According to British historian Mark Felton: The Japanese murdered 30 million civilians while "liberating" what it called the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere from colonial rule. About 23 million of these were ethnic Chinese. It is a crime that in sheer numbers is far greater than the Nazi Holocaust.
Having prepared for many years for the inevitable war with China, Japanese soldiers possessed an inherent brutality that came into effect in their treatment of civilians and prisoners of war. Japanese soldiers were instructed that if captured by the enemy they would not only dishonour the army, but also their parents.
Around 20 million people, mostly civilians, were killed. This full-scale war between China and the Empire of Japan is often regarded as the beginning of World War II in Asia, although some scholars consider the European War and the Pacific War to be entirely separate, albeit concurrent.
Seventy years ago this December 13th, the Japanese Imperial Army began its seizure of Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China. Japanese troops killed remnant Chinese soldiers in violation of the laws of war, murdered Chinese civilians, raped Chinese women, and destroyed or stole Chinese property on a scale that ...
Over the years Japanese political leaders have issued a number of general apologies for the Imperial Army's conduct during World War II. Despite these apologies, the Chinese people and Sino-Japanese relations have yet to be fully normalized, and tensions remain.
To be clear, China could not have won the war on its own. The defeat of Japan was dependent on western, and in particular, American finance, military support and supplies (although western ground troops did not fight in China).
Axis powers. The Axis powers (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan) were some of the most systematic perpetrators of war crimes in modern history.
That count includes hundreds of thousands of deaths due to drowning, disease and starvation after the Chinese nationalist army breached massive holes in dikes holding back the Yellow River to stymie the Japanese advance in 1938.
Low morale, a bad economy, dysfunctional, corrupt politics, all lay in sharp contrast to Japan's extremely nationalistic, modern, brutally well organised army. Population size is hardly relevant when faced with these facts. That explains much of China's weakness in WW2.
Second Sino-Japanese War, (1937–45), conflict that broke out when China began a full-scale resistance to the expansion of Japanese influence in its territory (which had begun in 1931).
Although foreign observers had predicted an easy victory for the more massive Chinese forces, the Japanese had done a more successful job of modernizing, and they were better equipped and prepared. Japanese troops scored quick and overwhelming victories on both land and sea.
The war lasted one month, with China unilaterally ceasing fire on March 16, 1979. Each side suffered roughly 30,000 deaths and 35,000 wounded, although both sides have given widely different, unverified numbers of casualties.
War crimes trials, in which Japanese guards were tried for acts of brutality, were held throughout south-east Asia. In Australian trials, 922 men were tried and 641 were found guilty. Of 148 sentenced to death, 137 were actually executed.
Chinese men who showed up late for meetings were beaten with sticks. Chinese women were kidnaped and turned into “comfort women”---prostitutes who serviced Japanese soldiers. Japanese soldiers reportedly bound the legs of women in labor so they and their children died in horrible pain.
Various related crimes include sexual slavery, massacres, human experimentation, starvation, and forced labor directly perpetrated or condoned by the Japanese military and government.
Nazi Germany and the Nationalist government of the Republic of China maintained bilateral relations between 1933 and 1941. The Chinese Nationalists sought German military and economic support to help them consolidate control over factional warlords and resist Japanese imperialism.
Wang himself became a focal point of anti-Japanese resistance. He was demonized and branded as an "arch-traitor" in both KMT and Communist propaganda. Wang and his government were deeply unpopular with the Chinese populace, who regarded them as traitors to both the Chinese state and Han Chinese identity.
As diplomatic ties warmed, Germany provided China with arms and equipment against the Japanese invasion. However, because China and the Soviet Union were military allies, Hitler drew closer to Japan, resulting in the subsequent deterioration of China-Germany relations, and the division of camps in WWII.
The Japanese used many types of physical punishment. Some prisoners were made to hold a heavy stone above their heads for many hours. Others might be forced into small cells with little food or water. Tom Uren described how a young Aboriginal soldier was made to kneel on a piece of bamboo for a number of days.
This book documents Japanese atrocities in World War II, including cannibalism, the slaughter and starvation of prisoners of war, rape and enforced prostitution, the murder of noncombatants, and biological warfare experiments.
According to postwar German estimates, more than 35,000 soldiers were convicted by military courts of leaving their units during the course of the war. Some 23,000 were sentenced to death, and at least 15,000 of these were actually executed.
Origins of the War in Asia
World War II began on July 7, 1937—not in Poland or at Pearl Harbor, but in China. On that date, outside of Beijing, Japanese and Chinese troops clashed, and within a few days, the local conflict had escalated to a full, though undeclared, war between China and Japan.
By the end of 1941, epidemics (especially typhoid and dysentery) emerged as the main cause of death. In October 1941 alone, almost 5,000 Soviet POWs died each day. The onset of winter accelerated the mass death of Soviet POWs, because so many had little or no protection from the cold.
The primary American goal was to keep the Chinese actively in the Allied war camp, thereby tying down Japanese forces that otherwise might be deployed against the Allies fighting in the Pacific.