The Nanjing (or Nanking) Incident (also known as the Rape of Nanjing, the Nanjing Massacre and the Nanjing Atrocities) remains a highly controversial episode in Sino-Japanese relations. Indeed, as this paper will make clear, it remains so controversial, especially in Japan, that a neutral definition has yet to be agreed upon.[2]However, most would perhaps agree on the following. The Nanjing Incident refers to the killing and raping of large numbers of Chinese over a relatively short period of time by the Japanese military after the city of Nanjing was captured on 13 December 1937. Sadly for the historian, however, the Nanjing Incident is not only an important episode in Sino-Japanese relations, but is also emerging as a fundamental keystone in the construction of the modern Chinese national identity. As a result, the historian's interest in and analysis of this event can be interpreted as an attack on the contemporary Chinese identity,[3] while a refusal to accept the "orthodox" position on Nanjing can be construed as an attempt to deny the Chinese nation a legitimate voice in international society - or, in Iris Chang's words, as a "second rape". Moreover, any demonstrated interest in Nanjing can be viewed in some circles in Japan as "Japan bashing" (in the case of foreign researchers) or "self-flagellation" (in the case of Japanese). In this environment, the debate can become highly emotionally charged, and the historian's struggle to maintain objectivity can quickly fall victim to the demands of contemporary politics.
The importance of the Nanjing Incident to contemporary Sino-Japanese relations can hardly be overstated. Nanjing forms one of the core historical issues on which Japan and China cannot agree, and continues to bedevil the bilateral relationship. It is reflected in the controversy over Japanese history textbooks. It certainly continues to poison Chinese opinion of Japan. Nanjing is also important in understanding contemporary domestic Japanese politics. The debate within Japan about Nanjing (and for that matter textbooks) is also a debate about the legitimacy of the findings of the postwar military tribunals held in Nanjing and especially Tokyo (the Tokyo Trial, or International Military Tribunal for the Far East). One side (the Great Massacre School: see below) is politically and ideologically committed to arguing for the validity of these tribunals and their findings. The Illusion School, on the other hand, is based at least to a certain extent on a rejection of these findings as "victor's justice". The debate in Japan is thus heavily influenced by a broader philosophical and ideological debate on history and historiography, and in particular the debate on the legitimacy of the historical narrative on prewar Japan that emerged from the postwar military tribunals.
Nanjing is a topic that has attracted, especially in the West, and especially on the web, far more activists than historians. It remains a hot domestic and international political issue both in Japan and China. There are large organisations that seem to be involved solely in running anti-Japan and anti-Japanese campaigns about the Nanjing Incident; there are a number of magazines and numerous websites devoted to the Nanjing Incident; and Iris Chang (1997), The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, has enjoyed phenomenal sales.[4] Despite all the interest in Nanjing, however, the history of the incident remains a largely untold story. Indeed, one of the major problems with the historical research on Nanjing in Japan, where the research is most advanced, is that it has tended to collapse into largely meaningless semantics about whether the sum total of atrocities committed in and around Nanjing can be defined as a "great massacre", or what the definition of "Nanjing" is. Another problem is the obsession with numbers, where the moral and political implications of the discourse about Nanjing are engulfed in a reductionism that focuses solely on the number of victims. There are, however, some encouraging signs that the situation is changing for the better. This paper will attempt to clarify the current state of research on this incident and identify future areas of research.
The majority of academic research on the Nanjing Incident is conducted in Japanese, English and Chinese. Of the three language groups, Japanese has produced the most sophisticated research, with the debate in English lagging decades behind. The most objective Chinese language materials are the collections of various primary sources, including the recollections of many of the Chinese military personnel in Nanjing.[5]
However, these collections show no evidence of any vigorous critical attempt to distinguish between valid primary materials and other materials: photographs, for instance, which are known to be fabricated, or from different areas and different times, continue to be used to "prove" Japanese guilt in the winter of 1937-38 at Nanjing. Moreover, because of the limitations on free speech in mainland China, much of the secondary material merely parrots the government line of the day, and it would be difficult to describe the situation as a "debate".
Thus, for instance, the Westerners who remained behind in Nanjing to run the humanitarian Safety Zone have been vigorously criticised by the Chinese government in the past. To give just one example, a group of researchers at Nanjing University in the 1960s condemned the members of the Western community in Nanjing for turning a blind eye to the Japanese atrocities in the city, and "misused" the primary sources to suggest that they cooperated in the Japanese slaughter of Chinese. [6]
Not only were the foreigners unharmed, but amidst the echoing sounds of gunfire as the Japanese carried out their massacre, the foreigners entertained themselves with wine, song, and dance, celebrated Christmas, and ate their fill of roast beef, roast duck, sweet potatoes, and various other fresh food. When they had exhausted their appetites for pleasure they went home.[7]
It is of course true that the Westerners in Nanjing did work with the Japanese, but it was a reluctant cooperation, and there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that it extended to deliberately helping the Japanese kill anyone.
As Chinese concerns about "American Imperialism" diminished, and as Japan became the target of official vitriol (partly at least because of the highly politicised and contentious issue of Japanese textbooks), views in China dramatically changed. Westerners were now depicted as active resistors rather than active collaborators. In another work frequently based on a vivid imagination rather than primary sources, Iris Chang (1997: 139) claimed that members of the international community jumped "in front of cannons and machine guns to prevent the Japanese from firing" on unarmed civilians.[8]
However, although that did not happen - there is documentation of only one execution of one man that was witnessed by two members of the Western community who remained in Nanjing after the journalists left on 15 and 16 December - the work of the community is today highly lauded in all the literature on Nanjing and is one of the few areas about which all researchers of the Nanjing Incident can agree.
Despite the fact that there seems to be little sign of internal debate in China, there are indications of an emerging discourse. Several Japanese works have been translated into Chinese, so readers have access to non-official points of view; the web provides a forum in which all points of view can be discussed freely; and the liberal world of free debate is open to those who can read and write in English. It is certainly possible that Chinese researchers will increasingly come to rely on the English publishing world to discuss Nanjing.
Although the research in Japanese remains superior to that in English and Chinese, this was not always the case. Ironically, perhaps, much of the primary material on Nanjing was originally written and published in English. The two central collections of primary materials consist of works published in English very soon after the incident itself: H. J. Timperley ed. (1938), What War Means: The Japanese Terror in China. A Documentary Record, and Hsū Shuhsi ed. (1939), Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone (this second work has been reprinted in Brook ed. 1999).
