This article reconstructs the core arguments of modern Japanese history researcher Hideo Tanaka’s essay “F. V. Williams’ Testimony: Inside China’s War Propaganda,” published in the January issue of the magazine WiLL. Starting from China’s harsh response to Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks on a “situation that threatens Japan’s survival,” it exposes the deception behind the Chinese Communist Party’s narrative of “the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japan” and the “World Anti-Fascist War.” Drawing on F. V. Williams’ 1938 book Behind the News in China’s War Propaganda, it revisits Japanese rule in Taiwan and the 2.28 Incident, the Tongzhou massacre and Japan’s lack of reprisals, and the missionary-driven propaganda network that created the Nanjing Massacre story for Western media. At the same time, it highlights Japan’s chronic weakness in information warfare, the current disadvantage over the comfort women issue, and Williams’ insistence that “the slave-girl business was China’s,” while reassessing his early warnings about communism and the Soviet–Chinese threat. The piece presents his testimony as a vital historical record that Japan and the wider world must read today.

This is a reconstructed selection of the most important portions from the article “The Testimony of F. V. Williams: Inside China’s War Propaganda” by modern Japanese history researcher Hideo Tanaka, published in the January issue of the monthly magazine WiLL.
It is an essential article that must be read not only by the Japanese people but by people all over the world.

The Japanese are poor at propaganda.
Is it acceptable that even today Japan continues to be criticized by Korea and China over the comfort women issue?
“Reflect on your history of aggression”? —
China has reacted strongly to Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s policy speech and her remarks in the Diet referring to a “situation that could threaten Japan’s survival.”
This reaction targets her expressed concerns over the military activities of China, North Korea, and Russia, and her references to the Taiwan issue.
While I leave commentary on this matter itself to others, what concerns me here is China’s historical perception.

“This year marks the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War.
Japan is urged to deeply reflect on its history of aggression, to uphold the path of peace, to exercise caution in its words and actions in the field of military security, and not to further lose the trust of neighboring Asian countries and the international community.”
This is the sermon delivered by Guo Jiakun, spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

It is true that Japan lost the war 80 years ago.
However, the opponent that Japan lost to was the United States, not China.
One may say that Japan lost to the Allied Powers, but Mao Zedong, the leader of the Chinese Communist Party, spent his time sleeping in caves in Yan’an, and the Communist forces fought the Japanese Army almost exclusively through guerrilla warfare.
They also did not defeat the Nationalist Army.

The concept of fascism is a “term of abuse” that can be used in any manner one likes.
It would not be an exaggeration to call the People’s Republic of China, founded in 1949, a fascist state.
Who could claim that a state that produced horrors such as the Cultural Revolution is not a fascist state?

Brian Rigg, author of the recently discussed book Japan’s Holocaust, claims that the Japanese Army committed a Holocaust of 30 million people in Asia.
Yet the same author also states that Mao Zedong carried out a Holocaust of 70 million people.

When they speak of a “history of aggression,” Japan understood the danger of communist ideology spreading across the Chinese mainland and sought to prevent it.
Japan was not fighting against the Chinese people.
This is precisely what Frederick V. Williams argued in Inside China’s War Propaganda.

“There can be no doubt that the great majority of the Chinese people desire peace.
It is the politicians and warlords who prevent it.
Japan is fighting these politicians and warlords, not the people.”

There is no need to reflect on a so-called “history of aggression.”
I will return to this point later.

The national defense policy of the Takaichi Cabinet is a natural obligation of a sovereign state, but China’s intention to keep Japan impotent forever under the shackles of Article 9 of the Constitution is clearly visible.

Likewise, Lin Jian, another spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, stated:
“This year also marks the 80th anniversary of Taiwan’s recovery from Japanese colonial rule.
Japan once carried out colonial rule over Taiwan and committed countless crimes.”

But this is absurd.
If Japan had committed such brutal acts, it would be impossible to explain why so many Taiwanese today still hold favorable feelings toward Japan.

Those who committed “countless crimes” against the Taiwanese were the Chinese Nationalist forces.
This was the February 28 Incident.
The killing of Taiwanese by beheading and the cutting off of their genitals was reported by a Newsweek correspondent in its April 7, 1947 issue.
This is a particularly gruesome custom characteristic of the Han Chinese.

In Tongzhou, Hebei Province, there was an incident in which more than 200 Japanese civilians were brutally slaughtered by Chinese soldiers.
Williams wrote in Inside China’s War Propaganda that Tongzhou “will for centuries be remembered as one of the darkest towns in China.”
He himself visited the site for reporting and for memorial services.

What is even more important is that Williams records in this book that even after the gruesome Tongzhou Incident became known in Japan, there was not the slightest danger to Chinese residents living in Japan.
He praises the nobility of the Japanese people.

In response to Prime Minister Takaichi’s remarks, the Chinese government overreacted and issued a warning urging Chinese citizens to refrain from traveling to Japan for the time being, claiming that crimes targeting Chinese people were increasing in Japan.
Since killings and injuries of Japanese have occurred in China, they seem to assume the same must naturally occur in Japan.
This may be intended as pressure on the Takaichi administration, but to the Japanese it is nothing more than a source of ridicule.

