Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: History
Nikolina Jovanovic
Global Lit Accel
Dudek
April 4, 2014
Rape of Nanking
In late 1937, the Japanese army brutally murdered and assaulted civilians in Nanking, China over a period of six weeks. This event in history was one of the most horrendous and also an event that is rarely talked about or taught in school. This part of history was known as the Second Sino- Japanese war.
The Japanese had a contempt for the Chinese people, thinking that they were the lowest race on the planet. China had a benefit by being a larger country and because of that Japan always had something to fear. This war was triggered by many aspects, but one important one was the fact that China had tried to invade the islands of J apan but was never successful. This gave another reason for Japan to want to have a war and prove to China that they are superior to them.
By the 1940’s, Japan was considered more powerful than China. They feel as if they were more superior than China because they conquered where China had not. China and Kuomintang were having a war, but then later Japan took home the victory.
"Surviving Japanese veterans claim that the army had officially outlawed the rape of enemy women," states Iris Chang. But "the military policy forbidding rape only encouraged soldiers to kill their victims afterwards." This was one of many ways that women, children, and men were being massacred. Women were terrorized throughout the city and raped brutally. Children were not exempt from these horrible acts. Japanese soldiers saw any Chinese as an animal and to them, it wouldn’t be like killing a human because they were subhuman to them. Pregnant woman were attacked just as harshly, if not even more brutally than others. Soldiers were stab their belly and ...
... middle of paper ...
... “Japanese troops attacked women, raping and killing them on the street in the middle of the day, including young girls of nine years of age, elderly women of 76 years of age, and also pregnant women.” (student source) Pregnant women weren’t exempt from such awful actions. They took spears and stabbed the pregnant women in their bellies while cutting it open and took the unborn fetuses out of their mothers.
I watched the movie Rape of Nanking and I was saddened to see what the people of China had to go through. Articles are very informative but watching it with your very eyes gives you different perspective on the problem. In the film It showed all of the brutal ways they would kill men and women and also ways they raped women of all ages. While watching it forces you to feel the way they’re feeling at the moment. Almost as if you are there, which is terrifying.
In 1937, Japan started a war against China, in search of more resources to expand its empire. In 1941, during World War II, Japan attacked America which is when the Allies (Australia, Britain etc.) then declared war on Japan. Before long the Japanese started extending their territory closer and closer to Australia and started taking surrendering troops into concentration camps where they were starved, diseased and beaten. When they were captured, one survivor reports that they were told
Japan also gained more respect from other countries, that China did not have.
“ the Japanese bury alive, castrate and burn human’s fresh”, history could not be past and should be remembered and taking serious by all of us, racial discrimination and mass killing depending on the races should never happen again in our civilized world.
Thus, the Japanese began to resort to ghastly measures to prevent a humiliating defeat. Japanese aggression originated in the fall of 1931 when the explosion of a section of the South Manchurian Railway in northern China occurred, causing Japan’s Kwangtung Army, who was guarding the railroad, to exchange fire with the Chinese Army and then proceed to occupy all of Manchuria. Soon after, the Kwangtung Army set up a puppet government and renamed the region Manchukuo. The Chinese Army claimed that the Japanese purposely blew up part of the railroad to initiate a confrontation and therefore a reason to occupy Manchuria.2 Later, in 1937, Japan decided to go ahead with plans to further invade China, and conquered most of the northern and eastern regions within a year. This was later termed the "China Incident" because Japan had never formally declared war on China.... ...
...ce of ordinary people, fear of retribution from the Japanese underground they still believed to be in existence… (Yamamoto p. 190).” Even after the war, the Chinese were so traumatized by the vile actions that they were still afraid that the Japanese army would return to treat as livestock once more.
The Rape of Nanking started on December 13, 1937. This was the day the Japanese invaded Nanking (now Nanjing), which was then the capital of Nationalist China (Cook). The Japanese Army faced little resistance as the Chinese Nationalist leader, Chiang Kai-shek, evacuated his troops before the invaders advanced. After seven weeks of Japanese atrocities, the killings ended in early 1938 (The Rape of Nanking). Japanese soldiers finally left Nanking in early February when they needed to continue the attack on China.
...the Japanese military in World War II and the spontaneous atrocities that occur in most other. There is much of the blame on the Japanese society and its interpretation of bushido that had virtually no concept of individual human rights, which found its epitome in the Japanese military, to whom the concept had no semantic value whatsoever.
Women were not likely to be harassed, arrested, or imprisoned when the war first started. As the war progressed, women were soon held to the same level of torture. Germans were not typically allowed to sexually assault the Jewish women because they were considered them beneath them, but many did not follow that particular rule. Women were humiliated in the streets and forced to perform dirty tasks regularly. They were often subjected to gender specific tasks, like undressing in front of German officers. Despite this type of harassment, it was typically not until the liquidation of the ghettos that women and children were subjected to the extreme violence and brutality that left even the experienced ghetto chr...
middle of paper ... ... In conclusion, Japan tried to isolate themselves, and China tried to compete with them, using their land, and excess population. Documents one through ten were all about China, and documents eleven through sixteen were about Japan. Documents one, two, three, and seven talked about whether China was prepared for the European countries, and documents five, six, and nine talked about whether or not China compared to the European countries.
On September 5, 1995, Hillary Clinton delivered an influential speech at The Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. Clinton expresses general concern over escalating violence toward women, in other word’s gendercide. “Gendercide refers to the systematic elimination of a specific gender group, normally female. It’s most common in India, China, and other regions in Southeast Asia” (GirlsKind Foundation). Crimes, such as bride trafficking, infanticide, abandonment, and dowry related murder; often take place within private households, going unnoticed and not even acknowledged. “Tragically, women are most often the ones whose human rights are violated. Even now, in the late 20th century, the rape of women continues to be used as an instrument of armed conflict Women and children make up a large majority of the world’s refugees” (Clinton 3). By addressing her speech in Beijing, where gendercide is prevalent, Hillary expressed her objective effectively not just the United Nations, but to audiences across the world. Clinton effectively delivered her speech by portraying her purpose for women to achieve equality and better opportunities, with ethical appeals, emotional appeals, and logical appeals.
At this time, Japan was in the Far East, and Asia was in turmoil. Imperial Japan invaded China and various other territories in 1937, which made them a real strong ally for Nazi Germany.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Is it because he was a woman that he cried out at the sight of a child being harmed? Did he not cry out at the death of his wife because she was a woman? The role of the female in this story reveals a sense of inferiority towards women. These questions that the story raises show how women were viewed as inferior and weak in the eyes of the Chinese culture.
The Japanese leaders had different methods of killing that were instructed to the soldiers. However, the prisoners of this “City of Blood” soon found their liberation and their justice was served. The Japanese saw China as the place to spread their imperial and expansionist objectives. A rough estimate of 300,000 Chinese men and women died in the six weeks after December 13, 1937 (Jones). Around 20,000 women from ages 8 to 70 were raped by Japanese soldiers (Scarred).
“Natural History of a Chinese Girl” can be more productively interpreted as a European’s documented culture shock rather than justified outrage over oppressed women. Regardless, the attitude towards the expected sex and gender normalcies is inherently
The Manchurian incident was a turning point in Japanese history in which it abandoned its somewhat general policy of cooperation and peace and instead chose to pursue their personal interests in Asia (S,191). The Japanese interest in China was evident even before its invasion in 1931. In both the Sino Japanese war from 1894 to 1905 as well as the Russo-Japanese War from 1904 to 1905 Japan secured specific locations in Manchuria and other areas in China (U,351). Overall, the consensus for the extensive needs of the empire ultimately drove its policy making until the end of World War 2. To take control of what they believed to be the most mineral rich section of China in which they controlled expansive holdings in such as the South Manchurian Railroad, officers part of the Kwantung Army that were stationed there hatched a plan that would become to be known as the Manchurian Crisis. On September 18th 1931, Japanese soldiers located at the South Manchurian Railroad set off an explosive that they blamed on China (launching both nations into hostile relations for years to come.?? (P,115)) The Japanese invaded Japanese Invaded Chinese controlled Manchuria in 1931 because they wanted to accommodate the rising of the Japanese population, obtain more natural resources, and to stimulate their nearly collapsed economy.