SDHF Newsletter No.339 Primary Historical Sources Reveal The Truth About The Nanjing Incident Series No.5: Chapter 4 The Structural Outline of International Propaganda of the Nanjing Incident

Primary Historical Sources Reveal The Truth About
The Nanjing Incident (Revised Version)

Ikeda Haruka
(translated by Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact)
Series No.5: Chapter 4 The Structural Outline of International
Propaganda of the Nanjing Incident

There were three core pieces of documentation, written as if from an uninterested third party, that facilitated the successful spread of the Nanjing Incident propaganda:

1) What War Means – Japanese Terror in China, edited by Australian journalist Timperley,
2) War Damage in the Nanking Area, edited by missionary Smythe,
3) Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone, edited by Dr. Shushi Hsu.

In fact, 1) and 2) were produced by the Nationalist Party’s International Bureau of the Central

Propaganda Division. Mr. Zeng Xu-bai, director of the Bureau writes in his autobiography:

“To begin with, we decided to pay Timperley and Smythe via Timperley to write two books as eyewitnesses to Japanese military’s massacre in Nanking, print and publish them.”

The third book was edited by Dr. Shushi Hsu, a Chinese Presbyterian, under the auspices of the Nationalist organization, of the documents of the Safety Zone written by American missionaries.

Mr. Xeng Xu-bai stated in his autobiography China’s international propaganda policy:

“Regarding our international propaganda at this time, we decided that we Chinese will never appear in front on our part but search for foreign friends who understand the truth of our fight and political goal and let them speak for us.”

The most successful case of international propaganda conducted by this policy was the dissemination of the “Nanjing Incident”. The main reason for this was because the three books mentioned earlier were published as if they were objective documentation from a third-party.

A photograph of a baby sitting on a railroad, crying, in Shanghai after the city was bombarded appeared in the October 4, 1937 issue of Life and the photo attracted tremendous worldwide sympathy. However, this famous photo did not lead to stories of grave civilian massacres in Shanghai. Without the books allegedly written by “objective third parties,” which were central to the so-called Nanjing Incident, the whole operation would have ended quickly, nothing more than, for example, “image manipulation,” like the baby crying in Shanghai, sitting on a rail.

URL: https://www.sdh-fact.com/book-article/1849/
PDF: https://www.sdh-fact.com/CL/Primary5E.pdf

MOTEKI Hiromichi, Acting Chairman
for KASE Hideaki, Chairman
Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact