Prince Asaka Yasuhiko
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| HIH Prince Asaka Yasuhiko | |
|---|---|
| 2 October 1887 – 12 April 1981 | |
 His Imperial Highness Prince Asaka Yasuhiko | |
| Place of birth | Kyoto, Japan |
| Place of death | Atami, Japan |
| Allegiance | Empire of Japan |
| Service/branch |  Imperial Japanese Army |
| Years of service | 1908–1945 |
| Rank | General |
| Battles/wars | Second Sino-Japanese War |
| Awards | Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum. |
Prince Asaka Yasuhiko (朝香宮鳩彦王 Asaka-no-miya Yasuhiko-ō?, 2 October 1887 – 12 April 1981) of Japan, was a the founder of a collateral branch of the Japanese imperial family and a career officer in the Imperial Japanese Army. A son-in-law of Emperor Meiji and an uncle-in-law of Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito), Prince Asaka was commander of Japanese forces in the final assault on Nanjing, then the capital city of Nationalist China in December 1937. He was implicated in the Nanjing massacre, but never charged.
Contents[hide] |
[edit] Biography
[edit] Early years
Prince Yasuhiko was born in Kyoto, the eighth son of Prince Kuni Asahiko (Kuni no miya Asahiko Shinnō) and the court lady Tsunoda Sugako. His father, Prince Kuni, was former Buddhist priest and minor prince descended from the Fushimi-no-miya, one the four branch houses of the imperial dynasty (shinnōke) entitled to provide a successor to the throne. In 1872, the Emperor Meiji granted him the title Kuni-no-miya and authorization to begin a new branch of the imperial family. Prince Yasuhiko was a half-brother of Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko, Prince Nashimoto Morimasa, Prince Kuni Kuniyoshi, and Prince Kaya Kuninori, the father of the future Empress Kōjun, the consort of Emperor Shōwa.
[edit] Marriage and family
On 10 March 1906, the Emperor Meiji granted Prince Yasuhiko the title Asaka-no-miya and authorization to begin a new branch of the imperial family. On 6 May 1909, Prince Asaka married Princess Fami-no-miya Nobuko (7 August 1891 – 3 November 1933), the eighth daughter of Emperor Meiji. Prince and Princess Asaka had four children:
- HIH Princess Asaka Kikuko 12 September 1911 – 12 February 1989; married 1931 Nabeshima Naoyasu, heir of Marquis Nabeshima.
- HIH Prince Asaka Takahiko (8 October 1913 – 6 May 1994); married 16 December 1935 Todo Chikako (5 May 1921 – ), the fifth daughter of Count Todo Takatsugu. They had 2 daughters, Fukuko and Minoko and a son Tomohiko.
- HIH Prince Asaka Tadahito (4 January 1914 – January 1944, killed during the Battle of Kwajalein); renounced membership in the imperial family and created Marquis Otowa, 1936.
- HIH Princess Asaka Kiyoko (2 August 1919 – )
[edit] Military career
Like the other imperial princes of the Meiji period, it was expected that Prince Yasuhiko would pursue a career in the military. He received his early education at the Gakushuin and the Central Military Preparatory School, before graduating the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in 1908 as a second lieutenant.
Prince Asaka was promoted to captain in 1912, lieutenant colonel in 1917, and colonel in 1922.
Between 1920 and 1923, Prince Asaka studied military tactics at the École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr in France, along with his half-brother Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko and his cousin Prince Kitashirakawa Naruhisa (1887–1923). However, on 1 April 1923, he was seriously injured in automobile accident in a Paris suburb that killed Prince Kitashirakawa and left Prince Asaka with a limp for the rest of his life.
Princess Asaka traveled to France to nurse her husband. Prince and Princess Asaka also visited the United States in 1925. During that period, Prince and Princess Asaka became enthralled with the Art Deco movement. Upon returning to Japan in 1925, Prince Asaka had a new mansion built in the Art Deco style in Tokyo's Shirokanedai neighborhood. The house was completed in May 1933, but Princess Asaka died a few months later.
