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{{afd-merged-from|Types of torture used in the Japanese occupation of Singapore|Types of torture used in the Japanese occupation of Singapore|25 May 2010}}
==Hong's latest deletions==
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"Outside Japan, different societies use widely different timeframes in defining Japanese war crimes. For example, the annexation of Korea by Japan in 1910 was followed by the deprivation of civil liberties and exploitations against the Korean people. Thus, some Koreans refer to "Japanese war crimes" as events occurring during the period shortly prior to 1910 to 1945."
{{WikiProject Japan|importance=High|milhist=y}}
{{WikiProject China|importance=High}}
"By comparison, the Western Allies did not come into military conflict with Japan until 1941, and North Americans, Australasians and Europeans may consider "Japanese war crimes" to be events that occurred in 1941-45."
{{WikiProject Korea|importance=High}}
{{WikiProject East Asia|importance=high}}
Which parts of those sentences are not self-explanatory?
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Also, it would be nice if you made constructive edits, such as discussing issues here and fixing vandalism, instead of just deleting stuff that you alone have doubts about . ] | ] 17:09, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
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:The citation needed tags have been on these claims for weeks. I am not opposed to them at all if they can be verified. Please read ] and ]. "Self explanatory" or "it's obvious" are not reasons to include content in an article. ] <small>(] - ])</small> 17:14, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
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Do you also want citations for "the sky is blue" and "Paris is the capital of France"? ] | ] 17:16, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
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:Those can be verified, and sure, citations for them would be great. Here's a source to verify that Paris is the capital of France, and here's a source to verify that the sky may sometimes be blue. ] <small>(] - ])</small> 17:22, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
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Which part of the logic in the above paragraphs is it that you do not follow? What would would you like referenced? ] | ] 17:27, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
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Please tell me, because I don't understand your reasoning. ] | ] 17:36, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
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:It doesn't matter if a piece of content or claim makes sense to us as editors or that we think it's the truth. This is why I asked you to read ] and ]. This is just WP basics, and I'm confused that you don't understand that. Are you new to WP? The content that needed referencing and verifying were the content that had citation needed tags:
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#Different societies place the war crimes in different time frames, and that "some Koreans" place them at events between 1910 and 1945.
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#North Americans, Australasians, and Europeans place the war crimes at events between 1941 and 1945.
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#It may not be considered "war crimes" if the acts were committed in regions that were "subjected to Japanese sovereignty".
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:Where exactly is this information found? Are these claims made by reliable sources? We don't know anything about how this information came about on this WP article. Again, I would not oppose the information being there at all if it can be verified. ] <small>(] - ])</small> 17:38, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
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"Where exactly is this information found?" It is found in logic. The same logic that says 2 + 3 = 5. If anyone can't understand the reasoning in these statements, they are going to have trouble with a great deal of the information in Misplaced Pages. ] | ] 17:44, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
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Furthermore, there is no issue of original research here. The concept does not apply to common sense statements. The issue is that you feel that the statements need citations. They would need citations if they did not include words such as "some" and "may", i.e. more definite statements, like "all Koreans define war crimes as events that occurred between 1910 and 1945" require citations. There is nothing "original" about basic logic, i.e. "Korea was part of the Japanese empire between 1910 and 1945; war crimes occurred in areas occupied by Japan; some Korean people..."
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As for your point 3, it explained in the sentences that follow the point where you have put the {cn}}: "Japan's de jure sovereignty over places such as Korea and Formosa, prior to 1945, are recognized by international agreements such as the Treaty of Shimonoseki (1895) and the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty (1910). However, the legality of these treaties is in question, the native populations were not consulted, there was armed resistance to Japanese occupation invasions and war crimes may also be committed during civil wars."
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There is no reference in ] for Paris being the capital. Neither are there references in most articles for statements that conform to basic logic. ] | ] 18:11, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
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:Again, please read ]. It doesn't matter if it makes sense to us as editors. Who or what source is saying that different people apply different time frames to the war crimes? Who or what sources claim that it may not be considered a war crime if the regions were under Japanese sovereignty at the time? And your explanation of point 3 is exactly why I asked you to read ]. Did you arrive at that conclusion yourself? Or is there a reliable source that's making the claim? ] <small>(] - ])</small> 18:41, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
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I agree with ]. . If any single sentence that is not properly referenced must be removed, Misplaced Pages will be reduced to a skeleton within the next few days. Furthermore, I don't see any original research here, but only a couple of statements which reflect common sense. --] 19:27, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
:As I've said, the citation needed tags had been placed there for weeks. I had not removed those statements initially. But after weeks and no references have materialised, I removed those statements. It's a simple request - can sources be found to verify those statements? Furthermore, if there are other statements in ''other'' articles that can't be verified, I highly encourage you and other editors to put citation tags on them or remove them. ] <small>(] - ])</small> 19:54, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
::The issue is not "can sources be found to verify those statements", the issue is why should anyone have to? Show me how ] applies to matters of rudimentary induction.
:: I spent some time reducing and rewriting the "Definitions" section because you weren't happy with it. You're only response was to put {{cn}} tags on three sentences. You have now reduced the "Historical and geographical extent" section to a nonsensical stub, but I guess that makes you happy, since you wanted rid of it all together. ] | ] 00:01, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
:::Wrong. I never wanted to get rid of it. I thought the original version was misnamed and should be moved down. And there's nothing "rudimentary" about the claims that need citation. What's rudimentary is that the sky is blue, not that a "war crime" is not really a "war crime" if the region it happened in was under Japanese sovereignty. ] <small>(] - ])</small> 00:33, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Whatever. The material is back, with references. You could have researched and added them yourself, if you really wanted that material to stay.] | ] 03:32, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
:I did do some quick searching weeks ago before I even put the citation needed tags on. I couldn't find anything, so I put citation tags on them. Weeks later and there are still no sources. I'm not an expert on the subject and I'm not the only editor on WP. So I'm absolutely justified in removing them. Anyway thanks for providing the sources. That's all that those claims needed. I haven't verified them yet, but I'll trust that they back up those claims for now. ] <small>(] - ])</small> 03:44, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
== 148 convicted criminals? ==
This section is wrong. I checked the actual book in question, and it says there 5,700 individuals indicted for Class B and Class C war crimes, including 178 Taiwanese and 148 Koreans. So the 148 number wasn't the total number of conviincted individuals, but just the number of ethnic Koreans in the entire group of convicted war criminals. Hong Sa Ik was the highest ranking ethnic Korean war criminal, not the highest ranking convicted war criminal in general, which include the 25 Class A war crminals. Here's the actual page, shown courtesy of Google Books. (Embracing defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II By John W Dower, pg. 447) Therefore, I'm fixing the numbers to reflect this. Also, while looking at the 148 number, I also found an interesting sidefact, which I also included.--] 12:33, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
:Good work. That's the kind of edit that really improves an article. ] 02:26, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
== Revisionism etc ==
I believe more information needs to be devoted to revisionism in Japan and reaction from allied nations. I don't think the current issue is whether Japan has apologized or not, because they had numerous times. I think the main thing is ''not'' about the apologies, but about all kinds of things that keeps popping up like revisionism and textbook controversy, plus Abe's recent denial that comfort women were forced. It's these incidents by high profile politicians that anger Japan's neighbors, not the "lack" of apologies. ] 05:59, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
==Immediate Compensation? ==
The property listed in China were all looted goods from China. Can a robber uses the robbed goods as compensation? This is incredible. ] 19:54, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
=='No Reference' tag added for the 'Background' section==
Origins and the so called 'culture' of Japanese imperialism is no more than personal pragmatic speculation at this moment without any reference to secondary material. Hence the tag will remain until those opinions could be cited through a legitimate endnote. ] 04:02, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
:In some cases 203.109, you have added "citation needed" tags to material where the source is already mentioned in the text or where the citation is in an adjoining sentence. In other cases you have added them in sentences which follow logically from preceding statements, without putting them at the point where the controversy arises. In others you have put them at statements of the obvious. I will clean all of these up in due course. ] | ] 03:38, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
::I don't think I'll ever understand your "follow logically" argument. Sounds a lot like ] - meaning you as a WP editor is making a conclusion based on the evidence we have, instead of simply reflecting the sources we have. ] <small>(] - ])</small> 06:00, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
:::First, if a sentence says, in essence, that "A = 3", the following sentence says "B = 2", the one after that says "A + B = C" then it follows logically if the fourth sentence says "C = 5". The last sentence is not the point that references should be given or requested.