Thus, although Inside China’s War Propaganda was published in the United States in 1938, it contains content that directly applies to today’s politics.
That is the reason I decided to translate it.

Brief Biography of F. V. Williams

Born in 1890, Williams became well known as a journalist around 1930 for highlighting communist movements in Mexico.
Given that Marxist communism proclaimed that “religion is the opium of the people” and embraced materialism, it was only natural that Williams, a devout Catholic, regarded it as a grave danger.

It was therefore unavoidable that he reacted swiftly to the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937 and departed to cover the China Incident.
As described in Inside China’s War Propaganda, he clearly perceived behind the incident the danger of communism sweeping across Asia.

In modern Japan, the China Incident that began with the Manchurian Incident and the Marco Polo Bridge Incident is generally understood to be an invasion of China.
Most textbooks describe it as such.
But is that truly correct?

The East Hebei Anti-Communist Autonomous Government, established in 1935, was created in the eastern part of Hebei Province along the border with Manchukuo.
It was founded under the banner of “anti-communism.”
Its capital was established in Tongzhou, where the Tongzhou Incident later occurred.
Manchukuo itself, situated between China and the Soviet Union, was clearly a bulwark created to prevent the establishment of a communist regime on the Asian continent, a fact that anyone can grasp by looking at a map.
The establishment of the East Hebei government simply meant that this anti-communist structure had expanded.

It was under these circumstances that the Marco Polo Bridge Incident occurred.
Williams explains clearly who caused it.
He also highly praised Manchukuo and even attempted to meet Emperor Puyi.

After covering China and Manchukuo following the outbreak of the China Incident, Williams sailed from Shanghai to Nagasaki.
There he met Bishop Aijiro Yamaguchi of the Catholic Church.
Their friendship lasted for the rest of his life.
Williams was deeply moved by Nagasaki as Japan’s Catholic holy land.
He even planned to organize a pilgrimage group from the United States to visit Nagasaki.
However, this never came to pass due to the deterioration of U.S.–Japan relations.

Indeed, his greatest wish was to prevent the worsening of U.S.–Japan relations.
That wish was not fulfilled.
After the outbreak of the Pacific War, he was arrested on suspicion of being a Japanese spy and was sentenced to imprisonment.

After the war, he mourned the devastation of Nagasaki by the atomic bomb, a city he had admired as “the Rome of Japan.”
For this reason he published, together with Bishop Yamaguchi, what can be described as a joint work, The Martyrs of Nagasaki (1956).
In this book, he strongly criticized the United States for dropping the atomic bomb.

Japan Is Poor at Propaganda

From the outbreak of the China Incident, China employed various methods to vilify Japan and to win over the United States.
One of these was the Nanjing Massacre.
Although some argue that the Nanjing Massacre was fabricated after the war, it was already being violently publicized in Western newspapers at the time.
The masterminds behind this were the missionaries living in Nanjing.

Williams personally interviewed missionaries in Nanjing to investigate why they obeyed the intentions of the Nationalist government and launched a chorus of denunciation against the Japanese Army.
The mechanism behind this scheme can be understood by reading this book.

General Iwane Matsui commanded the capture of Nanjing, Takashi Sakai captured Hong Kong after the outbreak of the Pacific War, Tomoyuki Yamashita captured Singapore, and Masaharu Homma commanded the Philippines campaign.
All were executed in war crimes trials.
Because they occupied capitals and key colonial strongholds, their enemies sought revenge.
The claims that massacres and atrocities were committed under their command are nothing more than propaganda designed to conceal the humiliation of defeat.
It is difficult to comprehend why people even today still believe such claims to be facts.

War is always accompanied by propaganda, yet it seems that even now the Japanese do not fully understand this reality.
Williams repeatedly laments in his book that “the Japanese are poor at propaganda.”

Japan continues to be criticized by Korea and China over the comfort women issue.
Comfort women statues are erected all over the world, a pitiful sight indeed.
The 1993 Kono Statement by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono is nothing but deplorable.
Yet on this matter as well, Williams clearly states in this book, based on his own investigations, that “the slave-girl business was China’s.”
Within a book published in 1938, the miserable reality of how women’s human rights were trampled in China is vividly depicted.
It must be called an invaluable historical record.

The phrase “the Japanese are poor at propaganda” also expresses a sense of crisis over how deeply Chinese anti-Japanese propaganda had penetrated the United States.
If this trend intensified, war between Japan and the United States would result.
And indeed, that is what happened.
The root cause was that the United States lost sight of its true enemy.

Williams argued that the United States could participate in the development of Manchukuo.
However, in the United States, anti-Japanese organizations such as the “Committee for Non-Participation in Japanese Aggression in China” were established in cooperation with China.
Its honorary chairman was former Secretary of State Henry Stimson, giving it enormous authority.
Williams fought against such organizations.

He argued that America’s true enemy was communism, but the Roosevelt administration in fact pursued a pro-Soviet policy.
What extraordinary naïveté this was.
In the end, this led to the Asian continent being overrun by communism.
The United States was gravely mistaken.

Williams already understood this clearly by 1938, and in place of propaganda-inept Japanese, he continued to warn America of the danger of Asia’s communist takeover.
We must once again express our gratitude to Williams and re-evaluate his legacy.