Talk:Japanese war crimes

Japanese imperialism should be distinct from Japanese militarism

In this article the hyperlink 'Japanese imperialism' in the opening para redirects to 'Japanese Militarism'. The two are different and nor does the article on the latter claims to use the terms synonymously. Please make the necessary changes.

Is Japans Holocaust by Mark Bryan Riggs really worth being titlized in the introduction paragraphs for this page?

Hi. I’ve been thinking lately about some of the uncertainties I have towards Mark Bryan Riggs’s book, Japans Holocaust which is cited heavily in this article. While I don’t mind a citation from this book here or there, there seems to be a lot of question marks I’ve had towards some of Mark Bryan Riggs’s methods. First off is the 30 million dead estimate which I assume at face value includes the total number killed from all causes such as disease and famine. While it’s undeniable that there was a lot of state sponsored famine by the Japanese miliary, war as a whole seems to lead to a lot of famine in general and Mark Bryan Riggs, like Mark Felton mentions that 23 million Chinese died from Japans invasion of China. Is this total dead or only from government policy? The following is an excerpt from a topic I opened in the talk page from the Second Sino Japanese war Wikipedia page. Quote

Before I go anywhere I want to state that China like Japan has alot of issues with regarding facing it's past with Mao's body count being illegal to research in China and Japans atrocities in being suppressed in Japanese academia. In 1995 China raised the death toll to at least 35 million dead possibly in response to Russia increasing it's total death toll from the second world war from 20 million dead to 27 million dead. Does this new estimate contain the same kind of transparency as Russia's revision of it's war dead from 20 million to 27. It is worth mentioning that Russia's revision hasn't escaped criticism, and I know that China forbids research on Mao Zedong's body count, but I am curious on comparisons here in terms of China and Russia's revisionism. It's worth mentioning that Mao Zedong did indeed suppress research into this war(including research on Imperial Japans body count in China) up till his dead in 1976.

https://apjjf.org/2022/11/tian https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/the-fall-of-beijing-1937/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_the_Soviet_Union https://www.economist.com/china/2023/03/16/why-chairman-maos-victims-are-denied-justice https://lawliberty.org/book-review/chinas-regime-rewrites-world-war-ii-history/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/china-japan-world-war-ii-tokyo-trial/675660/ Unquote

With all that said, researching Japans wrongdoing means having to research other asian dictatorships to measure the extent of Japans wrongdoing. Whether it be Mao Zedong’s regime that left up to 78 million dead(though the 78 million estimate from Mao could be too high), the Chinese civil war which 7 million dead in the first phase alone(along with 2.5 million to 6 million in the second), the Korean war which left 1.5 million to 4.5 million dead(3 million is most widely accepted with 2 million being civilians, and to a lesser extent the 1965 Indonesian White terror campaign by Sahurto which left 500,000 to 1 million dead(with some estimates going as high as 3 million). In the case of the latter I assume that Japans body count in Indonesia is more clear as I assume 4 million dead in Indonesia alone based on a UN report. This begs the question. While I consider Mark Felton to be a mostly reliable historian despite being pessimistic towards Mark Bryan Riggs I seem to question the prospect of if they had access to researching Mao’s body count aswell given that researching the atrocities of the Chinese Communist Party remains illegal in China. While denialism of Japans wrongdoing is done via government policy it is enshrined into law via the Chinese governments restriction of information. I mentioned this before, bit it bears repeating. While Germany was indeed pressurized to atone almost immediately after the war ended, Japan did not face pressurize under the 1980’s several years after Mao’s death as it wasn’t till Dong Xiaoping’s takeover of China when Japan’s wrongdoing was finally researched heavily in China. My belief is that Mao was heavily interested in building political movements in Japan based on his ideology. The Anpo Protests ended up being a result of this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anpo_protests https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzRWPGSaKDk

The last thing I need to mention is Riggs labeling Shintoism as a cult of some sort. I read into some interviews Riggs did on his book and he seems to emphasize Shintoism as the end all be all varible on Japans motive over it’s aggression. This is something that even Mark Felton doesn’t do. There seems to be other varibles at play such as corruption during the democratic era leading up to the militarists taking control of the country, along with the Great Kanto Earth Quake which led to civil unrest along with a massacre that followed after Koreans and other foreigners were alleged to have “poisoned the water supply” which the militarists used to build assassinations of political figures and politicians aiming for reform. https://x.com/AndrewinFukuoka/status/1798947038807351781 https://newbooksnetwork.com/japans-holocaust https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tdv8Oi2Mp44&t=1217s&pp=ygUVMTkzMiBqYXBhbiB3YXMgaW5zYW5l https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcuvpihOmrQ

I bring all this up on grounds that I don’t think citing the term “Japans Holocaust” as a major title variation. I also question Mark Bryan Riggs's methods of constantly comparing Japan's wrongdoing to Germany in a reckless manner. I don't mind comparing the two regimes at face value, but I am in the belief that caution shouldn't be thrown to the wind when doing so. Germany and Japan just aren't the same country. This essay from the German American Institute should clear things up. https://americangerman.institute/publication/compare-or-not-to-compare-or-how-to-compare/

Undeadmerc3 (talk) 01:10, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

I want to respond to Ivo Plsek's article from the German American Institute, as it really doesn’t clear things up. Many of his claims are misleading and even flat-out wrong (admittedly to the point that some parts were a bit angering to read in how wrong they were):

