Editing Nanjing Massacre (section)

== Causes ==
The Nanjing Massacre was influenced by several factors. The Japanese population was taught militaristic and [[racist]] ideologies. The Japanese government's [[fascist]] doctrine further propagated the belief in Japanese superiority over all other peoples. Other factors include the cruel treatment of Japanese soldiers by their commanders, the brutalization of the Japanese rank and file within the challenging combat conditions in China, and the presence of misogynistic attitudes in Japanese society.<ref name="dixon">{{Cite book |last=Dixon |first=Jennifer |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5tpwDwAAQBAJ&dq=japan+dehumanize+nanjing+massacre&pg=PA96 |title=Dark Pasts: Changing the State's Story in Turkey and Japan |date=2018 |publisher=[[Cornell University Press]] |isbn=978-1-5017-3025-2 |location=Ithaca |page=96}}</ref><ref name=":17">{{Cite book |last=Frank |first=Richard |title=Tower of Skulls, A History of the Asia-Pacific War |date=2020 |publisher=W. W. Norton |page=57}}</ref>

=== Racism and Ultranationalism ===
[[File:BattleofShanghaiwarcrime.png|thumb|A Japanese soldier slashes the throat of a prisoner in Shanghai, late October. Japanese atrocities had been in evidence months before the Nanjing Massacre. ]]
The Nanjing Massacre occurred amidst Japan's invasion of China. The extreme cruelty witnessed in Nanjing, including extensive killing, torture, sexual violence, and looting, was not an isolated incident, but rather a reflection of Japan's behavior throughout the 1937 [[Battle of Shanghai|Shanghai]]-[[Battle of Nanking|Nanjing]] Campaign in the Lower Yangtze Delta, and to that extent the entire war in China. This violence cannot be separated from the underlying contempt for other Asians that was deeply ingrained in Japanese society before the war.{{sfn|Fogel|2000|p=154}}

To demonstrate the profound effects of ethnic prejudice, Japanese author Tsuda Michio gives an example:
<blockquote>During the war in south China, a Japanese sergeant who had raped and killed numerous Chinese women became 'impotent' as soon as he found out to his shock that one of his victims was actually a Japanese woman who had married a Chinese man and emigrated to China.{{sfn|Fogel|2000|p=154}}</blockquote>

[[Shiro Azuma]], a former Japanese soldier, testified in a 1998 interview:

{{blockquote|When I tried to cut off the first one, either the farmer moved or I mis-aimed. I ended up slicing off just part of his skull. Blood spurted upwards. I swung again... and this time I killed him... We were taught that we were a superior race since we lived only for the sake of a human god—our emperor. But the Chinese were not. So we held nothing but contempt for them... There were many rapes, and the women were always killed. When they were being raped, the women were human. But once the rape was finished, they became pig's flesh.<ref>{{cite news |last=Kamimura |first=Marina |title=A Japanese veteran attempts to make peace with haunting memories |work=[[CNN]] |date=16 September 1998 |url=http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/asiapcf/9808/16/japan.war.crimes/ |access-date=2008-05-13 |archive-date=22 May 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080522173307/http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/asiapcf/9808/16/japan.war.crimes/ |url-status=live}}</ref>|}}

Prime Minister [[Fumimaro Konoe]], who presided over the Second Sino-Japanese War,{{sfn|Hotta|2013|pp=31, 47}} justified the massacre as retaliation against persistent Kuomintang aggression,{{sfn|Hotta|2013|p=32}} and advocated for the regime's destruction in January 1938.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Wakabayashi |first=Bob Tadashi |date=1991 |title=Emperor Hirohito on Localized Aggression in China |url=http://chinajapan.org/articles/04.1/04.1wakabayashi4-27.pdf |journal=[[Sino-Japanese Studies]] |volume=4 |page=15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721021647/http://chinajapan.org/articles/04.1/04.1wakabayashi4-27.pdf |archive-date=July 21, 2011 |number=1}}</ref> Prior to the fall of Nanjing, Konoe rejected Chiang Kai-Shek's offer of negotiation through a German ambassador.{{sfn|Hotta|2013|p=32}}

