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The Nanking Atrocities, also known as the Rape of Nanking and Nanking Massacre, was an episode of mass murder and mass rape committed by Japanese troops against the residents of Nanking or Nanjing during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The massacre occurred during a sixweek period starting from December 13, 1937, the day that the Japanese captured Nanking, which was then the Chinese capital. During this period, between 40,000 to over 300,000 Chinese civilians and disarmed combatants were murdered by soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army. The women were raped often killed immediately after being raped. Both Chinese and Japanese historians presented how the atrocities occurred. On the one hand, the Chinese historians blame the Japanese Army for the Nanking Atrocities but in reaction, the Japanese have denied the atrocities entirely. The aim of this paper is to identify and analyze various factors contributing to the occurrence of the atrocities in Nanking. In short, this paper is traced to the characteristics, goals, and aspirations of the war. It represents a brief history of the background of the atrocities of Nanking. It also represents the issue of why the Japanese army behaved with such apparent barbarism in seizing places such as Nanking.
Keywords'. Nanking, atrocities, causes, women, rape.
PREFACE
The atrocities and rape of Nanking or Nanjing has become one of the symbolic events of the war, a paradigmatic example of Japanese brutality and Chinese victimization. For both China and Japan, "it" was a disaster. China calls "it" the Rape of Nanking because hundreds of thousands of lives were taken without just compensation. Japan calls "it" the Incident of Nanking because China had fabricated a tale that slandered and sullied Japanese honor and integrity1. Many Chinese writers noted that "have viewed the massacre as a kind of 'master narrative'," without examining the particular circumstances in which it took place. Mark Eykholt has demonstrated how the Chinese government has used the atrocity as a tool for gaining moral ascendancy over Japan2. "Certainly it was one of the greatest mass rapes in world history," writes Iris Chang. She notes that "it is impossible to determine the exact number of women raped in Nanking". Estimates range from as low as twenty thousand to as high as eighty thousand'....