Nanking Massacre Denial - Issues of Definition

Issues of Definition

The most conservative viewpoint is that the geographical area of the incident should be limited to the few km2 of the city known as the Safety Zone, where the civilians gathered after the Japanese aggression. Many Japanese historians such as Higashinakano Shudo seized upon the fact that during the aggression there were only 200,000–250,000 citizens in Nanking as reported by John Rabe, to argue that the PRC's estimate of 300,000 deaths is a vast exaggeration.

However, many historians include a much larger area around the city. Including the Xiaguan district (the suburbs north of Nanjing city, about 31 km2 in size) and other areas on the outskirts of the city, the population of greater Nanjing was running between 535,000 and 635,000 civilians and soldiers just prior to the Japanese occupation. Some historians also include six counties around Nanjing, known as the Nanjing Special Municipality.

The duration of the incident is naturally defined by its geography: the earlier the Japanese entered the area, the longer the duration. The Battle of Nanking ended on December 13, when the divisions of the Japanese Army entered the walled city of Nanking. The Tokyo War Crime Tribunal defined the period of the massacre to the ensuing six weeks. More conservative estimates say the massacre started on December 14, when the troops entered the Safety Zone, and that it lasted for six weeks. Historians who define the Nanking Massacre as having started from the time the Japanese Army entered Jiangsu province push the beginning of the massacre to around mid-November to early December (Suzhou fell on November 19), and stretch the end of the massacre to late March 1938.