:::Second, Misplaced Pages does not have a rule that says every sentence or even every paragraph has to be referenced.
:::Third, requests for references can be mischevious and ways of pushing a particular POV or ideology. ] | ] 08:43, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Gtant65 I had a look for the and under ] I do not think that they are unreasonable. For example:
*''For example, many of the alleged crimes committed by Japanese personnel broke Japanese ], and were not subject to ], as required by that law.(citation requested)'' It is a contentious statement of fact with no citation to back it up.
*'' Had Japan certified the legal validity of the war crimes tribunals in the San Francisco Treaty, the war crimes would have became open to appeal and overturning in Japanese courts. This would have been unacceptable in international diplomatic circles.(citation requested)'' This definatly needs a citation and as I doubt it was made up it should be easy to fid.
The others are in a similar vain and should have citations. But I do no think that the "Unreferenced template" on the background section should be used, but there should be some "fact" templates on things like:
* ''By the late 1930s, the rise of militarism in Japan created at least superficial similarities between the wider Japanese military culture and that of Nazi Germany's elite military personnel, such as those in the Waffen-SS. Japan also had a military secret police force, known as the Kempeitai, which resembled the Nazi Gestapo in its role in annexed and occupied countries.'' Because it is guilt by comparrison and so contentious. Besides it is arguable if Germany's elite military personnel were in the SS, See for example the attitude of ] an aristocratic Prussian conservative and a member of the military class who were probably the real elite military of Germany. --] 10:45, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
::Hi Phil, I wasn't referring to the examples you have given, not that I think any of them are really that controversial, although they may appear so to some people.
::Most of the material in question — and in fact most of the article — was actually added by ] (under another user name, which he has changed for privacy reasons), who I understand to be a Japanese person living in Japan. He and I have had some serious disagreements rearding various articles, mostly to do with his and my quite different historiographical approaches. But I also believe that he has an excellent knowledge of this subject, from Japanese sources which are inaccessible to most of us. I have suggested to him that references would be a great addition, but he has never provided them.
::And one reason for my objections stated above is the use of {cn} tags as an insidious form of POV-pushing and political censorship. There are people who use them to justify deletion of facts that they fund unpalatable. I think most of the frequent contribuors to these article would agree with me. I do not think the lack of references, is a good enough reason for the removal of long-standing material, against the wishes of most editors. ] | ] 17:41, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
This year there has been a lot of editing of the ] one of the things that has happened is that there has been a tendency to ask for and to reference everything. I think if you compare two versions of the article from say and now, you will see that thanks to footnoting the article is of far more use as an encyclopaedic source than it was before, although the content of what is said has not altered a lot. I have also found that citations help greatly with controversial topics e.g. ] in keeping the article focused and removing the more extreme theories. So I would recommend that on a subject like this there should be rather more citations than there are at the moment. Don't look on the request for citations as POV pushing but a chance to copper bottom what is already here. In the long run the article will be much better for it, although in the short term it is a pain to find them. --] 19:50, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
== Comfort Women ==
I have removed the following reference from the "comfort women" section for it's lack of citation and use of weasel-words: ''"Some sources claim that virtually all comfort women consented to becoming prostitutes and/or were paid, but others have presented research establishing a link between the Japanese military and the forced recruitment of local women."''
I didn't feel it was appropriate to simply tag it and leave it, as this is a massively controversial topic with a lot of bad feeling behind it. Based on that possibility for real harm being done, I think it should be held to a higher standard (on the level of WP:BIO, for example) in terms of the '''absolute essentiality''' of good citation. I was in doubt, and I took it out. If the claim has any truth it can simply be cited, de-weaseled, and returned to the article. <span style="font-family:impact, serif;background:black;color:red;border-style:double;letter-spacing:3px">Bullzeye</span><small><sup><i>]/]</i></sup></small> 01:16, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
why is this quote given in full twice?
*These were not commercial brothels. Force, explicit and implicit, was used in recruiting these women. What went on in them was serial rape, not prostitution. The Japanese Army’s involvement is documented in the government’s own defense files. A senior Tokyo official more or less apologized for this horrific crime in 1993. Yesterday, grudgingly acknowledged the 1993 quasi apology, but only as part of a pre-emptive declaration that his government would reject the call, now pending in the United States Congress, for an official apology. America isn’t the only country interested in seeing Japan belatedly accept full responsibility. Korea and China are also infuriated by years of Japanese equivocations over the issue.
Surely its unecessary to use it twice in the same article?--] 11:18, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
==Iraq War==
I don't think this even warrants discussion, but I'm not going to risk the 3RR violation. I think it is grossly trivialising to the subject to include the stuff about the Iraq War, especially in the first paragraph.
The historical jury is still out on the rights and wrongs of the invasion of Iraq; I can't see how the presence of a small contingent of Japanese non-combat personnel in Iraq is comparable to the ] or the ]. In fact, no alleged war crime committed by coalition forces in Iraq is in the same ballpark as that. IMO this is ahistorical, "presentism" of the worst kind. ]] 08:36, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
:Yes, agreed. Iraq is totally irrelevant unless allegations of war crimes by the Japanese are made. This is somebody apparently not understanding what "war crime" means. ] 19:27, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
::I understand very well what a war crime is, and while it's OK to mention the controversy about Japan's role in Iraq, I'm not satisfied with the way it has been done by contributors to this page. ]] 23:36, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
Oh yes like there's logic in determining why abusing your own citizens i.e. the Koreans is a war crime. CHECK MATE
* I've removed the Iraq War section again. Only Grant65 and I have had any discussion about this recently, and no-one has been able to offer a coherent argument as to why it should be included. If Japanese soldiers in Iraq are accused of war crimes it can be re-instated; but until then its irrelevant to this article as a ] and a ] are different concepts. ] 14:00, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
: Jeff...clearly they have been accused of crimes against peace by Japanese activists. I don't know what your attitude to the Iraq war is but are you sure you aren't letting it cloud your approach to this issue? ]] 14:28, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
::That's a nice idea, but no. Whether the Iraq War was a "crime against peace" or not is debatable. But my understanding is that a "crime against peace" and a "war crime" are different concepts. We could always change the article name to make it clear we are discussing a historical event. Something like ] or whatever. ] 15:06, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
Doesn't that definitive distinction warrant the separation and disposal of acts that are ] and not ] from this article? you would assume that to be absurd. From Artile 6 of the ], crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity form a consolidated framework that under Artile 5 of the ] is the ambit of jurisdiction for the International Criminal Court <i>“most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole”</i>.
