Kō Bun’yū, a Taiwanese scholar of civilization, analyzes Chinese history as a continuous history of massacres.
His work exposes the cultural foundations of violence long ignored by international institutions such as UNESCO.

2016-10-10
Kō Bun’yū is a scholar who may rightly be called the foremost authority in the world today on Chinese history and Chinese culture and traditions.
Kō Bun’yū is Taiwanese.
He is a scholar who may rightly be called the foremost authority in the world today on Chinese history and Chinese culture and traditions.
As already noted, when I was struck by the sheer awfulness of the late-stage conduct of former South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, I searched online to understand what kind of country South Korea really was, and within one hour I grasped its true nature.
It was at that time that I came to know Kō Bun’yū.
Even regarding him, readers of the Asahi Shimbun knew absolutely nothing.
Readers of the Asahi, Mainichi, and Tokyo newspapers surely know nothing even now.
Of course, people around the world know nothing at all.
United Nations officials living on high salaries paid with money Japan continues to provide, especially UNESCO officials, know absolutely nothing.
That is to say, they know nothing whatsoever about Chinese history or about Chinese culture and traditions.
The same is likely true of their knowledge of Japanese history and culture.
Regarding Japan, they appear to uncritically accept whatever China says, to a degree that makes one wonder what sort of intellect they possess.
And yet Japan has continued to pay high salaries to such people with our tax money for decades.
If the Democratic Party was going to conduct budget screenings, it should have screened the payments made to these people above all else.

What follows is from an article by Kō Bun’yū that appeared after the substantial work of Ara-senpai in the March issue of Bessatsu Seiron 26 released this year.

The Mentality of China Revealed in Chiang Kai-shek’s Massacres of Civilians.
What Is the Background Behind the Fabrication of “Japanese Military Atrocities”.
Kō Bun’yū.
Commentator and Scholar of Civilizational History.

Massacre as a traditional culture of China.
It is entirely natural that social systems differ according to history and ecology, and that customs and cultures differ as well.
Unlike neighboring countries that experienced the Chinese Civil War, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, postwar Japan has maintained peace for seventy years, a rare case in the world.
This is not because of “Article 9 of the Constitution,” nor due to anyone’s particular efforts or the wisdom of enlightened leaders.
I believe it is due to the structure of society itself.
There were centuries of peace in the Edo and Heian periods, and the peace of the Jōmon period was even longer.
This reflects a social structure born directly from the natural environment.
Japan’s gods do not have anything resembling the “wars of the gods” of ancient Greece.
China, where there was not a single year without war, and Japan differ in both society and culture.
War is an extension of daily life and customs, and also a form of culture.
The reason the forms of war between Japan and China differ is because their cultures of war differ.
In Japan, warriors have traditionally been the main actors in war.
In China, where total war was common, there was no leisure for peasants to watch battles from mountain slopes, as they did during Japan’s battles of Shizugatake or Sekigahara.
The capital cities of dynasties were surrounded by double and triple layers of walls, and even villages and schools were enclosed.
It was not only the Great Wall.
In China, where the form of war differed, “massacre” became a tradition and a custom, and from the Warring States period onward, “slaughtering cities—killing everyone within” became a major celebratory event of victory.
In capitals such as Chang’an, Luoyang, and Kaifeng, large-scale massacres carried out by successive dynasties are well known.
Warfare histories frequently mention “burying alive.”
The Qin general Bai Qi’s burial alive of more than 400,000 surrendered Zhao soldiers is famous in history.
It was common for generals to gather enemy corpses and build “jingguan” mounds to boast of their military achievements.
The remains of these practices are the “wanrenkeng” mass graves.
Collective armed conflicts between villages and clans, known as “xiedou,” have continued from prehistoric times, through the Cultural Revolution of the People’s Republic, and even to the present day.
Massacres carried out with weapons, led not only by local elders but even by Party secretaries, have become customary practices among the populace.
In particular, civilian martial arts groups carried out not only the suppression of bandits but also the mass killing of those of other faiths.
The mass slaughter of Muslims at the end of the nineteenth century and the mass slaughter of Christians during the Boxer Rebellion in the early twentieth century became major historical events.
During the Cultural Revolution, all religions were eradicated.
The world was shocked by the June Fourth Tiananmen massacre in 1989, but this reflects a China view that “sees the tree but not the forest.”

Reading Chinese history as a history of massacres.
Liang Qichao, a towering figure of modern Chinese thought, referred to the Chinese people as “slaughtered subjects.”
This was likely because they could not escape frequent wars and massacres.
The mentality of indifference to others and of “rejoicing in the misfortune of others” among the Chinese stems from living in such a world.
For this reason, modern Chinese are sometimes described as “fortunate survivors.”
Some read Chinese history as a “history of slavery.”
Lu Xun argued that it could be divided into two periods: a time when people tried but failed to become slaves, and a time when they succeeded in becoming slaves and were temporarily satisfied.
The basis for reading Chinese history as a history of massacres lies not only in the live burials and city slaughters of the ancient Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods.
The mutual killings of the Republican era and the “armed struggles” of the Cultural Revolution also apply, with victims said to number over one hundred million.
The Black Book of Communism records more than eighty million victims of bloody purges by the People’s Republic.
Even the official histories of each dynasty alone can be read as an unparalleled “history of massacres.”
To be continued.