First, he makes the claim that only Germany was guilty of genocide, premeditated murder and systemic racial supremacy, while seeming to claim that Japan was merely racist and committed war crimes, mostly out of rage or negligence. The truth is, Japan was also certainly guilty of genocide and premeditated murder and aggression. According to Yuki Tanaka, Japan's campaign in China was "undoubtedly genocidal", and though the Imperial Japanese government may not have explicitly endorsed such a policy of extermination (that we know of, given how the Japanese destroyed a vast amount of incriminating documents), the actions of the Japanese military and regime exhibited a clear genocidal intent. Acts like the Three Alls Policy, Sook Ching, the removal of constraints of international law specifically when it came to Chinese POWs, etc. were premeditated actions of genocidal policy done for the purpose of wiping out people, specifically Chinese people, with explicit approval, even orders, from Japan's military and government leadership. Along with it being customary for the Imperial Japanese Army in China to conduct massacres against the Chinese population, one such specific order from Japan's General Headquarters even affirmed that, due to their army's rapid advance and in order to secure "peace" in the region, it would be "essential" to massacre as many Chinese as possible who merely appear "anti-Japanese". The extremely long list of large-scale massacres conducted by the Japanese against the Chinese people, like the Nanjing Massacre, the Nanshitou Massacre and the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Campaign were so massive, so brutal and so indicative of a routine pattern that there is no way to honestly interpret them as anything other than genocidal. The Japanese invasions of Manchuria and Southeast Asia may not have been exactly the same as the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, (though Japan’s occupations of Manchuria and the Philippines did contain elements of such, given the Manila Massacre and War crimes in Manchukuo) but Japan’s invasion of mainland China proper most certainly WAS the same as the Nazis’ ambitions in Eastern Europe. Second, even if Japan’s goals after the Marco Polo bridge were merely to “punish” China rather than to take over China, Japan’s goals very quickly and immediately became all about taking over China, and taking over China was exactly what the Japanese very much attempted to do, especially when the Battle of Shanghai commenced. Japan's genocidal motives may not have been so clear in their words and papers like the Nazis were, but their genocidal motives certainly were very clear with their actions. Japanese aggression was ALSO about waging genocidal war, and not just about mere territorial expansion.

Speaking of territorial expansion, he also claims that Japan's motives were "more complex" than conquest and exploitation. He even seems to claim that Japan's aggression had elements of being defensive and was initially of building a Co-Prosperity Sphere, but that they merely lost their way, rather than being premeditated mass slaughter. Actually, Japan's aggression was all about taking over other peoples' lands and subjugating the non-Japanese peoples of those lands from the very start. The domination and subjugation of non-Japanese Asia was really Japan's TRUE goal, while talk of "liberation" and "Pan-Asianism" were nothing more than propaganda designed to try and ease their conquests and enforcement of Japanese racial supremacy. That's not something that evolved that way, it was that way, and planned as such, from the very start. While independence movements in Southeast Asia were given initial impetus by the Japanese presence, the same can also be said of anti-Communists in Eastern Europe being given initial impetus by the German presence. Furthermore, NOTHING Japan did was defensive, it was all about them invading and seizing other people's land for themselves. Japan did not have to really worry about threats to its actual sovereign territory because, at the time, the Allies were not actually threatening Japan's home islands. In fact, if anything, the Western Allies were the ones having to worry about Japanese aggression and expansion, and acting defensively in response to it. Whatever America's ambitions in Asia were, they were nothing compared to Japan's far more extensive and extremely, brutally murderous expansion. Japan's motivations were not all that complex, as their motivations were almost all greed and racial supremacy, the desire to take over others and to rule over, enslave and eliminate others.

Also his statement on Pearl Harbor reeks of the Japanese nationalist line, claiming that the Pearl Harbor attack was merely Japan "responding" to curtailment of oil shipments and "not a sneak attack" nor "an effort at territorial expansion or the subjugation of the white race". Actually, that is EXACTLY what the Pearl Harbor attack was all about, territorial expansion. First, according to Takeo Iguchi, the attack really was a sneak attack, as documents show the Japanese government explicitly refraining from issuing any kind of warning and deliberately used the negotiations as cover to carry out their attack. Second, the Pearl Harbor attack was done for the purpose of continuing and expanding Japan's genocidal empire, NOT merely for saving their economy (an economy that was being driven by their aggressive land-grabbing, by the way). Third, the American embargo was itself in response to Japan's aggression and atrocities in China and French Indochina. Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was due to the desire to try and remove America out of the way so they could keep committing aggression and atrocities in those regions. And on the day of the attack and ensuing months, Japan proceeded to invade and brutally conquer all of Southeast Asia and much of the Pacific, and subsequently, place those lands and their peoples under murderous occupation. Furthermore, the Japanese proceeded to totally subjugate and brutalize any and all Western peoples who were now under their occupation. The Pearl Harbor attack was NOT defensive, it was ALL about aggressive land-grabbing.

He also appears to downplay the massive role of racism and how much it motivated the Japanese. While he admits the Imperial Japanese were racists, he seems to treat it as more a byproduct, as happenstance. The truth is, racism was most certainly the central driving cause of Japan’s actions, their aggression and atrocities. As outlined with policies and ideologies, like Kokkashugi and Hakko ichiu, the primary motivation of the Imperial Japanese was that they were a racially superior people destined to rule over East Asia. Despite outward propaganda directed towards non-Japanese Asians proclaiming Pan-Asian themes, within Japan itself, propaganda frequently promoted the idea that the Japanese Yamato race was the purest and inherently superior race above all others. The Japanese regime overwhelmingly preached racial superiority and racialist themes, and heavily indoctrinated the Japanese population with master race-style racial supremacy, and there was also more than plenty of teaching Yamato master race superiority in schools. Racial policies certainly became more the case as their aggression intensified, and as the war started raging on, these racial supremacist beliefs started quickly becoming more annihilationist in nature. Japanese media quite frequently promoted Yamato superiority, and military planners decided to raise feelings of racial supremacy among Japan’s troops as war intensified in preparation for the settlement and assimilation of Japanese colonists. Furthermore, the Japanese overwhelmingly portrayed the Chinese as subhuman pests in the way of “rightful” Japanese land, with them constantly referring to the Chinese as bugs and logs and being unworthy of the land they were living in, while Westerners were also portrayed as demons, ogres, and a dangerous threat to Japan. It is quite clear that the Japanese very much viewed the Chinese as vastly inferior Untermensch, the same way the Germans viewed Slavic peoples. The only real difference between the racisms of Germany and Japan was that Germany’s racism was more “scientific” while Japan’s racism was more religious in nature, believing that their race descended from the heavens and was the race that revolved around the emperor, who was seen as a god. Japanese documents like An Investigation of Global Policy with the Yamato Race as Nucleus further outline Japanese racial views and policy, even borrowing quite heavily from Nazi theories, including the desire to obtain Lebensraum. Pan-Asianism was only held by a small minority of Japanese people. For the vast majority of the Japanese, what motivated them was racial supremacy.

