Talk:Port Arthur massacre (China)

Weasel Words
This section in particular:

"The dichotomy of the accounts is illustrative not simply of how American rivalries to sell newspapers boiled over into reporting, but of divergent Western views of the period regarding Japan. While some viewed Japan as the "Civilizer of Asia" or "Britain of the East", others saw in her the "Yellow Peril" that threatened to overrun Asia. The fact that at the time of the war Japan was in the process of renegotiating the unequal treaties forced upon her by Western powers in the 1850s and 1860s lent further impetus to attempts to both elevate and denigrate her in the foreign press."

Frederic Villiers' introduction to his account certainly does not support such an allegation; he takes pains to say that the Japanese he traveled with were hospitable. Quite simply, this section needs a reference, preferably one directly related to reporting on the Port Arthur Massacre. --Edwin Herdman 03:31, 10 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Edwin. I am not sure what allegation you are referring to here. It is simply stating that there were widely different views of Japan and its behavior at Port Arthur. Reading the account of Villiers, he does indeed offer some praise to the Japanese, but it comes off as only a dramatic segue: i.e. so much more the shock when the cold blooded butchery took place! He talks of Japan as being childlike, taken to bloody tantrums, when at the same time it is taken as the Light of Asia. He writes, “But the Japanese are yet young in the ways of civilization and on occassion can be exceedingly cruel; but like most children they are very sensitive about being found out...”(Villiers, 326). Later on he provides another anecdote of how in Port Arthur, in the midst of the bloodletting, he distracted some Japanese soldiers with some insignia so that, “like children, their attention had been diverted by a new toy” (Villiers, 329). Thus did this representative of true civilization divert at least a small portion of this ongoing massacre. The subtext in all this is clear, but then you have to consider the place and period. Taken as a product of his time, I would say Villiers lands in the camp of: Japan is coming along but still has a way to go before it can join the real civilized nations. In any case, it is not the place here to offer personal interpretations of the accounts but to look at secondary sources. Numerous articles on the massacre and its reporting in the western press talk of the issue of unqueal treaty revision and the role that played in the reporting. This in turn dovetailed with press rivalires. In fact, Villiers himself says in his account that the rivalries among the western press contributed to the different accounts. (Villiers, 326).Straitgate 08:24, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Port Arthur massacre was not to have actually happened
It is thought that this event is a false report and is not true among the history researchers in Japan. China is using it for propaganda（Patriotism and education on anti-day） though it knows it to be a false report. Port Arthur massacre is not described in an official history book on Japan at all.--202.157.19.146 04:44, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
 * In Australia, you should be able to find many references to the historical fact of this atrocity.50.111.45.222 (talk) 12:43, 21 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Of course it would not appear in any Japanese History book. They are still denying any and all atrocities from wars they participated in from this conflict thru World War II. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.132.15.200 (talk) 13:31, 11 April 2009 (UTC)


 * 日本人の旅順大虐殺で記述（中國語）Our lovely Japers, here's an webpage for you to study if you want. Hope you go on writing your own history book as your pleases, and let your future generation do the same things on Asian countries again and again.--219.143.204.254 (talk) 11:56, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

60 000 dead?
60 000 dead? this event HAS happen, but the numbers on the deads is not high after a many books as "The encyclopedia of Ninteenth-century land Warfare" by Farwell. The american correspondent James Creelman witnessed the massacre and reported: "They killed evertything they saw"- he estimated the numbers on some 2000 ( perhaps 3000 ) deads on the chinese civilians. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.164.175.151 (talk) 17:45, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Dispute
Proof of Port Arthur is overwhelming, however the dispute mainly happens on the intensity casualty. The fact that military is hard to distinguish from civilians contribute mainly to the inaccuract on estimation of the numbers. The fact that some Japanese history books excluded some historical facts has caused some one sided slant over the situation. Also that the Chinese records sometimes lack accuracy could have caused the dispute. None the less, such events did happen, as many records do indicate that. We can't just take into account of only one source such as only Japanese opinion, and dismiss Chinese record as propaganda.

--metastat 04:43,21 November 2008 (UTC)

Quoting from Allan's Under the Dragon Flag
I take issue with the extended treatment of the massacre from the "eyewitness" Allan (namely by quoting his book). There is not a shred of proof that Allan was ever at Port Arthur. None of the foreign correspondents or military observers cites his presence in the fallen city. His book was believed at the time of its publication to be spurious, probably based on newspaper reports he'd read.

This is from the review of the North China Herald (which would seem to have no reason to denigrate something so critical of the Japanese) of Allan's book:

"Under the Dragon Flag is very nicely printed, and bound in green cloth with the dragon flag on the cover ; but there are so many inaccuracies and impossibilities in the account, that the author is certainly not relating what he actually saw. His dates do not tally with the facts, which he may perhaps say is so much the worse for the facts ; and when he tells us, as he does on page 30, that from an elevated point on the rocky coast of "the Liaotung" he had, with the aid of powerful glasses, a good view of the battle of the Yalu, he presumes too much on our credulity..." etc. etc. (May 16, 1898)

As far as what did occur, there are other more reputable sources to quote from.

Straitgate (talk) 16:26, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

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Article appears to contradict itself
The line The Shin Chōya [ja] accused Westerners of exaggerating the extent of the atrocities, and of hypocrisy in light of the atrocities they had committed throughout the East strongly implies that in fact westerners were not exaggerating the extent of the atrocities, but the previous section quite strongly implies that indeed Creelman did dramatically exaggerate the death toll. And (while it's not an internal contradiction) it is definitely true that westerners in 1894 were hypocritical in attacking Japan while overlooking the crimes of their own countries (see, for example, the discussion of the matter in Keene's Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World), while our article implies this accusation of hypocrisy was only false Japanese propaganda. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 11:53, 12 November 2020 (UTC)