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Causes

The Nanjing Massacre's occurrence and nature were influenced by several factors. These included the dehumanization of Japanese soldiers by their commanders and the challenging combat environment in China. Also, the Japanese population was taught militaristic and racist ideologies. The Japanese government's fascist doctrine further propagated the belief in Japanese superiority over all other peoples.

The Nanjing Massacre happened during Japan's invasion of China. The extreme cruelty witnessed in Nanjing, including extensive killing, torture, sexual violence, and looting, was not an isolated occurrence, but rather a reflection of Japan's behavior throughout the war in China. This violence cannot be separated from the underlying contempt for other Asians that was deeply ingrained in Japanese society before the war. To demonstrate the profound effects of ethnic prejudice, Japanese author Tsuda Michio gives an example:

During the war in south China, a Japanese sergeant who had raped and killed numerous Chinese women became 'impotent' as soon as he found out to his shock that one of his victims was actually a Japanese woman who had married a Chinese man and emigrated to China.

Shiro Azuma, a former Japanese soldier, testified in a 1998 interview:

When I tried to cut off the first one, either the farmer moved or I mis-aimed. I ended up slicing off just part of his skull. Blood spurted upwards. I swung again... and this time I killed him... We were taught that we were a superior race since we lived only for the sake of a human god—our emperor. But the Chinese were not. So we held nothing but contempt for them... There were many rapes, and the women were always killed. When they were being raped, the women were human. But once the rape was finished, they became pig's flesh.

Jonathan Spence, a British-American sinologist and historian, wrote:

here is no obvious explanation for this grim event, nor can one be found. The Japanese soldiers, who had expected easy victory, instead had been fighting hard for months and had taken infinitely higher casualties than anticipated. They were bored, angry, frustrated, tired. The Chinese women were undefended, their menfolk powerless or absent. The war, still undeclared, had no clear-cut goal or purpose. Perhaps all Chinese, regardless of sex or age, seemed marked out as victims.

Jennifer M. Dixon, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Villanova University, stated:

In addition, the Battle of Shanghai which preceded the capture of Nanjing, was more difficult and prolonged than the Japanese side had anticipated, which contributed to a desire among Japanese officers and soldiers to exact revenge on the Chinese.

Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe, who presided over the Second Sino-Japanese War, justified the massacre as retaliation against persistent Kuomintang aggression, and advocated for the regime's destruction in January 1938. Prior to the fall of Nanjing, Konoe rejected Chiang Kai-Shek's offer of negotiation through a German ambassador.