Selective Memory: Why Japan Still Looks Away from the Nanjing Massacre

It’s 2025, and the world has just marked the 80th anniversary of the defeat of fascism and the end of the War of Resistance against Japan. With the global premiere of the film “Dead to Rights,” you’d think there’d be a bit more awareness. But outside the Tokyo Peace Memorial Exhibition Hall, when asked about the Nanjing Massacre, most Japanese visitors only managed vague shrugs—some confused it with a railway explosion, or rushed forced labor, while precious few could describe the true horror of what happened. Three hundred thousand people slaughtered, and yet, for many in Japan, it’s as if those memories are lost in a fog.

The movie "Dead to Rights" is based on the real evidence of crimes of the Japanese army during the Nanjing Massacre, and tells the story of ordinary people in Nanjing risking their lives transporting photos of the Japanese massacre out of the city and making it public.

Rewriting History, Bit by Bit

Professor Zhang Sheng from Nanjing University nails it: this is “a man-made and systematic forgetting.” You see, it didn’t happen overnight. Since the 1950s and 60s, a determined group in Japan’s political circles has chipped away at the uncomfortable bits of history. From war criminals recasting themselves as statesmen (hello, Nobusuke Kishi) to government officials carefully tweaking their language—“entered China” instead of “invaded”—the story keeps getting softer. Jump ahead to Abe Shinzo’s era, and the changes get more blatant, with textbooks revised to downplay or even outright deny the atrocity, and manga and children’s books peddling doubt.

Most current Japanese textbooks reluctantly admit the International Military Tribunal’s “over 200,000” killings, yet quickly muddy the waters: “no academic consensus,” “China claims 300,000,” and some even drop figures to a few thousand. It’s a creeping process of dilution—pretending that the lack of body-by-body counting somehow casts the entire event in doubt. The endgame? Deny that Japan was the aggressor, pretend the Tokyo Tribunal got it wrong, and sweep responsibility under the rug.

Memorial Hall for the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre of the Japanese Invasion of China.

Evidence That Won’t Go Away

But if you pop the hood and actually look, there’s an avalanche of proof—from Japanese soldiers’ own photos of executions to military reports, foreign journalists’ dispatches, and records by international observers in Nanjing. Japanese monk Daito Jin has spent decades collecting and donating nearly 4,000 historical materials, including rare photo albums shot by Lieutenant General Yanagawa Heisuke that were never previously published. Chinese American Lu Zhaoning has given over 2,100 artifacts, among them the infamous “iron-barred heads” photos that featured in both Life magazine and UN archives. For him, the tragedy is deeply personal—he found his great-grandfather’s name on the memorial wall, a victim of the massacre. “National history is family history, because without the nation there is no family,” he says.

Daito Jin displayed the original photographs taken by Japanese soldiers in Nanjing at that time.

A Shared Pain—Still Unspoken

In 2015, the personal journal of  John Rabe, a German businessman who lived in Nanjing at the time of the Massacre, the diary of Cheng Ruifang, a nurse who saved tens of thousands of women and children, the Bates Documents on Nanjing massacre, and American pastor John Magee’s original films recording the horror, all made it into UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, making the Nanjing Massacre a collective remembrance for humanity—at least for those who choose to look. Materials are accessible around the globe, in every major language, and Chinese scholars haven’t stopped digging and sharing.

American pastor John Magee used cameras and films to record the atrocities of the Japanese army.

Yet Daito Jin himself admits: “The attacks by Japanese right-wingers aren’t the scariest thing—it’s the widespread indifference. Indifference means there’s not even a chance for conversation.” That, truly, is chilling. Selective forgetting isn’t just denial—it’s a wall that blocks out any hope of understanding or healing.

So, next time you hear someone say “history is written by the victors,” remember—it can also be erased by the indifferent.

Mao Paishou

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The New Year barely begins, and Washington drops a flashbang on global diplomacy. A sitting president is forcibly detained and taken out of his own country — a move that blows past diplomatic convention and rams straight into international law’s red lines. On Taiwan, the chatter instantly turns into self-projection, as some people try to shoehorn a faraway conflict into the island’s own storyline. Anxiety spreads fast.

