No.4, 2023

1.EchoesofNanjing:Fiction,SuberfugeandPublicRelationsintheDebateofTheRapeofNanking

RandyHopkins(4)

In 1997, Iris Chang’s “TheRapeofNanking:TheForgottenHolocaustofWorldWarⅡ” was published, which has achieved great success and received widespread praise from leading historians and readers. However, soon there was a different reaction——strident critisisms not only from Japan, but also from the Western academic community, some of which came from noted historians. Undoubtedly, Iris Chang’ book is not flawless. It is normal for critics to point out factual errors orthose that amount to much, but this is not the case. Some articles are full of malice, even personal attacks, and adopt a tactics that Iris Chang must be destroyed, which has taken a toll on the reputation of book and author for error and poor quality that appears to have taken hold within portions of the “Academy”. Japan’s Foreign Ministry was the camouflaged hand in much of the “criticism", it financed and promoted the long-drawn-out “public relations” campaign aiming at discrediting and vilifying Chang and her book. The shadow periodical of the Japan’s Foreign Ministry,JapanEchohas successively published articles criticizing Iris Chang by noted historians such as Joshua Fogel, Hata Ikuhiko, Alvin Coox etc. In 2007, on the occasion of the 70th Anniversary of the fall of Nanjing, those Nanjing articles were republished byJapanEchoin a book tiltedAnOverviewoftheNanjingDebateas a “gift” to the English-speaking world. The Ministry’ public relations apparatus advertised these writings as modern, objective and scientific historiography. The reality is far different. Instead, through consistent exaggeration and misquoting, these writings fashion a fictionalized and stereotyped version of Chang andTheRapeofNanking. As such, they distort public and academic understanding of this historical event.

2.HowtoMakeanIn-depthStudyontheJapanesePuppetTroops

GaoShihua(28)

3.AnalysisontheJapaneseArmyintheSovietGenerals’Memoirs

MaJun(33)

4.ResearchontheJapaneseMilitaryHistoryoftheSino-JapaneseWarof1894—1895andtheRusso-JapaneseWarfromSeveralPerspectives

JiChen(38)

5.TheNewFourthArmy’sResistanceinNanjing

MaZhendu(43)

During the eight-year total war of resistance against Japan, the New Fourth Army led by the Communist Party of China actively penetrated into the enemy’s rear in regions south of the Yangtze river, and successfully carried out reconnaissance, harassment and even some direct attacks on the enemy and puppet forces stationed in Nanjing. The resistance from the New Fourth Army both inside and outside Nanjing city ,won the support of the people because of their fearless sacrifice and struggle, which also deeply inspired the determination and confidence in victory of the people in the occupied areas, and played a role in the frontal battlefield. Although its combat scale is not large, due to its geographical importance, it has played a demonstrative role in the war of resistance behind enemy lines, with a crucial role and significance in the resistance in East China, Central China, and even across the whole country. Also, it had an extensive international influence.

6.TheSalaryandWelfareSystemandItsPracticeintheMunitionEnterprisesinTaihangBaseofResistanceagainstJapan

YanXuelianLiMin(59)

In 1940, after completing the transition from a system in which employees were only provided with necessities without wages to a wage system, the munition enterprises in the Taihang Base of Resistance against Japan adopted a salary system which was higher than that of other military and political departments in the Eighth Route Army. During theprocess, they encountered complicated twists and turns due to the enormous economic difficulties in the Taihang Base: in the autumn of 1942, a special wage storage system was adopted, and various methods were used to raise food and other materials to solve the employees’ problem in food and clothing; as the situation improved in 1945, the salary standard was immediately raised and were paid on time. In terms of welfare system, the munition enterprises attached great importance to safeguard the rights and interests of workers for work-related injuries, medical care, etc., improved the insurance system, and utilized limited social resources for the convenience of employees’ families, which solved their worries, and enhanced their sense of ownership as well as the subjective initiative. Its flexible and varied approaches of practice have maximized its protection for employees’ rights in the further development of the salary and welfare system.

7.FurtherExplorationoftheJapaneseIndependentGarrisonUnitinManchuria?

YuTiejun(71)

The Japanese Independent Garrison Unit in Manchuria was unique in the military sequence of the Japanese invasion army, with an important role in Japan’s invasion of China, especially in Northeast China. The paper takes the evolution of the Japanese Independent Garrison Unit in Manchuria as a clue, and divided its nearly 40-year history into three stages, namely, the initial period from February 1906 to the September 18th Incident in 1931, the “out-of-control” period from the September 18th Incident in 1931 to the July 7th Incident in 1937, and the decline and final period from the July 7th Incident in 1937 to August 1944. A preliminary investigation was conducted on the organization system, main tasks and battle disposition of this Independent Garrison Unit in each stage, and the reasons and background for their adjustments were also analyzed.

