School history textbooks that do not write facts about the Second Sino-Japanese War

School history textbooks that do not write facts about the Second Sino-Japanese War
By Moteki Hiromichi, Deputy Chairman, Japanese Society for Textbook Reform
1. How do junior high school history textbooks describe the Marco Polo Bridge incident and the Second Sino-Japanese War?
How do school history textbooks of respective publishers deal with the Marco Polo Bridge incident that triggered the Second Sino-Japanese War and the ensuing expansion of the war?
Tokyo Shoseki: In July 1937, on the event of armed clash between the Japanese and Chinese Armies around the Marco Polo Bridge in the suburbs of Beijing (the Marco Polo Bridge incident), the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out. The conflict spread toward Shanghai in central China to become an all-out war.
Teikoku Shoin: In July of the following year (1937), triggered by the Marco Polo Bridge incident in the suburbs of Beijing in which the Japanese and Chinese Armies clashed, the Second Sino-Japanese War started. The Japanese Army also invaded from Southern China and occupied Shanghai and Nanjing, the then capital of the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) Government.
Kyoiku Shuppan: In July 1937, triggered by the Marco Polo Bridge incident in which the Japanese and Chinese Armies clashed, the Second Sino-Japanese War started. In August, the battle spread to Shanghai and without declaring war, the Japanese Army incessantly strengthened forces and expanded the war front.
Yamakawa Shuppan: Amid the worsening relationship between Japan and China, in July 1937, at the Marco Polo Bridge in the suburbs of Beijing, the Japanese and Chinese Armies clashed (the Marco Polo Bridge incident). Coping with this situation, Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro adopted at first a non-expansion policy. However, under the pressure from the military and in the face of the nation supporting the military, he changed the original policy, increased the forces and expanded the war zone into an all-out war.
Nihon Bunkyo Shuppan: In July 1937, at the Marco Polo Bridge in the suburbs of Beijing, an incident of military clash occurred between the Japanese and Chinese Armies. This incident triggered a war between Japan and China and in August, which spread to Shanghai. Thus, Japan and China entered an all-out war without declaring war. (The Second Sino-Japanese War).
Ikuho-sha: In July 1937, amid the growing tension between Japan and China, the Japanese Army stationed in Beijing was fired at by unknown perpetrator while training near the Marco Polo Bridge in the suburbs of Beijing and a battle started between the Japanese and Chinese Armies (the Marco Polo Bridge incident). The Japanese Cabinet of Konoe Fumimaro adopted a non-expansion policy but then decided to increase the forces. In August, the Chinese Army killed a Japanese military officer in Shanghai, which triggered a battle between the Chinese Army and the Japanese Army stationed in Shanghai.
Reiwa Shoseki: And in July of the following year, 1937, the Marco Polo Bridge incident occurred. At that time, the Japanese Army was stationed in Beijing, following the treaty concluded after the Boxers Rebellion which took place in 1900. Japanese troops, engaged in a night drill near the Marco Polo Bridge, were attacked by an unknown shooter. At dawn on the following day, the Japanese Army attacked the base of the Nationalist Revolutionary Army, which escalated into a battle between the two Armies. After this incident, those who were against escalation and wanted to resolve the matter promptly and those who supported escalation to defeat the Nationalist Revolutionary Army on this occasion conflicted with each other. In due time, cease-fire agreement was reached, but Prime Minister Konoe decided to dispatch troops to the Chinese North. In August, when a battle broke out in Shanghai, Prime Minister Konoe abandoned the non-escalation policy and entered an all-out war.
2. The cease-fire agreement on the scene (July 11) tells the very truth about the Marco Polo Bridge incident
We have seen the respective publishers’ descriptions. Tokyo Shoseki, Teikoku Shoin, Kyoiku Shuppan, Yamakawa Shuppan and Nihon Bunkyo Shuppan unanimously write that a military clash incident between Japan and China at the Marco Polo Bridge led to the total war, without mentioning which side attacked first as if the incident happened accidentally and then the incident grew into a bigger conflict.
Ikuhosha, unlike the above mentioned six publishers, writes that the Japanese military “was shot by someone unknown”, but does not at all mention “from which side.”
Reiwa Shoseki also mentions “being shot by someone,” but does not mention at all “from which side,” either.
