As it should.
I have been there. It was moving. 300,000 people massacred. Partially excavated mass graves on display. Not fake. All real. I have friends with relatives who were killed. There is no rational dispute of the fact that Japan killed hundreds of thousands of Chinese.
We visited the museum in September 2012, right during the height of the dispute of Diayou Islands. While we were inside, little did we know that a major protest was forming outside. When we got out of the museum and had to walk back to the nearest train station, we got caught up in the middle of a police action. There were probably ten thousand protestors who had been corralled into one street near the museum. But around it, probably 100,000 security troops had amassed, all with automatic weapons.
There were guys in white shirts and blue caps, some in military fatigues and then busloads of dudes dressed all in black. Mostly they were standing around. They all watched us in silence as we walked by, a group of about 12 Americans. Nobody said one word to us. We deliberately walked tangential to the main body of the protest so that it appeared that we mostly were avoiding it, not going towards it.
It was tense, to say the least. I tried baiju that afternoon for the first time. I hated it, but needed a couple shots.
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Yes. If they did this down the road in Nanjing itself, they would have had people spitting on the street at Japan and making faces and swearing. Shanghai is probably the softest place in China to ask these questions. Maybe also Hong Kong.
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“On purpose?”
But half my friends from high school lived in TJ and commuted over the border to go to school.
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My impression is that China’s communist revolution ended with Mao’s consolidation of power. People shouldn’t feel a sense of loyalty to the Chinese government because they self-identified as communist.
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It would be amazing if those could be scanned and made available online!
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Maybe when I’m retired and I have the time to put toward it. As well I wouldn’t do that unless all the names were redacted, I have zero desire to cause anyone / family emotional pain.
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The two are inextricably linked. Mao’s use of the industrial revolution to push his agenda was directly responsible for the horrific outcome.
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Another good movie based on the Second Sino-Japanese war:
I watched it after seeing it described as a ‘dark comedy’, though I would describe this particular shade of comedy as ‘quasi-hadal’.
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One of the more vicious stories of post civil war exploitation of black folks took place in the Appalachians during the initial coal boom- recently freed slaves were lured by the trainload to build the short lines which ran coal to the hubs from the mines. Likely thousands died, often falling into steep ravines. When they fell no one went looking for them.
Gotta love Carnegie Hall though.
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I should’ve noted, I have looked a bit. There’s also Frank Dikotter’s work.
Generally I just chuckle a bit when I see the 60+ million stuff, because it’s not based on a possible reality. Closer estimates are around 20-30 million, about 4% of the Chinese population in 1965.
The equivalent scale of death for the US between 1870 and 1900 would be 2-3 million. I’d bet my mother’s house the reality is at least as bad as my crude stats.
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I agree that he bears responsibility. I’m just not convinced he’s any more evil than Rockefeller, and certainly less than Rhodes, etc. etc.
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This definitely seems the case, but you have to look at it also with the perspective that a lot of the different Asian nationalities really do have an inherent us vs those a-holes over there point of view.
It certainly doesn’t help that Japan has not been exactly very active about acknowledging the horrors that they visited upon much of Asia historically.
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I would work on that with you. No question. Hit me up when you’re ready.
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By both the numbers and personal responsibility he seems to have the other two both beat soundly.
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From what I understand, things are also complicated by the fact that, during Mao’s day, protests against Japan were not encouraged because Japan’s invasion of China ultimately helped Mao seize power. He supposedly didn’t feel that badly about them personally. There is quite possibly still a lot of emotion which was too long repressed.
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Whatever you do, don’t mention the war!
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The Zimmermann Telegram was a proposed military alliance between Germany and Mexico during the First World War and intercepted by British intelligence. Publishing of the decrypted message in American newspapers with the eventual confirmation by Zimmermann himself was a major factor in the change of public opinion. (the years before and during WW1, the US has been fighting border skirmishes in response to the Mexican Revolution)
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I’ve mentioned once, but I think I got away with it.
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This, exactly.