尽管日语研究仍凌驾于中文及英语研究，事事并非始终如此。讽刺意味的是，也许许多南京事件的主要材料最初是用英语书写并出版的。两部关于南京事件材料的重要作品就由事件发生不久后的英文出版物组成：H. J. Timperley（田伯烈）的（1938）《战争意味着什么：日本恐怖在中国 》和 徐淑希（1939）所著的《南京安全区档案》（于1999年再版）
This head-start has not however been maintained. The first major monograph on Nanjing to be published in English after Hsū was the problematic work by Iris Chang (1997), The Rape of Nanking, a work that can only be described as frequently fabricated and/or fictitious. Following the publication of Chang, historians have at last started to write in English about this important event in Sino-Japanese history. Joshua A. Fogel ed. (2000), The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography, is by any standards an impressive work (albeit one that focuses on the historiography rather than the history of Nanjing). Although flawed, both Honda Katsuichi (1999), The Nanjing Massacre: A Japanese Journalist Confronts Japan's National Shame, and Hua-ling Hu (2000), American Goddess at the Rape of Nanking: The Courage of Minnie Vautrin, are important contributions.[9]The latest in the long run of recent publications in English includes Masahiro Yamamoto (2000), Nanking: Anatomy of an Atrocity, a work that is easily the most objective historical account of Nanjing in the English-language literature to date.[10]
但这一领先优势并未被保持。在徐淑希后第一部英语出版的关于南京的主要专论是张纯如（1997）问题多多的《南京大屠杀》,一部被形容为频繁捏造或者妄想的作品。紧随张纯如作品的出版，历史学家终于开始用英语书写这一中日战争历史中的重要事件。Joshua A. Fogel（2000）的《历史编撰中的南京大屠杀》置诸各标准下都堪称令人印象深刻的作品（虽然此书关注史料甚于南京事件的历史）尽管有诸多瑕疵，本多胜一（1999）的《南京大屠杀始末采访录》和胡华玲的《南京大屠杀时期的美国女神：明妮·魏特琳的勇气》不失为对南京研究的重要贡献。这一长期英文出版的最新的成果包括了山本昌弘 Yamamoto Masahiro的《Nanking: Anatomy of an Atrocity,》，一部迄今为止最客观的记录历史的英文作品。
A recent and (from the viewpoint of the historian) very welcome development has been the publication of primary materials originally published in English but for decades now only readily available in Japanese (and to a certain extent Chinese) translation. Martha Lund Smalley ed. (1997), American Missionary Eyewitnesses to the Nanking Massacre, 1937 - 1938, Timothy Brook ed. (1999), Documents of the Rape of Nanking, and Zhang Kaiyuan ed. (2001), Eyewitnesses to Massacre: American Missionaries Bear Witness to Japanese Atrocities in Nanjing, are all collections of primary materials long unavailable in English. Finally, John Rabe's (1998) diary, The Good German of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe, is a crucial piece of documentation.
一项最近的并且（对历史学家而言）受欢迎的进步是那些原本用英文记录的材料但在数十年间仅可查于日文文献（以及一部分中文文献）的翻译的出版。Martha Lund Smalley(1997)的《美国传教士眼中的南京大屠杀，1937-1938》，Timothy Brook的《南京大屠杀史料新编》，章开沅的《天理难容：美国传教士眼中的南京大屠杀》这样的作品都长期欠缺英文版本。最后， John Rabe's (1998)的日记（拉贝日记）堪称一份极为重要的原始材料
The Japanese language literature is even more impressive. Unlike the debate in English, Japanese researchers have been debating - and truly debating - the incident for decades rather than only the past few years, so the Japanese language materials can only be summarised here. Recent popular interest in Japan about the Nanjing Incident has triggered a flood of books that together form a publishing industry. This was stimulated by the publication in English in 1997 of Iris Chang's book, together with the publication in Japanese of John Rabe's diary.[11]
Moreover, a conservative political movement, the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform (Atarashii Rekishi Kyōkasho o Tsukuru Kai), together with theAssociation for the Advancement of a Liberal View of History (Jiyūshugi Shikan Kenkyūkai), has helped foster an intellectual environment in which the Japanese are no longer as willing as they have been in the past to have Japanese history interpreted for them from a set of assumptions known as the Tokyo Trial View of History. Chang's work in particular is unashamedly based on this view of history and, as is often the case with this particular historical tradition, is fatally flawed. The intellectual environment in Japan has changed to such a degree that Chang's work has found very little support, even among those who argue that a "great massacre" did occur. The reception of Rabe's diary has been, in general, much more positive. Together, these two works have served to reopen the debate in Japan on the Nanjing Incident.
The best introductory work on the Nanjing Incident in any language probably remains Hata Ikuhiko (1986), Nankin Jiken - "Gyakusatsu" no Kōzō (The Nanjing Incident: The Structure of a "Massacre"). For recent monographs alone, see, for instance, Azuma Shirō san no Nankin Saiban o Sasaerukai ed. (2001), Kagai to Yurushi - Nankin Daigyakusatsu to Azuma Shirō Saiban (Harm and Forgiveness: The Great Nanjing Massacre and the Azuma Shirō Trial), Higashinakano Osamichi (1998), "Nankin Gyakusatsu" no Tettei Kenshō (A Thorough Investigation of the "Nanjing Massacre"), Higashinakano Osamichi and Fujioka Nobukatsu (1999), Za Reipu obu Nankin no Kenkyū - Chūgoku ni okeru "Jōhōsen" no Teguchi no Senryaku (Research on The Rape of Nanjing: China's Methods and Strategy in the "Information War"), Igarashi Zennojō (2000), Ketteiban Nankin Jiken no Shinjitsu (The Truth of the Nanjing Incident: The Final Word), Itakura Yoshiaki (1999), Hontō wa Kō datta Nankin Jiken (The Truth about the Nanjing Incident), Kasahara Tokushi (1999), Nankin Jiken to Sankō Sakusen - Mirai ni Ikasu Sensō no Kioku (The Nanjing Incident and the Three Alls: Remembering the War for the Future), Kitamura Minoru (2001), "Nankin Jiken" no Tankyū - Sono Jitsuzō o motomete (An Enquiry into the "Nanjing Incident": The Search for the True Picture), Matsumura Toshio (1998), "Nankin Gyakusatsu" e no Daigimon (Serious Doubts about the "Nanjing Massacre"), Nankin Jiken Chōsa Kenkyūkai ed. (1999), Nankin Daigyakustsu Hiteiron 13 no Uso (Thirteen Lies by the Deniers of the Great Nanjing Massacre), Suzuki Akira (1999), Shin "Nankin Daigyakusatsu" no Maboroshi (The Illusion of the Great Nanjing Massacre: Further Thoughts), Takemoto Tadao and Ōhara Yasuo (2000), The Alleged "Nanking Massacre": Japan's Rebuttal to China's Forged Claims. Saishin "Nankin Daigyakusatsu": Sekai ni Uttaeru Nihon no Enzai, and Unemoto Masaki (1998), Shinsō Nankin Jiken - Raabe Nikki no Kenshō (The True Nanjing Incident: An Examination of the Rabe Diary). Reflecting the high interest in Nanjing in Japan, several works have recently been republished. See, for instance, Tanaka Masaaki (1987/2001), Nankin Jiken no Sōkatsu - Gyakusatsu Hitei no Ronkyo (The Nanjing Incident Summed Up: The Grounds of the Denial of a Massacre), a work originally published in 1987 and no longer easily available, and Ara Ken'ichi (1987/2002), "Nankin Jiken" Nihonjin 48-nin no Shōgen (The "Nanjing Incident": The Testimony of 48 Japanese), again originally published in 1987. The latest work on Nanjing is Kasahara Tokushi (2002), Nankin Jiken to Nihonjin - Sensō no Kioku o meguru Nashonarizumu to Gurōbarizumu (The Nanjing Incident and the Japanese: Nationalism and Globalism in Memory of the War).