His claims of civilian accessory are also not as divergent as he claims. First he claims that Japan did not have a political party or leader that promoted ethnic and territorial violence, which ignores the presence of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association a statist and para-fascist organization that absorbed all political parties to form one singular party, who goal was to promote and enforce Japanese nationalism and supremacy. Furthermore, all Japan did during this period was engage in territorial and ethnic violence, both under the IRAA and before it. Secondly he claims that while Germans voted for their leaders and bore direct witness (even participation) to their crimes, the Japanese didn’t, and that Germany’s genocidal leadership and aggression came from below while Japan’s didn’t. While the Japanese people may not have voted for their leaders, the vast overwhelming majority of Japanese civilians still very willingly and heavily supported and assisted their evil regime in their aggression and atrocities. Most Japanese civilians enthusiastically gave their full support to their genocidal military forces, such as building weapons, providing food and resources, picking up arms to serve with them and also just generally cheering them on and marching and standing alongside them, as well as sharing their racial supremacist views. Also, a great many Japanese civilians ALSO participated in and committed atrocities, both inside and outside of Japan. Even the author of this article admits that Japanese civilians enthusiastically got on board with Japan’s genocidal expansion with ultranationalist fervor. But Japanese civilians were not cut off from what their armies were doing, as Japanese media frequently celebrated Japan’s aggression and war crimes, and also, a vast many Koreans, Chinese and others were taken to Japan as slave labor and were brutally abused, particularly by civilian corporations that employed their labor, and in either case, the Japanese populace were still giving their support and assistance to their regime, which allowed the Japanese armies to commit their crimes. Japanese civilians were not forced to give their support, they did so almost all willingly. Another point that needs to be mentioned is, not only did the Japanese civilians very willingly support and assist their regime and its goal of expansion, but the Japanese civilians were quite heavily the driving force that constantly pressured their government to adopt a far more aggressive, expansionist policy, with ordinary Japanese civilians frequently demanding their regime develop an aggressive “tough” foreign policy. So, in a way, much of Japan’s aggression actually DID come from below. The Japanese people may not have voted for their leaders, but they still supported them as if they had, and they even influenced them. So YES, Japanese civilians absolutely WERE just as culpable as German civilians were, and NO, Japanese perception of victimhood was most definitely NOT justified nor any stronger than that of the Germans.

He also brings up the fact that the Germans employed “trains” and “gas chambers” to somehow claim that they were more evil than Japanese crimes. However, camps and gas chambers are really just a different method. The usage of facilities to commit industrialized mass murder does not make it more evil. It makes it more organized and industrialized, but Japanese forces still killed just as many people as the Germans did and for the same reasons, and thus, the level of evil is the same. That’s what really matters, and when you intentionally kill the same number of people, it really doesn’t matter if you do so through gas chambers in special locations like the Germans did, or through bullets and bayonets in the field like the Japanese did (which, by the way, about half of the Holocaust was done through the method of bullets and bayonets in the field, demonstrating, once again, that the two sides clearly have a lot more in common). Furthermore, the Japanese also heavily employed widespread chemical and biological warfare, and just generally reserved their worst offenses for the Chinese specifically. The Imperial Japanese deliberately killed tens of millions and the Nazis deliberately killed tens of millions, both out of racial and national supremacy, so they were both as evil as the other, regardless of how they did so.

There’s also misleading statements in regards to Koreans and Okinawans. Whether or not people were shamed for being married to a Korean (as if to imply that Koreans didn’t face severe discrimination and persecution when they clearly did), Koreans were still heavily subjected to cultural genocide and slavery, and at many points, even massacred. Most infamously, the Kanto Massacre, which saw Japanese troops, police and vigilante civilians slaughter thousands of Koreans, based on rumors that tend to echo anti-Semitic canards, most notably that they were poisoning wells, while Japanese media celebrated the murders. Japanese militarists, who would go on to lead Japan in their genocidal war in China, also used the massacre as an excuse to eliminate political opponents and further solidify their rule. Furthermore, he claims that Japanese brutality towards Okinawans was not based on racism as the Okinawans were “Japanese”. Except, Okinawans are not ethnically Japanese, they’re Ryukyuan, and this served as the prime reason why the Japanese were so brutal towards them. So their cruel treatment of “Japanese” Okinawans was based on racism as well.

