Talk:Japanese war crimes

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Hong's latest deletions

"Outside Japan, different societies use widely different timeframes in defining Japanese war crimes. For example, the annexation of Korea by Japan in 1910 was followed by the deprivation of civil liberties and exploitations against the Korean people. Thus, some Koreans refer to "Japanese war crimes" as events occurring during the period shortly prior to 1910 to 1945."

"By comparison, the Western Allies did not come into military conflict with Japan until 1941, and North Americans, Australasians and Europeans may consider "Japanese war crimes" to be events that occurred in 1941-45."

Which parts of those sentences are not self-explanatory?

Also, it would be nice if you made constructive edits, such as discussing issues here and fixing vandalism, instead of just deleting stuff that you alone have doubts about . Grant | Talk 17:09, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The citation needed tags have been on these claims for weeks. I am not opposed to them at all if they can be verified. Please read WP:Original research and WP:VERIFY. "Self explanatory" or "it's obvious" are not reasons to include content in an article. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 17:14, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Do you also want citations for "the sky is blue" and "Paris is the capital of France"? Grant | Talk 17:16, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Those can be verified, and sure, citations for them would be great. Here's a source to verify that Paris is the capital of France[1], and here's a source to verify that the sky may sometimes be blue[2]. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 17:22, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Which part of the logic in the above paragraphs is it that you do not follow? What would would you like referenced? Grant | Talk 17:27, 14 February 2007 (UTC) Please tell me, because I don't understand your reasoning. Grant | Talk 17:36, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if a piece of content or claim makes sense to us as editors or that we think it's the truth. This is why I asked you to read WP:Original research and WP:VERIFY. This is just WP basics, and I'm confused that you don't understand that. Are you new to WP? The content that needed referencing and verifying were the content that had citation needed tags:

1. Different societies place the war crimes in different time frames, and that "some Koreans" place them at events between 1910 and 1945.
2. North Americans, Australasians, and Europeans place the war crimes at events between 1941 and 1945.
3. It may not be considered "war crimes" if the acts were committed in regions that were "subjected to Japanese sovereignty".

Where exactly is this information found? Are these claims made by reliable sources? We don't know anything about how this information came about on this WP article. Again, I would not oppose the information being there at all if it can be verified. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 17:38, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

"Where exactly is this information found?" It is found in logic. The same logic that says 2 + 3 = 5. If anyone can't understand the reasoning in these statements, they are going to have trouble with a great deal of the information in Wikipedia. Grant | Talk 17:44, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, there is no issue of original research here. The concept does not apply to common sense statements. The issue is that you feel that the statements need citations. They would need citations if they did not include words such as "some" and "may", i.e. more definite statements, like "all Koreans define war crimes as events that occurred between 1910 and 1945" require citations. There is nothing "original" about basic logic, i.e. "Korea was part of the Japanese empire between 1910 and 1945; war crimes occurred in areas occupied by Japan; some Korean people..."

As for your point 3, it explained in the sentences that follow the point where you have put the {cn}}: "Japan's de jure sovereignty over places such as Korea and Formosa, prior to 1945, are recognized by international agreements such as the Treaty of Shimonoseki (1895) and the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty (1910). However, the legality of these treaties is in question, the native populations were not consulted, there was armed resistance to Japanese occupation invasions and war crimes may also be committed during civil wars."

There is no reference in France for Paris being the capital. Neither are there references in most articles for statements that conform to basic logic. Grant | Talk 18:11, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Again, please read WP:VERIFY. It doesn't matter if it makes sense to us as editors. Who or what source is saying that different people apply different time frames to the war crimes? Who or what sources claim that it may not be considered a war crime if the regions were under Japanese sovereignty at the time? And your explanation of point 3 is exactly why I asked you to read WP:Original research. Did you arrive at that conclusion yourself? Or is there a reliable source that's making the claim? Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 18:41, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Grant. . If any single sentence that is not properly referenced must be removed, Wikipedia will be reduced to a skeleton within the next few days. Furthermore, I don't see any original research here, but only a couple of statements which reflect common sense. --Lebob-BE 19:27, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

As I've said, the citation needed tags had been placed there for weeks. I had not removed those statements initially. But after weeks and no references have materialised, I removed those statements. It's a simple request - can sources be found to verify those statements? Furthermore, if there are other statements in other articles that can't be verified, I highly encourage you and other editors to put citation tags on them or remove them. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 19:54, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The issue is not "can sources be found to verify those statements", the issue is why should anyone have to? Show me how WP:VERIFY applies to matters of rudimentary induction.