Grant65, you implied that the inclusion of Iraq related material is <i>"grossly trivilising"</i> to the material related to the Pacific War. However, one can reasonably construe that you are trivialising the Iraq material itself. I do not think you understand the gravity of Japan's leaders supporting the invasion. This is a nation that has had leaders convicted of crimes against peace and has duly accepted those judgments under Article 11 of the ]. I can only sincerely hope that all of you take due caution in editing and deleting of forthcoming additions to the article with regards to Iraq and convictions of the past.
] 01:49, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
:I'm not sure why this has made a reappearance after it was archived, but I take the opportunity to point out once again that — in spite of my initial concerns — I ended up arguing for inclusion of the material relating to the Iraq War. See my post from November 13, 2005 above. ] (JW) disagreed, as did another editor. ] | ] 12:48, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
<div class="messagebox"><i>We could always change the article name to make it clear we are discussing a historical event. Something like ] or whatever. ] 15:06, 16 November 2005 (UTC)</i></div>
Well, that proposal was never revisited for one and a half years so that's moot (nobody including ] even bothered to create a rediret link for that "Imperial Japanese war crimes" title to this page since). Hence, the reasonable wiki-browser would be led to believe from the current title that the article could theoretically encompass any war crime in any period between the formation of the ] state in the antiquities to contemporary Japan.
] 16:19, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
:Anyone can create a redirect. I repeat: I am not opposed to discussion of the Iraq War controversy in this article. But I think other editors will need to be persuaded. ] | ] 02:10, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
== "North Americans, Australasians, South East Asians and Europeans may consider "Japanese war crimes" to be events that occurred in 1941-45" ==
Under the "Historical and geographical extent" heading:
''By comparison, the Western Allies did not come into military conflict with Japan until 1941, and North Americans, Australasians, South East Asians and Europeans may consider "Japanese war crimes" to be events that occurred in 1941-45.''
Is this not a presumption and a deductive fallacy, and is ''"may consider"'' not weasel wording? I have checked the sources cited and have found nothing in them to support this claim. On the contrary, the sources cited clearly '''contradict''' it.
"North Americans, Australasians, South East Asians and Europeans?"
That's a ''lot'' of people! This looks like a not-so-tactful way of saying "'''gaijin'''."
This comment amasses hundreds of millions of people, from dozens of countries and countless cultures all over the globe, into one big homogenous group...
...and then projects a straaangely insular psychology onto that group.
Now, I ''wonder'' how that could have happened?
I reccomend that this text be removed.
{{unsigned|64.81.167.175|2007-07-26T04:45:21}}
oh, here's my four tildes:
] 07:42, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
:Sorry, no. A "presumption" yes, because its a reasonable and perfectly encyclopedic presumption. A "deductive fallacy", no because it's ''inductive'' and not a fallacy. "May consider" is not a weasel phrase; you are mistaking the ''cautious'' use of words for the ''misleading'' use of them.
:You are the first person to suggest the removal of this wording, which is simply pointing out the historical differences between (A) Taiwan and Korea, (B) mainland China and (C) the rest of the world (worded as "North Americans, Australasians, South East Asians and Europeans", because there can't have been many Latin Americans or Africans who were affected, even though there are rather a lot of them). Others have suggested that the article should be ''restricted'' to 1941-45. I don't agree with that either.] | ] 14:09, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Thank you, yes, inductive, thanks to the word "may." 'Thousand pardons. However I have to insist that this ''is'' a fallacy, a fallacy of weak induction, a fallacy of "false cause," if you like. It's inferring a conclusion that is not supported by the premise.
Like ''this'':
Japanese Imperial forces committed horrific acts against entire populations, acts which are well known to the entire world, but...
''since:''
certain populations were not directly at war with Japan until after many of the most notorious atrocities took place, including the massacre of Nanjing,
''it naturally follows that:''
== Gratuitous violence warning banner ==
descendants of those certain populations "may" have no consideration for, or knowledge of, such globally acknowledged horrors. (amazingly!)
I physically vomited after skimming this article. Can a warning banner be placed on it please?
== Japanese imperialism should be distinct from Japanese militarism ==
It is a serious leap of faith, and I have to respectfully disagree; it is hardly encyclopedic or reasonable.
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.
But whether we agree on that point or not, your response did not address the other serious matter: the fact that the ''sources cited for this claim'' ''do not support the claim''; in fact, they ''contradict'' it quite clearly. That is hardly encyclopedic.
== Fatalities ==
Without any sources to support such a feeble ''in''duction, what place does it have in an encyclopedia? "May have" puts the assertion on shaky ground to begin with, such that it would require a solid basis of circumstantial evidence to warrant mention. No such evidence is provided. In this manner, we "may" assume anything. That's our right to do so, I suppose, but printing such assumptions in an encyclopedia is hardly justified.
The source for the upper limit of the fatalities count, 30,000,000 , in the fatalities section of the key info box is a Mark Felton YouTube video. This video doesn’t contain any source for that number. The number is sourced later from an interview by Mark Felton and a book. The mark felton interview also does not include any source for the claim. Can the source Felton uses to ce come to that number be found? Removed the interview citation since there is already a second citation anyway] (]) 17:25, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
Not yet mentioned is the fact that the assumption being made in this passage is one about ''people's thoughts''. That is a broad assumption, and without ''some'' kind of data to back it up, interviews, surveys, letters to editors, ''something'', it amounts to '''mind-reading,''' and mind-reading on a massive scale, for that matter. I'm unaware if psychics are considered legitimate encyclopedic sources these days, but that's irrelevant since none were cited in this case.
:Agree on this point. It was added very recently without reference on early May 2023. Could be fabricated and the figure of 30 million casualties have been propaganda point by the Chinese media recently citing source from Wiki. ] (]) 07:24, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
I'll admit, I do have a bit of a passionate stake in this, because the passage I'm contesting seems to suggest that either the enormous group mentioned (Australasians, etc.), or people in general, are so daft and self-centered as to be incapable of comprehending anything that doesn't involve them directly (in this case, human suffering on a catastrophic scale). So I do find it offensive.