One of the great limits of much of the research on the Nanjing Incident in English to date is that the debate in English has frequently been based on secondary historical resources. Indeed, one of the great differences between research in Japan and that in the English-speaking world, and one of the great strengths of the Japanese language literature, is that the Japanese tend to rely heavily on primary sources. Ironically, perhaps, a large number of materials originally written in English are in fact far more readily available today in Japanese than in English.
For instance, the Nankin Jiken Chōsa Kenkyūkai ed. (1992), Nankin Jiken Shiryōshū (Materials on the Nanjing Incident), vol. 1, Amerika Kankei Shiryōhen (American Materials), collection contains 85 newspaper and magazine articles originally printed in English at the time of the Nanjing Incident but now readily available in English only to the dedicated researcher with access to a good library. In addition, this collection contains over 150 primary documents that shed much light on the events in Nanjing during the winter of 1937-38. Both Timperley and Hsū have long been available in Japanese. Rabe's diary appeared in Japanese before an English edition was published, and while a Japanese language edition of Minnie Vautrin's diary exists, researchers are still waiting for an English language edition. Kasahara (2001: 266-67) has in fact recently noted that "Nine different collections of historical materials on the massacre have been published [in Japan]. Rarely has so much documentation been compiled and published with regard to a single historical event".
This tradition of publishing collections of primary materials in Japanese is still thriving: for recent works, see Minnie Vautrin (1999), Nankin Jiken no Hibi - Minii Bōtorin no Nikki (Living the Nanjing Incident: The Diary of Minnie Vautrin), and Ishida Yūji ed. (2001), Shiryō Doitsu Gaikōkan no mita Nankin Jiken (Materials: The Nanjing Incident Witnessed by German Diplomats).
Since the Japanese discourse on the Nanjing Incident is the most sophisticated, the following discussion about various schools, methodologies and sources will focus on the situation in Japan. Schools of thought tend to be determined at least in part by methodology and/or source(s) (or perhaps the methodology/source(s) have determined the school), so these three issues will be tackled here together.
Interpretations of the Nanjing Incident in Japan are usually summarised as falling into three schools of thought,[12] defined by the number of people each argues were massacred in Nanjing (Hata Ikuhiko 1993). They are the Nanjing Incident as Illusion School (maboroshi-ha), which argues that at most several thousand were massacred in Nanjing; the Middle-of-the-Road School (chūkan-ha), which argues that between 13,000 (in the case of Itakura Yoshiaki) and 38,000-42,000 (in the case of Hata Ikuhiko) were massacred; and the Great Massacre School (daigyakusatsu-ha), which argues, in the words of one of its leading advocates, Kasahara Tokushi, that "over 100,000, perhaps nearly 200,000 or even more", were killed in Nanjing. [13] The English language debate does not have as great a range of opinion, although Masahiro Yamamoto clearly falls within the Middle-of-the-Road School, and Iris Chang even more clearly argues for a massacre on a far greater scale than any member of the Great Massacre School. Chinese language sources are closer to Iris Chang than any of the three Japanese groups.
在日本，对于南京事件的研究可以被归纳成对于受害者人数数量持不同观点的三类学派。第一类被称为“南京事变是幻觉的学派”（幻觉学派），其中的学者争辩最多只有数千人在南京被屠杀；第二类是“中间道路学派”（中道学派），其中的学者认为受害者的人数可能在于一万三千人（代表人物板仓由明Itakura Yoshiaki）到三万八千或者四万两千人（代人物是秦郁彦 Hata Ikuhiko）之间；第三类则是“大屠杀学派”，在其代表人物笠原十九司Kasahara Takushi的言论中，认为“（在南京，受害者）人数超过了十万，甚至有接近二十万或者更多”。在英文的学术界则没有如此不同的观念，尽管山本昌弘Yamamoto Masahiro（一个用英文写作做研究的日本学者）明显属于“中道学派”，而张纯如认为受难者人数甚至大于任何一个“大屠杀学派”学者所认可的数字。在中文的研究中，则大致可以得出其有对于张纯如说法的赞同，而非认可之前所提到的任何一日本学派的说法。
A recent introduction to the three schools was recently provided in "Ketteiban 'Nankin Jiken' Saishin Hōkoku" (Shokun! 2001). A conservative Japanese magazine of opinion, Shokun! sent out a questionnaire to which almost every important (living) researcher of the Nanjing Incident in Japan replied. [14] The questionnaire was sent to both academic and lay members of all three groups, and responses were received from Ara Ken'ichi, Ōi Mitsuru, Takaike Katsuhiko, Fujioka Nobukatsu, Fuji Nobuo, Watanabe Shōichi, Tanaka Masaaki, Matsumura Toshio and Kobayashi Yoshinori (all from the Illusion School), Suzuki Akira (not clear, but given here as a member of the Illusion School), Unemoto Masaki, Nakamura Akira, Okazaki Hisahiko, Sakurai Yoshiko, Tanabe Toshio and Hara Takeshi (all of whom Shokun!places in the Middle-of-the-Road School); and finally Eguchi Keiichi, Fujiwara Akira, Himeta Mitsuyoshi, Inoue Hisashi, Yoshida Yutaka, Kasahara Toshushi and Takasaki Ryūji (Great Massacre School). By any standards an impressive and comprehensive list, this includes almost every researcher actively working on the Nanjing Incident in Japan. The major omission, apart from Hata Ikuhiko and Higashinakano Osamichi, who were involved elsewhere in the Shokun! project, is Honda Katsuichi. Both Hora Tomio and Itakura Yoshiaki have recently died, while Kitamura Minoru first joined the debate on Nanjing only after this survey was published.