I spent some time reducing and rewriting the "Definitions" section because you weren't happy with it. You're only response was to put tags on three sentences. You have now reduced the "Historical and geographical extent" section to a nonsensical stub, but I guess that makes you happy, since you wanted rid of it all together. Grant | Talk 00:01, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Wrong. I never wanted to get rid of it. I thought the original version was misnamed and should be moved down. And there's nothing "rudimentary" about the claims that need citation. What's rudimentary is that the sky is blue, not that a "war crime" is not really a "war crime" if the region it happened in was under Japanese sovereignty. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 00:33, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Whatever. The material is back, with references. You could have researched and added them yourself, if you really wanted that material to stay.Grant | Talk 03:32, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I did do some quick searching weeks ago before I even put the citation needed tags on. I couldn't find anything, so I put citation tags on them. Weeks later and there are still no sources. I'm not an expert on the subject and I'm not the only editor on WP. So I'm absolutely justified in removing them. Anyway thanks for providing the sources. That's all that those claims needed. I haven't verified them yet, but I'll trust that they back up those claims for now. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 03:44, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

148 convicted criminals?

This section is wrong. I checked the actual book in question, and it says there 5,700 individuals indicted for Class B and Class C war crimes, including 178 Taiwanese and 148 Koreans. So the 148 number wasn't the total number of conviincted individuals, but just the number of ethnic Koreans in the entire group of convicted war criminals. Hong Sa Ik was the highest ranking ethnic Korean war criminal, not the highest ranking convicted war criminal in general, which include the 25 Class A war crminals. Here's the actual page, shown courtesy of Google Books. [3] (Embracing defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II By John W Dower, pg. 447) Therefore, I'm fixing the numbers to reflect this. Also, while looking at the 148 number, I also found an interesting sidefact, which I also included.--Yuje 12:33, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Good work. That's the kind of edit that really improves an article. Cla68 02:26, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Revisionism etc

I believe more information needs to be devoted to revisionism in Japan and reaction from allied nations. I don't think the current issue is whether Japan has apologized or not, because they had numerous times. I think the main thing is not about the apologies, but about all kinds of things that keeps popping up like revisionism and textbook controversy, plus Abe's recent denial that comfort women were forced. It's these incidents by high profile politicians that anger Japan's neighbors, not the "lack" of apologies. Blueshirts 05:59, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Immediate Compensation?

The property listed in China were all looted goods from China. Can a robber uses the robbed goods as compensation? This is incredible. Redcloud822 19:54, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

'No Reference' tag added for the 'Background' section

Origins and the so called 'culture' of Japanese imperialism is no more than personal pragmatic speculation at this moment without any reference to secondary material. Hence the tag will remain until those opinions could be cited through a legitimate endnote. 203.109.234.135 04:02, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

In some cases 203.109, you have added "citation needed" tags to material where the source is already mentioned in the text or where the citation is in an adjoining sentence. In other cases you have added them in sentences which follow logically from preceding statements, without putting them at the point where the controversy arises. In others you have put them at statements of the obvious. I will clean all of these up in due course. Grant | Talk 03:38, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think I'll ever understand your "follow logically" argument. Sounds a lot like WP:Original research - meaning you as a WP editor is making a conclusion based on the evidence we have, instead of simply reflecting the sources we have. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 06:00, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

First, if a sentence says, in essence, that "A = 3", the following sentence says "B = 2", the one after that says "A + B = C" then it follows logically if the fourth sentence says "C = 5". The last sentence is not the point that references should be given or requested.

Second, Wikipedia does not have a rule that says every sentence or even every paragraph has to be referenced.

Third, requests for references can be mischevious and ways of pushing a particular POV or ideology. Grant | Talk 08:43, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Gtant65 I had a look for the citations requested and under WP:V I do not think that they are unreasonable. For example:

• For example, many of the alleged crimes committed by Japanese personnel broke Japanese military law, and were not subject to court martial, as required by that law.(citation requested) It is a contentious statement of fact with no citation to back it up.
• Had Japan certified the legal validity of the war crimes tribunals in the San Francisco Treaty, the war crimes would have became open to appeal and overturning in Japanese courts. This would have been unacceptable in international diplomatic circles.(citation requested) This definatly needs a citation and as I doubt it was made up it should be easy to fid.

The others are in a similar vain and should have citations. But I do no think that the "Unreferenced template" on the background section should be used, but there should be some "fact" templates on things like:

• By the late 1930s, the rise of militarism in Japan created at least superficial similarities between the wider Japanese military culture and that of Nazi Germany's elite military personnel, such as those in the Waffen-SS. Japan also had a military secret police force, known as the Kempeitai, which resembled the Nazi Gestapo in its role in annexed and occupied countries. Because it is guilt by comparrison and so contentious. Besides it is arguable if Germany's elite military personnel were in the SS, See for example the attitude of Dietrich von Saucken an aristocratic Prussian conservative and a member of the military class who were probably the real elite military of Germany. --Philip Baird Shearer 10:45, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi Phil, I wasn't referring to the examples you have given, not that I think any of them are really that controversial, although they may appear so to some people.

Most of the material in question — and in fact most of the article — was actually added by User:FWBOarticle (under another user name, which he has changed for privacy reasons), who I understand to be a Japanese person living in Japan. He and I have had some serious disagreements rearding various articles, mostly to do with his and my quite different historiographical approaches. But I also believe that he has an excellent knowledge of this subject, from Japanese sources which are inaccessible to most of us. I have suggested to him that references would be a great addition, but he has never provided them.

And one reason for my objections stated above is the use of {cn} tags as an insidious form of POV-pushing and political censorship. There are people who use them to justify deletion of facts that they fund unpalatable. I think most of the frequent contribuors to these article would agree with me. I do not think the lack of references, is a good enough reason for the removal of long-standing material, against the wishes of most editors. Grant | Talk 17:41, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

This year there has been a lot of editing of the Battle of Waterloo one of the things that has happened is that there has been a tendency to ask for and to reference everything. I think if you compare two versions of the article from say 31 December 2006 and now, you will see that thanks to footnoting the article is of far more use as an encyclopaedic source than it was before, although the content of what is said has not altered a lot. I have also found that citations help greatly with controversial topics e.g. Bombing of Dresden in keeping the article focused and removing the more extreme theories. So I would recommend that on a subject like this there should be rather more citations than there are at the moment. Don't look on the request for citations as POV pushing but a chance to copper bottom what is already here. In the long run the article will be much better for it, although in the short term it is a pain to find them. --Philip Baird Shearer 19:50, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Comfort Women

I have removed the following reference from the "comfort women" section for it's lack of citation and use of weasel-words: "Some sources claim that virtually all comfort women consented to becoming prostitutes and/or were paid, but others have presented research establishing a link between the Japanese military and the forced recruitment of local women."

I didn't feel it was appropriate to simply tag it and leave it, as this is a massively controversial topic with a lot of bad feeling behind it. Based on that possibility for real harm being done, I think it should be held to a higher standard (on the level of WP:BIO, for example) in terms of the absolute essentiality of good citation. I was in doubt, and I took it out. If the claim has any truth it can simply be cited, de-weaseled, and returned to the article. Bullzeye^{Complaint Dept./Contribs)} 01:16, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

why is this quote given in full twice?

• These were not commercial brothels. Force, explicit and implicit, was used in recruiting these women. What went on in them was serial rape, not prostitution. The Japanese Army’s involvement is documented in the government’s own defense files. A senior Tokyo official more or less apologized for this horrific crime in 1993. [...] Yesterday, [Abe] grudgingly acknowledged the 1993 quasi apology, but only as part of a pre-emptive declaration that his government would reject the call, now pending in the United States Congress, for an official apology. America isn’t the only country interested in seeing Japan belatedly accept full responsibility. Korea and China are also infuriated by years of Japanese equivocations over the issue.

Surely its unecessary to use it twice in the same article?--Jackyd101 11:18, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Iraq War

I don't think this even warrants discussion, but I'm not going to risk the 3RR violation. I think it is grossly trivialising to the subject to include the stuff about the Iraq War, especially in the first paragraph.

