propaganda warfare, announcing both at home and abroad that the flood was caused by the Japanese army airplanes dropping bombs. However, the truth gradually came out and the first foreign media to report that the flood was a disaster self-inflicted by the Chinese army was the French Radical-Socialist Party’s newspaper, Republic News Daily.

The Kuomintang government confessed the truth in 1976 in the Collected Essays on War History. (Edited by Zhang Qijun, and written by then-corps engineer staff officer, “Actual Record of the Bank Burst of the Yellow River During the Anti-Japanese War.”) Six years later, Wei Rulin, who was then Chief of Staff of the 20th Group Army and the person who carried out the destruction of the levee, also described the incident in detail in “Actual Record of the Bank Burst of the Yellow River During the Anti-Japanese War” (War History Society Publication No. 14, 1982). According to this, after the Battle of Xuzhou, Chiang ordered a breach to be opened in the Yellow River levee, causing it to burst. This was then stated to other countries that breaching the levees was a “water attack by the Japanese army.”

In fact, on the morning of June 11, the day of the collapse, the Central News Agency, an organ of the Kuomintang, reported falsely that “the Yellow River burst due to a Japanese air strike.” On the following day, June 13, all media outlets across the country were mobilized to publicize the outrageous act of the Japanese army bursting the Yellow River. In response, public opinion in various countries also criticized Japan. However, the truth was discovered by a veteran foreign journalist, and on June 17, the French Radical Socialist Party’s newspaper, Republic News Daily reported that it was a foolish act staged by the Kuomintang.

When the Yellow River burst, the Japanese army not only repaired the levee but also carried out rescue operations and epidemic prevention for Chinese residents. This is because infectious diseases tend to spread after flooding. Many newspapers reported that the Japanese army was carrying out rescue operations for the residents.

This picture was published in the July 1938 issue of the Mainichi Shimbun and was re-published in the China Incident Pictorial Magazine.

It is said that the number of refugees rescued by the Japanese army was 10,000 in the Kaifeng area, 50,000 in the Zhuxianzhen and Tongxu areas, 20,000 in the Weishi area, and tens of thousands elsewhere. In total, nearly 100,000 were rescued.

Rigg’s description of Japanese soldiers massacring helpless Chinese residents is a horrible lie, a false image created by an anti-Japanese racist fantasy.

The ”4.39 million deaths” would include 1 million victims of the Yellow River flooding. According to “The Secret History of the Yellow River Burst in the Anti-Japanese War” , there were 12 flooding operations, including the Yangtze River, including failed ones. Therefore, the number of people killed by the Kuomintang must be considerable. To put it bluntly, I would even go so far as to think that the majority of the civilian deaths were caused by the Nationalists. Undoubtedly, Rigg’s assertions are completely off the mark.

In fact, Rigg writes about the Yellow River Flood Operation in Chapter 16.

“On the fateful night of June 20, 1938, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the strategic collapse of the levees holding back the Yellow River near Chengzhu. … It is estimated that at least one million people died by drowning or from subsequent disease and starvation. Despite the enormous human losses, this desperate measure succeeded in preventing the Japanese from further conquering China. Moreover, it dealt a serious blow to the Japanese military forces, with most of the Japanese 14th Division under General Doihara drowning in the raging torrent and most of the soldiers drowning.”
(Japan’s Holocaust, Chapter 16, p. 185)

The depiction here is atrocious. However, Rigg writes that this extremely inhuman and criminal operation undertaken by Chiang Kai-shek was a good thing. He writes off the deaths of one million Chinese civilian people as an “enormous loss.” I cannot help but question Rigg’s humanity.

And Rigg writes bigger lies that makes sound like this flooding operation was effective. For example, he writes that most of the 14th Division under Lieutenant General Doihara drowned in the raging torrent. In fact, the 14th Division sent over a hundred rafts to Zhongmu to rescue Chinese peasants—and very few soldiers were killed. This is the kind of lies that Rigg casually writes in this book; a completely unreliable book.

Furthermore, because of the Nationalist’s flooding operation, the Japanese army temporarily halted its advance from Central China to Wuhan. They were forced to change course, but in the end they detoured to eastern China, organized the Central China Expeditionary Army, and succeeded in taking Wuhan a few months later. So the truth is that this Nationalist operation brought great suffering only to Chinese civilians.

Burning of Changsha City

I have mentioned that the Chinese Nationalist Party carried out 12 other breaches in addition to the Yellow River breach, but the “burning of the city” operation, in which entire town was burned down, was also a strategy that the Nationalist Party often carried out, sacrificing the residents. One typical example is the burning of the city in Changsha. Rigg often writes as if it were the Japanese army that burned down the town, without knowing that it was the Chinese army that carried out such operations, so let me introduce it. In “The Second Sino-Japanese War Was Not an Aggressive War by Japan”, Huang Wenxiong writes that “the burning of Changsha City is a traditional Chinese plan to burn the city.”