This group of researchers and writers was asked to reply to a number of questions, including how many Chinese each believes the Japanese illegally killed (massacred) in Nanjing, how the Nanjing Incident should be defined in terms of both time and geography, whether the execution of soldiers who shed their uniforms and hid among the civilian population of Nanjing should be included in any count of a massacre, and whether the Japanese execution of plain-clothed soldiers was forbidden by international law.
The answers to the first question about the scale of Japanese atrocities in and around Nanjing are hardly surprising - the various schools are after all defined by their views on the issue. Members of the Illusion School answered that the number was zero (Fuji Nobuo), almost zero, or, in the case of Watanabe, 40 to 50. The Middle-of-the-Road School, which is given a broader definition than the one I use, ranges from "several thousand" (Nakamura and Unemoto) through about 10,000 (Okazaki, Sakurai, and Tanabe) to about 20,000 (Hara) (I would place all but Hara in the Illusion School). The Great Massacre School ranges from at least 100,000 (Eguchi), more than 120,000 (10 sūman), a figure which has become the orthodox position of this school and which is advocated by Himeta, Inoue, Kasahara and Yoshida, to the older orthodoxy, 200,000, which is still advocated by Fujiwara and Takasaki.
The enormous differences in the various estimates of the scale of the Japanese atrocities in Nanjing are at least partly due to the differences in definition of concepts such as "Nanjing" and "massacre". The Illusion School has a very different understanding of the time frame of the incident and the geographical definition of Nanjing than that of the Great Massacre School. The majority of the Illusion School believes that the Nanjing Incident lasted for 6 weeks, from mid-December to late January (this definition also dominates the English-language literature). The Great Massacre School, however, gives mid-November to late January (Eguchi and Takasaki), 6 weeks (Fujiwara and Himeta), and 1 December, 4 December and mid-December to March (Inoue, Kasahara and Yoshida respectively). There is also a large variation in the geographical definition of Nanjing. Because their time frame has been pushed so far back, Eguchi and Takasaki appear to define it to include areas such as Suzhou, 120 miles away (occupied by the Shanghai Expeditionary Army on 19 November) and Jiaxing, which fell on the same day and which was even further away from Nanjing. Apart from Himeta, who defines Nanjing as the city and its suburbs, all other members of this school define Nanjing as the city and 6 surroundingxian (counties). Needless to say, by expanding the time framework and geographical definition, it becomes possible to argue for a higher death toll; and by narrowing it to argue for a smaller one. One of the great limits of the debate in Japan is that these differences are rarely if ever clearly articulated, so any debate on the death toll in "Nanjing" is meaningless if two completely different definitions are being used.
Large differences are also seen regarding the question whether soldiers who changed into civilian clothes and hid among the civilian population of Nanjing should be viewed as plain-clothed soldiers, regular soldiers, civilians, or other (or in other words whether they should be viewed as combatants or non-combatants). Of the 16 members of the Illusion and Middle-of-the-Road Schools, 11 view such soldiers as plain-clothed soldiers and four as regular troops (combatants). Of the seven members of the Great Massacre School, one views such soldiers as regular troops, and six have replied "other", giving their definition as defeated soldiers who had lost the will to fight (non-combatants). Needless to say, this difference has large implications in terms of the legality of the executions of these soldiers. There is in fact also a clear fault line regarding the questions whether the execution of these soldiers was legal: all members of the Great Massacre School declare that it was not; almost all others believe that it was.
This questionnaire provides the most detailed summary of the debate in Japanese circles about the Nanjing Incident that I am aware of. It was an impressive coup to have gained replies from so many researchers in Japan, and to have made it possible to paint a picture of an emerging consensus about Nanjing in Japan. It is clear that the Great Massacre School has begun to revise its figures for the scale of the killings quite dramatically downwards. It is also clear that the various schools share a very different set of assumptions about the time and geographical framework of the Nanjing Incident. What would be of great interest would be to ask members of the Illusion School what they believe the death toll would be if the time span and geography of "Nanjing" were expanded, and at the same time to ask the Great Massacre School the same question if the definition were narrowed. My own assumption is that the differences between the Middle-of-the-Road School member, Hata Ikuhiko, and Great Massacre School member, Kasahara Tokushi, for instance, would disappear if this were done.
The survey does not, however, provide more information on the schools themselves, or on their major characteristics. A summary of these characteristics will be attempted below.
The Illusion School mainly consists of conservative thinkers who are not professional historians, and of the three groups is easily the one with the largest number of lay members. It has, however, been given an enormous boost with the recent publication of Higashinakano Osamichi (1998), "Nankin Gyakusatsu" no Tettei Kenshō(A Thorough Investigation of the "Nanjing Massacre"), one of the most important works on the Nanjing Incident as a whole to emerge since the publication of Hata Ikuhiko's authoritative Nankin Jiken in 1986. Despite its many flaws in objectivity, Higashinakano's work will continue to influence the debate in Japan for the foreseeable future.[15]
幻觉学派主要由保守派思想家组成，而非专业的历史学家，也拥有在三个不同学派中最多人数的非专业人员。不过随着近期由 東中野修道Higashinakano Osamichi (1998) 所撰写的 "南京虐殺の徹底検証 Nankin Gyakusatsu" no Tettei Kenshō(A Thorough Investigation of the "Nanjing Massacre")（南京大屠杀的彻底调查）的出版，幻觉学派的影响力得到了很大的提升。此书也是自秦郁彦Hata Ikuhiko 所写且具有权威性的《南京事件》出版以来最重要的相关学术研究著作之一。尽管在客观性上有着不少的缺陷，看来東中野Higashinakano的著作依然会在未来持续影响着日本国内对于此事的争论。
Higashinakano has also teamed up with Fujioka Nobukatsu to publish a series of articles that mercilessly examine Iris Chang's work. These articles were subsequently brought together as Za Reipu obu Nankin no Kenkyū - Chūgoku ni okeru "Jōhōsen" no Teguchi no Senryaku (Research on The Rape of Nanjing: China's Methods and Strategy in the "Information War") (Higashinakano and Fujioka, 1999). The Illusion School publishes through a number of small conservative publishers, frequently appears in the pages of right-wing magazines such as Seiron and Shokun! and has found support in the mainstream (albeit clearly conservative) press, the Sankei Shinbun. To the best of my knowledge, this school has no academic supporters in either the English-language or the Chinese-language discourse.
