Aaron Moses
4/24/17
Global History 2
Period 6
Was the Rape of Nanjing an Act of Genocide?
The Nanjing Massacre is said to be one of the worst incidents of mass extermination that
occurred during World War II on December 13, 1937. It is also known as “The Rape of Nanking,”
where in a duration of six weeks, over 260,000 Chinese civilian lives were lost to Japanese
soldiers. Men and women were tortured, raped, sexually mutilated, and murdered in various
ways. Although the massacre is known to have been one of the cruelest and gruesome acts
against humanity comparable to the Jewish Holocaust, it remains largely unknown to many
Western nations and is neglected in several literary works of history in the United States (Chang,
p.6 ). The rape of Nanking is often known as a Holocaust that has been long forgotten. Although
Japan has expressed remorse for their actions in World War II, Japan had never given an official
apology for the Rape of Nanking. Because of this, China has remained in a state of unrest as
Japan remains entrapped in the final stage of genocide. However, after World War I Japan had a
large downfall in their economy due low demand for their military resources. Several factories
were shut down and many were out of work. The great depression in the United States in 1929
also put a stop to a crucial part of their international trade, throwing them even deeper into
economic despair. With the population rising, businesses shutting down, inflation and
unemployment increasing, several had suffered from starvation and families had to sell their
daughters to prostitution. It was widely argued that in order to overcome this economic turmoil
Japan needed to conquer new territories and expand their nation to further prevent economic
depression and starvation. Not only that, they sought to improve their military expansion, and
thought it was unfair that other nations had larger territories with smaller populations than they
did. With a deep history of harbored tensions and competition for resources, China was Japan’s
main target for imperial occupation. Japan began to take swift action before China became too
powerful and began to intervene aggressively within their affairs. In instances where China did
not comply or cooperate, Japan organized assassination of political leaders which lead...
