The Anti-Comintern Pact

On August 6th, 1945 an American B-29 bomber dropped the first nuclear bomb in history over Hiroshima, Japan. This event not only transformed international relations across the globe for decades to come, but in an instant looked to change the Japanese narrative forever. When discussing the Japanese narrative of today most people think of a prosperous nation. One who is a global leader in the development of technological and medical products used worldwide for the betterment of mankind. Japan is an active member within the United Nations, contributing the second largest amount of money to United Nations peacekeeping operations, subsequent only to the United States. The question to be asked then is; how in the short seventy years since the

Japan proceeded to sign the Anti-Comintern Pact with Italy and Germany to protect their empire from a possible Soviet Union invasion. This was the first pact of Axis powers. Japan’s aggression towards China was also evident during the occupation of Manchuria. It was here that the Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria concocted a railroad explosion to initiate a war with China in Manchuria. The Chinese government looked to the League of Nations for help, but to no avail. When the Japanese delegate Mr. Matsuoka was summed by the League of Nations to discuss the matters of Manchuria, he simply accused the West of hypocrisy and both he and Japan walked out of the League of Nations. During this period of Japanese occupation of Northern China the sentiment in the United States was aloof. It was not until the Japanese Army moved south into Shanghai that Americans finally took notice. Following the movement into Shanghai in the summer of 1937, the Japanese Army worked their way northwest into the capital city on Nanking. It was here at Nanking that some of the greatest human rights atrocities, second only to Adolph Hitler’s holocaust of the Jews, occurred by Japanese

In essence, the city of Nanking and it’s roughly 350,000 people in the hands of western missionaries. This group of missionaries hastily organized the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone an elected a leader in German born John Rabe. The interesting element of the election of Rabe was that he was a card-carrying member of the Nazi Party. The rest of the group felt as though the Japanese would grant leniency to the Chinese because of Rabe and the Anti-comintern Pact signed be the Axis powers. This proved to not be the case. Estimates are that at least 300,000 Chinese died, and 20,000 women were raped. Americans after hearing of the atrocities called for sanctions against Japan, but President Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) was determined not to provoke Japan. Even after the sinking of the American gunboat Panay could not sway FDR into war with Japan. In the end only an apology and an offer of compensation was needed from the government of Tokyo to the United States. To this day Sino-Japanese international relations have never been the same. Japan for the most part still fails to recognize the atrocities acted out on the people of Nanking. Many Japanese historians humbly describe the Massacre at Nanking as