東中野 Higashinakano也与藤岡信勝 Fujioka合作，出版了一系列无情批判张纯如著作的文章。在此之后，这些文章于1999年被编成一本叫做《对于南京侵犯的研究，在中国的情报战的方法与手段》（ザレイプオブ南京の研究―中国における“情報戦”の手口の戦略Za Reipu obu Nankin no Kenkyū - Chūgoku ni okeru "Jōhōsen" no Teguchi no Senryaku ）(Research on The Rape of Nanjing: China's Methods and Strategy in the "Information War")。幻觉学派学者通过一些小型保守出版社，持续出现于一些比如《正論》，《诸君！》之类的右翼杂志之上，并且在例如《産経新聞》 之类主流（主流中的保守派）出版社中也找到了不少的支持。在我所知的范围内，无论是在英文语言的研究者或者是中文语言的研究者中，这一学派似乎没有任何学术界的支持者。
Although there are problems with the Rabe Diary, it has tended to support the work of the Middle-of-the-Road School. The last (posthumous) work by Itakura Yoshiaki (1999), Hontō wa Kō datta Nankin Jiken (The Truth about the Nanjing Incident), is an impressive summary of the work of someone who devoted his life to researching the Nanjing Incident. It brings together much of the research that Itakura has done in the area, and will serve to bolster the Middle-of-the-Road School. Itakura also played a major role in editing one of the most important pieces of research on the Nanjing Incident, the three volume Nankin Senshi work, which consists of an overview of the battle for Nanjing and a collection of diaries and official battle reports of the various Japanese military units that took part in the attack on Nanjing (Nankin Senshi Henshū Iinkai ed. 1993a; 1993b; 1993c). The latest individual to join the debate on Nanjing, Kitamura Minoru, sees himself as a member of this school (although he quite deliberately refuses to make any estimate of the death toll - arguably a sensible option for Japanese researchers). As an academic who specialises in modern Chinese history, Kitamura has much to offer the debate, and it is to be hoped that he will continue his research. [16] The authority on the Nanjing Incident, Hata Ikuhiko, is also a member of this school. I see Masahiro Yamamoto as clearly belonging to it, although his estimate of the total number of victims is a little high. (I would also count myself as a member.) To the extent that this school is defined as consisting of professional historians rather than ideologues (or myth-makers), and to the extent that it is defined as accepting the premise that the story of Nanjing can only be told through a reconstruction of the primary documents, I would also tend to count many of the professional Western-based historians in this group too.[17] However, as long as the estimate of the number of victims remains the yardstick used to divide individual theorists into separate schools, and as long as Western scholars refrain from making any such estimate, this would perhaps be a little premature.
尽管拉贝日记也有种种问题，它依然提供了支持中道学派学法的证据。板倉由明(Itakura Yoshiaki)个人的最后一部作品（去世后出版）《南京时间真相》『本当はこうだった南京事件』(The Truth about the Nanjing Incident)，是一位毕生致力于南京事件研究的学者所写出的一部令人称道的作品。此书综述了板倉毕生进行的大部分研究，并且进一步加强了中道学派的说法。板倉的贡献不仅仅限于此，他也参与了在南京事件研究领域最重要的一套书之一，名为《南京戦史》Nankin Senshi 的前后三册丛书的编写工作。此丛书包括了对于南京战役的全面介绍，以及参与了对南京进攻日本方面军人所写的一系列日记与官方战役报告(Nankin Senshi Henshū Iinkai ed. 1993a; 1993b; 1993c)。一个最新加入这个有关南京辩论的学者是北村 稔，他认为自己是中道学派中的一分子（尽管他对受难者人数进行评论的故意拒绝，对于日本学者来说，这不愧为一个明智的选择）。对于一个致力于研究当代中国历史的学者来说，北村能做出的贡献或许有许多，因此我们期待他能继续从事这一方面的研究。作为对于南京研究上的一位权威人物，秦郁彦（Hata Ikuhiko）也是属于这个学派（中道学派）。由于这一学派的组成往往是职业历史学家而非意识形态的鼓动者(混淆视听者)，也因为此派的学者一直坚持通过原始材料来还原南京时间的历史真相，我倾向于把许多活跃于西方的职业历史学家也归于此学派。然而，只要对于死亡人数的估计依然是在此争论中划分不同学派的主要标准，以及许多西方的学者学者往往拒绝对于受难者人数进行估计，使用这样的一种归类法或许依然是不成熟了一点。
Ironically, perhaps, the Great Massacre School can be said to share much with the Illusion School. Both can be highly ideological and dogmatic, both can be extremely violent in the language they use, and both can be more than careless with the historical facts and sources.[18] Of the two, however, the Great Massacre School is clearly the more sophisticated, counting among its members a large number of academics who bring a great deal of authority to their findings. This school has been relatively quiet recently. [19] As even Kasahara (2001: 266) (polemically) notes, "In recent years more books questioning the massacre have been published [in Japan] than those confirming the facts of the incident". Iris Chang's work has clearly dealt the Great Massacre School a severe blow. Members of this school translated her book into Japanese but, through their publisher, the left-wing Kashiwa Shobō, had a public (and embarrassing) falling out with the author when she refused her translators permission to correct the enormous amount of mistakes her book is riddled with or to add translator's footnotes, and also objected to the publisher putting out a sister volume in which the mistakes would have been explained. Rather than concentrating on those who argue for a smaller death toll than what it sees as acceptable, the Great Massacre School has thus been forced into the (unusual) position of criticising a work that argues for a larger death toll, and in doing so has to a certain extent blurred the clear lines that separated it from (or at least introduced some ambiguity in the relationship with) the Middle-of-the-Road School.
The Great Massacre School has recently published a volume that violently criticises the work of the Illusion School (Nankin Jiken Chōsa Kenkyūkai ed. 1999). In doing so, however, it merely reinforces the perception that it is no longer positively advancing new theories and interpretations, but is merely fighting a defensive rearguard action. The works of this School are published by left-wing publishers such as Aoki Shoten and Ōtsuki Shoten, which serves to emphasise its increasing marginalisation. Kasahara Tokushi did publish Nankin Jiken from the left-wing, but much more mainstream, Iwanami Shoten as recently as 1997. This work, however, inadvertently used a fabricated photograph, and Kasahara was forced to make an embarrassing and public apology (typically, Iris Chang used the same photograph in her work after it had been exposed in Japan as a fake). One of the great strengths of this school has been its continued efforts to bring together, translate and publish the primary sources on the Nanjing Incident. Moreover, a large group within this school has begun to revise its numbers downwards (I believe that this is due to the publication of Rabe). This perhaps indicates that it is possible that the school might split into two, with a small group of hard-line ideologues maintaining the old orthodoxy and a larger group of professional historians moving towards the Middle-of-the-Road position.
