How far do you agree with the view that Japanese textbooks whitewash the history of the Nanking Massacre? Chinese citizens today are arguing about the whitewash of the Nanking Massacre in Japanese textbooks, although the Japanese government is opposed to it. Overall, many historians agree that Japanese textbooks whitewash the history of the Nanking Massacre, and it is certainly true. Most Japanese textbooks only say that the Nanking Incident occurred in 1937, and the Japanese killed many Chinese. No further information is given, like why it occurred, how it occurred, and what did the Japanese army specifically do. One of the aims of learning this event is to not repeat the same history. But with the information provided from the textbook, we cannot learn the cause, the brutality of war, and what happens when people cause wars, in order to prevent it from happening again. Because of it, students nowadays are not aware of the cruelness of war, and one place where the effect was seen was when the government tried to allow the SDF use collective self-defense. Albeit the elderlies who experienced war opposed to it very strongly, the young did not, and many commented “it can’t be helped”, meaning they’ll …show more content…
The Rape of Nanking is what makes the Nanking Massacre peculiar and significant by how we could learn how inhuman people can become in wars, involving innocent citizens. Although there may be arguments that the Rape of Nanking itself is not clear enough and therefore it is not appropriate to teach what is not known, despite the amount of information that is known to be true, it is true that the Rape of Nanking occurred, and it is important to learn what our ancestors did to avoid extreme nationalism of denying what the Japanese did, and remind ourselves the savageness of war. Therefore, we could tell that Japanese textbooks completely whitewash the most important event in the