::] is a leading scholar on the subject (and he has a PhD in history). See Mark Felton, ''Japan's Gestapo: Murder, Mayhem and Torture in Wartime Asia'' (Casemate Publishers, 2009) and Felton, "The Perfect Storm: Japanese military brutality during World War Two." ''The Routledge History of Genocide'' (Routledge, 2015) pp. 105-121. His You-tube and interviews are based on his published reliable sources. ] (]) 09:44, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
:::I checked the cited material and Felton didn’t provide a source for the 30,000,000 claim or give any explanation of how it was reached. The Hawaii edu source used for the lower estimate gives information about how the numbers were reached. If you have citations from Felton’s work where he does provide an a source for the number or more depth of how he reached that number then feel free to add that instead. ] (]) 09:54, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
:::Also: I checked the route ledge history of genocide and while the work as a whole is reliable the specific number claim also contains no source or explanation beyond stating it even though the claims before and after are sourced. This isn’t to say that this number itself is inaccurate, but that the citations were insufficient and conflicted with the more reliable citation used previously. If the page number was incorrect and there was a better explanation to the claim than add it with the correct page number ] (]) 10:01, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
::::So far, we have no RS for the claim and we should be very careful about this. Dogsrcool420 raised a good point. — ''']''' ] 12:32, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
:::::I looked over the listed sources and agree with @], the claim is dubious and I feel it should be removed. ] (]) 22:29, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
::::::The claim has been reasserted with a different source and no explanation. Since consensus looks like it's on the remove side, I'm going to take it out until someone can verify in detail, hopefully with multiple sources. Also, I feel like the casualty count relies too much on Rummel his "Democide," which is not a mainstream concept. It's possible that the article could have a strongly constructed narrative bias. --] (]) 20:11, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
:::::: Here's a source that says 30,000,000 million in mainland China alone:
American Museum of Asian Holocaust WWII (1931-1945). Chinese American Forum. 2002;18(2):42. Accessed July 1, 2023. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f6h&AN=8632131&site=eds-live&scope=site --] (]) 20:55, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
:::::: A user added a new source for the 30,000,000 figure without description of the text. It's not a publically available source. Anyone have it on Jstor or something? I don't appreciate that a user is circumventing discussion. Here is the source: Carmichael, Cathie; Maguire, Richard (2015). The Routledge History of Genocide. Routledge. p. 105. ISBN 9780367867065. User Salfanto the source with little explanation, even though the information it was sourcing was in contest on the talk page and had been removed several times. ] (]) 07:35, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
:The line used in the contested source is "Japanese troops killed up to, according to some estimates, 30 million people during the war, most of them civilians." In my view, this fails verification, as I believe this figure is used for the number of people killed in the war overall, and not the number of people killed as a result of war crimes. ] (]) 10:08, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
::Sounds like it. Even the article from the Chinese forum doesn't specify that the number was killed by Japanese war crimes. I think it's dubious to claim that all civilian deaths in a war are due to war crime. Such diffuses the meaning of war crimes and distracts from the targeted and systematic nature of Japanese war crimes. --] (]) 02:55, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
:::provided sources to books. just in case google is down.
:::(https://archive.org/details/imperialjapanswo00unse/page/84/mode/2up) ~ 8.2 million civilian deaths in China alone.
:::https://books.google.ca/books?id=6rvlCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA15&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=3#v=onepage&q=30%20million&f=false) 30 million, most of them civilians, puts total death toll to at least 15 million.
:::"Japanese troops killed up to, according to some estimates, 30 million people during the war, most of them civilians." how is killing a civilian not a war crime? ] (]) 04:20, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
::::Your tone with "google being down" is beyond what I'm going to accept here. It does not say 30 million people killed by Japanese war crimes. Have you read the discussion above? The previous posts before yours are discussing whether killed civilians implies war crimes. Furthermore, a vague, offhand remark with no known context in one book doesn't feel like enough to justify such an exceptional claim in regard to a sensitive subject. My impression here is that no editor involved has read the full text, but merely searched for something like "30,000,000 casualties of Japanese war crimes" and picked a source that looks like it fit. Shoehorning existing information is not how we should source things; it's from the source or nothing. --] (]) 21:55, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
:::::I found several articles that say Rummel says 30 million, but I can't find their sources. Maybe it's just Misplaced Pages feedback, or maybe he says it elsewhere in the cited document. That seems dubious, given that Rummel decisively gives 10 million as the upper limit, and explains why in some detail. The fact that Rummel here was used as a source for the 30 million casualties claim on Misplaced Pages, apparently for a long time, makes me think we're really reaching here. --] (]) 05:48, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
I don't think we're going to find more information on the 30 million. I think consensus here is that the claim is dubious. We know a few people have said that figure, but we don't know why they said it. Considering that the casualty rate puts the Asian Holocaust into a comparison with the Jewish Holocaust, and potentially many other reasons related to pov or article interpretation, we could safely call the casualty figure "over 3 million" in the infobox. Although, I think casualty rates in infoboxes enables users to scroll to a figure and move on, rather than reading and gaining some nuance from the article. I think articles about genocide should limit themselves from a reliance on statistics to show the gravity of crimes against humanity, because even numerically small genocides are terrible. They should not be statistically compared for which is "worse," although doing so is human nature. --] (]) 20:55, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
:Looking over the article again, while Felton doesn't include sources, he is an accredited historian. I don't think he needs sources for Misplaced Pages's critera, he is the source. He's also sourced later in the article anyway for saying the same thing. But it is a bit dubious to use him alone for such an extraordinary claim. I want to change some of the wording, because so far he is the singular credible source here. But saying things like "some historians" when we mean "Mark Felton" and "as high as" when we mean "without evidence, Mark Felton said as high as" seems to violate some POV style points. ] (]) 04:41, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
::I agree. Felton is a credible source but because we don’t currently have any source of him explaining the claim it should be accurately cited and contextualised like you describe ] (]) 17:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
:::So we need to find a source of him saying it in order to add it into the info box? ] (]) 15:15, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
::::The sources used just have him stating it when there are other sources that at least have a breakdown of the numbers and where they came from. If there is a source of him backing up his claim then that could be added in with context. It’s not appropriate imo to have the overall number that comes up immediately based on one historian just saying it in an interview or YouTube video. ] (]) 15:22, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
:::::Hello. I intended to add a second citation on the bare minimum of how many people were killed by the Japanese empire during and before world war 2. The articles seem to want to include only one estimate however I respectfully insist that at least a varied estimate ranging from 10 million to 30 million be included. Obviously RJ Rummels estimate is way too low, but for the sake of Misplaced Pages standards. The source seems to be said to be broken down into statistics and detail however there is speculation I have that includes not only those killed via state policy via massacres, state sanctioned famine, diseases spread from field testing of bio weapons, vs non preventable famine and non intentional diseases(not from bio weapons units). Considering that Japan launched these invasions I can empathize somewhat on the decision to take into account the number dead from non state causes, but there is a discussion and debate over that. The citation I added that was removed was from a forum interview on Sterling Seagrave on his book Gold Warriors(second citation below). In the interview he puts Japans causality count at 10-14 million.