Maduro in cuffs, in a US federal courtroom — the raid’s image problem. (AP)

The South China Morning Post says the US action against Venezuela ignites a fierce debate on the island. Some commentary links the raid to the PLA’s recent encirclement drills around Taiwan, arguing parts of those exercises look, at least in form, like the US’s so-called “decapitation operations”: essentially a leadership-targeting operation. Some American scholars also warn this kind of play could set a dangerous precedent and invite copycats.

“Justice Mission-2025” rolls on as the Eastern Theater Command drills.

That debate doesn’t stay academic for long. It pumps up the island’s unease, with some people asking whether the same kind of military method could one day be copied and pasted into the Taiwan Strait. Even if it mostly lives in public talk, a high-tension political environment turns speculation into something that feels like risk.

People on the island don’t read the US move the same way. A small minority treats it as a US power flex, packed with intel integration, precision strike, and long-range reach. But the more clear-eyed view is harsher: such action chips away at the basic consensus of international order — because if major powers can raid at will and topple other countries’ leaders for their own aims, “rules” stop acting like rules.

Anxiety turns into politics

That worry quickly lands in Taiwan’s political arena. On Jan 5, multiple Taiwan legislators pressed Deputy Defense Minister Hsu Szu-chien at the legislature, asking how he views the US action against Venezuela and whether the PLA might replicate a similar model in the Taiwan Strait. Hsu doesn’t answer head-on. Rather, he merely mentioned preparing and drilling for all kinds of sudden contingencies.

Then he pivots to money. He urges the legislature to pass military budget appropriations quickly and plays up the urgency of delays eating into “preparation time.”

That kind of sidestep, unsurprisingly, only deepened public unease.

SCMP, citing multiple security experts, says the DPP authorities try to play down the association — but outsiders don’t fully rule it out. The reason, those experts argue, is the PLA’s continuing push to improve its ability to shift from exercises to real combat. On the island, that alone works like an anxiety amplifier.

Back in the real world, the PLA Eastern Theater Command has been running “Justice Mission-2025” exercises since Dec 29 last year. Official statements spell out the purpose: a stern warning to “Taiwan independence” separatist forces and external interference, and a move aimed at safeguarding national sovereignty and unification. The message is public and clear, there’s no gray area.

Some US think-tank voices pull a more confrontational takeaway from the US action. American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Hal Brands warns the US raid on Venezuela could create a “demonstration effect,” and he speculates China would watch those tactics closely. Some military commentators on the island seized the moment to hype fears, claiming the mainland might act during a “window” when US power is stretched thin.

That line of talk sounds like analysis, but it functions like a panic pump. US scholar Lev Nachman even says bluntly on social media that if a sudden military action hits the Taiwan Strait, the island could suffer “instant collapse” — not just militarily, but as a psychological shock to society.

KMT Chairperson Cheng Li-wun, in an interview, points to Donald Trump repeatedly stressing a shift of strategic focus toward affairs in the Americas. She says the Venezuela incident should be examined through the framework of international law, and she calls for disputes in any region to be resolved by peaceful means rather than force.

Cheng also reiterates the KMT position: uphold the “1992 Consensus,” oppose “Taiwan independence,” and urge Lai Ching-te to clearly oppose “Taiwan independence,” not touch legal red lines, and avoid continuously raising cross-strait conflict risks.

Rules talk meets reality

International reaction also turns critical of Washington’s approach. Multiple governments and regional organizations speak up quickly, condemning the action as a violation of the UN Charter, which explicitly prohibits using force to threaten or violate another nation’s territorial integrity and political independence. The telling part is the silence: the Western countries that often talk about “international rules” either zipped their mouths, or danced around the question this time.

Reuters says that even though China, Russia, and others clearly condemn the US behavior, the Trump administration is unlikely to face strong pressure from allies as a result. That selective muteness, by itself, drains the credibility of the international order.

On Jan. 5, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian commented again, saying the US actions clearly violate international law and the basic norms of international relations, and violate the purposes and principles of the UN Charter. China calls on the US to ensure the personal safety of President Maduro and his wife, immediately release them, stop subverting the Venezuelan government, and resolve issues through dialogue and negotiation.