Prince Asaka was promoted to the rank of brigadier general in 1926. He rose to the rank of major general and was appointed an instructor at the Army War College in 1930. In 1933, he was promoted to lieutenant general and assumed command of the First Imperial Guards Division. In December 1935, he was appointed a member of the Supreme War Council, which gave him a very influential position with Emperor Hirohito.[1]
However, during the abortive February 26 Incident Prince Asaka pressed the Emperor to appoint a new government that would be acceptable to the rebels, especially by replacing Prime Minister Okada Keisuke with Hirota Koki. The Prince's pro-Imperial Way Faction political sentiments, as well as his connections to other right-wing army cliques, caused a rift between himself and the Emperor. It was perhaps due to this rift that Prince Asaka was transferred to the Japanese Central China Area Army (under elderly General Matsui Iwane) in China in 1937.
[edit] Role in the Nanking Massacre
In November 1937, Prince Asaka became temporary deputy commander for Japanese forces outside Nanjing, then capital of China. As deputy for the ill General Matsui, he was nominally commander of the final assault on Nanjing between December 2 and 6, 1937. The Prince allegedly issued an order to "kill all captives," thus providing official sanction for what became known as the "Nanjing Massacre" or the "Rape of Nanking" (10 December 1937 – 10 February 1938).[2]
Some authors record that Asaka signed the order for Japanese soldiers in Nanjing to "kill all captives"[3] Others claim that lieutenant colonel Isamu Cho, a member of the staff of the Central China Area Army with known radical ultranationalist politics, sent this order under the Prince's sign manual with the Prince's knowledge or assent[4]. However, even if Cho took the initiative of his own, Asaka, who was the nominally the officer in charge, gave no orders to stop the carnage. As for Matsui, he did not arrive in the city until well after the killing had begun.
While Prince Asaka's responsibility for the Nanking Massacre remains a matter of debate, the most rational interpretation for the massacre and the crimes committed during the invasion of China might be found in the ratification, made on 5 August 1937 by Emperor Hirohito, of the proposition of the army to remove the constraints of international law on the treatment of Chinese prisoners.[5]
In February 1938, with Nanking destroyed, both Prince Asaka and General Matsui were recalled to Japan. Matsui went into virtual retirement, but Prince Asaka remained on the Supreme War Council until the end of the war in August 1945. He was promoted to the rank of general in August 1939 but held no further military commands. In 1944, he colluded with Prince Higashikuni, his nephew Prince Takamatsu, and former Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro (1895–1945) to oust the Hideki Tojo cabinet.[6]
SCAP officials interrogated Prince Asaka about his involvement in the Nanjing Massacre on 1 May 1946, but did not bring him before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East for prosecution. General Douglas MacArthur decided to grant immunity to all members of the Imperial family.
[edit] Postwar life as a commoner
On 14 October 1947, Prince Asaka and his children lost their imperial status and privileges and became ordinary citizens, as part of the American Occupation's abolishment of the collateral branches of the Japanese Imperial family. He and his son were purged from holding any political or public office because they had been officers in the Imperial Japanese Army. His very palatial Art Deco mansion in Shirokanedai was seized by the government, and now houses the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum. The former prince moved to Atami, on the Izu Peninsula south of Tokyo.
The former Prince Asaka became a Roman Catholic on 18 December 1951, and was the first member of the Imperial Family to do so.
The former prince spent most of his time playing golf. He also took an active interest in golf course development, and in the 1950s was the architect of the Plateau Golf Course at the Dai-Hakone Country Club.
Former Prince Asaka Yasuhiko died of natural causes on 13 April 1981 at his home in Atami, Shizuoka prefecture. He was 93 years old.
[edit] Gallery
 HIH Princess Asaka Nobuko, consort |  HIH Princess Asaka Kikuko, eldest daughter |  HIH Prince Asaka Takahito, son & heir |  HIH Princess Asaka Kiyoko, younger daughter |
Case Study:
The Nanjing Massacre,
1937-38
Summary
The Nanjing Massacre, also known as "The Rape of Nanking," is a rare example of simultaneous gendercides against women and men. It is generally remembered for the invading forces' barbaric treatment of Chinese women. Many thousands of them were killed after gang rape, and tens of thousands of others brutally injured and traumatized. Meanwhile, approximately a quarter of a million defenseless Chinese men were rounded up as prisoners-of-war and murdered en masse, used for bayonet practice, or burned and buried alive.
The background
The Second World War began in Asia. Japan's military dictators had long viewed China as the main outlet for their imperial and expansionist ambitions (for an overview, see Saburo Ienaga, The Pacific War 1931-1945). Japanese forces invaded and occupied Manchuria in northeast China in 1931, setting up the puppet state of Manchukuo. After the manufactured "Marco Polo Bridge Incident" of July 1937, the Japanese launched a fullscale invasion of China, capturing Shanghai on 12 November and the imperial capital, Nanjing, on 13 December. Numerous atrocities were committed en route to Nanjing, but they could not compare with the epic carnage and destruction the Japanese unleashed on the defenseless city after Chinese forces abandoned it to the enemy.
The gendercide against Chinese women
Murdered Chinese women and children are strewn
across the steps of a Nanjing building.
One eyewitness, Li Ke-hen, reported: "There are so many bodies on the street, victims of group rape and murder. They were all stripped naked, their breasts cut off, leaving a terrible dark brown hole; some of them were bayoneted in the abdomen, with their intestines spilling out alongside them; some had a roll of paper or a piece of wood stuffed in their vaginas" (quoted in Yin and Young, The Rape of Nanking, p. 195). John Rabe, a German (and Nazi) businessman who set up a "Nanking Safety Zone" in the city's international settlement and thereby saved thousands of Chinese lives, described in his diary the weeks of terror endured by the women of Nanjing. Though young and conventionally attractive women were most at risk, no woman was safe from vicious rape and exploitation (often filmed as souvenirs) and probable murder thereafter. "Groups of 3 to 10 marauding soldiers would begin by traveling through the city and robbing whatever there was to steal. They would continue by raping the women and girls and killing anything and anyone that offered any resistance, attempted to run away from them or simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. There were girls under the age of 8 and women over the age of 70 who were raped and then, in the most brutal way possible, knocked down and beat up." (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, p. 119.) In addition to those killed after the violation, historian David Bergamini notes that "Many immature girls were turned loose in such a manhandled condition that they died a day or two later. ... Many young women were simply tied to beds as permanent fixtures accessible to any and all comers. When they became too weepy or too diseased to arouse desire, they were disposed of. In alleys and parks lay the corpses of women who had been dishonored even after death by mutilation and stuffing." (Yin and Young, The Rape of Nanking, p. 195.)
Not all of the victims of rape were female. "Chinese men were often sodomized or forced to perform a variety of repulsive sexual acts in front of laughing Japanese soldiers," writes Chang. "At least one Chinese man was murdered because he refused to commit necrophilia with the corpse of a woman in the snow. The Japanese also delighted in trying to coerce men who had taken lifetime vows of celibacy to engage in sexual intercourse. ... The Japanese drew sadistic pleasure in forcing Chinese men to commit incest -- fathers to rape their own daughters, brothers their sisters, sons their mothers ... those who refused were killed on the spot." (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, p. 95.)
The gendercide against Chinese men
Young Chinese men, their hands bound, are
led away for mass execution.