These three schools are well established in Japan, and this categorisation will therefore continue to be useful when discussing the debate there. However, in analysing the debate outside Japan, these categories are far less useful. I believe that a better way to divide the various positions that exist may be produced from an examination of the basic mindset of each researcher that divides the debate into the "historians" and the "myth-makers". Both the Great Massacre School and especially the Illusion School are frequently far more interested in the present than the past. Both construct mythologised narratives of the past that serve the political, ideological and emotional needs of the present. The Middle-of-the-Road School, on the other hand, rather than taking a position that lies between the other two, argues instead for the integrity of the historiographical process of reconstructing history based on an informed and self-critical interpretation of the primary materials. In a triangulation of the debate, it emphasises the process used to draw conclusions rather than adopting an ends-oriented approach that begins with an understanding of the past that is pressed into the service of the present. The strength of the Middle-of-the-Road School is the focus on the primary materials, which allows (and actually forces) members to change their minds and draw different conclusions as new sources emerge. The strength of a classification that looks at the mindset of the researcher is that when it is used to analyse the debate on Nanjing, it clarifies and highlights the similarities between some members of the Great Massacre and the Middle-of-the-Road Schools. It can also be used to a far greater extent in examining the debate in English.
The individual methodologies used to discuss the Nanjing Incident have been summarised by Hata Ikuhiko according to the four methods by which he believes the number of victims in Nanjing can be counted: oral history, burial records, data sampling, and Japanese army field reports (Hata 1998b). I will next give a brief summary of my views of each.
Oral history has provided some important insights, but it must be emphasised that it is arguably the most problematic methodology in researching the incident. Those who rely mainly on Chinese sources (Iris Chang to a certain extent and Honda Katsuichi) produce one set of figures on the scale of the massacre and the brutality of the Japanese that cannot be substantiated by any other methodology, whereas some of those who rely solely on Japanese oral sources have denied that any massacre occurred, again a claim that cannot be substantiated. Given the fact that the Incident itself occurred over 60 years ago, the opportunities for new research in this area are quickly fading.[20]
The second methodology is to examine the burial records. Although any such examination is doubtless an important step in any overall reconstruction of the events in Nanjing, this methodology also has its limits, the main one being that the lack of complete contemporaneous records (primary materials) makes for much guess-work. In a previous paper, I have attempted such an examination, juxtaposing the various primary sources against the burial records in order to shed light on their reliability. Although these records are almost certainly not accurate, an examination of the primary sources does allow a far more objective picture of the burial effort in and around Nanjing to be drawn. My own research demonstrates that it can be shown with a great deal of reliability that roughly 17,500 plus or minus 2,500 Chinese bodies were buried in and around the city, and that there are some grounds for arguing that as many as 32,000 bodies may have been (although this later figure is based to a far greater degree on conjecture).[21] Apart from my own research, the only other author in the English language to spend any time on these records is Masahiro Yamamoto. [22] The most detailed pieces of research in Japanese have all been authored by Inoue Hisashi (1987; 1988).
The third methodology is data sampling, of which there is only one case. This was L. S. C. Smythe (1938), War Damage in the Nanking Area: December 1937 to March 1938. Smythe was an academic and sociologist, and conducted an extensive survey of Nanjing in early 1938 in the immediate aftermath of the Japanese atrocities. He was well qualified to conduct such a survey, having received his PhD in sociology from the University of Chicago, and with experience in conducting at least two similar surveys in 1931 and 1932. Smythe's survey was conducted in two areas: within the city walls of Nanjing and in the surrounding rural areas. In the City Survey, investigators surveyed every 50th inhabited house. The survey covered the whole of the city inside the walls, together with areas just outside some of the gates, and was conducted from 9 March 1938 to 2 April 1938, with some supplementary work from 19 to 23 April. The Agricultural Survey was conducted over 2,438 square miles in 4.5 xian (counties) around Nanjing. These surveys produced an enormous amount of data that has not yet been properly analysed. Needless to say, no other survey was carried out in and around Nanjing so soon after the city fell. Surprisingly few authors have made extensive use of this piece of documentation. Both the Great Massacre and the Illusion Schools - for obvious reasons, perhaps - tend to dismiss it, but why the historians have not made greater use of it is a puzzle.[23]
第三种方法论则是数据采样。这种方法至今只有被用过一次，是出现在L. S. C. Smythe（L.S.C. 施迈瑟）(1938), War Damage in the Nanking Area: December 1937 to March 1938（南京地区的战争破坏：1937年12月到1938年3月）. 施迈瑟是一位学者也是一位社会学家，他曾于1938年年初在南京进行过一次详细的关于日军暴行所造成的后果的调查。他在进行这个调查的权威性毋庸置疑，一是因为他在芝加哥大学所取得的社会学博士学位，二是他之前有至少在1931年与1932年进行过两次相类似调查的经验。而这次，施迈瑟的调查是在两所范围内进行的。在开展所谓的城中调查时，调查员调查了每个第五十所的居住的房子。这个调查覆盖了整个在城墙中的市区，以及正好在一些城门外的屋子，由1938年3月9号开始到同年4月2号结束，也包括了一些4月19号到23号期间的辅助调查。而其他的一个调查，所谓的“农业调查”，则覆盖了南京城周围总占地达到2438平方英里的4.5个县。这一系列的调查产生了一组巨量，且还没有被详细地分析过的数据。不必提及的是，除此之外再也没有任何在事件发生后如此迅速的调查被开展过。令人惊奇的恰恰是，很少的研究员大规模地采用了这调查成果。基于明显的原因，包括大屠杀学派以及幻觉学派的双方倾向于否定这项调查，而为何以中道学派为代表的职业历史学家也没有更好地使用这些数据则是的确相当令人费解。
The final methodology, the examination of Japanese army field reports, also has its limits. The Japanese military was very strict and objective with regard to some aspects of what it reported (how many rounds of ammunition were used on any particular day, for instance, or how many Japanese soldiers died), but at the same time individual units regularly inflated the number of enemy soldiers left killed on the battlefield (an examination of the rounds of ammunition expended may in some cases shed some light on the Chinese death toll). This methodology has been extensively utilised by Hata Ikuhiko, Masahiro Yamamoto, and the authors of Nankin Senshi.