In fact, there is extremely powerful evidence regarding “which side opened fire.” It is the “on-the- spot cease-fire agreement,” exchanged by both parties on July 11, four days after the incident. It was a paper agreed to by both parties, the Japanese Army (China Stationed Army (6500 strong) and Chinese 29th Army (100,000 strong) and is very important as such. The agreement consists of the following three paragraphs:
1) The representative of the 29th Army expresses regret to the Japanese military, punishes the one in charge and declares with responsibility that an incident like this shall never occur again in future.
2) The Chinese Army is stationed too close to the Japanese Army at Fengtai, which may easily lead to a conflict, therefore, troops will not be stationed at the east bank of Youngding River near the Marco Polo Bridge and peace and order will be kept by security troops.
3) Considering that the incident was provoked by the so-called Blue Shirts Society, the Communist Party and other anti-Japan bodies, measures shall be taken against them, together with a complete crackdown.
In the first paragraph, the Chinese Army apologizes, admitting that the responsibility for the incident rests on the Chinese side and promises to punish the one in charge. It is not to specify the “perpetrator,” but since the Communist Party can be a possible suspect, they promise to conduct thorough crackdown. In either way, China apologizes for the fact that the perpetrator was Chinese.
Despite the presence of such a clear fact, publishers do not refer to this agreement at all but write ambiguously that “The Chinese Army and Japanese Army clashed,” as if out of the blue, which seems to be an attempt to conceal the true perpetrator. In gist, they neglected the most important “on-the-spot cease-fire agreement” only because they wanted to assert that “the perpetrator was the Japanese Army” intending to escalate the conflict into a total war.
In fact, the description of Jiyu-sha used to mention the on-the-spot cease-fire agreement but did not put the original text of this agreement. They were afraid if they had put it, the textbook would surely fail the accreditation of the China-conscious Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
In the revised textbook this time, they put this agreement in the column of the textbook with firm belief that it is perfectly adequate to put the solid fact.
Fortunately, the textbook passed the accreditation and the historical fact revealing the truth about the Marco Polo Bridge incident is duly presented in a junior high school textbook.
3. It was not due to “the expansionist” that the war expanded
Next, what is wrong is that “each of the publishers writes about the reason why the war expanded as if the war escalated in a natural course or that there were expansionists in the Japanese Government and urged by the military and civilian supporters of the expansion policy, war was expanded into a total war.
Here, the very important fact is decisively overlooked. It is the fact that mass murder of civilians was committed by the Chinese Army on July 29 (Tongzhou mutiny), as Frederick Vincent Williams put, “to be recorded in history as the worst mass slaughter ever committed since the ancient time to this day.” As calls “to punish China the outrageous” rose across Japan, the Japanese Government made an epoch-making peace plan (Funatsu Peace Plan) on August 5. The government subdued the voices that demanded “to punish China the outrageous” and maintained the non-expansion policy. The theory that the Japanese people’s anger at the massacre at Tongzhou led to the expansion of the Second Sino-Japanese War is completely wrong.
Based on this peace plan, the first negotiation was held on August 9. However, on the evening of that day, First Lieutenant Oyama of Navy Land Battle Army and First Class Seaman Saito were brutally killed in Shanghai. This atrocity was committed by a power willing to prevent the peace-making efforts. According to the book Mao: the Unknown Story written by Ms. Jung Chang, the murder incident was ordered by Commander Zhang Zhi-zhong of the Nanjing and Shanghai Defense Army, a crypto-Communist Party member. The peace negotiations failed, but it was not because Japan got angry and expanded the attacks. In this case, too, it was the Chinese side that plotted the attack. On August 13, four days later, the 30,000-strong Regular Chinese Army hiding in the demilitarized zone in Shanghai started a total attack on the 4,500-strong Japanese Navy Land Battle Army stationed in Shanghai to protect 30,000 Japanese civilians. Japan could not overlook Chinese negligence of the safety of Japanese residents and the agreement and decided to dispatch two Divisions from mainland Japan. Thus, the decisive expansion of war was plotted by the Chinese side and it never caused by the Japanese expansionists. In addition, on August 15, China issued the National Mobilization Order.
Such important facts are not at all written in school textbooks, but it is written as if “expansionists” and Japanese people’s anger caused the war to expand. How deplorable!
In the first place, in the Tokyo Shoseki textbook, at the beginning of the section “the Second-Sino Japanese War and the War-time regime,” it is asked, “How Japan came to wage the Second-Sino Japanese War and how the war affected the Japanese people.” The textbook ignores the fact and on the premise that Japan started the Second Sino-Japanese War explains the Marco Polo Bridge incident and how things went afterwards. What a pity that such literally “anti-Japan” and “anti-fact” descriptions pass the accreditation of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology!