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[What they did in Nanking is unforgivable. As China becomes more powerful I can see why they behaved that way.]

What they did at Nanking has been said to be medieval, but in fact traditional to both China and Japan. Nanking was the pre-communist capital of China. The Japanese were doing the traditional “submjt or die” ritual with the same troops who had just fought a difficult campaign at Shanghai and lost 20,000 dead in 3 months. Now, that’s the loss rate of US troops in WW2, so why no atrocities? Because the US wasn’t going through hostile cities, getting sniped, ambushed by hostile civilians.

Atrocities aren’t unique to China or Japan. But qualitatively, what they did was different from what Germany did in WW2. Germany attempted to exterminate entire peoples. Not make them submit and turn them into Germans via cultural and linguistic assimilation. Turn them into ashes. At Auschwitz, a German labor camp, 97% of Jewish minors were gassed immediately. The remaining 3% were put to work, where the majority died of starvation, malnutrition-related ailments or summary execution when they got sick and were unable to work. German death camps like Treblinka and Sobibor killed everyone they took in, sparing some to assist in operations but usually also killed these in months. China and Japan were similar to empires everywhere, except Germany’s - the only characteristic they cared about was regime loyalty.

China’s history is replete with atrocities similar to Nanking. 80 years prior, around the time of the Civil War, Nanking’s population was massacred to the last. It was then the rebel capital of a man who claimed to be God’s Chinese son, Jesus’s younger brother.

https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Chinese-Son-Taiping-Heavenly/dp/0393315568

An excerpt from Stephen Platt’s Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom:

[The Qing government responded to the Taiping Rebellion with extreme brutality. Qing officers could not reach the Taiping-controlled regions around Nanjing, but in other areas under central government control, the purge of sympathizers was ruthless. The government targeted not only rebels but also their innocent relatives. In Canton, the Qing governor-general led a military effort to crush the sympathizers. In 1854, a secret uprising in Nanjing triggered a dragnet operation that captured an estimated 75,000 Taiping supporters. The government even set up suicide stations equipped with tools for self-inflicted death and placards urging supporters to choose suicide over capture and dismemberment.]

An AI summary of atrocities covered in the book:

[The book Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War by Stephen R. Platt describes significant atrocities committed by both the Taiping rebels and the Qing forces during the mid-19th century conflict, drawing on a variety of sources including Western diplomatic and missionary accounts.

Qing Atrocities Described in the Book

Western observers, including officers and consuls, documented brutal actions by the Qing imperial forces (and foreign-led, Qing-allied forces). These descriptions include:

Massacres and Summary Executions: After retaking cities, Qing forces often engaged in widespread massacres of the Taiping occupiers and suspected sympathizers. One account notes that 100,000 people died in three days when Nanjing fell in 1864.

Brutal Torture and Execution of Leaders: The final Taiping leader, Hong Rengan, was captured and reportedly subjected to brutal torture, with chunks of his flesh ripped from his arm, before being executed. Hong Xiuquan’s son was also captured and executed.

Collectivized Reprisals: The Qing troops were known for carrying out collectivized reprisals and executions against Hakka people and other local populations suspected of collaboration.

Cannibalism: The book mentions heartbreaking accounts and testimony of widespread cannibalism in some war-torn areas, which occurred due to extreme famine caused by the war.

Targeting Civilians: Both sides implemented total war tactics, attempting to deprive the enemy’s military and civilian populations of food and supplies, leading to immense suffering, famine, and disease.

The “Mother Child” Reference

A book review specifically notes the testimony of Huang Shuhua, a sixteen-year-old girl whose entire family was murdered and she was kidnapped by an imperial soldier. She wrote her story down before killing both the soldier and herself. This individual account serves as a powerful illustration of the personal atrocities and trauma experienced by civilians, including the separation and death of families, during the conflict.]

Bottom line is Chinese or Japanese atrocities, Alexander’s massacre of Persepolis, Titus’s or the later Crusader massacre of Jerusalem are standard tools employed by conquerors to get the conquered to submit. Their very effectiveness despite being a breach of modern rules of warfare was reason enough for reciprocity in WW2. They are why the Allies burned Axis cities to the ground, and ex poste facto regrets are bunk. If the US had lost, anyone connected to the war would have been killed. Since 18m Americans enlisted or were drafted, that’s a whole lot of people.