The above methodologies can be defined by the sources they use. The other primary sources that exist are the diaries, letters and other documents authored by members of the three major groups in Nanjing: the "bystanders", members of the international community in Nanjing, the Chinese "victims", and the Japanese "perpetrators" (Yang 2000: 138). Hata does not believe that a close analysis of this set of sources can provide a means by which the number of victims in Nanjing can be counted. I am however convinced that he is wrong. The various documents authored by members of the international community in particular provide a great deal of (reasonably objective) information, but again have not been adequately utilised in the English language literature. Indeed to the best of my knowledge, I am the first to have exactly identified the membership of the Western community in Nanjing at the time in any language[24]
以上涉及的方法论大致是被其所使用的情报源所定义。而现实中，也有一些其他的一手材料，包括日记，信件以及另外由当时在南京的“三个团体”所写的文件。所谓的三个团体即是：一，“旁观者”，主要是当时在南京的国际社团成员；二，“中国受难者”；三，“日本施暴者” (Yang 2000: 138)。秦郁彦（Hata Ikuhiko）不认为通过对以上情报源的分析能得出一个方便计算受难者人数的手段。而我确信他的主张是错误的。事实上，尤其是由“旁观者”即国际社团成员所著的一些文件，提供了大量的信息，它们但却偏偏在英文研究中没有被好好利用。在我的知识范围之内，我应该是在任何一种语言的相关研究中，第一个确定当时在南京的西方人的具体成员的研究者。
There are a number of accounts in Chinese that are said to be authored by Chinese individuals who were in Nanjing during the early occupation.[25] Some of these at least are clearly false in parts (reporting conversations with members of the International Committee who had left the city, for instance), and almost certainly were the products of Chinese government propaganda. More work needs to be done to identify the work that is genuine, and to make a greater use of it in telling the story of occupied Nanjing as experienced by the Chinese residents of the city. The diaries of a large number of Chinese military personnel have been brought together and published, and so for the first time it is now possible to review the Chinese military experience of fighting the Japanese. None of this material is available in English, and Yamamoto and myself are perhaps the only authors to have begun to use this treasure trove of information in reconstructing the history of Nanjing in English.[26]Japanese accounts only began to appear long after the event, and in many cases have to be treated with some caution: "diaries" are not always products of the winter of 1937-38, for instance, but reconstructions authored decades later with particular political objectives in mind.
A final source is provided by the records of the Tokyo Trial (many of the burial records were in fact drawn up for the postwar military trials of the Japanese responsible for Nanjing).[27]
These records again have to be treated with some caution. The perpetrators, the Japanese on trial, obviously had very strong motives for giving false testimony, but some aspects of the testimony of other witnesses can also easily be shown to be false. This can be explained perhaps by the long lapse of time between the events and the trials, although a desire for revenge cannot be completely ruled out. As a result, secondary materials based solely or mainly on the postwar military tribunals held in Tokyo and Nanjing have to be treated with some caution and scepticism (the work of Hora Tomio, for example, is a case in point).
The debate in Japan appears to have quietened down to a certain extent as the full implications of Rabe's diary are digested (Hata among others speaks of the "Rabe effect"). Although the flood of publications continues, there are real signs of an emerging consensus. Rabe has clearly destroyed much of the basis for the arguments of the Great Massacre School, but also makes it absolutely clear that he was convinced that the Japanese army was responsible for looting, arson, rape and the execution of thousands of men identified as "ex-soldiers".[28] He has thus been most vigorously denounced by members of the Illusion School, but it must be said that the greatest impact in the long term will probably be felt among the ranks of the Great Massacre School, members of which have already begun to revise their numbers downwards. In the recent English translation of Honda Katsuichi's The Nanjing Massacre, Honda, for instance, has significantly reduced his estimate of the scale of the Japanese atrocities in and around Nanjing. As Frank Gibney notes in his introduction, Honda now believes that "a bit over 100,000" is the true figure for the scale of the massacre during the Nanjing Incident (Honda 1999: xiii). Although Gibney does not say so, this figure is probably based on Rabe's estimate of 50,000 to 60,000 for both civilians and soldiers, including soldiers killed in action, to which is then added a second figure of 80,000 soldiers (this assumes that 90,000 soldiers died, of whom 10,000 died in action, and 80,000 were executed). In other words, at least some members of the Great Massacre School appear to have accepted Rabe's estimate, but apply it to civilians only, despite the fact that Rabe clearly states that at least 30,000 of this estimate were soldiers killed in combat, and despite the fact that his estimates of the civilian death toll in an official report to the German Embassy was "thousands". Although Honda's revised estimate is a product of the Rabe Diary, the text itself contains an earlier, pre-Rabe estimate. Honda here asserts that "we need to treat as a single phenomenon the approximately three months from November through January of the assault on Nanjing" - an assertion that matches his later arguments - but then goes on to state that, once the time-frame is thus broadened, "we are dealing with too much time to say anything specific about the numbers of people killed, but no one can deny that the victims of the massacre numbered in the hundreds of thousands" (Honda 1999: 285). The English translation of his work thus contains both the "old" orthodox figure of "hundreds of thousands" in the main text and the new orthodox figure of 100,000 plus.
Perhaps partly in an effort to placate Chinese sensitivities, members of the Great Massacre School (including Honda) are clearly becoming increasingly willing to openly broaden their definition of "Nanjing" so as to encompass a large enough space and long enough time to increase the death toll. Kasahara's position that "over 100,000, perhaps nearly 200,000 or even more" were killed in "Nanjing" can be viewed as an attempt to maintain his integrity as a historian, but at the same time to avoid offending political sensitivities.
A second trend in Japan is the internationalisation of the debate. Honda's work was the first to be translated into English, but was quickly followed by one of the major figures in the Illusion School, Tanaka Masaaki (2000). In another sign of the internationalisation of the debate in Japan, one of the recent works on Nanjing was originally published in both English and Japanese (Takemoto Tadao and Ōhara Yasuo 2000). Unfortunately, none of the historians has yet been translated, although Masahiro Yamamoto is reasonably close to Hata Ikuhiko's position.
