Book launchTuesday 24 February 2015
6:00pm – 7:00pm
Men to Devils, Devils to Men: Japanese War Crimes and Chinese Justice
Drinks reception from 7:00pm
13/14 Cornwall Terrace, London NW1 4QP
Organised by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation
By Barak Kushner
Published by Harvard University Press
The Japanese Army committed numerous atrocities during its pitiless campaigns in China from 1931 to 1945. When the Chinese emerged victorious with the Allies at the end of World War II, many seemed ready to exact retribution for these crimes. Rather than resort to violence, however, they chose to deal with their former enemy through legal and diplomatic means. Focusing on the trials of, and policies toward, Japanese war criminals in the post-war period, Men to Devils, Devils to Men analyses the complex political manoeuvring between China and Japan that shaped East Asian realpolitik during the Cold War.
Dr Barak Kushner examines how factions of Nationalists and Communists within China structured the war crimes trials in ways meant to strengthen their competing claims to political rule. On the international stage, both China and Japan propagandised the tribunals, promoting or blocking them for their own advantage. Both nations vied to prove their justness to the world: competing groups in China by emphasising their magnanimous policy toward the Japanese; Japan by openly cooperating with post-war democratisation initiatives. At home, however, Japan allowed the legitimacy of the war crimes trials to be questioned in intense debates that became a formidable force in post-war Japanese politics.
In uncovering the different ways the pursuit of justice for Japanese war crimes influenced Sino–Japanese relations in the post-war years, Men to Devils, Devils to Men reveals a Cold War dynamic that still troubles East Asian relations today.
About the contributors
Dr Barak Kushner
Dr Barak Kushner teaches modern Japanese history in the Faculty of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge. He has written numerous articles and books, including: Slurp! A Social and Culinary Historyof Ramen – Japan’s Favorite Noodle Soup (Brill, 2012); and The Thought War – Japanese Imperial Propaganda (Hawaii, 2006). Men to Devils, Devils to Men: Japanese War Crimes and Chinese Justice is his latest book, published by Harvard University Press in 2015. He recently launched a 5-year European Research Council funded project called The Dissolution of the Japanese Empire and the Struggle for Legitimacy in Post-war East Asia, 1945–1965.