8.TheJapaneseImplementationof“StandardTime”inOccupiedAreasofChina

ZhuWenzhe(79)

During the War of Aggression against China, to facilitate military action and strengthen its control over various occupied areas, Japan attempted to establish a unified standard time based on 135 degrees mean solar time (Tokyo Standard Time), which could form a time rule in each Japanese occupied area in accordance with Japan. To promote the Tokyo Standard Time, Japanese aggressors spread it widely via various means such as wireless telegraphy, and regulated it in the social order of the occupied areas, trying to integrate it into ordinary people’s lives. However, the standard time established by Japan during its invasion of China had a strong colonial color and was often conflicted with traditional Chinese time convention, which limited its implementation scope and effectiveness.

9.TheCompositionofJapaneseTroopsandItsMilitaryPoliticalRuleintheYunnan-BurmaBattlefield

LeiJuanliChuPengfei(89)

The army is the warfare’s core and main body. Divisions and regiments of the Japanese Army serve as the basic units in terms of using troops in the Japanese wars of aggression against foreign countries, and the operation of divisions and regiments is an important research subject in the Japanese army's military operations. During World War II, the Japanese army made frequent cross-regional transfers in response to the war situations in the Yunnan-Burma battlefield, which led to changes in its order of battle. In the Yunnan-Burma battlefield, the Japanese army undertook both offensive and defensive tasks. After occupying Burma and western Yunnan, it successively established a military political rule system centering around the Japanese commanders. During the transition from the early occupation to the later colonial rule, the Japanese army imposed a series of political, economic and social domination on the Yunnan-Burma battlefield. This system not only highlights the relationship between the Japanese army and its military political rule, but also exposes the essence of its overseas colonial rule.

10.“ColonializedAcademicResearch”:InvestigationsandStudiesonTaiwan’sFolkloreduringtheJapaneseOccupationPeriod

LiTianxing(100)

As the carrier of cultural knowledge inheritance, folklore also bears national consciousness and cultural identity. In the early days of the Japanese occupation, in order to establish colonial rule, the Taiwan Governor-General's Office led a series of investigations into “old customs” and gained a preliminary understanding of Taiwan's customs. With the development of modern Japanese folklore, based on the Taipei Imperial University established in 1928, more and more scholars used the methods of cultural anthropology from the perspective of “others” to conduct more “academic” folklore research in Taiwan, in order to serve Japan's “southward advancement” policy. Folklore Taiwan, founded in 1941, although preserved a large amount of materials about Taiwan folklore, yet all its dubious relationship with the Japanese authorities and the political intentions contained in the published texts indicate that the magazine aims to contribute to the effective promotion of Taiwan's “Kominka” movement. The investigations and studies on the folklore of Taiwan during the Japanese occupation period essentially aimed to meet the needs of Japanese colonial rule and aggression, and was deeply branded as “colonial academic research.”

11.TheSummaryoftheStudiesontheEnemy-occupiedAreasintheAcademiaofMainlandChinaafter1949

GaoYingying(111)

The studies on the enemy-occupied areas began as early as the period of the Total War of Resistance against Japan, among which the most famous one is Mao Zedong’s “ResearchonEnemy-occupiedAreas”. With the founding of New China after 1949, the occupied areas in mainland China has rich academic accumulation in areas over 70 years of development such as Japanese puppet regime , economic plunder, enslavement propaganda and education, traitors and figures, local society, military rule, etc. It has entered a mature stage of carrying out an objective and in-depth academic research from the initial stage of exposing and criticizing Japan’s crime in its invasion of China, and is an important component of the study on the history of the War of Resistance against Japan. The mining and organization of the materials have promoted the development of this field, which roughly includes two study types: the Japanese invasion of China and the resistance of the Chinese people. The research orientation includes the reflection on the war with some influence from the methods and concepts in overseas academia. At the same time, the research focus will also be adjusted in a timely manner according to the Sino-Japanese relations in reality.

12.TheSummaryoftheStudiesontheKuomintangArmyduringthePeriodofTotalResistanceagainstJapanintheAcademiaofMainlandChinaafter1949

ChenMo(126)

Since the founding of New China after 1949, with the further deepening of research on the frontal battlefield of the War of Resistance Against Japan, studies on the KMT Army during the period of total resistance has also been gradually enhanced, with a continuous expansion on the research about the organization, system, technology, culture and other aspects. Organizational structure, command system, military organization, weapons and equipment, military logistics and mobilization, military personnel affairs as well as the military-political relations have become widely concerned issues in the academic community. However, many gaps still need to be filled, and research on the “internal history” of the military history also needs to be strengthened. There is still lack of comprehensive understanding of the wartime KMT army.

13.TheSummaryoftheFirstYoungScholars’SymposiumabouttheStudiesontheHistoryofNanjingMassacre

WangXiaoyang(133)