:::::While one could make the argument that no direct citations are used, Seagrave is a well respected historian and he isn't the only historian with an estimate on Japans body count. The one and only estimate included on this page is by Bryan Mark Rigg whom aside from being somewhat controversial I somehow are uncertain on what his book, Japan's Holocaust: History of Imperial Japan's Mass Murder and Rape During World War II actually says contextwise. Can anyone upload a few pictures of what his book says on the tally? It's worth mentioning that in China's case 15 to 22 million died from all causes with the later estimate common among Chinese historians with even Mark Felton mentioning this in his book, however it includes not just those killed in state policy, but also the total dead from famine whether preventable or otherwise, and combat deaths with 5 to 10 million being from famine and disease. The casualties on Japans body count from state policy generally run from 10-20 million which is provided by M.D.R Foot with the later of the estimate being that of Werner Gruhl, Herbert Flix, and John Dower. I also watched a live stream from Richard B. Frank whom, in the interview cited his book, Tower of Skulls that Japans body count is from 18 or 19 million to 25 million(citation 5 below). May we discuss this
:::::https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrTS3lsjLWA ] (]) 02:41, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::3 days and no update. I'm trying to contact the admins over this. It's really unnerving that this is harder than it should be. I say this as politely as I can. ] (]) 21:06, 21 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::::I think your comment has a lot of good information I appreciate. I feel like someone else should weigh in. I don't think it's anything to be unnerved about though wikipedia talk sections can be slow? There's a lot of articles on the site lol ] (]) 07:32, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Thanks. I'm new to Misplaced Pages. One thing that annoys me is that while it's one thing to include multiple estimates on the body count, Bryan Mark Riggs book on the Japans aggression is referanced too much on this article despite his book receiving mostly negative reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. I don't mind the 30 million estimate if it's shown alongside other estimates, but i've been hearing shady things about Bryan Riggs considering that he relies on sensationalism over accuracy. For example,
::::::::Compared to the German Einsatzgruppen, which carried out mass shootings on the Eastern Front in Europe and who suffered from psychological issues as a result, no such problems occurred with Japanese soldiers, as the vast majority of soldiers participated in murder and rape and seemingly enjoyed it.
::::::::Unquote
::::::::While it's undeniable that the vast majority of Japanese soldiers enjoyed the atrocities they commited, it's safe to say also that many had mental health issues in the process considering how poorly fed they were with many Japanese soldiers dying from famine. There are other variables that contributed to the atrocities, but this was overlooked quite a bit.
::::::::https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocUV8Pgo22Y&pp=ygUfaW1wZXJpYWwgamFwYW4gZmVlZCBpdCdzIHRyb29wcw%3D%3D ] (]) 11:29, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
Nevertheless, pathos aside, I'm unconvinced that my argument is anything less than solid. I still feel that the passage is irrelevant and inappropriate, that the premise does not support the conclusion, that the sources cited contradict the claim rather than support it, and without sufficient support for the claim, its presence in this article is awkward at best, and, well, forgive me, but revisionist at worst.
But I'm willing to be proven wrong. Utterly wrong. Would Grant like to add anything, or does anyone else have anything to say?
(forgot my tildes again; sorry) ] 09:49, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
I seriously think we should include multiple estimates on the number of people killed. Maybe ranging from 10 million to 30 million even if the latter is questionable. Personally I think it doesn't go much past 20 million, but the numbers are all over the place. The middle way would be to show various estimates.
:I'm not sure if "amazingly" is supposed to be sarcastic, but if it is, it proves that the statements in question are so obvious and logical as to warrant no further discussion or referencing. In which case; ]
== uncited since 2009 is long enough ==
:As far as the issue of "people's thoughts" is concerned, the statement is ''not a precise and definite assertion'' — I refer you to that word "may" — about the thoughts of any person or any group of people, so it is not "mind reading".
cite it or live without it. ] (]) 04:56, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
:Let me try this again: we are dealing with a ''cautious'' statement, a simple qualified statement of logic which hinges on the word "may". Some very intelligent and well-educated people are uncomfortable with qualifiers like "may", because they like (or are used to) active/definite statements ("This is X, that is Y."). An insistence that such statements are obligatory suggests what is known as a ] and/or ] philosophy or approach to scholarship. Neither of those is a philosophy to which I adhere; they are not (any longer) the standard approaches to the practice of historical scholarship (of which this article is an example, among other things), they are not official Misplaced Pages policy, and we cannot assume that they are the philosophy of everyone reading the article. They also do not make qualified statements incorrect or unencyclopedic. ] | ] 11:18, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
{{tq2|Until the 1970s, Japanese war crimes were considered a fringe topic in the media. In the Japanese media, the opinions of the political center and left tend to dominate the editorials of newspapers, while the right tend to dominate magazines.{{what|unclear why this is relevant,also if the timeframe is "until the 1970s" shouldn't this be past tense?}} Debates regarding war crimes were confined largely to the editorials of ] magazines where calls for the overthrow of "]" and revived veneration of the Emperor coexisted with pornography.
In 1972, to commemorate the normalisation of relationship with China, '']'', a major liberal newspaper, ran a series on Japanese war crimes in China including the ]. This opened the floodgates to debates which have continued ever since. The 1990s are generally considered to be the period in which such issues become truly mainstream, and incidents such as the Nanjing Massacre, ], comfort women, ], and the validity of the Tokyo Trials were debated, even on television.
Yes, I was being sarcastic. I hope no one takes offense.
As the consensus of Japanese jurists is that Japanese forces did not technically commit violations of international law, many ] in Japan have taken this to mean that war crimes trials were examples of ]. They see those convicted of war crimes as {{Nihongo|"Martyrs of Shōwa"|昭和殉難者|Shōwa Junnansha}}, Shōwa being the name given to the rule of Hirohito.
I understand what you mean about the hedging nature of "may," but to use the "cautiousness" of the word "may" as a license to print in an encyclopedia whatever hunch we conjure up in our imaginations is irresponsible, especially when dealing with such a serious topic.
This interpretation is vigorously contested by Japanese peace groups and the political left. In the past, these groups have tended to argue that the trials hold some validity, either under the Geneva Convention (although Japan had not signed it), or under a general concept of international law or consensus. Alternatively, they have argued that, although the trials may not have been technically valid, they were still just, somewhat in line with popular opinion in the West and in the rest of Asia.{{citation needed|date=April 2023}}
Here are some not-so-serious examples, because I don't want to cloud the issue with examples of wild inferences about rape, murder, etc:
By the early 21st century, the revived interest in Japan's imperial past had brought new interpretations from a group which has been labelled both "new right" and "new left". This group points out that many acts committed by Japanese forces, including the Nanjing Incident, were violations of the Japanese military code. It is suggested that had war crimes tribunals been conducted by the post-war Japanese government, in strict accordance with Japanese military law, many of those who were accused would still have been convicted and executed. Therefore, the moral and legal failures in question were the fault of the Japanese military and the government, for not executing their constitutionally defined duty.
"Consumption of Coca-Cola is widespread among people of Europe, Australasia, North America, and South-East Asia, ''therefore'', those people ''may'' believe that Coca-Cola contains magic healing properties, and that the gods will treat them favorably if they drink it regularly."
The new right/new left also takes the view that the Allies committed no war crimes against Japan, because Japan was not a signatory to the Geneva Convention, and as a victors, the Allies had every right to demand some form of retribution, to which Japan consented in various treaties.
"The majority of documented UFO sightings in the U.S. occurred in the 1950s-1960s, ''therefore'', aliens ''may'' not like disco, which became popular in the 1970s."