At wharves along the Yangtze River, tens of thousands of these prisoners -- up to 150,000 in all -- were massacred in cold blood. A typical order, issued to the 66th Regiment 1st Battalion on 13 December, read as follows:
Battalion battle report, at 2:00 [p.m.] received orders from the Regiment commander: to comply with orders from Brigade commanding headquarters, all prisoners of war are to be executed. Method of executed: divide the prisoners into groups of a dozen. Shoot to kill separately. ... It is decided that the prisoners are to be divided evenly among each company ... and to be brought out from their imprisonment in groups of 50 to be executed. ... The vicinity of the imprisonment must be heavily guarded. Our intentions are absolutely not to be detected by the prisoners. Every company is to complete preparation before 5:00 p.m. Executions are to start by 5:00 and action is to be finished by 7:30. (Quoted in Yin and Young, The Rape of Nanking, pp. 110, 115.)
Atrocious tortures were also inflicted on the captive men. "The Japanese not only disemboweled, decapitated, and dismembered victims but performed more excruciating varieties of torture. Throughout the city they nailed prisoners to wooden boards and ran over them with tanks, crucified them to trees and electrical posts, carved long strips of flesh from them, and used them for bayonet practice. At least one hundred men reportedly had their eyes gouged out and their noses and ears hacked off before being set on fire. Another group of two hundred Chinese soldiers and civilians were stripped naked, tied to columns and doors of a school, and then stabbed by zhuizi -- special needles with handles on them -- in hundreds of points along their bodies, including their mouths, throats, and eyes. ... The Japanese subjected large crowds of victims to mass incineration. In Hsiakwan [along the Yangtze] a Japanese soldier bound Chinese captives together, ten at a time, and pushed them into a pit, where they were sprayed with gasoline and ignited." (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, pp. 87-88.)
How many died?
After the war, the International Military Tribunal of the Far cited "indicat[ions] that the total number of civilians and prisoners-of-war murdered in Nanking and its immediate vicinity during the first six weeks of the Japanese occupation was over 200,000. That these estimates are not exaggerated is borne out by the fact that burial societies and other organizations counted more than 155,000 bodies which they buried ... these figures do not take into account those persons whose bodies were destroyed by burning or by throwing them into the Yangtze River or otherwise disposed of by [the] Japanese." As well, "According to Japanese Lieutenant colonel Toshio Ohta's statement, between December 14 and December 18 the Japanese commanding headquarters of Nanjing Port disposed of 100,000 bodies while other troops disposed of 50,000." (Yin and Young, The Rape of Nanking, pp. 78, 90.) With the sole exception of the Nazi gendercide against Soviet POWs, this was the most concentrated massacre of prisoners-of-war in recorded history. The rapes and rape-murders of women were also of staggering proportions. "Certainly it was one of the greatest mass rapes in world history," writes Iris Chang. She notes that "it is impossible to determine the exact number of women raped in Nanking. Estimates range from as low as twenty thousand to as high as eighty thousand." (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, p. 89)
Who was responsible?
Senior members of the Japanese high command bearing direct responsibility for the mass atrocities in China included the Emperor Hirohito, who made all major military decisions, including the one to invade China in 1937; Hirohito's uncle, Prince Asaka, who issued the order to "Kill all captives" and was thus the main architect of the gendercide against Nanjing's men; General Yanagawa Heisuke; and Lieut. General Nakajima Kesago, commander of the 16th division, who "supervised the beheading of two prisoners-of-war to test his new sword, thus setting an example for his troops in mass-scale killing in Nanking" (Yin and Young, The Rape of Nanking, p. 284).
The aftermath
The massacres and mass rapes in Nanjing continued for a full six weeks, extending into January 1938. Eventually the genocidal rampage was replaced by a brutal occupation conducted under a puppet authority, the "Nanking Self-Government Committee." Life began to return to the city, and its population eventually re-stabilized at around 700,000, two-thirds of the prewar population. In August 1945, after atomic-bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese surrendered to the United States and other allies. The Second World War was over.
