The Tokyo Judgment and the Rape of Nanking

Abstract

The japanese assault on the city of nanking in December 1937 was one of many incidents that the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE, 1946–48) examined in the course of judging the wartime leaders of Japan. What was referred to at the time as the “Rape of Nanking” has in the last several decades become a controversial marker of Chinese identity as well as a source of potent disagreement among Japanese over their nation's history as a colonial power in East Asia. Within this controversy, the IMTFE trial in Tokyo has been used as a touchstone to confirm and deny all manner of claims concerning the incident. Those who feel aggrieved over Japan's conduct toward China cite the evidence produced at the trial to authenticate the scale and brutality of the massacre (Eykholt 2000, 19–23). Those who feel that Japan and the emperor system have been unfairly blamed for the war in East Asia scour the trial proceedings for failures of logic and evidence that demonstrate to their satisfaction that the “Tokyo trial view of history” is nothing but anti-Japanese distortion and fabrication (Yoshida 2000, 111–14). For both sides, the Tokyo judgment is fuel for ideological fire.