The historical jury is still out on the rights and wrongs of the invasion of Iraq; I can't see how the presence of a small contingent of Japanese non-combat personnel in Iraq is comparable to the Rape of Nanjing or the Death Railway. In fact, no alleged war crime committed by coalition forces in Iraq is in the same ballpark as that. IMO this is ahistorical, "presentism" of the worst kind. Grant65 (Talk) 08:36, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, agreed. Iraq is totally irrelevant unless allegations of war crimes by the Japanese are made. This is somebody apparently not understanding what "war crime" means. 81.131.124.114 19:27, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I understand very well what a war crime is, and while it's OK to mention the controversy about Japan's role in Iraq, I'm not satisfied with the way it has been done by contributors to this page. Grant65 (Talk) 23:36, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Oh yes like there's logic in determining why abusing your own citizens i.e. the Koreans is a war crime. CHECK MATE

• I've removed the Iraq War section again. Only Grant65 and I have had any discussion about this recently, and no-one has been able to offer a coherent argument as to why it should be included. If Japanese soldiers in Iraq are accused of war crimes it can be re-instated; but until then its irrelevant to this article as a war crime and a crime against peace are different concepts. JW 14:00, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Jeff...clearly they have been accused of crimes against peace by Japanese activists. I don't know what your attitude to the Iraq war is but are you sure you aren't letting it cloud your approach to this issue? Grant65 (Talk) 14:28, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

That's a nice idea, but no. Whether the Iraq War was a "crime against peace" or not is debatable. But my understanding is that a "crime against peace" and a "war crime" are different concepts. We could always change the article name to make it clear we are discussing a historical event. Something like Imperial Japanese war crimes or whatever. JW 15:06, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Doesn't that definitive distinction warrant the separation and disposal of acts that are crimes against humanity and not war crimes from this article? you would assume that to be absurd. From Artile 6 of the London Charter of the International Military Tribunal, crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity form a consolidated framework that under Artile 5 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is the ambit of jurisdiction for the International Criminal Court “most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole”.

Grant65, you implied that the inclusion of Iraq related material is "grossly trivilising" to the material related to the Pacific War. However, one can reasonably construe that you are trivialising the Iraq material itself. I do not think you understand the gravity of Japan's leaders supporting the invasion. This is a nation that has had leaders convicted of crimes against peace and has duly accepted those judgments under Article 11 of the San Francisco Peace Treaty . I can only sincerely hope that all of you take due caution in editing and deleting of forthcoming additions to the article with regards to Iraq and convictions of the past.

Deganw23 01:49, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure why this has made a reappearance after it was archived, but I take the opportunity to point out once again that — in spite of my initial concerns — I ended up arguing for inclusion of the material relating to the Iraq War. See my post from November 13, 2005 above. User:Jeff Watts (JW) disagreed, as did another editor. Grant | Talk 12:48, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

We could always change the article name to make it clear we are discussing a historical event. Something like Imperial Japanese war crimes or whatever. JW 15:06, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, that proposal was never revisited for one and a half years so that's moot (nobody including User:Jeff Watts even bothered to create a rediret link for that "Imperial Japanese war crimes" title to this page since). Hence, the reasonable wiki-browser would be led to believe from the current title that the article could theoretically encompass any war crime in any period between the formation of the Yamato state in the antiquities to contemporary Japan. Kilimanjaronum 16:19, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Anyone can create a redirect. I repeat: I am not opposed to discussion of the Iraq War controversy in this article. But I think other editors will need to be persuaded. Grant | Talk 02:10, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Reccomending removal of unsupported statement: North Americans, Australasians, South East Asians and Europeans may consider "Japanese war crimes" to be events that occurred in 1941-45

Under the "Historical and geographical extent" heading:

By comparison, the Western Allies did not come into military conflict with Japan until 1941, and North Americans, Australasians, South East Asians and Europeans may consider "Japanese war crimes" to be events that occurred in 1941-45.

Is this not a presumption and a deductive fallacy, and is "may consider" not weasel wording? I have checked the sources cited and have found nothing in them to support this claim. On the contrary, the sources cited clearly contradict it.

"North Americans, Australasians, South East Asians and Europeans?" That's a lot of people! This looks like a not-so-tactful way of saying "gaijin."

This comment amasses hundreds of millions of people, from dozens of countries and countless cultures all over the globe, into one big homogenous group...

...and then projects a straaangely insular psychology onto that group.

Now, I wonder how that could have happened?

I reccomend that this text be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.81.167.175 (talk • contribs) 2007-07-26T04:45:21 (UTC)

oh, here's my four tildes: 64.81.167.175 07:42, 26 July 2007 (UTC)