Testimony of history: Japan’s postwar coverage avoids invasion of China, one-sided hypes up Japanese victimhood: Asahi Shimbun former reporter

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The year 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1931-45) and the World Anti-Fascist War, but in Japan there are still historical revisionists disparaging the war reflection as self-deprecating. Some even claimed that no reports of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre from Japan's media coverage at the time proves it never occurred. To rebut such claims, Yoichi Jomaru, a former journalist with Asahi Shimbun, spent three and a half years reviewing approximately 80 Japanese newspapers and related materials from across Japan of that time to search for wartime and postwar coverage of the Nanjing Massacre, and shared what he found with the Global Times.

Jomaru found that most wartime articles portrayed Japanese soldiers as brave and self-sacrificing. They depicted the "strong and righteous Japanese army" and that the Chinese people, suffering under Chiang Kai-shek's tyranny at the time, joyfully welcomed the Japanese army.

However, what was left unwritten was the true situation on the battlefield, Jomaru told the Global Times. "There was no reporting on crimes such as the massacre of prisoners of war and civilians, arson, looting, or rape. Even if reporters wrote about such incidents, articles that reported facts unfavorable to the Japanese army were censored and not published," he said.

Regarding prisoners of war, Jomaru said there were photo reports on how many prisoners were captured, but he could find no articles describing what happened to those prisoners afterward, nor directly writing the massacre scene of prisoners.

Jomaru recounted to the Global Times a rare report describing a massacre scene in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province. A war artist, Kigen Nakagawa, aged 45, who accompanied a reporting team into Nanjing, walked through the city from the afternoon of December 13 to the evening of December 15 in 1937. Upon returning to Japan, Nakagawa wrote in a report published on April 2, 1938 in Miyako Shimbun that the Nanjing battle, he saw groups of hundreds of prisoners detained and sighed the unfortunate enemy soldiers were heading a pitiable end.

Jomaru said although the description lacks specificity, it certainly portrays groups of prisoners being killed without resistance. "Among the materials I reviewed, this was the only article that depicted such scenes. I find it strange that this article passed censorship, but it was published indeed," Jomaru said.

While pointing out that wartime coverage was written as a kind of heroic tale and never written to expose the wrongdoings of the Japanese army, the journalist said Japanese media in the postwar period has reported very little on its wars in China, focusing instead on the Pacific War to render "the mournful stories of the Japanese army."

According to Xinhua News Agency, Japan launched a surprise attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, destroying or severely damaging several American warships and over a hundred aircraft. The attack resulted in the deaths of about 2,400 Americans. The US subsequently declared war on Japan, marking the beginning of the Pacific War.

"Japan was at a disadvantage just about six months after the Pacific War began and never recovered afterward. In the context of a defensive war, the tragedy and drama of Japanese soldiers fighting were frequently highlighted, with topics such as the Kamikaze units widely covered and even made into films," Jomaru said.

At the end of World War II, in an attempt to reverse their losing position, Japan organized the Kamikaze special attack units within its military, modifying numerous planes, submarines, speedboats and torpedoes to crash into US naval vessels in suicidal attacks, Xinhua reported.

Jomaru said the heroic and emotional portrayals of "the tragedy of the Japanese army" could not only help conceal the responsibility of Japan's wartime military leaders who forced soldiers to sacrifice, but the memory of the subsequent Japan-US war could overshadow the memory of the Japan's aggression of China as the invasion of China was an unjustifiable act of aggression and could not be portrayed positively.

"Ultimately, while the tragic stories of Japanese soldiers that move readers and viewers to tears have been adapted in novels and films, Japan has essentially avoided facing the fact of its invasion of China," he said.

Jomaru compiled his findings in the 2023 book The Nanjing Incident and Newspaper Reporting: what was written, what was left unwritten aiming to expose the illegitimacy of Japan's invasion of China, expressing wish to contribute even in a small way to promoting a fairer understanding of history in Japan although it may be impossible to completely eliminate distorted statements on the internet.

Jomaru also expressed hope that the Chinese film Dead to Rights, which is set against the backdrop of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre and is gaining strong momentum both in the Chinese mainland and abroad, can be screened in Japan. 

"Personally, I really want to see it, but as there are a considerable number of politicians hold a stance of historical distortionism in Japan, it might be very difficult in reality. Rather than relying on commercial cinema releases, I hope that through civic movements and other means, more Japanese people will have the opportunity to watch it," Jomaru said.

Asked how historical reconciliation between Japan and China can be achieved, Jomaru said that it is a difficult question, but perhaps the first step is for individual Chinese and individual Japanese to meet and begin to understand one another. "It may seem a roundabout route, but I believe such a path is effective," he said.