“In the early hours of January 12, 1938, a fire broke out at the wounded soldiers’ hospital outside the south gate of Changsha city in Hunan province. In fact, at the time, Chinese soldiers had been ordered by the Changsha Guard Commander to burn down the city if attacked by the Japanese army, and they misunderstood the flames as a signal to do so. The Japanese army was several hundred kilo meters away from Changsha at the time. Soon, fires began to be set in various places, and looting from civilians also began.

As a result of the Chinese army’s arson, a huge fire broke out in the city, and after three days and nights the city was reduced to ruins, with over 200,000 dead.

On the 16th, when Chiang Kai-shek came to inspect the city from the mountains of Nanyue, he received a fierce protest from infuriated citizens. He shot and killed three people: the Changsha security commander, the head of the security corps, and the head of the provincial police bureau. However, this was a scapegoat that Chiang Kai-shek had set up to avoid taking responsibility for himself.

The reason is that on November 12, 1937, the previous year, Chiang Kai-shek had sent a telegram to Zhang Zizhong, the head of Hunan Province, ordering, “If Changsha falls, be sure to burn down the entire city. Make thorough preparations in advance.” The day before, the Japanese army, which had taken Wuhan and moved south along the Yue-Han Railway, had also captured Yueyang. Chiang Kai-shek predicted that the next target of the Japanese army would be Changsha, and planned one of the traditional Chinese siege strategies, “burning the city.” However, this plan did not take into account the evacuation of residents.”

The Chinese Communist Party exaggerates by 50 times

I mentioned earlier, the number killed by the Japanese army is significantly less than “4.39 million.”; the number of Chinese civilians killed by the Japanese army is significantly 　　 less than that killed by the Chinese military. Let’s consider two cases mentioned above. Within two cases alone, the Kuomintang killed 1.2 million Chinese civilians. So, 1.2 million can be subtracted from 4.30 million., leaving 3.19 million. There were many other similar cases of Kuomintang murdering its own citizens, such as with 12 other dam breaks, Separately, counting the Chinese army’s looting and murder during the retreat, number of civilians killed will be at 3 million. Subtracting 3 million or so from 4.39 million, and we are left with 1 million or so.

Now, Rigg’s number of “20 million” is 20 times 1 million. If the number killed is 2 million, then Rigg’s figure is only inflated 10 times. Anyway, generating imaginary numbers is nothing for the Communist Party.

The Sino-Japanese War was a battle between Japan and the Kuomintang government, and although the Communist Party adopted a policy of cooperation with the Kuomintang, it was the Kuomintang army that actually fought most of the battles, with the Communist army participating in a few battles. This was only natural, as Mao Zedong issued the following guidelines: “Devote 70% … toward party expansion, 20% toward dealing with the Nationalists, and 10% toward fighting Japan.” Therefore, since the majority of deaths were caused by battles between the Kuomintang army and the Japanese army, there is no way the Communist Party could have produced figures without completely ignoring Kuomintang numbers. There is no truth to the Communists figures. However, the Communist government, which strictly regulates speech and monitors the media, can say whatever it wants, and so it can make up any figure that it wants—10 or 20 times higher than actual figures.

Just how badly the Communist Party exaggerates its military efforts in the propaganda war can be seen in the case of the Battle of Pingji Pass, which the Communist Party has widely sold as a Communist victory over the Japanese army. On September 25, 1937, the 115th Division under the command of Lin Biao attacked a supply unit of the Japanese 5th Division. The Communists claimed that they had annihilated 10,000 Japanese soldiers. The news was widely spread as the first victory of the Chinese military over the Japanese, greatly enhancing the image of the Communist army. However, it is now confirmed that Lin Biao’s troops, which were deployed under orders from the Kuomintang, merely killed or wounded 200 soldiers in a lightly-armed transport train moving through the valley. In other words, the “official announcement” exaggerated results of the battle by 50 times.

So, the figure “4.39 million,” which is also exaggerated, is sort of close to the actual number of less than 1 million. It is not surprising that the Communist government would claim “20 million” deaths, which is twenty times the actual number. Moreover, the “20 million” military and civilians deaths increased to “35 million” military and civilians deaths ten years later in 1995. This tactic is common and not beneath the Communist Party because of its true, insidious nature. To foolishly accept something like this without reflection and claim that Japan massacred 20 million Chinese citizens leads thoughtful people to the conclusion that Rigg’s book is an extremely low-class, non-scholarly, and maliciously anti-Japanese book written by an author motivated purely by racism.