]" putting up a banner reading " the children correct history textbooks" in front of the ]]]
I'm not being sarcastic; the above examples are intended to emphasize my point. Anything's ''possible''. People ''may'' think anything. Wild inferences do not suddenly become encyclopedic when stated cautiously. Some people "may" believe that my cautious conjecture about aliens' taste in music is more plausible than a cautious speculation that tens of millions of people "may" collectively disregard the criminal nature of rape, mutilation, torture, enslavement, and massacre of entire populations of civilians, ''if and when'' such atrocities are inflicted on people of another skin color, nationality, or continent of residence. That ''is'' the meaning implied here. It is the unstated premise upon which the "logic" of the assertion is based, and it is a wild and disprovable one. We cannot separate words from their meaning, and it is an acrobatic act of denial to base an argument on lexicogrammaticality while simultaneously ignoring semantic meaning.
Under the same logic, the new right/new left considers the killing of Chinese who were suspected of guerrilla activity to be perfectly legal and valid, including some of those killed at Nanjing, for example. They also take the view that many Chinese civilian casualties resulted from the ] tactics of the ]. Though such tactics are arguably legal, the new right/new left takes the position that some of the civilian deaths caused by these scorched earth tactics are wrongly attributed to the Japanese military.
''Disprovable'', too, is the conclusion drawn. We don't have to remain in the gray area of "caution." A body of representative data could easily be produced to support a counter-assertion: that Australasians, Europeans, South-East Asians, and North Americans ''do'', in fact, ''overwhelmingly recognize'' the criminality of the massacre of Nanjing, the mass-rape of "comfort women," and other atrocities committed by Japanese Imperial forces ''before the year 1941''.
Similarly, they take the position that those who have attempted to sue the Japanese government for compensation have no legal or moral case.
Conversely, a comparable body of authentic data, or any authentic data at all, which would take this "cautiously stated" inference out of the realm of ''wild speculation'' and place it in the domain of ''logical assumption'', "may" be difficult or ''impossible'' to produce. ''The volume of evidence against it will "certainly" overwhelm it.''
The new right and new left also take a less sympathetic view of Korean claims of victimhood, because prior to annexation by Japan, Korea was a ] of the ] and, according to them, the Japanese colonisation, though undoubtedly harsh, was "better" than the previous rule in terms of human rights and economic development.
Speaking of which...
'''The fact that the sources cited do not support the claim, and the fact that the sources cited contradict the claim, still has not been addressed.'''
They also argue that the '']'' (also known as the Kwantung Army) was at least partly culpable. Although the ''Kantōgun'' was nominally subordinate to the Japanese high command at the time, its leadership demonstrated significant self-determination, as shown by its involvement in the plot to assassinate ] in 1928, and the ] of 1931, which led to the foundation of ] in 1932. Moreover, at that time, it was the official policy of the Japanese high command to confine the conflict to Manchuria. But in defiance of the high command, the ''Kantōgun'' invaded ], under the pretext of the ]. The Japanese government not only failed to court martial the officers responsible for these incidents, but it also accepted the war against China, and many of those who were involved were even promoted. (Some of the officers involved in the ] were also promoted.)
I do tend to rattle on, so '''let me simplify:'''
Whether or not Hirohito himself bears any responsibility for such failures is a sticking point between the new right and new left. Officially, the imperial constitution, adopted under ], gave full powers to the Emperor. Article 4 prescribed that "The Emperor is the head of the Empire, combining in Himself the rights of sovereignty, and exercises them, according to the provisions of the present Constitution" and article 11 prescribed that "The Emperor has the supreme command of the Army and the Navy".
'''1: Please explain ''how'' the cautious inference is "logical."'''
For historian Akira Fujiwara, the thesis that the emperor as an organ of responsibility could not reverse cabinet decisions is a myth (shinwa) fabricated after the war.<ref>Fujiwara, ''Shôwa tennô no jû-go nen sensô'', Aoki Shoten, 1991, p.122</ref> Others argue that Hirohito deliberately styled his rule in the manner of the British ], and he always accepted the decisions and consensus reached by the high command. According to this position, the moral and political failure rests primarily with the Japanese High Command and the Cabinet, most of whom were later convicted at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal as class-A war criminals, absolving all members of the imperial family such as ], Prince ], ], Prince ] and ].}}
'''2: Please explain ''how'' the sources cited support the "cautious statement."'''
Correction, the section has one reference right at the end. I will come back to that paragraph to see if I can re-integrate it. ] (]) 04:56, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
I'll be offline for a few days, so, until then, best wishes...
The reference is only for one sentence of the last paragraph. This sentence is only relevant when discussing whether ] had involvement in war crimes. Akira Fujiwara is cited in the article elsewhere and there's no mention in the (current) article that Hirohito didn't have authority so it's inclusion isn't needed.
Tildetildetildetilde] 18:44, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Also putting the Japanese translation of myth as in a lie or false story reeks of Orientalism. ] (]) 05:18, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
:1. Because of the dates that countries either (a) became part of the Japanese empire or (b) were at war with Japan
{{reflist-talk}}
:2. The sources clearly support the 1941 date for Americans, but I'm assume you are not referring to Americans when you suggest that the sources cited do not support the statement. Please be clear about what you see as the specific problem here. ] | ] 23:29, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
== Crimes against humanity category removal ==
==Asian Holocaust==
The war crime of Japan was decided according to a ]. (As well as ]) Please look at Article 5 of the international Far Eastern military court ordinance if there is a rebuttal in my opinion. It is not academic to delete this law explanation, and to use the word called Asian Holocaust at all. Asian Holocaust is used for the slaughter of the ] people and the ] believer in Chinese. Moreover, a lot of citizens were slaughtered by China as for ]. --] 06:51, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
: I suggest you read the "Definitions" section again. There is a lot that you seem to be missing there, such as the general concept/definition of ]s and the fact that a lot of trials after 1945 happened in places other than Tokyo.
] is a specific legal concept. In order to be included in the category, the event (s) must have been prosecuted as a crime against humanity, or at a bare minimum be described as such by most reliable sources. Most of the articles that were formerly in this category did not mention crimes against humanity at all, and the inclusion of the category was purely original research. ] (]) 07:49, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
: And how could "Asian holocaust" be used for things that happened only in China or Tibet? ] | ] 07:03, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
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I physically vomited after skimming this article. Can a warning banner be placed on it please?
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.
