Radio War Nerd EP113—Rape of Nanking

Guest: Carl Zha, podcast host On the 80th anniversary of the Japanese military's Rape of Nanking, we talk to Chongqing-born history buff & show guest Carl Zha about the events leading up to one of the worst massacres in history—when Japanese forces murdered some 350,000 Chinese and raped between 20,000 - 80,000 Chinese women in a span of just over a month. We discuss the little-known Battle of Shanghai shortly before the Nanking massacre, when Chinese forces shocked Japanese troops with their tenacity, as well as the politics in Imperial Japan and warlord-torn China in the 1930s. We also talk about memory and politics — and the the vicious American academia hostility towards Iris Chang, the Chinese-American writer who popularized the Rape of Nanking, which they never forgave her for even after her suicide in 2004. Check out Carl Zha's podcast CLASH! Maps: * Japan's war on China, 1930s * Japanese advance from Shanghai to Nanking, late 1937 * Nanking massacre sites