In 1946-47, war-crimes trials were held in Nanjing. "Only a handful of Japanese war criminals were tried in Nanking," notes Chang, "but they gave the local Chinese citizens a chance to air their grievances and participate in mass catharsis." (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, p. 170.) Tani Hisao, a commander of the 6th Division which had committed many atrocities in Nanjing and elsewhere, was sentenced to death in March 1947 and executed the following month. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East tried nearly 30 key Japanese commanders, including Matsui Iwane, commander of the Central China Expeditionary Force. Iwane, however -- according to Chang -- "may have served as the scapegoat for the Rape of Nanking. A sickly and frail man suffering from tuberculosis, Matsui was not even in Nanking when the city fell" (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, p. 174). He was nonetheless executed along with six other "class A" war criminals in this Japanese equivalent of the Nuremberg trials. General Yanagawa Heisuke and Lieut. General Nakajima Kesago, two of the main Japanese field commanders in charge of the occupation of Nanjing, died of natural causes in 1945, and thus could not be prosecuted. Controversially, the Japanese imperial family, including Emperor Hirohito and Prince Asaka, received immunity.
A conscious attempt has been made by "revisionists" in Japan to deny or downplay the involvement of the Japanese military in massive atrocities during World War II. In September 1986, the Japanese education minister, Fujio Masayuki, referred to the Rape of Nanking as "just a part of war." In 1988, a 30-second scene depicting the Rape of Nanking was removed from Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor by the film's Japanese distributor. In 1991, censors at the Ministry of Education "ordered textbook authorities to eliminate all reference to the numbers of Chinese killed during the Rape of Nanking because authorities believed there was insufficient evidence to verify those numbers" (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, p. 208). And General Nagano Shigeto, a Second World War veteran appointed justice minister in Spring 1994, told a Japanese newspaper that "the Nanking Massacre and the rest was a fabrication."
Until the recent resurgence of interest in the Nanjing Massacre, the atrocities and their survivors had been largely forgotten. "After the war some of the survivors had clung to the hope that their government would vindicate them by pushing for Japanese reparations and an official apology. This hope, however, was swiftly shattered when the People's Republic of China (PRC), eager to forge an alliance with the Japanese to gain international legitimacy, announced at various times that it had forgiven the Japanese." Despite the fact that "the PRC has never signed a treaty with the Japanese relinquishing its right to seek national reparations for wartime crimes," no such reparations have been sought -- or offered. Overseas Chinese have, however, mounted increasing activist efforts. "The 1990s saw a proliferation of novels, historical books, and newspaper articles about the Rape of Nanking ... The San Francisco school district plans to include the history of the Rape of Nanking in its curriculum, and prints have even been drawn up among Chinese real estate developers to build a Chinese holocaust museum." (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, pp. 223-24.) Chang concludes her book, itself an important contribution to the revival of interest in these ghastly events, with a call for justice, however delayed:
Japan carries not only the legal burden but the moral obligation to acknowledge the evil it perpetrated at Nanjing. At a minimum, the Japanese government needs to issue an official apology to the victims, pay reparations to the people whose lives were destroyed in the rampage, and, most important, educate future generations of Japanese citizens about the true facts of the massacre. These long-overdue steps are crucial for Japan if it expects to deserve respect from the international community -- and to achieve closure on a dark chapter that stained its history. (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, p. 225.)rince Yasuhiko Asaka
Country: Japan, China.
Kill tally: 200,000-350,000 Chinese killed during the 'Rape of Nanking'.
Background: The final collapse of the Chinese Imperial Government at the start of the 20th Century brings a 30-year period of instability to China during which the Guomindang (Nationalist Party), headed by Chiang Kai-shek, battle the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), headed by Mao Tse-Tung, for ultimate control.
Across the East China Sea, Japan becomes progressively more nationalistic and militaristic, seeing in China an opportunity to expand on territory occupied in Manchuria (now Dongbei Pingyuan, north of Korea) and Shandong Province (across the Yellow Sea from Korea) after the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) and during the First World War.