So YES, it is absolutely appropriate to compare Japanese war crimes to the Holocaust, and to even refer to Japan's war crimes as the Asian Holocaust, and Imperial Japan should be compared to Nazi Germany and be placed and seen on the same level, as regardless of how explicit their motives were and what methods they used, they both caused equal amounts of death and destruction and for pretty much the same motivations of racial supremacy and desire for living space. Placing Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany on the same level of evil is absolutely justified and always will be. What is truly reckless and problematic is dismissing these comparisons, as it does nothing but minimize Japan’s crimes and gives Japanese nationalists and their sympathizers an opening to promote a clear double standard between the two countries, as well as lessen Japan’s guilt and promote the “Japan as victim” myth. Imperial Japan was not some average run of the mill bad guy, Imperial Japan was one of the worst and most evil villains to ever exist, just like Nazi Germany. Just by looking at all the massive destruction and tens of millions of deaths the Imperial Japanese so brutally caused, as well as their extremely racist reasons for doing so, is more than enough to say that, YES, Imperial Japan was absolutely just as evil and genocidal as Nazi Germany, and that, YES, Japan SHOULD face the same level of contrition as Germany. When it comes to the level of evil, Germany and Japan most certainly were the same.104.228.9.173 (talk) 16:11, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Excellent work. You seem to lay your points out quite well. I do tend to exercise caution when it comes to comparing the two since the nature of the atrocities was vastly different in terms of brutality(John Rabe who was a Nazi business man was horrified by the Nanking massacre all the way down to having to shelter 200,000 civilians), but I guess that essay link to the American German Institute was a mishap on my part. Sorry about that. I also don't mind the term Holocaust to Japans wrongdoing despite some differences to the two regimes, I do need to state that, while i'm open to criticism to the rest of my points I'm really trying to ask questions. I'm not trying to deny anything. Sorry about the American German Institute article. I'd remove it, but I don't think WIkipedia policy allows me to do that.

One thing I do need to state about Japans body count vs Germany's is that while I have uncertainty surrounding Riggs's 30 million or more estimate I do think that Japans both count is higher than Germany's. I seem to be in favor of at least 19 million or 20 million dead which is an estimate of Richard B Frank and John Dower since it sounds like they have researched Mao's body count aswell. I do need to state that RJ Rummels estimate is far too low and while I previously thought the body count goes up to 20 million, I do think it could very well be higher than that. In fact some guy added RJ Rummels estimate after I admitted that the body count is likely higher than Germany's and that RJ Rummels research understates Japans body count.

However, I recall looking at a interview Riggs did on his book stating that he relies on China's history archives which does bring to question it he is able to measure out Mao's body count which is illegal to research in China. Both Japan and China have their issues with regards to history which feeds the beast between the two counties. Japan has increasingly erasing research over it's war atrocities in recent decades while China forbids research into Mao's body count. Denialist of the Nanking Massacre seem to dwell on Mao's body count which they inflate for political purposes while people who deny that Mao killed tens of millions during the Great Chinese Famine seem to add to Japans body count for political gain. It's why I seem to be infavor of teh theory that measuring the body counts of other Asian dictatorships is needed to measure the extent of Japans body count. Undeadmerc3 (talk) 16:35, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. I appreciate that you seriously considered my points and am glad that we appear to have reached an understanding, and quite quickly as well. I would like to apologize if you interpreted any of what I said to be some kind of personal attack on you. I do not mean to accuse you of denialism, especially since you look like you genuinely want an honest interpretation of history, as opposed to a denialist who raises doubts in order to promote a distorted negationist narrative. I admit, I do feel a bit passionate about this subject.

I also admit that there were indeed some crucial differences between Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, namely when it comes to how their governments were structured and what formed the basis of their respective racisms. I'm simply addressing the part where it comes to the level of evil, in which both Germany and Japan were pretty much exactly on the same level in that regard, and any differences when it comes to that were pretty trivial in the grand scheme of things. Whether the methods were different, or whether one side planned it from the start or the other side evolved into it, the outcomes were still very much the same. But I agree as well that it is also important to recognize the distinctions when it comes to things like government structure and basis of racism, as doing so allows us to analyze the various different paths people can take in coming to reach such a level of evil.

While I personally wouldn't say that Japan's body count exceeded Germany's, I do recognize that they were clearly in the same ballpark. It may be a bit much to strictly say 30 million, I would say anywhere from 20 million to 30 million dead is the most reasonable estimate.

In regards to Mao, all I would have to say to that is to approach that argument with caution, as like you yourself have said, there is a habit of Japanese war crime deniers bringing up Mao's death toll in order to downplay and deflect from Japanese atrocities, which is quite similar to Holocaust deniers bringing up Stalinist crimes in order to downplay and deflect from the horror of the Nazis. Again, not accusing you of anything, just a friendly reminder that one should approach the Tojo-Mao comparison with care, as it is also very important to remember and speak up about Mao's mass killings as well.104.228.9.173 (talk) 21:05, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Glad to have this conversation. Yes denialists of Japans wrongdoing and people who deny Mao's body count sure tend to capitalize of each others negativism. They say Frank Nietzsche once said that "He who fights monsters should makes sure he does not become a monster. If you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes into you." It sadly applies here and many folks who have to take these various measurements of Japans body count with Mao's China, the Korean war, etc should do so with citation. It's not so much comparing Japans atrocities with Mao's so much as taking measurements.

