Soft Lenses, Another Comfort Woman Suit? Nanjing Controversy and Delicate Japanese Language

I’m getting used to soft lenses just fine. Instead of moving them sideways as I was instructed at the shop, it is much easier to remove them by dragging them downwards.

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The Times of the UK reported on 31 March on a possible “comfort woman” lawsuit. The following is an excerpt of the article. Whether or not the Japanese government is liable, this kind of lawsuit has no chance to succeed due to the postwar compensation agreement between Japan and the PRC.

Nanking victim ready to sue Japan
Jane Macartney in Nanjing

[Lei Guiying, a 79-year-old peasant] … was barely 13 when she was raped by a Japanese soldier and, for the next two years, forced to work in a Japanese-run brothel on the edge of the southern city of Nanjing. In her first interview with a foreign newspaper, Ms Lei says that she is ready, if the Chinese authorities will support her, to file a case against the Japanese Government for its wartime abuses. She knows nothing of a private fund created in 1995 by the Japanese Government that provided a way to support former sex slaves without offering official compensation and which expires today. But she… [demands] formal government compensation and an apology approved by the Japanese parliament.

[Having become] an orphan, [she roamed] the streets with her brother to scavenge for food. When the Japanese took her city in the infamous Rape of Nanking… in late 1937, she was 9. She remembers how young women dug tunnels to hide from the invaders and how she begged for food at a “comfort house” run by a Japanese businessman.

On one side of the street was a military brothel with Japanese women. She found a home opposite with the businessman, working as a nursemaid to his toddler son. One day three Japanese soldiers came and dragged her away. They bayoneted her in the leg and head. She still limps.

“Even before my wounds were healed, they raped me. Then they made me serve ‘clients’ for two years.”…

Ms Lei retains from that time a jar of potassium permanganate…

Su Zhiliang, a historian at Shanghai Normal University, says that the jar is important evidence. Since the 1949 Communist takeover, the chemical has been available only as a fine crystal, while Ms Lei has a jar filled with chunks. He said: “We know that the women in Japanese brothels used this as a disinfectant.”…

(And the article listed how Japanese troops allegedly acted in Nanjing.)
- 300,000 killed by Japanese troops in Nanking, many of them women and children
- 1/3 of the city’s population died
- 20,000+ women raped. Japanese historians dispute these figures
Source: Princeton University, China Daily

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This historian says “the jar is important evidence.” Evidence of what? The existence of a “comfort house”? The Japanese government has long admitted there were comfort houses. Nothing new.

And the number of those who were killed (300,000 according to the PRC government and also cited above) has been controversial. “China.org.cn” in an article of December 2003, “Data Challenges Japanese Theory on Nanjing Population Size,” tried to refute the assertion of Japanese historians.

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… In recent years, right-wing Japanese scholars wrote many articles denying the fact, asserting that before the Japanese invasion there were only 200,000 citizens in Nanjing.

Zhang Lianhong, professor of Nanjing Massacre Research Center in Nanjing Normal University, published an article in Beijing Daily, in which he [showed] that the population of Nanjing urban area was between 367,000 and 467,000, and the overall Nanjing population was between 535,000 and 635,000.

[Right-wing] Japanese scholars… maintain that only 200,000 citizens lived there before Nanjing was occupied by Japan in World War II, concluding therefore that it was impossible for the Japanese army to have killed 300,000 Nanjing citizens, and that the "Nanjing Massacre" never happened.

According to Zhang Lianhong, after the Kuomintang government set up its capital in Nanjing in 1927, the geographic boundary of Nanjing changed a lot. In 1927, Nanjing only included the urban area. In March 1935, 21 townships formerly under the jurisdiction of Jiangning County were merged into Nanjing, so Nanjing extended its boundary. Later, the number of Nanjing citizens increased a lot, reaching 1.015 million by June 1937.

After the August 13, 1937,… Japanese aggressor troops launched a large-scale offensive against Shanghai… [And many] Nanjing citizens moved to other cities for security… At the beginning of November 1937, more than 547,000 citizens still lived in Nanjing. A Japanese military spy report revealed that more than 530,000 citizens lived in Nanjing in late October of 1937.

After the Japanese army occupied Shanghai,… traffic facilities were not enough to take all citizens who wanted to move to other cities from Nanjing… and many Nanjing citizens could not afford to leave. On November 23, 2003, the Nanjing government announced that more than 500,000 citizens stayed in Nanjing.

In early December 1937, Tang Shengzhi, commander of the Nanjing defense army, closed all the gates of Nanjing and blocked off travel to other cities, so it became impossible for Nanjing citizens to leave after December 1937. In this period, some people moved to the city from rural areas, but this movement did not change the overall population number of Nanjing.

After the August 13 Incident of 1937, many refugees came to Nanjing, many of whom want to go further to hinterland. However, due to limited transport facilities, most refugees were not able to leave Nanjing before the city was occupied. There was no exact number of the refugees flooding to Nanjing per day, but if it was assumed as 1,000, the number of people contained in Nanjing was 30,000.

No exact statistical data shows how many Chinese soldiers stayed in Nanjing after the Japanese army occupied it, but it is estimated that more than 116,919 Chinese soldiers and officers participated in the war defending Nanjing and more than 47,382 soldiers were reported lost, of whom less than 10,000 died during the war. Therefore, at least 37,000 Chinese soldiers stayed in Nanjing City after the Japanese army occupied it.

[Before] the Japanese army occupied Nanjing, the following people stayed in Nanjing: original Nanjing citizens (300,000 to 400,000); refugees (more than 30,000); and Chinese soldiers and officers (more than 37,000). Therefore, 367,000 to 467,000 people stayed in Nanjing urban area before occupation. Plus the rural population of 168,000, the overall Nanjing population should number between 535,000 and 635,000.

Some Japanese scholars ignore the fact that the Nanjing population included both the city population and rural population… [The] massacre happened in both city and country areas.

(China.org.cn by Wang Sining and Daragh Moller, December 28, 2003)

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What are “right-wing” Japanese scholars saying to this claim? I do not know.

“Wikipedia” has the following sentence in the entry of “Nanking Massacre”: “In Japan, however, public opinion over the severity of the massacre remains widely divided - this is evidenced by the fact that whereas some Japanese commentators refer to it as the 'Nanking massacre' (南京大虐殺, Nankin daigyakusatsu), others use the more ambivalent 'Nanking incident' (南京事件, Nankin jiken).” “The Economist” also said the same thing in a last year’s issue. This is off the point and totally ridiculous! The humble Japanese people, whose mother tongue is famous for its delicate usage, call “Tiananmen Massacre” “Tiananmen Incident.” “Massacre” is a very strong word thus not to be used so freely. Do the mainland-Chinese call this “incident” of 1989 a “massacre”? I don’t think so.