The Japanese military is seeped in the tradition of unquestioning loyalty to the emperor. Commands from superior officers are regarded as equivalent to commands from the emperor himself. Military leaders have direct access to the emperor and the authority to transmit his pronouncements directly to the troops. The emperor is considered divine and the seat of ultimate power.
Mini biography: Born on 2 October 1887 in Kyoto, Japan. He is a member of the Japanese imperial family and uncle-in-law to Emperor Hirohito.
1908 - He graduates from the Japanese military academy and is commissioned into the army as a sub-lieutenant.
1920-23 - He travels to France to further his military studies.
1927-29 - Japanese troops are sent to China to obstruct attempts by the Guomindang to unify the country. In June 1928 officers in the Kwantung (Guandong) Army, the Japanese Army unit stationed in Manchuria, begin an unauthorised campaign to precipitate a war with China. Both the Japanese high command and the Chinese refuse to mobilise.
1930 - Asaka is promoted to the rank of major-general and appointed an instructor at the Japanese military staff college.
1931 - In September conspirators in the Kwantung Army stage the 'Manchurian Incident', blowing up a section of railway track in the south of Manchuria then blaming Chinese saboteurs.
With the Japanese Government powerless to intervene, the Kwantung Army mobilises, taking nearby Mukden (now Shenyang) then, in January 1932, attacking Shanghai, south of their territory in Shandong Province.
A truce is called in March 1932. The Japanese then establish the puppet state of Manchukuo, centred on Manchuria and headed by the last Chinese emperor, Puyi.
1932 - The Japanese military effectively takes control of the Japanese Government in May when the prime minister is assassinated. Manchukuo is formally recognised by the military-controlled regime.
1933 - Asaka is promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general in August. In 1934 he is made commander of the First Imperial Guards.
1936 - Following a military insurrection by Japanese troops in February Asaka presses his nephew-in-law the emperor to appoint a new government that is acceptable to the rebels. The government agrees to increase defence spending and boost naval construction. Japan is arming for war.
In November Japan and Germany sign the 'Anti-Comintern Pact', an agreement to fight the spread of communism. Italy joins a year later.
1937 - The Second Sino-Japanese War breaks out on 7 July following a skirmish between Chinese and Japanese troops outside Beijing. Chinese forces evacuate Beijing on 28 July.
The Japanese overrun Tianjin (100 km southeast of Beijing) on 30 July then attack Shanghai on 13 August.
The Japanese arsenal includes poison gas. Over the coming years the Japanese will use poison gas against the Chinese more than 1,000 times.
After a three-month siege, Shanghai falls and the Guomindang forces withdraw to the northwest towards their capital Nanking (now known as Nanjing). The Japanese pursue.
In November Asaka is made commander of part of the Japanese forces descending on Nanking, under commander-in-chief General Matsui Iwane. On 5 December Asaka reportedly issues a secret order to "kill all captives".
The ground assault on Nanking begins on 10 December after the Chinese troops assigned to defend the city refuse to withdraw. Matsui orders the attack, but when failing health due to tuberculosis incapacitates him, Asaka temporarily assumes full command. When Nanking finally falls on 13 December, just hours after the Chinese forces have fled, the Japanese begin a bloodthirsty massacre that will last for six weeks.
The 'Rape of Nanking' (Nanking Datusha in Chinese) results in the indiscriminate murder of between 200,000-350,000 Chinese civilians and surrendered soldiers. It is the worst single massacre of unarmed troops and civilians in the history of the 20th Century. Only the intervention of a small group of foreign nationals prevents further slaughter.
Matsui enters the city on 17 December and remains for nearly a week but does not stop the carnage. Japanese troops loot and burn the city and surrounding towns, destroying more than a third of the buildings. Chinese captives are tortured, burnt alive, buried alive, decapitated, bayoneted and shot en masse.