A third trend is the increasing interest shown in the debate by Western academics who are aware of and well-versed in both the Japanese-language and Chinese-language literature. The work edited by Joshua Fogel is perhaps the best example of this, but others such as Timothy Brook and Bob Wakabayashi are also doing highly original research that is bound to change general perceptions of Nanjing in the West. Wakabayashi, for instance, has recently published a paper on the competition between two Japanese officers to see who could first kill (decapitate) a hundred Chinese with their swords (Wakabayashi 2000). This competition has become a major part of the myth of Nanjing in both the English and Chinese language literature, but is clearly false. Wakabayashi's paper is the best piece of academic research on this competition in any language, and demonstrates the advantages of having professional historians outside Japan research and publish on Nanjing. A related trend is, as noted above, the increasing number of edited volumes of primary materials that are being published in English.
A fourth trend has been the recent attempt by some to shed light on aspects of Nanjing long ignored in the Japanese debate and its fixation on the number of victims. An outstanding example of this is Timothy Brook who, in an as yet unpublished paper, examines the first collaborationist regime established in Nanjing, the Autonomous Government Committee, and in particular one of its members, Jimmy Wang (Brook, unpublished manuscript). Elsewhere, Brook examines the Reformed Government (Weixin Zhengfu) that replaced the Autonomous Government Committee (Brook 2001a). The story of occupied Nanjing, and the links established between Japanese rulers and Chinese ruled, has long been overlooked in the debate, and Brook's work opens new doors that expand our understanding of the event. I have written two papers on a related topic, the International Committee for the Nanking [Nanjing] Safety Zone and its experience of Japanese rule.[29] The discussion of the entire discourse on Nanjing and comparison with the discourse on the holocaust - in other words an analysis not of the history of Nanjing but of the historiography - is again a relatively new theme that is providing new and fruitful insights. The work of Daqing Yang (2000) and Joshua Fogel (unpublished manuscript) here is especially sophisticated. Kanemaru Yūichi (2000) has recently published a path-breaking piece of research on the fate of many of the books and other cultural treasures in areas of Central China, including Nanjing.
A related trend is the recent attempt to overcome some of the limits of the mindsets that underlie much of the previous literature on Nanjing. For instance, one common (if subconscious) assumption that can be seen behind much of the English-language literature on Nanjing is the notion of Chinese as feminised and Orientalised "passive" non-actors. To give a single example, a large part of Nanjing was destroyed by fire during the early weeks of occupation. Despite the official Chinese scorched-earth policy, the well-known existence within the walls of Nanjing of large numbers of Chinese military personnel, and the fact that it was in the interests of the Japanese to maintain a viable urban centre once they had captured it (just as much as it was in the interests of the Chinese government to deny the Japanese this centre), this arson has long been implicitly if not explicitly assumed to be the sole responsibility of the Japanese. The examination of the possibility of a Chinese resistance movement within Nanjing also remains virgin territory. [30]
The existing literature has been very reluctant to examine certain topics that will (I suspect) increasingly become the focus of attention. For instance, the basic assumption that the Japanese were all evil and the Chinese all innocent victims, while emotionally satisfying, does not provide for a complete historical account. To reach a deeper understanding of the events in and around Nanjing, a number of disturbing questions will have to be asked. Was the Chinese decision to make a stand at Nanjing, despite the large numbers of civilians trapped within its walls, the correct one? Did the Chinese custom of using units of what were known as "plain-clothes soldiers" (soldiers fighting in civilian clothes) contribute to the execution of plain-clothed male civilians of weapons-carrying age? Did the Chinese military decision to change out of military uniform after Nanjing fell and hide among the civilian population contribute to such executions? Was the Japanese decision to execute men in civilian clothes found (in some cases at least) with weapons hiding among the civilian population legal? The English language literature here may well come into its own. The Japanese clearly would be extremely reluctant to tackle these issues, and many of these questions will remain taboo in the Chinese-language discourse for the foreseeable future. To ask these questions is not to deny the events that occurred in and around Nanjing, but merely to demonstrate that the causes of this incident are more complex than a black-and-white good-versus-evil position might initially assume.
Conclusion
In this paper, I have attempted to shed some light on the state of research of the Nanjing Incident today. In conclusion, I would like to make a number of points about researching Nanjing.
First, to put it mildly, Nanjing is a controversial topic. Although our understanding of the events of Nanjing do not even begin to approach our understanding of the holocaust, it is certainly possible to demonise anyone who budges from the orthodox position as being a denier on par with a David Irving. The problem is that the orthodox position is completely different in China and Japan, and within Japan itself there are three distinct orthodoxies. Although there is real debate in Japan, no one there now accepts the figure of 300,000 victims as plausible, while in China the figure is set in concrete (in both senses of the word) at the entrance of the Memorial for the Compatriot [Chinese] Victims of the Japanese Massacre in Nanjing. Unless the debate is to continue to run on parallel lines, never to come together to produce a deeper, more complete and transnational understanding of this historical event, this is not a situation to be welcomed. How to overcome it, on the other hand, poses a dilemma. As long as much of the debate is dominated by ideologues, the sensible option for historians may well be to keep their heads low and research other topics. That, however, cannot be a desirable outcome. Historians surely have an obligation to combat the trend to use Nanjing as a weapon in contemporary ideological and international contests.
Secondly, too many Japanese researchers in particular are either completely ignorant of, or do not care about, the fact that Nanjing for better or for worse has become a central plank in the construction of the modern self-identity of the Chinese. To discuss Nanjing is to threaten this self-identity. Once aware of this fact, all who participate in the debate need to show some sensitivity to it. I am not arguing that the Chinese orthodoxy needs to be accepted without question because the feelings of so many will be hurt if it is questioned. Indeed, I strongly believe that human beings have to come to terms with the "real" past and accept it, and that it is more dangerous (at least in the long term) to found national identity on a lie than to discover the truth and live with it. However, some effort does need to be made (on both extremes of the debate) to avoid the use of inflammatory language, and to show a much greater awareness of and sensitivity to the moral implications of historical inquiry.
Thirdly, as historians, it is our obligation to examine calmly the primary materials and reconstruct the history of Nanjing on the basis of what those materials say. Some clearly want to absolve the Japanese of all blame, while others want to depict the Japanese as a uniquely brutal and ruthless race. Neither position should form the starting point of any discussion of the events in Nanjing - although, of course, either might be the conclusion of any such examination. The publication of as many primary materials as possible is clearly a basic condition for this approach, so we need to encourage the discovery and publication of as much as possible.
Finally, a dialogue between historians working on the Nanjing Incident needs to be promoted. Again, I have great hopes for the forum provided by the English language, where researchers from both Japan and China can debate with researchers from third-party countries such as the USA, Canada and Australia. The problem with the Chinese and Japanese language discourses is that they are both so insular and the political environments are so charged. It is in the market of ideas and through constant debate (and perhaps the mediation provided by "neutral", third-party historians), that the truth will be approached.