China revised it's total death toll of the Second Sino Japanese war in the 90's from 23 million to 35 million a few years after the Russian government revised it's death toll with it's war in Germany from 20 million to 28 million in. Russia made this revision in 1993 two years after the Soviet Union collapsed where I assume some research was done on Stalins body count(still no excuse over Hitlers wrongdoing). To this day, and once again this isn't an excuse for what Japan was doing back then(Mao came to power partly because of Japans invasion of China), but discussion on disasters of the Great Leap Forward is illegal. Three countries that come to mind in this situation. In Germany Holocaust Denial is illegal. In Japan and China denialism over Japans body count and Mao's body count is government policy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_the_Soviet_Union# Undeadmerc3 (talk) 22:03, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

interesting point there. Usually, it's the CCP war crime eniers bringing up the fabricated death toll to deflect from Mao, not the other way around. Let's stay real here. ~2025-42509-16 (talk) 04:49, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

If we're being real, then YES it absolutely IS the other way around too. Japanese war crime deniers bring up Mao's death toll and other CCP crimes all the time in order to deflect from the VERY REAL massive death toll of tens of millions (primarily Chinese) that Imperial Japan brutally slaughtered (which has TONS of evidence supporting this fact).~2025-42404-73 (talk) 18:41, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

Correct. Seems between Nippon Kaigi's denialism vs China's own cover up of the CCP there really is no greater good between the two at all in the end all things considered. Personally while i'm not against the idea of comparing Germany and Japan to one another I do adimently believe that measuring the death toll of Japans wrongdoing requires a different approach in part because of so many documents were destroyed. It's not just the Numerburg trials dwarfing the number of war criminals being prosecuted, but also the very fact that much of Japans wrongding regarding documents were covered up. The Nanking Massacre is major example of this though it is just one of many.

In the case of Nanking and the death toll over it the Wikipedia page seems top give a very salient point as followed:

Japanese military records are a valuable source for estimating the number of Chinese POWs massacred by Japanese soldiers, but the number of civilians massacred is more difficult to determine. The final type of source mentioned by David Askew is data sampling, and though only one such survey of this variety was conducted, Lewis S.C. Smythe's "War Damage in the Nanking Area", it is an essential document for estimating civilian casualties of the atrocity. According to Smythe's survey, as many as 12,000 civilians were killed within the city of Nanjing plus another 26,870 in the rural counties outside Nanjing. However, some historians have variously argued that Smythe's figures are either underestimates or exaggerations of the true civilian death toll. On the one hand, Kasahara asserts that the survey substantially underestimated the death toll, partly because Smythe only surveyed inhabited homes and thus skipped over the homes of families who had been entirely destroyed or been unable to return. By contrast, Minoru Kitamura argues that Smythe's links to the Nationalist Government of China may have led him to skew his figures upwards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_toll_of_the_Nanjing_Massacre#Sources_and_application

Unquote

I have to say that the article on the death toll on the Nanking massacre really is indeed well done and should, at least in my view be how the Wikipedia page for Japans war crime should be presented and sourced given the schizophrenic difficulty on researching Japans wrongdoing. Undeadmerc3 (talk) 18:58, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

Yes. Though, I would say we should refrain from comparing the views of Kitamura as if they are on the same level as those of Kasahara. While Kasahara's work is widely acknowledged and respected with the exception of one photograph blunder that he acknowledged and corrected, Kitamura's work has been heavily criticized as downplaying and even denying the massacre and that his thesis is misleading and relies on fraudulent data. Looking over Kitamura's page, it seems that the only people who praise him are Japanese war crime deniers.~2025-42404-73 (talk) 15:38, 25 December 2025 (UTC)

Correct. The context still stands here though. Researching Japans wrongdoing vs Mao's wrongdoing(despite the atrocities not being limited in China since Japan was brutal just about all where they conquered) is a massive mine field slash tight rope in terms of the politics of historical research. Undeadmerc3 (talk) 18:48, 25 December 2025 (UTC)

Well the context of this is that while people do indeed zero in on all the research in China which at face value is understandable, it needs to be said that both countries Japan and China in different ways negate their history and feed off of one another. I series hate having to walk this tight rope/mine field of all this. I have eventually come to terms that Japan did likely kill more than Germany did I myself am skeptical of Riggs methods. Part of it is the likely hood of him twisting the total death toll over government policy(I assume the total dead estimate from all causes not just government policy). Japan negates it's wrongdoing during and before world war 2. No one in this conversation is denying it. But the issue lies in both countries being at each others throats over their own distortion of history. It feeds the beast. Another rather inconvenient mistake lies in measuring the death toll of other dictatorships in countries. Far, far more documents on Japans wrongdoing were destroyed than Germany's and very little to no research was being done prior to Mao's death in 1976. Deng Zo Ping on the other hand who eventually took over China after Mao's death had massive quarrel with Japans brutal past which eventually led China in the early 1980's to put pressure on Japan to apologize. Sadly it was too late by then. There's more to my concerns, but i'd like to not go all over the place if I don't have to. Undeadmerc3 (talk) 05:06, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

Rigg is really not a reliable source at all. In a Holocaust and Genocide Studies review, Cheng Xu (Smith College) argues that the book's "frequent use of sensational language, moralist arguments, cultural essentialism, and orientalist clichés, coupled with a lack of analytical rigor, significantly detracts from the work's historiographical objectivity and its standing as competent genocide scholarship." That's about as strong a critique as I've ever read in an academic book review.

I'm going to try to find a way to temper the current language rather than removing it entirely because (a) I'm not a subject matter expert, and (b) it seems that removing this reference entirely has caused considerable controversy. However, as currently constituted, I really don't think this sentence is acceptable on wikipedia in terms of encyclopedic tone/NPOV/due weight. Walker Elliott (talk) 18:58, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

I have over the last several months looked at Riggs book Japans Holocaust in hopes of looking into the uncertainties surrounding his methods, only to find myself with ore questions and little to know answers at all. Since then I have indeed took alot of notes about these question marks here since I do plan to down the road contact a Request Wizard to look into the methods he uses and if need be request a Dispute Resolution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Edit_Request_Wizard

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution

I will be honest that I have made some hiccups here and there on this dispute, but still my suspicions remain. That said what's been holding me back lies in to much going on in my life mostly on a personal level. I still would like to post some of the key points on the methods Riggs uses.