Between 20,000 and 80,000 Chinese women and girls of all ages are raped. Thousands are murdered after their ordeal. Thousands more are forced into sexual slavery. It is one of the worst ever recorded single cases of mass rape.
The atrocities set an example that leaves the Chinese population terrorised and passive to further Japanese advances.
1938 - Matsui and Asaka are recalled to Tokyo after the massacre at Nanking but neither is disciplined.
During the year, Emperor Hirohito appoints his uncle-in-law Asaka to the Japanese supreme war council. Asaka remains on the council until 1945. Matsui retires from the army. He ceases to play an active role in Japanese military affairs but is appointed a Cabinet councillor.
1939 - The Japanese attempt to invade Mongolia in May but are badly defeated by combined Soviet-Mongolian forces. Asaka is promoted to the rank of general in August but is never again given a major military command.
Meanwhile, in Europe, German troops invade Poland on 1 September. Britain and France declare war on Germany two days later. The Second World War has begun.
1940 - Japan joins the Axis alliance with Germany and Italy in September, signing the 'Tripartite Pact', an agreement to carve up the world following victory in the Second World War.
In China, the Japanese make Nanking the capital of their Chinese puppet state. On 29 April, Matsui is decorated by the Japanese Government for "meritorious services" in the war with China.
In September Japan takes possession of northern Indochina (Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam). The United States responds by placing a ban on the export of steel, scrap metal and aviation fuel to Japan.
1941 - Japan and the Soviet Union sign the 'Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact' in April, removing the threat to Japan of invasion by the Soviets and allowing the Japanese military to concentrate its war efforts on the southward drive into China and Southeast Asia.
When Japan occupies southern Indochina on 23 July the US and Britain freeze Japanese assets, an action that has the potential to cripple the Japanese armed forces. On 1 December the Japanese Imperial Conference decides to broaden the war to the Pacific.
The Japanese airforce bombs the US naval base at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii on 7 December. The US and Britain respond by declaring war on Japan.
The Japanese follow-up the bombing of Pearl Harbour with swift invasions of Southeast Asian countries and Pacific islands. By May 1942 they control Hong Kong, Kiribati, Guam and Wake Island, Burma, Malaya, Singapore, Borneo, Indonesia, the Philippines and the north of New Guinea.
1942 - The first setback for the Japanese comes on 7-8 May at the Battle of the Coral Sea. On 4-5 June the Japanese fleet is forced to withdraw at the Battle of Midway or risk destruction. By February 1943 the Japanese have been driven out of Guadalcanal at the southern end of the Solomon Islands.
1944 - The Battle of the Philippine Sea on 19-20 June confirms US naval superiority in the Pacific and seals Japan's fate. With the capture of Saipan, Tinian and Guam the US comes close enough to Japan to permit long-range aerial bombing raids on the Japanese mainland.
1945 - Beginning in February extensive firebombing raids will be conducted over Japan, concentrating on the capital Tokyo and the cities of Nagoya, Osaka, and Kobe. The raids result in the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. The most devastating raid occurs over Tokyo on the night of 9-10 March. About 100,000 people are killed, around one million are left homeless, and almost half the city is burnt to the ground.
In June the Japanese determine to fight to the finish. Their plan for a last-stand battle against a US-led invasion is called 'Ketsu Go' (Operation Decisive). Japanese troops are massed in the south of Kyushu Island, where the invasion forces are expected to land.
Japanese preparations for an all-out fight continue until the US drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August respectively, killing about 120,000 people outright and fatally injuring over 100,000 more.
Japanese Emperor Hirohito surrenders unconditionally on 14 August, ending both the Second World War and the Second Sino-Japanese War.
Japan is occupied by Allied military forces. The Japanese Army and navy ministries are abolished, arms and military equipment are destroyed and war industries are retooled for civilian output. Japan pledges to never go to war again and surrenders its colonial holdings, including China.
