Theodore H. White reported on the KMT-caused famine in Henan (1943). That was 2.5 million dead right there. He also provided photos…corpses next to trees with the bark gnawed off.
Thanks for the info, Uncle Joe! All I had was vague notions from childhood, Life magazine pictures of people about to be beheaded, etc. So it was slim pickin’s on google for me.
Speaking of my lack of research skills (see, mods, it all ties in), I tried to figure out how you could have Pearl beer shipped to you by ordering online, and I couldn’t find anything. I think I found sites where you could order beer online, but it was mostly microbrewery stuff. There was a site for a big outlet of some kind in California, but they didn’t ship outside California!
I think it is great that Japan is using their cultural and historical links to look out for Taiwan from the imperialist Chinese. The Rape of Nanjing is not the only bad thing to happen in the world. What about the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide and most of all 228. All these atrocities pale in comparison to Iris Chang’s michael mooreesque “historical accounts”.
China today is what Nazi Germany was in WW2 while Japan is becoming what the US still and was during WW2. We should be grateful that Japan has finally decided to help their former bretheren. After all, their colonial era left many priceless and positive legacies in our Taiwanese Republic.
The Japanese enjoy more civil Liberty, are on average more affluent and Japan DOES NOT point guns at Taiwan. I don’t see why you feel so strongly against them. Of course, they’ve colonized Taiwan for 50 years, but so have the Dutch/Spanish and Chinese so I don’t think claiming to be Japanese is any more ridiculous than claiming to be Chinese or Dutch/Spanish.
That’s a good question. I guess if I could accurately answer questions like that, I’d be a rich guy. 
In 1999-2000 and in 2003, Japan had the third largest military budget in the world, according to the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress (which claimed to be using data from the US State Dept. and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (in London)). Please see Jeffrey Chamberlin, “Comparisons of US and Foreign Military Spending: Data from Selected Public Sources,” January 28, 2004, page 8, at fas.org/man/crs/RL32209.pdf
According to the National Bureau of Asia Research, Japan had the third largest military in Asia in 2000 in terms of personnel (235,000; for some reason, North Korea’s very large army was excluded from the rankings, which would make Japan fourth). Please see “Strategic Asia by the Numbers,” at strategicasia.nbr.org/Report/pdf … ?ID=19&f=1
Additionally, Japan seems to have undergone somewhat of a change in attitude toward military matters. Please see globalsecurity.org/wmd/libra … 7bed44.htm
In my opinion, it’s not a question of whether the Japanese could step in militarily to help defend Taiwan; I think they could, although I don’t know if they’d ultimately be successful if something were to happen right now.
So maybe it should be a three-part question: (1) will Japan fully re-arm itself, that is, to such an extent that China and North Korea have a full measure of respect for its potential to fight; (2) if so, will it do so in time to do Taiwan any real good; and (3) if so, will it help Taiwan if the occasion arises?
That’s good to know.
Here is a link to support the idea that the Japanese are getting ready for a showdown:
My Countrymen,
It is true that it is in Japan’s interests to defend Taiwan. However, when choosing between 1 billion consumers to 24 million, I don’t think the Japanese would really try to anger Mainland China. It is my fear that they will do nothing, and at best they will send nominal “peacekeeping” forces. But as I said before, we must prepare to defend ourselves alone. We cannot count on Japan or the US because both nations don’t even recognize Taiwan.
–The Defender Duke
明仁天皇萬歲! 萬歲! 萬萬歲!
I live in Okinawa. There are 73000 Americans here, incl. about 37000 active duty personnel and many more employed in peripheral industries. The Japanese naval base is miniscule. // Keep in mind that whenever you read statisitics about Japan’s military, it is really hard to tell if what you are reading pertains to American bases in Japan or purely Japanese bases. The Japanese gov. funds, by and large, the US bases here. If American comes to Taiwan’s aid, so will Japan, as it will be in their best interest to secure the straight asap. Japan simply cannot go to war with China w/o US assistance. I can’t imagine them jumping in with China while the US forces stay on base.