Before I look deeper into the notes I made, I also need to state that while I normally look up to Mark Felton himself his book "The Routledge History of Genocide" which Wikipedia references in terms of the minimum of 30 estimate. I was able to get access to the book in question and the book strangely doesn't break down the death toll of people whom were killed by government policy vs the total dead estimate. In fact Felton has mentioned that 20 million Chinese were killed in one of his books which usually is an estimate that applies the total number of civilians killed during the second sino Japanese war only to bring up in The Routledge History of Genocide only to mention the death toll of civilians as a result of diect government policy by the Japanese.

On page 112 on the book Felton uses he says

It is estimated that 10.2 million Chinese perished in China proper (exclusive of ethnic

Chinese murdered in Western colonies) between 1931 and 1945.

Unquote

There's also an article I read on the site Historynet.com where he mentions that the 30 million dead estimate is a total dead estimate.

A notable example as followed from the link below is:

"Estimates of the number of people killed by Japanese military forces between the mid- 1930s and 1945 range as high as 30 million, the vast majority of whom were noncombatants."

https://www.historynet.com/a-culture-of-cruelty/

Anyway I will look into some of the details I wrote down on grounds of the question marks Bryan Riggs uses.

As for Cheng Xu form Smith College goes can anyone find a

Holocaust and Genocide Studies review, Cheng Xu (Smith College) that Walker Elloit mentions I did a quick google search and found the source of what he's referring to:

https://academic.oup.com/hgs/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/hgs/dcaf064/8435669 Undeadmerc3 (talk) 19:42, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

One more think. Sorry about the unfinished sentence near the end of my comment. I'd edit it, but I don't think editing or correcting type's and grammar errors is allowed on Wikipedia. I hear it isn't. Anyway let me go through the notes. Undeadmerc3 (talk) 19:52, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

Just went over the list of notes I made on what I read on Japans Holocaust and why I I currently plan to ask for Requesting a edit wizard on the matter. I of course could only go into so much since there's alot of notes I wrote.

Also I had an errand that I had to run since I needed to go some place for a bit, but here are some of the key issues.

They include, but are not limited to:

-That Riggs does not take into account that the united states is not the only country involved in covering up Japans war atrocities as China, under Mao Zedong also played a role in the cover up as a means to build political influence in Japan via the Anpo protests(i‘ve also heard Sahurto who controlled Indonesia from 1967 to 1998 prohibited research over Japans control over the Dutch East Indies)

-Concerns that Riggs’s research does not take measurements of other Asian dictatorships. While Riggs does mention briefly regarding Mao Zedong’s atrocities in a brief(VERY BRIEF) footnote, he doesn’t seem take into account China’s own issues in the historical dispute. Japans war atrocities faced very little research until Deng Zo Ping’s eventual rise to power which in turn lifted the ban on such research since he grew up in a area of China that was heavily occupied by Japans brutal control. In between the long hiatus with little to no research being done till then, other regimes, wars , and dictatorships had committed many atrocities a well which I believe require research over . Aside from Mao Zedong’s regime, others include Sahurto(Indonesia-500,000 to over 3,000,000), the Korean war(2,000,000 civilians dead, etc. This leads me to the next issue.

-Riggs over reliance on Chinese research groups since China like Japan is negationistic towards it’s own history regarding Mao Zedong’s regime which killed far more than Japans aggression. The Japanese government has indeed been increasingly interfering with Japanese academia as Japans Liberal Democratic party(which used to be a big tent party prior to the 2000’s) has lurched firmly to the right in recent years. I tend to view this as a cycle of negationism. It goes without saying that Japans negationism over it’s war atrocities along with China’s own censorship regarding Mao’s regime seems to compliment one another. Riggs research with regards to the atrocities Japans committed in China which leads me to this next issue.

-Riggs has been known to sacrifice historical accuracy for sensationalism. Personally I don’t like when happens since the facts alone are troubling enough. I’d rather not explain why sensationalism is a major personal quarrel with me since I don’t want to focus on making this about me(it’s a personal issue I have though).

I can fill in on more, but Japans refuusal to apologize is very complicated when you factor in

A-The fact that the China in addition to the USA played a role in the cover up(Mao wanted to build movements in Japan based on his ideology)

B-The fact that it wasn't till a few years after Mao died when China started researching the atrocities Japan committed under an order of Deng Zo Ping and that it wasn't till the 1980's when Japan finally faced pressure over it's wrongdoing.

C-The fact that far, far more documents were destroyed than Nazi Germany's over Japans wrongdoing and that China prohibits research into Mao's atrocities as well. What's relevant here on this one is that right wing groups in Japan and the Chinese government heavily relay on each other on a political sense as both countries negate their own history. While Russia revised it's death toll in 1993 from 20 million to 27 million, China's 1995 revision of it's death toll from 20 million to over 35 million raises questions if that revision takes into account China's own historical negationism. Russia's revision to it's death toll from 20 to 27 million happened 2 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union so it's likely researchers were able to take measurements of the death toll of Stalin's regime along with the other periods of the Soviet Union. China still prohibits researching Mao's wronging to this day much in line with how the Japanese government has become increasingly right wing and more denialistic to Japans past. It feeds the beast between the two countries.