Over 60 million people have died during the Second World War, including over 11 million Chinese and nearly two million Japanese. The Second Sino-Japanese War has claimed between 30 and 35 million Chinese.
Following the defeat of the Japanese, civil war between the Guomindang and CCP resumes in China. Mao's communists take Beijing without a fight in January 1949 and control the entire country by the end of the year. Chiang Kai-shek and his troops flee to the island of Taiwan and proclaim Taipei as the temporary capital of China.
1946 - At war crime trials held in Tokyo from May 1946 until November 1948, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East convicts over 4,000 Japanese officials and military personnel. Of the 28 "class-A" defendants brought to trial only two, Matsui and Hirota Koki (the Japanese foreign minister at the time of the Rape of Nanking), are convicted for the Nanking atrocities. Both are sentenced to death and executed.
On 1 May Asaka is interrogated about his involvement, but as a member of the royal family is granted immunity.
War crime trials are also held in Nanking, although only four Japanese Army officers, including Tani Hisao, a lieutenant-general who personally participated in acts of murder and rape, are tried for crimes relating to the Nanking massacre. All four are sentenced to death and executed.
1947 - Asaka and his family become commoners on 14 October.
1951 - Asaka is baptised a Catholic on 18 December. He fills his time playing and promoting golf.
1981 - He dies of natural causes at his home in Atami, on the Izu Peninsula south of Tokyo, on 13 April. He is 93 years old.
Postscript
Japan continues to downplay or deny the crimes against humanity committed by its military during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Second World War.
A new secondary school history textbooks released by Japan's Ministry of Education at the start of 2005 describes the massacre at Nanking as an "incident" with relatively few causalities. The invasion of China is called an "advancement". References to the mass rape and sexual enslavement of women and girls are not included.
The release of the revised textbook inflames underlying tension between China and Japan. Demonstrators mob Japanese government buildings and businesses within China, calling on Japan to admit to and apologise for its war crimes.
In August 2006 a Chinese court orders two Japanese historians to pay damages of US$210,000 to a survivor of the massacre after they accuse her of fabricating evidence. The ruling, which carries no weight in Japan, is largely symbolic.
Meanwhile, a spate of movies about the Nanking massacre go into production.
A film by German director Florian Gallenberge is to focus on John Rabe. 'The Children of Huang Shi' by director Roger Spottiswoode will follow the experiences of a British journalist caught in the conflict. It is reported that US director Oliver Stone is developing a script for a film about Nanking.
Chinese director Lu Chuan is making 'Nanking Nanking'. Hong Kong-based director Yim Ho is filming 'Nanking Xmas 1937'.
'Nanking', a US-made documentary on the massacre and the efforts of Westerners like Rabe to save the victims, screens in China in mid-2007. A documentary about Iris Chang, the author of 'The Rape of Nanking', is made by a Canadian team.
At the end of July a Chinese, US and British co-production feature-film, 'Purple Mountain', begins shooting in China.
Japanese officials, however, continue to question the extent of the massacre. In June 2007 about 100 parliamentarians from Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party publicly state that documents from the Japanese Government archive indicate that only about 20,000 people were killed.
Comment: Sure, the evidence against Asaka is pretty flimsy and it would be a mistake to hold him completely responsible for what happened in Nanking at the end of 1937 and the start of the new year. Matsui is equally or more culpable, although it is also hard to apportion total blame.
The events of the Rape of Nanking appear to a large degree to have been spontaneous and self-perpetuating; a rolling, uncontrollable and hysterical killing spree under an imperial seal. Something like the massacres that occurred in Rwanda in 1994.
Asaka is a symbol of the culture that spawned the terrible events at Nanking and elsewhere in Asia and the Pacific during the 1930s and 40s - the dangerous convergence of the imperial and the military. That Japan remains reluctant to admit the wrongs of the past and apologise diminishes its claim to have been the last victim of the Second World War.
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