In regards to “Questions surround reporter’s revisionist take on Japan’s history”

May 4th 2014

Dear Henry, 

A note from the editor-in-chief:  The questions as to whether Henry Stokes, a long time acquaintance, was deceived and turned into a mouthpiece for the Japanese right wing is a very fascinating one. However, I’m friends with and work with Angela Kubo. I know the reporter at Kyodo News who wrote the story well and we have worked together and I know Henry. The foreign journalist community in Japan is very small.  All that being said, therefore, I’m unable to objectively write about this story at this time and will recuse myself for the time being.  –Jake Adelstein 

For reference: Kyodo News conducted a long recorded interview with Mr. Stokes. The Japanese version of the story compares the statements in the book with the statements in the interview in detail. If you can read Japanese you may find it enlightening. It follows the english text from the Kyodo News article below:

From the Kyodo News article: Over the course of multiple interviews with Kyodo News beginning on April 5, Stokes repeatedly expressed a view on Nanjing that directly contradicts the remarks attributed to him in both his own book and the articles in WiLL and Yukan Fuji.

“I don’t come within ten-thousand miles of this stuff as a position,” he said, dismissing the view that Nanjing is a fabrication as “ludicrous,” “fatuous” and “utterly, utterly asinine.”

“The stance I take is that ghastly events occurred in Nanjing,” Stokes said, adding that he does, however, disagree with Chinese assessments that 300,000 people died during the six days when the Imperial Japanese Army overran China’s then capital. He also objects to the use of the term massacre, preferring the more anodyne “Nanjing Incident.”

ご参考まで共同通信のインタービューの一部を掲載しました。

著書　南京が陥落してから人口が増え始め、翌１月には、２５万人に膨れ上がった。戦闘が終わって治安が回復されて、人々が南京へと戻ってきたのだ。このことからも「南京大虐殺」などなかったことは、明白だ。歴史の事実として「南京大虐殺」は、なかった。それは、中華民国政府が 捏造 （ねつぞう） した、プロパガンダだった。
　ストークス氏　そうは言えない。（この文章は）私のものではない。後から付け加えられた。修正する必要がある。私は「ＭＡＳＳＡＣＲＥ（大虐殺）」という言葉は好まない。その表現は日本語では使えるが英語だとぞっとするほど恐ろしい。大虐殺と呼べないにせよ、南京で何か非常に恐ろしい事件が起きたかと問われれば、答えはイエスだ。中華民国政府のプロパガンダは（南京大虐殺が史実とされる）理由の一つだが唯一の理由ではない。

The interview conducted with VOICE magazine’s March issue by Mr. Stokes also has the following seeming affirmation of the Nanjing Incident and affirms the credibility of the book China’s War With Japan by Rana Mitter.

「もちろん、日本の一部の右派がいうような「南京ではレイプも殺人も何も起きなかった。証拠がないという論調にも与することもできません。現実的ではありませんし、国際社会を納得させることもできないでしょう」