I have plenty of citations in what I wrote , but for now i'll settle for what I wrote here till the time comes to go into more detail. Undeadmerc3 (talk) 20:54, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

The 35 million figure announced by Jiang Zemin in 1995 is not the total number of deaths in the war but the total number of casualties military and civilians. While he did not distinguish between deaths and injuries, his source is likely the 1994 study from the China's Academy of Military Sciences which stated that the Chinese Army suffered more than 3.8 million casualties and more than 20 million civilians were killed during the war, with the total number of military and civilian casualties amounting to more than 35 million. Except for possible misinterpretation for 'casualties' with 'dead', the CPC did not announce a 35 million death toll for the war. Cent58 (talk) 09:00, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

I actually did notice quite often the 35 million estimate being used by some Chinese activists such as the Global Alliance for Preserving the History of World War II in Asia. Currently as things stand i'm pessimistic on this estimate. As i've said Russias revision in 1993 happened two years after the collapse of the Soviet Union so it's likely that the Russian government allowed a more balanced research on the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union vs the atrocities the soviets committed(Russia's revision of 20 to 27 million hasn't escaped criticism though). In contrast aside form the 35 million estimate no being fully solidified well enough China, like Japan negates it's own history that really does nothing more to add fuel to te fire seeing how Mao Zedong's body count is illegal to research in China. This complicates the history issue between Japan and China(despite Japans wrongdoing not being limited to China) siince China's nagationism over Mao's wrongdoing and Japans wrongdoing is negated by Japans government. James Bradly goes further by claiming that Japans invasion of China left

http://www.cnd.org/njmassacre/declaration.html

https://www.facebook.com/globaltimesnews/posts/japanese-aggression-in-wwii-caused-in-china-more-than-35-million-casualties-3000/458824706289742/

Riggs mentions the 35 million dead estimate on 422 and 423 as followed.

Quote

881 Interview Morgan, 10 Dec. 2017; Weiner (ed.), Race, Ethnicity and

Migration in Modern Japan, Weiner, “Introduction,” 3. Wakabayashi

quotes sources that 35 million died during the Second Sino-Japanese War,

but does not delineate how many were due to atrocities and how many

were due to battle. Wakabayashi (ed.), The Nanking Atrocity, 1937-38,

Wakabayashi, “The Messiness of Historical Reality,” 9; Dower, 43; Spence,

469; Frank, 109, 160; Edgerton, 249-50; Drea, 214; Weinberg, 2, 20-1,

28; Patterson, 254-5; Zeiler, 3.

Unquote

One suspicious individual who puts the death toll at 30 million to over 50 million(the over 50 million estimate I forgot where I found him making this claim though. The National World War 2 museum references his claim in an unsourced manner).

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/research-starters-worldwide-deaths-world-war

https://patricktreardon.com/book-review-the-imperial-cruise-a-secret-history-of-empire-and-war-by-james-bradley/

However i'm very pessimistic with Bradley's methods. He relies too much on Chinese estimates and I have reason to believe he uses Mao's body count to add to Japans body count.

Riggs even mentions on page 372 that Bradley isn't a historian:

56 James Bradley, Flyboys: A True Story of Courage, NY, 2003, 16-7;

Edgerton, 310; Coogan, 465; Winston S. Churchill, The Grand Alliance,

NY, 1950, 579; Duncan Bartlett, “Japan Looks Back on 17th-Century

Persecutions,” BBC News, 24 Nov. 2008; NACPM, Trial of Col. Ryoichi

Tazuka (typist in document misspelled Tazuka’s name Tozuga), SC 249223,

27 June 1946 & SC 203673-S; Edward Frederick Langley Russell (Lord

Russell of Liverpool), The Knights of Bushido: A History of Japanese

Crimes During World War II, NY, 2016, 260-1; Victoria, Zen at War, xiv.

A note about James Bradley—he put together two interesting books with

Flyboys and Flags of Our Fathers. However, he is not a trained historian,

and he makes numerous mistakes. He does cite interesting facts and when

A major concern I have with regards to both Bryan Riggs and Mark Felton is that both of them have hinted the minimum of over 30 million to be a total dead estimate. For teh record the Wikipedia article for the Victims of Nazi Germany focuses in government policy rather than total dead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victims_of_Nazi_Germany

In contrast Riggs mentions on page 342 of his book:

Quote

American boys and girls helped bring to an end

World War II, that all told, cost 60 million lives (over half of which were

slaughtered in cold blood by Japan [30 million]1542 and Germany [11.7

million]).1543 American lives should instead focus on making this world a better

place through science, industry, education, and invention, not on how to kill

people. Yes, we should always have a portion of our population trained as

willing warriors, but the majority of each generation should focus on more

productive and useful activities like curing cancer, Parkinson’s disease, or

Alzheimer’s. In recent times, it truly does just take a small percentage of

America’s population to fight its wars. The victory our men and women

secured in WWII has likely ensured that reality to date. Let us hope that we

never again have to mobilize our entire population to focus on war and killing

millions to preserve democracy. However, we must always be willing to do so if

that democracy is to survive the ages.

Unquote

Mark Felton also mentions in the following article:

https://historynet.com/a-culture-of-cruelty/

While Allied soldiers were not blameless when it came to the mistreatment and, yes, occasional murder of captured enemy combatants and civilians, such infrequent events pale in comparison to the sheer magnitude and intentional brutality of Japan’s World War II crimes against humanity. Estimates of the number of people killed by Japanese military forces between the mid- 1930s and 1945 range as high as 30 million, the vast majority of whom were noncombatants.

Unquote

The context here is lack of clarity and transparency. Researching the death toll of Japan is nowhere near as straight forward as Nazi Germany's. Far more documents were destroyed by the Japanese government, the allies, and even Mao's China untill Deng Zo Ping took control of the the Peoples Republic of China not long after Mao's death in 1976(the Anpo protests in Japan are likely why Mao wanted to suppress research on Japans wrongdoing).