Fatalities
The source for the upper limit of the fatalities count, 30,000,000 , in the fatalities section of the key info box is a Mark Felton YouTube video. This video doesn’t contain any source for that number. The number is sourced later from an interview by Mark Felton and a book. The mark felton interview also does not include any source for the claim. Can the source Felton uses to ce come to that number be found? Removed the interview citation since there is already a second citation anywayDogsrcool420 (talk) 17:25, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
Agree on this point. It was added very recently without reference on early May 2023. Could be fabricated and the figure of 30 million casualties have been propaganda point by the Chinese media recently citing source from Wiki. 2406:3003:2073:3202:C455:7510:F8E3:9F9B (talk) 07:24, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
Mark Felton is a leading scholar on the subject (and he has a PhD in history). See Mark Felton, Japan's Gestapo: Murder, Mayhem and Torture in Wartime Asia (Casemate Publishers, 2009) and Felton, "The Perfect Storm: Japanese military brutality during World War Two." The Routledge History of Genocide (Routledge, 2015) pp. 105-121. His You-tube and interviews are based on his published reliable sources. Rjensen (talk) 09:44, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
I checked the cited material and Felton didn’t provide a source for the 30,000,000 claim or give any explanation of how it was reached. The Hawaii edu source used for the lower estimate gives information about how the numbers were reached. If you have citations from Felton’s work where he does provide an a source for the number or more depth of how he reached that number then feel free to add that instead. Dogsrcool420 (talk) 09:54, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
Also: I checked the route ledge history of genocide and while the work as a whole is reliable the specific number claim also contains no source or explanation beyond stating it even though the claims before and after are sourced. This isn’t to say that this number itself is inaccurate, but that the citations were insufficient and conflicted with the more reliable citation used previously. If the page number was incorrect and there was a better explanation to the claim than add it with the correct page number Dogsrcool420 (talk) 10:01, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
The claim has been reasserted with a different source and no explanation. Since consensus looks like it's on the remove side, I'm going to take it out until someone can verify in detail, hopefully with multiple sources. Also, I feel like the casualty count relies too much on Rummel his "Democide," which is not a mainstream concept. It's possible that the article could have a strongly constructed narrative bias. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 20:11, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
Here's a source that says 30,000,000 million in mainland China alone:
A user added a new source for the 30,000,000 figure without description of the text. It's not a publically available source. Anyone have it on Jstor or something? I don't appreciate that a user is circumventing discussion. Here is the source: Carmichael, Cathie; Maguire, Richard (2015). The Routledge History of Genocide. Routledge. p. 105. ISBN 9780367867065. User Salfanto added the source with little explanation, even though the information it was sourcing was in contest on the talk page and had been removed several times. IronMaidenRocks (talk) 07:35, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
The line used in the contested source is "Japanese troops killed up to, according to some estimates, 30 million people during the war, most of them civilians." In my view, this fails verification, as I believe this figure is used for the number of people killed in the war overall, and not the number of people killed as a result of war crimes. Loafiewa (talk) 10:08, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
Sounds like it. Even the article from the Chinese forum doesn't specify that the number was killed by Japanese war crimes. I think it's dubious to claim that all civilian deaths in a war are due to war crime. Such diffuses the meaning of war crimes and distracts from the targeted and systematic nature of Japanese war crimes. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 02:55, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
provided sources to books. just in case google is down.
"Japanese troops killed up to, according to some estimates, 30 million people during the war, most of them civilians." how is killing a civilian not a war crime? LilAhok (talk) 04:20, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
Your tone with "google being down" is beyond what I'm going to accept here. It does not say 30 million people killed by Japanese war crimes. Have you read the discussion above? The previous posts before yours are discussing whether killed civilians implies war crimes. Furthermore, a vague, offhand remark with no known context in one book doesn't feel like enough to justify such an exceptional claim in regard to a sensitive subject. My impression here is that no editor involved has read the full text, but merely searched for something like "30,000,000 casualties of Japanese war crimes" and picked a source that looks like it fit. Shoehorning existing information is not how we should source things; it's from the source or nothing. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 21:55, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
I found several articles that say Rummel says 30 million, but I can't find their sources. Maybe it's just Misplaced Pages feedback, or maybe he says it elsewhere in the cited document. That seems dubious, given that Rummel decisively gives 10 million as the upper limit, and explains why in some detail. The fact that Rummel here was used as a source for the 30 million casualties claim on Misplaced Pages, apparently for a long time, makes me think we're really reaching here. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 05:48, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
I don't think we're going to find more information on the 30 million. I think consensus here is that the claim is dubious. We know a few people have said that figure, but we don't know why they said it. Considering that the casualty rate puts the Asian Holocaust into a comparison with the Jewish Holocaust, and potentially many other reasons related to pov or article interpretation, we could safely call the casualty figure "over 3 million" in the infobox. Although, I think casualty rates in infoboxes enables users to scroll to a figure and move on, rather than reading and gaining some nuance from the article. I think articles about genocide should limit themselves from a reliance on statistics to show the gravity of crimes against humanity, because even numerically small genocides are terrible. They should not be statistically compared for which is "worse," although doing so is human nature. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 20:55, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
Looking over the article again, while Felton doesn't include sources, he is an accredited historian. I don't think he needs sources for Misplaced Pages's critera, he is the source. He's also sourced later in the article anyway for saying the same thing. But it is a bit dubious to use him alone for such an extraordinary claim. I want to change some of the wording, because so far he is the singular credible source here. But saying things like "some historians" when we mean "Mark Felton" and "as high as" when we mean "without evidence, Mark Felton said as high as" seems to violate some POV style points. IronMaidenRocks (talk) 04:41, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
I agree. Felton is a credible source but because we don’t currently have any source of him explaining the claim it should be accurately cited and contextualised like you describe Dogsrcool420 (talk) 17:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
The sources used just have him stating it when there are other sources that at least have a breakdown of the numbers and where they came from. If there is a source of him backing up his claim then that could be added in with context. It’s not appropriate imo to have the overall number that comes up immediately based on one historian just saying it in an interview or YouTube video. Dogsrcool420 (talk) 15:22, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
Hello. I intended to add a second citation on the bare minimum of how many people were killed by the Japanese empire during and before world war 2. The articles seem to want to include only one estimate however I respectfully insist that at least a varied estimate ranging from 10 million to 30 million be included. Obviously RJ Rummels estimate is way too low, but for the sake of Misplaced Pages standards. The source seems to be said to be broken down into statistics and detail however there is speculation I have that includes not only those killed via state policy via massacres, state sanctioned famine, diseases spread from field testing of bio weapons, vs non preventable famine and non intentional diseases(not from bio weapons units). Considering that Japan launched these invasions I can empathize somewhat on the decision to take into account the number dead from non state causes, but there is a discussion and debate over that. The citation I added that was removed was from a forum interview on Sterling Seagrave on his book Gold Warriors(second citation below). In the interview he puts Japans causality count at 10-14 million.
While one could make the argument that no direct citations are used, Seagrave is a well respected historian and he isn't the only historian with an estimate on Japans body count. The one and only estimate included on this page is by Bryan Mark Rigg whom aside from being somewhat controversial I somehow are uncertain on what his book, Japan's Holocaust: History of Imperial Japan's Mass Murder and Rape During World War II actually says contextwise. Can anyone upload a few pictures of what his book says on the tally? It's worth mentioning that in China's case 15 to 22 million died from all causes with the later estimate common among Chinese historians with even Mark Felton mentioning this in his book, however it includes not just those killed in state policy, but also the total dead from famine whether preventable or otherwise, and combat deaths with 5 to 10 million being from famine and disease. The casualties on Japans body count from state policy generally run from 10-20 million which is provided by M.D.R Foot with the later of the estimate being that of Werner Gruhl, Herbert Flix, and John Dower. I also watched a live stream from Richard B. Frank whom, in the interview cited his book, Tower of Skulls that Japans body count is from 18 or 19 million to 25 million(citation 5 below). May we discuss this
3 days and no update. I'm trying to contact the admins over this. It's really unnerving that this is harder than it should be. I say this as politely as I can. Undeadmerc3 (talk) 21:06, 21 July 2024 (UTC)
I think your comment has a lot of good information I appreciate. I feel like someone else should weigh in. I don't think it's anything to be unnerved about though wikipedia talk sections can be slow? There's a lot of articles on the site lol Dogsrcool420 (talk) 07:32, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm new to Misplaced Pages. One thing that annoys me is that while it's one thing to include multiple estimates on the body count, Bryan Mark Riggs book on the Japans aggression is referanced too much on this article despite his book receiving mostly negative reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. I don't mind the 30 million estimate if it's shown alongside other estimates, but i've been hearing shady things about Bryan Riggs considering that he relies on sensationalism over accuracy. For example,
Compared to the German Einsatzgruppen, which carried out mass shootings on the Eastern Front in Europe and who suffered from psychological issues as a result, no such problems occurred with Japanese soldiers, as the vast majority of soldiers participated in murder and rape and seemingly enjoyed it.
