Russell Shorto

The Long History of Official Japanese Denial

The Japanese government has a long history of denial.  There was an official policy of denying Japan’s 1937 massacre in the Chinese city of Nanking, in which hundreds of thousands of civilians were slaughtered and tens of thousands of women were raped by Japanese soldiers.

For decades the Japanese government denied that its military ran brothels–staffed by “comfort women” from around Asia–especially during World War II.  This was despite overwhelming evidence that hundreds of thousands of women were forced into prostitution.  Only in the 1990s did the government begin to change its line.

The Japanese government similarly denied for decades that it had an agreement with the U.S. military whereby American nuclear vessels could use Japanese harbors, and held to its denial even after American documents detailing the agreement were declassified.

The lack of information coming from Japanese official sources in the unfolding nuclear catastrophe has to be put in historical context, for the sake not only of the Japanese people but those in other parts of the world who may be at risk.

See: Japan Times, The Rape of Nanking, comfort women.