According to Rummel, in China alone, from 1937 to 1945, approximately 3.9 million Chinese were killed, mostly civilians, as a direct result of the Japanese operations and a total of 10.2 million Chinese were killed in the course of the war.
The number of civilian deaths in China alone might well be more than 50,000,000.
Japan believed it had a sovereign right to rule, to become the “Light of Greater East Asia” and ultimately the “Light of the World”. The Japanese felt that by conceding ground their country would be humiliating itself in front of the world.
There were, of course, victors in the war against Japan. But China was not one of them. Although China had fought the Japanese the longest (since July 1937), it was the American onslaught across the Pacific that ultimately brought the Greater Japanese Empire to its knees.
Japan had possession of roughly 25% of China's enormous territory and more than a third of its entire population. Beyond its areas of direct control, Japan carried out bombing campaigns, looting, massacres and raids deep into Chinese territory.
War was finally declared on August 1, 1894. Although foreign observers had predicted an easy victory for the more massive Chinese forces, the Japanese had done a more successful job of modernizing, and they were better equipped and prepared. Japanese troops scored quick and overwhelming victories on both land and sea.
China refused war reparations from Japan in the 1972 Joint Communiqué. Japan gave official development assistance (ODA), amounting to 3 trillion yen (US$30 billion). According to estimates, Japan accounts for more than 60 percent of China's ODA received.
China had been at war with Japan since 1937 and continued the fight until the Japanese surrender in 1945. The United States advised and supported China's ground war, while basing only a few of its own units in China for operations against Japanese forces in the region and Japan itself.
The Chinese Nationalists sought German military and economic support to help them consolidate control over factional warlords and resist Japanese imperialism. Germany sought raw materials such as tungsten and antimony from China.
Since the end of World War II, Sino-Japanese relations are still mired with geopolitical disagreements. The enmity between these two countries emanated from the history of the Japanese war and the imperialism and maritime disputes in the East China Sea.
The POWs suffered frequent beatings and mistreatment from their Japanese guards, food was the barest minimum, and disease and injuries went untreated. Although the POWs finally received Red Cross packages in January 1944, the Japanese had removed all the drugs and medical supplies.
Some Japanese think that the Nanjing Massacre was committed by people before them, and later generations do not have to bear the blame. They think that denying or erasing the history of the Nanjing Massacre helps maintain Japan's dignity, while acknowledging and apologizing for it is an action of "self-abuse."
Second World War: fatalities per country 1939-1945. Estimates for the total death count of the Second World War generally range somewhere between 70 and 85 million people. The Soviet Union suffered the highest number of fatalities of any single nation, with estimates mostly falling between 22 and 27 million deaths.
By R.J. Rummel. From the invasion of China in 1937 to the end of World War II, the Japanese military regime murdered near 3,000,000 to over 10,000,000 people, most probably almost 6,000,000 Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos, and Indochinese, among others, including Western prisoners of war.
The Axis powers (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan) were some of the most systematic perpetrators of war crimes in modern history.
China entered into diplomatic relations with Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Bangladesh and Maldives in Southeast Asia and South Asia, seven countries including Iran, Turkey and Kuwait in West Asia and the Middle East and five countries in South Pacific such as Fiji and Papua New Guinea.
The two nations fought each other during Korean War. The US refused to recognize the legitimacy of the PRC and continued to recognize the ROC based in Taiwan as the legitimate government of China.
Japanese occupation in most of Asia was brutal across their period of rule. In 1937 the Japanese took the Chinese capital of Nanjing, and in 1945 they retreated from the Filipino capital of Manila.
China and the US arranged for Japanese POWs from various cities and villages to gather at the ports, where they would board US transport vessels back to Japan. With China and the US working together to complete the repatriation, most Japanese POWs in China arrived back in Japan by the end of 1946.
Using a different criterion, here are the nations World Population Review lists as the oldest in the world according to their respective dates of self-sovereignty: Japan - 660 BCE. China - 221 BCE. San Marino - 301 CE.
Japan: 15 Million Years Old. China: 2100 BC. Armenia: 6500 BC. Iran: 620 BC.
Japan's economic growth after the 1940s was based on unprecedented expansion of industrial production and the development of an enormous domestic market, as well as on an aggressive export trade policy.
The answer is NO.
They often had links with ultra-nationalist groups. And they tended to disrespect civilian institutions. The Japanese Army had a general contempt for the Chinese and had a lower standard for treatment of Chinese POWs as opposed to Western ones.