Classification
With the introduction of Shinto into Japanese law after the Meiji Restoration, the Japanese see themselves the holy conquerors of all of Asia because they were the origin of all people and culture. They are the fathers and everyone else are the children that need controlling and protecting (Stanlaw).
The man who started it all: Emperor Meiji
Symbolization
Chankoro and Shina are both racial slurs that were used by the Japanese for the Chinese (Racial Slur Database). The sun depicted on the Nationalist Chinese flag is shown to be engulfed by the Rising Sun of the Japanese.
The "Rising Sun" flag used by Japan during WWII
The Chinese Nationalist flag used by Chaing Kai-shek
Discrimination
After Japan is signed over the rights of Manchuria, the Japanese sets up a puppet government, Manchoukuo, to secretly rule over the Chinese people and controlling their every action, and this presence slowly grows to consume the rest of China as it's displaced by a civil war (Schoppa).
A rare, Japanese propaganda piece that was written in English to hide the awful conditions in Manchoukuo.
Dehumanization
The Chinese are inhuman in the eyes of Japanese citizens due to Shinto's belief that the Japanese are a chosen, holy people while all others are beneath them. Japanese children are taught in school that Japan was created to take over East Asia and that the Chinese were inherently weak and un-Japanese. Schools were conducted more like army boot camps where children practiced fighting with wooden guns (Chang).
Tokyo primary school children marching on Empire Day (Feb. 11) outside of the Emperor's Palace
Organization
Troops led by General Matsui Iwane leave a path of destruction as the make their way from Manchokuo to the Nationalist capitol of China, Nanjing, burning, pillaging, and holding "killing contests" in villages along the way. Finally, they wait just outside the walls of Nanjing on the orders of the government and Matsui as they prepare for the untrained group of Chinese militia to surrender ("Nanjing Massacre").
Second lieutenant Noda in the Katagiri Regiment's Toyama Battalion after participating in the Killing Contest
Polarization
Though there are no official hate groups that fought against the Chinese, there are multiple bloodthirsty groups of Japanese soldiers in varying sizes within the already vicious military government who have more extreme anti-Sino ideas (like second lieutenant Noda). The militarist government uses its puppet government to restrict the rights of the Chinese and prevent them from fleeing the country along with purposefully increasing tensions between Nationalists and Communists, fueling their civil war (Schoppa).
As Chinese soldiers flee from Japanese troops, they end up dropping weapons and gear to aid their escape. The Japanese would later use this in their propaganda to depict the Nationalist government as weak and cowardly.
Preparation
Instead of attempting to propose the idea of a genocide to the public, the Japanese government largely prevents the public from finding out that it was happening in the first place with their strong grip on the media. Since the Japanese train their people to see Chinese as less than human and unholy, soldiers are given the go-ahead to kill as many Chinese as they please. Soldiers in China are given full funding, including a supply of weapons, food, and other essentials, from their home government (Chang).
Japanese soldiers passing over a pontoon bridge in China
Persecution
Chinese men in Nanjing and elsewhere are sought out and removed from the city to be systematically tortured and executed for even being suspected of being a soldier. In reality, Chaing Kai-shek ordered the removal of all troops in the city, leaving it defenseless, and the only people who remained were women, children, and any able-bodied male who could fight in a militia (though the majority of them were untrained) ("Nanjing Massacre"). Thousands of women who weren't raped and killed travel with the Japanese soldiers to be used as "comfort women", otherwise known as sex slaves. Any women who were pregnant were given botched abortions or had their babies killed upon birth, and women who became unruly, contracted a venereal disease, or deemed "useless" were brutally mutilated and killed before being unceremoniously tossed into the sea ("Rape and Abuse of Chinese..."). All other Chinese who didn't fall into these groups were terrorized as soldiers rampaged through the countryside.
A Japanese soldier with some pregnant Korean and Chinese "comfort women"
Extermination
On 7 December 1937, the Japanese flood the city of Nanjing and easily overpower the untrained militia with boys as young as 10 serving as soldiers on the orders of General Matsui. An estimated 20,000 women ages seven to the elderly were taken from their homes to be gang-raped during the three month occupation. Additionally, more than 300,000 Chinese were killed during the Massacre, and most of whom were suspected soldiers forced to participate in "death games", target practice, or simply toyed with before execution in mass quantities. Acts like this on a smaller scale occur all throughout China as World War II rages on (Chang).
Persons executed by the Japanese soldiers in various parts of the grounds of Ku Ling Temple, Nanking, after the fall of the city, December 12, 1937
Denial
Japan often denied any involvement in the slaughtering that happened in China, and they often said that any damages suffered by the Chinese was a propaganda plot meant to make the Chinese look like the victim when it was really Japan (especially after Hiroshima and Nagasaki). It took the Japanese government decades to acknowledge what they had done in World War II as a genocide, but they still try to soften the blow to the population by editing textbooks to brief mentions of the attacks and reducing the number of victims killed (Chang).