Has Japan killed more foreign civilians in WWII than any other country in history ?

[ralian]

Don't see your point...

We don't need the PRC government to know that millions of Chinese were killed by Japanese forces.

Nobody knows the accurate numbers in Europe, too. But we have estimates.

Wasn't it PRC government who suggested that 30M people were killed in 南京?
Nobody else is suggesting such figure.
However, wasn't the population of 南京 20M that time?
I could be wrong.

[bossel]

Wasn't it PRC government who suggested that 30M people were killed in 南京?

It seems, you're confusing some things here. The official PRC victim figure for the Nanjing Massacre is >300,000. Roughly that number is widely accepted in historical circles, but there are a number of lower estimates & very few higher.

30m is, IIRC, the officiall PRC estimate for the whole Sino-Japanese War. This is probably exaggerated. I'd go for a number around 10m, but the estimates vary widely.

However, wasn't the population of 南京 20M that time?

The actual number of Nanjing inhabitants at the time is hard to calculate, since the city was full of refugees. It may have been up to 1m, but I never saw the number of 20m anywhere.

[ralian]

It seems, you're confusing some things here. The official PRC victim figure for the Nanjing Massacre is >300,000. Roughly that number is widely accepted in historical circles, but there are a number of lower estimates & very few higher.

30m is, IIRC, the officiall PRC estimate for the whole Sino-Japanese War. This is probably exaggerated. I'd go for a number around 10m, but the estimates vary widely.

The actual number of Nanjing inhabitants at the time is hard to calculate, since the city was full of refugees. It may have been up to 1m, but I never saw the number of 20m anywhere.

Yes, I was confused about the figure as I was reading articles written in Japanese.
I meant to say that the population of Nanjing was 200,000 that time, while PRC claims that the figure for Nanjing Massacre was 300,000.
Probably no one knows.
It is hard to investigate unless researchers receive full corporation from Chinese government.

[pipokun]

As Falk Pingel in the Georg Eckert Institute mentioned, I don't think PRC accepts researches from other countries or that Japan and PRC/Taiwan hold open dialogues upon their histories. I still don't understand who are "mainstream" historians like you said.
Anyways, looking at the great effort of the Institute, I don't know if it is feasible to build mutual agreements upon the history between different regimes, but I know it would be much better than nothing.

[pipokun]

It seems, you're confusing some things here. The official PRC victim figure for the Nanjing Massacre is >300,000. Roughly that number is widely accepted in historical circles, but there are a number of lower estimates & very few higher.
...
The actual number of Nanjing inhabitants at the time is hard to calculate, since the city was full of refugees. It may have been up to 1m, but I never saw the number of 20m anywhere.

Roughly that number is widely accepted in historical circles
Really? Which circles?

I always wonder if WWII really ended in Asia in 1945.
If I were a Chinese/Korean survivor, maybe even Taiwanese after Kunmintan regime, my answer must be "no".

[bossel]

Roughly that number is widely accepted in historical circles
Really? Which circles?

Mainstream historians usually agree on 300,000 as a valid estimate, though numbers between 200,000 & 300,000 (closer to 300,000) are acceptable as well, if you didn't notice. Numbers below 200,000 are only purported by a minority (most of them in Japan).

[lexico]

The actual number of Nanjing inhabitants at the time is hard to calculate, since the city was full of refugees. It may have been up to 1m, but I never saw the number of 20m anywhere.

Acc. to Tawara Yoshifumi 俵 義文 Nanjing area consisted of

1. NCD Nanjing City Ditrict 南京城區
2. NSA Nanjing Suburban Area 南京近郊區
3. NISZ Nanjing International Safety Zone 南京� 際安全區

"Within NCD lies NISZ, the International Safety Zone."

"Nanjing Massacre involved not only NCD but also NSA."

"At that time, immediately preceding Najing's takeover by Imperial Japanese Army, NCD had around 1 million people, NSA around 1.5 million, adding up to around 2.5 million. (Kasahara Jugyushi 笠原十九司 Nanjing Incident 南京事件 Iwanami shoden 岩波書店 1997)."

"When Imperial Japanese Army attacked Nanjing many people including the rich left the NCD; however there also flowed from the NSA into NCD. Hence the population of NCD was in a constant flux."

"NCD population was around 500,000; in addition to that were Nanjing Defence Force numbering 150,000. (Nanjing Mayor Ma Chaojun 馬超俊 in his letter to KMT Military Committee dated 1937.11.23 wrote 'current population around 500,000, and expecting an increase of around 200,000 refugees.')"

"The (oft quoted population of 'Nanjing' of) 200,000 refers to (only) those concentrated in the Nanjing International Safety Zone including some refugees (who made it into the safery zone). After the Imperial Japanese occupation of Nanjing, additional refugees fleeing from the massacre and rapes caused the Safety Zone's population to rise to around 250,000 within a month."

"The scheme of downplaying/neglecting the magnitude of the Nanjing Massacre can be seen in the right-wing nationalist group of historians' (Association for Creating New Textbooks) attempt at forging revisionist history books) is conuing although the stated facts have been elucidated byt Nanjing Massacre researchers (南京事件照査硏究會 ed. '13 Lies of Nanjing Massacre Sceptics' 柏書房, 1999)."

Source: Tawara Yoshifumi 俵 義文, a Japanese expert on textbooks, examined the situation in a recent article: "Kenpo Ihan/Shinryaku Senso Kotei no 'Abunai Kyokasho' no Jittai" (The facts of a 'dangerous textbook' that violates the constitution and that affirms the aggressive war), published in _Kikan Senso Sekinin Kenkyu_, no.30 2000

Acc. the information above the estimated population in NCD alone would have been around 500k + 200k + 150k = 850k = 850,000 on December 13, 1937, at the time of Nanjing's fall. To this should be added the remaining population of NSA, Nanjing suburbs comprised of 6 regional districts 懸府 which can only raise the population estimate.

[Dorian1977]

I think that Japan was not the only country responsible for killings, during a war casualties are inevitable, even killings of innocent (unfortunately), there are are other countries too which are responsible for world war 2 except Japan, Germany killed millions of people during world war 2 , and Stalins victims are tens of millions therefore blaming only Japan is something inacurate from the historical point of view.

[Maciamo]

I think that Japan was not the only country responsible for killings, during a war casualties are inevitable, even killings of innocent (unfortunately), there are are other countries too which are responsible for world war 2 except Japan, Germany killed millions of people during world war 2 , and Stalins victims are tens of millions therefore blaming only Japan is something inacurate from the historical point of view.

Of course many (if not all) countries can be blamed. This thread just concentrate of the worst atrocities and largest killing of civilians (not so inevitable in a war) ever. Japan, Russia, China and Germany are very likely the top 4. The question was "Has Japan actually killed more civilians than the others ?" Compared to Germany, I think the answer is "yes", but it's true that Stalin and Mao have comitted such atrocities against their own people that Japan may well rank 3rd. Japan would be first for the killing of "foreign civilians".