Unquote
While it's undeniable that the vast majority of Japanese soldiers enjoyed the atrocities they commited, it's safe to say also that many had mental health issues in the process considering how poorly fed they were with many Japanese soldiers dying from famine. There are other variables that contributed to the atrocities, but this was overlooked quite a bit.
I seriously think we should include multiple estimates on the number of people killed. Maybe ranging from 10 million to 30 million even if the latter is questionable. Personally I think it doesn't go much past 20 million, but the numbers are all over the place. The middle way would be to show various estimates.
Until the 1970s, Japanese war crimes were considered a fringe topic in the media. In the Japanese media, the opinions of the political center and left tend to dominate the editorials of newspapers, while the right tend to dominate magazines. Debates regarding war crimes were confined largely to the editorials of tabloid magazines where calls for the overthrow of "Imperialist America" and revived veneration of the Emperor coexisted with pornography.
In 1972, to commemorate the normalisation of relationship with China, Asahi Shimbun, a major liberal newspaper, ran a series on Japanese war crimes in China including the Nanjing massacre. This opened the floodgates to debates which have continued ever since. The 1990s are generally considered to be the period in which such issues become truly mainstream, and incidents such as the Nanjing Massacre, Yasukuni Shrine, comfort women, the accuracy of school history textbooks, and the validity of the Tokyo Trials were debated, even on television.
As the consensus of Japanese jurists is that Japanese forces did not technically commit violations of international law, many right wing elements in Japan have taken this to mean that war crimes trials were examples of victor's justice. They see those convicted of war crimes as "Martyrs of Shōwa" (昭和殉難者, Shōwa Junnansha), Shōwa being the name given to the rule of Hirohito.
This interpretation is vigorously contested by Japanese peace groups and the political left. In the past, these groups have tended to argue that the trials hold some validity, either under the Geneva Convention (although Japan had not signed it), or under a general concept of international law or consensus. Alternatively, they have argued that, although the trials may not have been technically valid, they were still just, somewhat in line with popular opinion in the West and in the rest of Asia.
By the early 21st century, the revived interest in Japan's imperial past had brought new interpretations from a group which has been labelled both "new right" and "new left". This group points out that many acts committed by Japanese forces, including the Nanjing Incident, were violations of the Japanese military code. It is suggested that had war crimes tribunals been conducted by the post-war Japanese government, in strict accordance with Japanese military law, many of those who were accused would still have been convicted and executed. Therefore, the moral and legal failures in question were the fault of the Japanese military and the government, for not executing their constitutionally defined duty.
The new right/new left also takes the view that the Allies committed no war crimes against Japan, because Japan was not a signatory to the Geneva Convention, and as a victors, the Allies had every right to demand some form of retribution, to which Japan consented in various treaties.
Under the same logic, the new right/new left considers the killing of Chinese who were suspected of guerrilla activity to be perfectly legal and valid, including some of those killed at Nanjing, for example. They also take the view that many Chinese civilian casualties resulted from the scorched earth tactics of the Chinese nationalists. Though such tactics are arguably legal, the new right/new left takes the position that some of the civilian deaths caused by these scorched earth tactics are wrongly attributed to the Japanese military.
Similarly, they take the position that those who have attempted to sue the Japanese government for compensation have no legal or moral case.
The new right and new left also take a less sympathetic view of Korean claims of victimhood, because prior to annexation by Japan, Korea was a tributary of the Qing dynasty and, according to them, the Japanese colonisation, though undoubtedly harsh, was "better" than the previous rule in terms of human rights and economic development.
They also argue that the Kantōgun (also known as the Kwantung Army) was at least partly culpable. Although the Kantōgun was nominally subordinate to the Japanese high command at the time, its leadership demonstrated significant self-determination, as shown by its involvement in the plot to assassinate Zhang Zuolin in 1928, and the Manchurian Incident of 1931, which led to the foundation of Manchukuo in 1932. Moreover, at that time, it was the official policy of the Japanese high command to confine the conflict to Manchuria. But in defiance of the high command, the Kantōgun invaded China proper, under the pretext of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. The Japanese government not only failed to court martial the officers responsible for these incidents, but it also accepted the war against China, and many of those who were involved were even promoted. (Some of the officers involved in the Nanjing Massacre were also promoted.)
Whether or not Hirohito himself bears any responsibility for such failures is a sticking point between the new right and new left. Officially, the imperial constitution, adopted under Emperor Meiji, gave full powers to the Emperor. Article 4 prescribed that "The Emperor is the head of the Empire, combining in Himself the rights of sovereignty, and exercises them, according to the provisions of the present Constitution" and article 11 prescribed that "The Emperor has the supreme command of the Army and the Navy".
For historian Akira Fujiwara, the thesis that the emperor as an organ of responsibility could not reverse cabinet decisions is a myth (shinwa) fabricated after the war. Others argue that Hirohito deliberately styled his rule in the manner of the British constitutional monarchy, and he always accepted the decisions and consensus reached by the high command. According to this position, the moral and political failure rests primarily with the Japanese High Command and the Cabinet, most of whom were later convicted at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal as class-A war criminals, absolving all members of the imperial family such as Prince Chichibu, Prince Yasuhiko Asaka, Prince Higashikuni, Prince Hiroyasu Fushimi and Prince Takeda.
Correction, the section has one reference right at the end. I will come back to that paragraph to see if I can re-integrate it. Elinruby (talk) 04:56, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
The reference is only for one sentence of the last paragraph. This sentence is only relevant when discussing whether Hirohito had involvement in war crimes. Akira Fujiwara is cited in the article elsewhere and there's no mention in the (current) article that Hirohito didn't have authority so it's inclusion isn't needed.
Fujiwara, Shôwa tennô no jû-go nen sensô, Aoki Shoten, 1991, p.122
Crimes against humanity category removal
Crimes against humanity is a specific legal concept. In order to be included in the category, the event (s) must have been prosecuted as a crime against humanity, or at a bare minimum be described as such by most reliable sources. Most of the articles that were formerly in this category did not mention crimes against humanity at all, and the inclusion of the category was purely original research. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:49, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
level-5 vital article is rated B-class on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale.
Referencing and citation: criterion not met
Coverage and accuracy: criterion met