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/china-japan-world-war-ii-tokyo-trial/675660/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anpo_protests Undeadmerc3 (talk) 14:22, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

There had been a new study in the early 2010s from the Academy of Social Sciences by the name of "A Study on China's Population Loss During the Resistance War against Japan（1937-1945）" to corroborate the CPC claimed figure. The research used a mix of official governmental figures and each province's losses survey to calculate the total Chinese and Taiwanese military and civilian casualties from 1931 until 1945 as a result of the war. The study added up the losses to 20.62 million deaths and 14.20 million wounded for a total 34.8 million casualties (excluding famines in Henan Province and the missing, captured, and abducted), a figure that is similar to the CPC figure of 35 million casualties. Regarding the methodology of the studies itself, since China had no complete registry of all of its citizens and the Kuomintang government and the provincial governments were unable to fully account for the casualties of the war, a lot of the losses were estimates based on a portion of the province, so there will never be an accurate figure not because of governmental interference, but in a lot of cases simply because there was a lack of data. Still, the book was the most comprehensive study for Chinese losses in the war and all of its sources were listed so you can look more into them. The Western sources you listed for claimed Japanese war crimes victims were something I cannot get more into since I'm not an expert on that (and the first source you listed was pre-1995), I just wanted to clarify that the '35 million' figure announced by the CPC in 1995 was not referring to deaths but casualties and that the figure was not necessarily something that was made up from nowhere or inflated. Cent58 (talk) 15:43, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Well regardless, one of the main issues I have with Riggs(there are others) lies in the suspicion that his estimate is based on total dead and not government policy so the context is missing here. He mentions for example at least 20 civilians in China were killed, however aside from the other examples i've shown in my previous comment, the 20 million estimate when people think of civilians dead is the total dead estimate. I don't mind breaking things down between government sanctioned massacres against non-combatants, combat deaths, and total dead, but these are all three different terminologies here.

Richard B. Frank's estimate of at least 19 million non-combatants killed by the Empire of Japan focuses on government policy directly(despite Richard B Frank praising Riggs work eh never changes his estimate. The citation below(which sadly requires a paywall) confirms that). My point here is context more or less.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/08/the-atomic-bombing-of-japan-was-justified/ Undeadmerc3 (talk) 01:57, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

Howdy, I am here from the 3rd Opinion Noticeboard to note that the request has been declined on the basis of more than 2 editors being involved. 3rd Opinion is reserved for the narrow case of 2 editors disagreeing on something and wanting an outside opinion, this is a much bigger and more involved discussion. I will also note that this discussion is relatively stale as well so the dispute resolution noticeboard is probably not useful either. Moritoriko (talk) 00:24, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Hi. Sorry if it's not suitable for a third opinion. I'm trying to get the details put strait here since the death toll between total dead and government policy needs to be put into perspective more or less I took a look at Bryan Riggs's book awhile back this year in hopes of getting answers on the methods Bryan Riggs uses only to find far more questions here.

I do need to state that there are a massive lot of methods that Bryan Riggs uses that come up as suspicious. I myself could write an entire wall of information of what I found out. It would be more direct and convenient to look at the details and conversations I have above. There are alot of general concerns I have that could clarify here, but much of what I say and are trying to empathize here aren't being taken into proper context.

I am aware that the discussion has been ongoing and I will state that the issue does go beyond the issue of total dead vs government policy killings. Prior to attempting to open a Third Opinion dispute I tried writing a long letter which I intended to use explaining everything. It took a long time for me to write this letter since so many details were hard to put together without cluttering things up.

When I went through the process of trying to open a Third Opinion I attempted to put through what I wrote. However the process of opening a dispute doesn't involve that.

I would like to ask if I could get in touch with someone who could take a look of the letter I wrote. I'd rather not clutter it up here, but I want to at least put it to good use. Undeadmerc3 (talk) 01:57, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

In the meantime I am going to reach out to some editor folks who specialize on the atrocities Mao Zedong committed and the need to measure the death toll of that regime with Japans invasion of China. Right now I found a page on the controversy over Mao's statements thanking Japan for it's war with China claiming that Japan "unified the Chinese people." I may likely open a topic in the talk page for that asking it to be expanded in how China until Mao's death in 1976 also played a role in the cover up as well. I made a topic in the talk page over America's coverup on Japans war crimes asking that the page should cover other countries(second link below). However one thing that absolutely agitates me is how people commonly over simplify the reasons over Japans refusal to apologize pointing to "culture of ignorance" while not taking into about the various political factors I mentioned consistently before. I want my words to have meaning so i'd like to avoid repeating myself if I can.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong_thanking_Japan_controversy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:American_cover-up_of_Japanese_war_crimes#This_really_needs_to_be_expanded_to_include_other_countries. Undeadmerc3 (talk) 02:24, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

Typo in reference origin

At time of writing, citation 191 ""The Avalon Prject - Laws of War: Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV); October 18, 1907". avalon.law.yale.edu" includes a typo. The title of the website includes this typo in its HTML metadata (so it would of course appear when automatically generated), but everywhere visible on the website is clearly without the typo. This is a pure style question---is it more appropriate to cite what's on the site, more visibly? Or keep with the metadata even though there's a typo?

Determinerteeth (talk) 18:37, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

It is "The Avalon Project" per Yale, so it should be specified as such. I've corrected the title and website, and added the publisher. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 15:19, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Background

Hello all, i have done a few edits to the background part of the article, especially with wording and such, i have also split the sections about militarism/imperialism and racism/ultranationalism, im trying to find more information on the eugenics part and such, so i may be adding more to it soon.

Im also going to see if i can add more about domestic repression, though not too much as to not bloat this article even more (i have added see also links to some major incidents of political persecution, like the kanto massacre and such)

In the future, i also pretend to edit some parts of the war crimes section itself, such as merging the sections about crimes in Vietnam into their proper parts, if anyone wishes to help that would be greatly appreciated.

MySalsa22 (talk) 19:56, 2 May 2026 (UTC)