In Nanjing, the guide from the Chinese Communist Party–affiliated Massacre Research Association claimed that “prominent Japanese journalists”—Honda Katsuichi, Chikushi Tetsuya, and Kume Hiroshi—had fully accepted China’s massacre narrative. Masayuki Takayama contrasts such unverified reporting with records by writer Ishikawa Tatsuzō and contemporaneous Asahi photos showing a calm city. This chapter exposes how influential Japanese media figures repeated Chinese claims without investigation, shaping decades of misinformation.

2016-01-06

The following continues from the previous chapter.

Emphasis in the text is mine.

At the time, there were not even 200,000 civilians in Nanjing.

After the Japanese Army entered the city, order returned, and photographs appeared even in Asahi Shimbun showing Japanese soldiers getting their beards trimmed by Chinese barbers along the roadside.

Ishikawa Tatsuzō, the writer who came as a war correspondent during what China claims was a period of “killing 7,000 people a day for six straight weeks,” of course saw no such massacre.

In his later work The Wuhan Operation, he includes a scene based on the peaceful Nanjing he saw.

Sergeant Noguchi speaks to a private.
“You’re limping. Are you healed?”
“I’ll be completely recovered in a couple more days.”
“Which hospital were you in?”
“I was in Nanjing.”
“Is Nanjing lively again?”
“Yes, there are cafés and everything. Even neon signs are lit.”

The guide in Nanjing was a member of the Nanjing Massacre Research Association, a subordinate organization of the Chinese Communist Party.
His name was Dai Guowei, and he spoke in Japanese, describing the “massacre by the Japanese Army” as if he had witnessed it with his own eyes.

As he spoke, he seemed vaguely aware of how absurd his claims were.
When those contradictions were pointed out, he stared back in astonishment.
It was the same expression as that American I had met earlier.

Dai then doubled down.

“I have guided prominent Japanese journalists as well. They were all convinced. There were no objections.”

When asked who those “prominent” people were, he said:
“Honda Katsuichi of Asahi Shimbun,”
“Chikushi Tetsuya,”
“Kume Hiroshi,”
and so on.

“I also tell the story to Japanese tourists. When I do, they all say they feel sorry. Some even cry and apologize.”

Japanese reactions at such moments are exactly like what I heard from that American.

The real problem is that whether they are truly ‘prominent’ or not, Honda, Chikushi, and Kume were at least journalists in name.
Yet they did not verify or investigate any of China’s claims.
They spread these fabrications as if they were unquestionable truth.

This chapter continues.