US archives reveal war massacre of 500,000 Chinese by Japanese army

BEIJING—Invading Japanese troops massacred at least 500,000 Chinese before the occupation of Nanjing in 1937, according to declassified documents from the United States government, says a Chinese scholar.
Two telegrams from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration added evidence to support claims of a “Pan-Nanjing Massacre” that included the slaughter of people in the area surrounding China’s then capital, said Wang Lan, a researcher of the State Archives Administration of China. The telegrams sent by the U.S. diplomats pointed to the massacre of an estimated half a million people in Shanghai, Suzhou,Jiaxing, Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Wuxi and Changzhou, said Wang.
Historical records show that more than 300,000 unarmed soldiers and innocent civilians, were murdered by Japanese troops during the six-week Nanjing Massacre from December 1937 to January 1938. However, the massacre of Chinese before the occupation of Nanjing is less well documented.
William Edward Dodd, U.S. ambassador to Germany, sent a telegram from Berlin to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Dec. 14,1937, one day after the Japanese army occupied Nanjing, saying, “Today the news from the Far East is worse than ever and I have read yours and Secretary Hull’s statement as to Japanese brutality. The Japanese Ambassador here boasted a day or two ago of his country’s having killed 500,000 Chinese people.” Dodd also suggest in the telegram that the U.S. government should take action to resist Japanese brutality with no delay.
In the other telegram sent by Clarence E. Causs, U.S. Consul in Shanghai, to Secretary of State Cordell Hull on Jan. 25, 1938, Gauss reported the brutalities of Japanese army spotted by the U.S. missionaries in the cities near Nanjing during the same period. Wang said he found the telegrams, numbered as RG59-793.94/11631and RG59-793.94/12207, while searching for materials related to China’s war against the Japanese invasion from 1937 to 1945 in the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. “The new evidence, given by a Japanese official and a third party, prove slaughters took place along the way of the Japanese from Shanghai to Nanjing.—Xinhua