Through testimony concerning the 1937 Tongzhou Incident and a dialogue between Masayuki Takayama and Tadanobu Bando, this article examines anti-Japanese education under the Chinese Communist Party, concepts of total retaliation against an enemy, and historical differences between Japanese and Chinese approaches to warfare.
It argues that Japan must understand the historical narratives and patterns of conduct behind Chinese policy rather than relying on the phrase “Japan-China friendship.”

2020-07-07
The following continues from the preceding chapter.
This chapter concerns the Tongzhou Incident of 1937, in which a large number of people, including Japanese civilian residents, were killed in Tongzhou, China.
Through testimony attributed to a survivor named Ten Sasaki, Masayuki Takayama and Tadanobu Bando discuss the brutality of the incident, historical attitudes toward defeated enemies, and the influence of anti-Japanese education.
Naturally, the fact that the perpetrators in a particular incident were Chinese does not justify treating every Chinese individual as possessing the same character.
Responsibility for crime and atrocity belongs to the individuals and organizations that ordered, carried out, or supported those acts.
At the same time, it cannot be denied that state education, historical narratives, concepts of friend and enemy, and attitudes toward law and violence can influence human conduct.
The purpose of this article is therefore not to condemn a nationality.
It is to clarify the problems that Takayama and Bando identify through their discussion of the Tongzhou Incident, anti-Japanese education, and historical culture.
The original dialogue contains extremely graphic descriptions of sexual violence and mutilation.
Out of respect for the victims, the precise physical details are not reproduced here.
The events are described only to the extent necessary to convey the substance of the discussion.
【“Do Not Believe in Japan-China Friendship”】
Takayama
It is appalling.
At first, I wondered whether such crimes reflected only the abnormality of especially vicious individual offenders.
However, it appears that the matter cannot be explained so simply.
Nobukatsu Fujioka investigated the Tongzhou Incident and published a book about it.
The testimony of Ten Sasaki, who witnessed the incident, is particularly striking.
Bando
The Tongzhou Incident occurred in 1937 in Tongzhou, now part of Beijing’s Tongzhou District.
Chinese units belonging to the security forces of the East Hebei Autonomous Council attacked the Japanese garrison, the Japanese special-service organization, and Japanese civilian residents.
More than two hundred people are reported to have been killed.
Takayama
Ten Sasaki had previously worked in a licensed quarter and later married a Chinese man.
Because the couple happened to be in Tongzhou, she witnessed the incident.
Chinese units attacked Japanese homes one after another.
Entire families were dragged outside.
Women were subjected to sexual violence, and victims were killed in exceptionally brutal ways involving mutilation.
According to the testimony, crowds gathered and watched.
When the attack on one household ended, the armed group and the crowd moved on to the next Japanese home.
Ten’s Chinese husband took her by the hand and attempted to follow the others to the site of the next atrocity.
When she saw her husband acting in that way, she concluded that she could no longer live with him.
She later divorced him and returned to Japan.
Her testimony quietly conveys how human life and dignity were treated at the scene.
Takayama argues that brutal crimes involving Chinese suspects in Japan should not always be examined solely as isolated acts committed by unusually vicious individuals.
He believes that the possible influence of history, culture, and education must also be considered.
For many years, education in China has emphasized the claim that Japan committed extreme atrocities against the Chinese people before and during the war.
Takayama argues that such education risks creating a belief that violence against Japanese people may be justified as historical retaliation.
He therefore asks whether Chinese Communist Party leaders such as Li Peng—and even children educated under the system—understand the phrase “Japan-China friendship” in the same way that many Japanese people do.
Bando
If we do not understand the principles governing the conduct of the other side, diplomatic negotiations based only on theory will not allow us to anticipate its next move.
In Chinese society, when a conflict occurs, one sometimes observes a tendency to defeat the opponent so thoroughly that the opponent cannot rise again.
The historical and cultural origins of society may help to explain this attitude.
Consider, for example, the different ways in which towns were constructed.
In Japanese castle towns, merchant houses and farms generally existed outside the main castle enclosure.
In China, by contrast, an entire town was often enclosed within defensive walls.
Consequently, war could become not merely a contest between one army and another but a struggle between entire walled communities.
Once an attacking force entered the walls, the distinction between soldiers and civilians could disappear, and the population as a whole could become a target.
Takayama
The walls surrounding Nanjing were also exceptionally broad and constructed in multiple defensive layers.
They were wide enough for vehicles and carriages to travel along them.
Bando
Differences in urban structure and in the historical form of warfare may have contributed to different attitudes in Japan and China concerning the treatment of an enemy.
Takayama
To understand China, we must consider not only its present political system but also differences in historical and cultural background.
To be continued.