Originally posted on July 4, 2019.
This is a piece written in response to Shiro Suzuki’s essay, “The Falsehood of the Nanjing Massacre and Memories of Repatriation: My Innocent Father Was Captured in China…,” published in the June 30, 2018 issue of the monthly magazine Sound Argument.
Through childhood memories of visiting Nanjing, reflections on the discipline and compassion of Japanese soldiers, contrasts with Chinese soldiers, and testimony concerning the Yellow River dike breach, it sharply questions the historical propaganda of China and the Korean Peninsula, as well as the responsibility of media outlets such as The Asahi Shimbun and NHK, together with the politicians, self-styled human-rights lawyers, cultural figures, intellectuals, and journalists who have echoed them.

2019-07-04
My father repeatedly told me, “Shirō, it is important for a soldier to be strong, but he must also be kind and compassionate.”

The following is from the June 30, 2018 issue of the monthly magazine Sound Argument.
Announcer Shiro Suzuki speaks.
“The Falsehood of the Nanjing Massacre and Memories of Repatriation.”
“My innocent father was captured in China…” is the title of this essay, and it is an essay that people in Japan and throughout the world must read.
There is not a single lie anywhere in this essay…
That it is China and the Korean Peninsula that are lying, and that media outlets such as The Asahi Shimbun and NHK, which have played a role like their agents, together with the politicians who have echoed them, the so-called human-rights lawyers, many of those who have held important positions in the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, the so-called cultural figures, and likewise the world’s so-called intellectuals and journalists, are the ones responsible…
The time when people throughout the world should know this has long since come.
As I read this essay by Mr. Shiro Suzuki, I could not help shedding tears again and again.
My experience of visiting Nanjing.　　
I was born in 1938, immediately after the Battle of Nanjing.
My father established a Japan-China trading company in Tianjin, also ran a business in Beijing, and was engaged in delivering military supplies and relief goods to the Japanese army.
Before long, I crossed over to the Chinese mainland with my mother, and when I was five years old, my father took me to visit Nanjing.
Whether it was one of my father’s business partners, or someone who had received relief supplies, I cannot say for certain in detail, but we were invited by a wealthy Nanjing family with whom we had some connection.　
I was only five years old, but I clearly remember that in the center of the city there was a long gate like a tunnel with the words “Zhonghua Gate” written on it.
When we walked through the dark, long tunnel and came out the other side, there were many street stalls lined up.
I vividly remember the excitement I felt as a child, thinking, “They are selling nothing but unusual things.”　
The city was completely calm.
It was a peaceful and lively city.
No one ever told me to be careful because I might be attacked by Chinese people while walking through the city.
If a “massacre” had really taken place, I would have heard at least fragmentary talk of such things, but I never heard anything of the sort, not even once.
I was not even conscious of any so-called “massacre.”
So I never imagined any “traces,” and there were none.　
In the wealthy household that invited me, there was a Chinese wife whom everyone called Mā Tàitai.
She was solidly built, beloved by everyone, somewhat imposing, and, in Japan, one would call her the sort of motherly figure with great strength of character.
That Mā Tàitai welcomed us warmly.
She held me in her arms, even carried me on her back, and praised my ears, saying that they were “lucky ears.”
Mā Tàitai wore jade ornaments on her ears, and every time she played with me they made a jingling sound.
She even rubbed her cheek against mine.　
At any rate, the feelings of the local Chinese toward Japan were extremely good.
That was because the reputation of the Japanese soldiers was extremely good.　
The Japanese soldiers were certainly strong when they fought.
That was probably because the old Yamato spirit had been hammered into our generation.
In any case, you act.
You must not fear your own death.
The consciousness that dying for Japan was an honor had been thoroughly instilled in us.
But although they were brave, they were not barbaric.
At the age of five, I myself wished that one day I too would become a soldier, go off to war, and perish completely in glorious death.
That was my dream from childhood, and I wanted to enter a military preparatory school.
My father repeatedly told me, “Shirō, it is important for a soldier to be strong, but he must also be kind and compassionate.”
Even now, I feel that such thoughts still dwell somewhere in my heart.　
When the Japanese soldiers captured Nanjing, the Chinese who had fled actually began returning in large numbers.
Some of them even made armbands with the Hinomaru on them and came back wearing them.
They were not afraid of the Japanese soldiers at all.
Rather, it is said that they wore expressions of relief, as though now they could finally feel safe.
The feeling was the same in Beijing and Tianjin.
Unlike the Chinese soldiers, the Japanese soldiers were welcomed by the local people wherever they went.　
In terms of discipline and in their attitude toward ordinary people, they were utterly incomparable to the Chinese soldiers.
There was no rape of women.
Medics would care for the sick, and they never stole property.
When they received goods, they always handed over military scrip and said, “You will be able to exchange this for money later.”
To the Chinese, such scenes were unbelievable.
That was because the Chinese soldiers were notorious for looting and rape, and so they were hated by the local Chinese people.　
What was especially terrible was that when they were in retreat, the Chinese soldiers would attack villages along the way, steal goods, set fires, and rape women, and some even put on the uniforms and caps of dead Japanese soldiers and committed such acts.
This is something I heard directly after the war from Japanese soldiers who had served there, and the Japanese soldiers were furious.　
There was also the major incident in which Chiang Kai-shek breached the banks of the Yellow River and one million people died.
This happened in June of 1938.
The Japanese army halted its advance and engaged in rescue work.
I saw a photograph of Japanese soldiers floating local riverboats in the floodwaters and rescuing those who had suffered in the disaster.
In today’s terms, it was exactly like a PKO operation.
Yet after causing a catastrophe in which six million people became victims, Chiang Kai-shek spread massive propaganda claiming that the Japanese army had done it.
Naturally, the world did not believe it, and the Chinese on the ground knew the truth as well, because they had actually seen the Japanese soldiers.
For the Chinese, the true threat was the Chinese soldiers, since no one knew what they might do.
To be continued.