Forgotten and sometimes outright denial of the Nanking massacre is the current stance for the culprit of the massacre. This leads to the second intention for her book. Iris Chang wants to clearly point out the role Japan played in the Nanking massacre without biasness, so Japan will finally confess to its sins. Hence, Iris Chang has written the book to record the Nanking massacre and to spur reconciliation from the current Japanese government.
Iris Chang raises many interesting and controversial points in writing her book. There are far too many to mention all, but there are a few worth mentioning. Iris Chang argues that Japan sought war with China, that Japan was pre-determined and/or pre-trained to do such atrocities in China, that General Matsui Iwane was used as a scapegoat, and that America and Japan tried to cover up the incident from the public. These four points were the highlights of the six weeks of terror Japanese soldiers inflicted on the Chinese.
Many ultranationalistic Japanese believe they entered the war with China out of necessity for their survival. This is not the same view the author has. The war between China and Japan was unavoidable in the author's view because of Japanese willingness and persistence to make war with China. China was the key to Japan's ever growing ultranationalistic view as the dominant ruler of Asia. Japan sought to occupy all of China in the early 20th Century. During this time, China also was reinvigorating itself as a country. The author points out that Japan noticing China's growing strength realizes this is the time to takeover China, before China becomes too strong to conquer. Iris Chang points to three incidents, all initiated by the Japanese, which led to the war between China and Japan. The first incident was the planned assassination of a Manchurian warlord, who refused to cooperate with the Japanese. This served to infuriate the Chinese and caused further tension in Sino-Japanese relations.