=== Structural violence in the Japanese military ===
The brutality exhibited by Japanese soldiers in Nanjing partially stemmed from a Japanese military hierarchy where discipline was systematically reinforced by violent means. Japanese recruits were often subject to harsh abuse during their training, whilst Japanese soldiers were often disciplined violently by officers, ranging from slaps to beatings, while those officers were in turn disciplined by their superiors.<ref name=":17" />

Historian Edward Drea writes that the brutalization and hierarchy of violence within the Imperial Japanese Army socialized many of its members to become accepting of a culture of cruelty against those perceived as weaker. Consequently, many amongst the Japanese rank and file routinely vented their rage and frustrations against helpless civilians, as demonstrated in Nanjing.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Drea |first=Edward |title=Japan's Imperial Army: Its Rise and Fall, 1853–1945 |date=2009 |publisher=University Press of Kansas |pages=133-135}}</ref>

Thus, Japanese soldiers often killed innocent civilians out of excitement or "sheer sadistic pleasure".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Yamamoto |first=Masahiro |title=Nanking: Anatomy of an Atrocity |date=2000 |publisher=Praeger |page=59}}</ref> Similarly, Japanese soldiers were to known to derive sadistic pleasure from setting houses aflame and watching them burn.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Yamamoto |first=Masahiro |title=Nanking: Anatomy of an Atrocity |date=2000 |publisher=Praeger |page=69}}</ref>

=== A breakdown in discipline ===
Japanese behavior in Nanjing can also be partially attributed to a breakdown in discipline. Japanese soldiers, underpaid and suffering from low morale, were emboldened by a sense of freedom and a lack of consequences. Furthermore, Japanese officers either ignored or actively participated in the atrocities of their juniors.<ref name=":14" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Harmsen |first=Peter |title=Nanjing 1937 |date=2015 |publisher=Casemate |pages=251-252}}</ref>

Consequently, Japanese soldiers perpetrated and engaged in gratuitous atrocities, often "out of boredom" or in a "cheap search for thrills". In one such case, a group Japanese soldiers doused a child in kerosene and then set him on fire for refusing to lead them to his "mama".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Harmsen |first=Peter |title=Nanjing 1937: Battle for a Doomed City |date=2015 |publisher=Casemate |page=259}}</ref>

=== Rage and revenge ===
Another cause that has been used explain Japanese behavior in Nanjing was a buildup of rage and a widespread desire for revenge after months of fighting the Chinese. American officer Frank Dorn observed that Japanese cruelty against the Chinese populace came as a result of a frustration because the Chinese "did not want to be saved".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Harmsen |first=Peter |title=Nanjing 1937 |date=2015 |publisher=Casemate |page=148}}</ref> Frank Dorn wrote: <blockquote> Brainwashed into a pseudoidealistic belief that his mission was essentially a crusade to liberate the Chinese people from oppression, the average Japanese soldier had been <em>shocked</em> at the rejection of his efforts at liberation.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dorn |first=Frank |title=The Sino-Japanese War 1937–1941 |date=1974 |publisher=Macmillan |page=93}}</ref></blockquote>

Jennifer M. Dixon, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at [[Villanova University]], stated:

<blockquote> In addition, the Battle of Shanghai which preceded the capture of Nanjing, was more difficult and prolonged than the Japanese side had anticipated, which contributed to a desire among Japanese officers and soldiers to exact revenge on the Chinese.<ref name="dixon" /></blockquote>[[Jonathan Spence]], a British-American [[sinologist]] and historian, wrote:<blockquote>[T]here is no obvious explanation for this grim event, nor can one be found. The Japanese soldiers, who had expected easy victory, instead had been fighting hard for months and had taken infinitely higher casualties than anticipated. They were bored, angry, frustrated, tired. The Chinese women were undefended, their menfolk powerless or absent. The war, still undeclared, had no clear-cut goal or purpose. Perhaps all Chinese, regardless of sex or age, seemed marked out as victims.<ref>{{cite book |last=Spence |first=Jonathan D. |author-link=Jonathan Spence |title=[[The Search for Modern China]] |date=1999 |publisher=[[W. W. Norton and Company]] |isbn=0-393-97351-4 |page=424}}</ref></blockquote>

=== Misogyny ===
Historian Richard Frank draws a parallel from the violence in Nanjing to the misogynistic attitudes present in Japanese society. Rampant physical violence against women in Japan translated into mass rape and sexual torture in wartime China.<ref name=":17" />