World History: Europe, Asia, and NA

[Rorschach]

Not that I want to relive learning the atrocities that the Japanese inflicted on the Chinese in WW2, but why did they act so horribly to them in the first place? Was there some problem stemming from a historical conflict or something? Or was it the Japanese just acting like a pack of pricks?

 

[smalls]

japanese soldiers were basically set loose and told anything goes. other neighbors also suffered from mass killings and in some cases they even massacred japanese civilians. the simple answer is the chinese suffered the brunt of japanese atrocities because they were the closest country to them and japan was looking to expand their empire. there was a history of a few wars and conflicts between china and japan but nothing really to justify what happened.

 

[Raesvelg]

Not that I want to relive learning the atrocities that the Japanese inflicted on the Chinese in WW2, but why did they act so horribly to them in the first place? Was there some problem stemming from a historical conflict or something? Or was it the Japanese just acting like a pack of pricks?

It's something of the fundamental problem of a culture which views all outsiders as just short of sub-human at best.

The easy quote I used in high school was: "The Nazis were trying to create the master race; The Japanese believed themselves to already be the master race."

Part of it was cultural baggage when the people you're conquering don't act to the standards you would expect from someone of your own culture, part of it was just plain old racism, but the Japanese were fucking horrid to the people they took control of.