“I want the Rape of Nanking to penetrate the public consciousness. Unless we truly understand how these atrocities can happen, we can't be certain that it won't happen again." - Iris Chang

Rape is a dirty word and the ‘Rape of Nanking’ was super-sensory. The events of December 1937, where Japanese troops are said to have ravaged more than 20,000 women in eight weeks has never been met by an official apology from Japanese politicians, nor has there been any real closure on this contentious issue. As December 2007 came and went, the cacophony of protest that usually eminates from China was strangely missing - even more so considering it was the 70th anniversary of the Nanking massacre.

The “Rape of Nanking” had become a political football. Japanese Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda was in China improving relations and the Chinese were busy welcoming him, as they should have been expected to.

In December 1937, the Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking. Within eight weeks, more than 300,000 Chinese civilians were systematically raped, tortured, and murdered, a death toll exceeding that some say exceeded the atomic blasts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Even 60-year-old women were raped. If a woman wasn't singlehandedly raped by one soldier, there were groups of soldiers who would often take turns. That was not all. Entire families or groups of people were locked inside a single house and burned to death.

In a shocking brief that is as much an intellectual artifact as a work of scholarship; Japanese historian Yuki Tanaka challenges the idea of Japan as a victim in WWII. And with good reason. Widespread cannibalism by Japanese troops in New Guinea, the shooting of 21 Australian nurses in cold blood and the sexual enslavement of Asian women for the pleasure of Japanese fighting men. Not to mention, the premeditated murders of 32 civilians, including German missionaries, in 1943; Japanese plans for bacteriological warfare; and the use of prisoners as medical guinea pigs – all of these filled up the charge sheet at the Tokyo War Crimes Trial.

But the Nanking is not about the events of 1937 anymore - Fukuda’s visit was a case in point. It has become a national call to patriotism, and its continued denial by China’s ‘enemies’ ensures that closure will not come easily. For example, mention of the ‘Rape of Nanking’ has disappeared from Taiwan's revised history textbooks. One textbook has omitted mention altogether, while the textbooks from four other publishing houses only make a brief reference to it. Japan has of course been notoriously lackadaisical about Nanking. China witnessed rare street protests in 2005, probably officially sanctioned, after Japan approved an avowedly nationalist history textbook that made only a passing reference to Nanking.

China estimates the total death toll at about 300,000. Some Japanese have even denied the Nanking massacre took place and other Japanese rightists plan to produce a documentary to deny it happened. Allied trials of Japanese war criminals document 140,000 dead. Other Japanese historians say the toll was less or deny the massacre altogether and alleged that victims were soldiers and not civilians. The advent of the Cold War led to a concerted effort on the part of the West and even the Chinese to stifle open discussion of this atrocity. Indeed, Iris Chang characterised this conspiracy of silence that persists to this day, as "a second rape."

The historiography of Nanking is particularly revealing in regard to the treatment of the subject. The use of documentaries to invoke different interpretations of history has become common-place. In 1998, a film featuring the life of wartime leader Gen. Hideki Tojo -- which critics said tried to glorify Japan's wartime role -- was released simultaneously with the Hong Kong film ‘Don't Cry, Nanking’, which portrayed the sufferings of a Chinese family in Nanking during the 1930s.

2007 saw the release of at least seven films on the Nanking massacre. Chinese producers delivered ‘The Rape of Nanking’ (based on Chang's book), which was completed last year. In a predictable counteroffensive, a group of Japanese nationalists in late January announced plans to make their own, Nanking-denialist feature, ‘The Truth About Nanjing’.

And then there is the American version: "Nanking," a documentary (with dramatic readings by Woody Harrelson and Mariel Hemingway) which debuted at Sundance in January this year. It focused on 22 European and American expatriates who stayed behind in the Japanese-occupied city, using their precarious influence to establish a “safe zone” that protected some 200,000 grateful Chinese residents.

Some rationalists offer that Japan has apologised numerous times for its WWII atrocities and paid reparations through developmental assistance. What’s more, they say, if America has forgiven Japan even after Bataan, and the Philippines have forgiven Japan even after the rape of Manila, why can’t the Japanese be forgiven for Nanking? An apology was offered by Japan to China in 1995, and some comfort women have won cases in Japan. But the omnipresent issue is the textbook controversy - and it is not too far fetched to suggest that Japan has slowly but surely developed the counter-measure to China’s “Nanking card” that seeks to keep Japan on the international back-foot.

More awareness of this historical genocide in the proper context must be promoted, and as is always hoped with visits of state leaders, that each visit could represent a turning point - if not Fukuda’s, perhaps Hu Jintao’s scheduled visit to Japan later this year. Cross-border educational exchange programs for Chinese and Japanese students could encourage friendship and cultural sensitivity and lay the groundwork for achieving a better understanding among nations in future generations.

The rape of Nanking is for the whole world to remember. For Japan, the reasons are obvious: that they may acknowledge their past. For the Chinese, it is for not so obvious reasons: that they may learn to understand and forgive and put the episode behind them, rather than hang on to its ghosts, under the cloud of realpolitik.

A longer version of this essay won the ‘writers of essays of distinction” award at Iris Chang Memorial Fund competition.