[Tri-ring]

Originally Posted by Lathdrinor

It's difficult to generate POW death rates for a country whose soldiers fought to the death because of their military code (the US mostly engaged Japan near the end of the war, when it was island hopping and Japan was on the defensive & employing fight-to-the-death tactics).

Nonetheless, if you look at the Allied numbers for other POWs, you'll notice that it's nowhere close to being as high as the Japanese numbers were for POWs. The Soviet Red Army, which was brutal in its own right, had only a 10% death rate for Japanese POWs. The Japanese had a 99% kill rate for Chinese POWs and a 27% for Western Allied POWs (36% for US POWs). That's horrendous compared to the Allied powers.

So now it was the fault of Japan's policy that made it impossible to generate a figure.
Get your head out of the proverbial sand of denial and read your own link.
The US enlisted men simply DIDN'T take Japanese POWs.
Haven't you heard of the words "Take no Prisoners" that is exactly what most US servce men did on the battle field.

Here is an excerpt from the link;

Fergusson suggests that "it was not only the fear of disciplinary action or of dishonor that deterred German and Japanese soldiers from surrendering. More important for most soldiers was the perception that prisoners would be killed by the enemy anyway, and so one might as well fight on."

Also another point to mention is that Japanese POW by the Soviets were all captured AFTER the war since Japan had a Non-aggression pack with the Russian and the Russian only entered the Eastern front after the bombing of Hiroshima.

Originally Posted by Lathdrinor

How did Japan annex Korea? By Korean consent? By a referendum vote in which Koreans decided that they would like to join Japan? By the fact that Korea was a part of Japan to begin with?

No, it was by occupation of the Korean capital, assassination of Korean leaders, and coercion of Korean politicians by threat of force. Now, don't get me wrong - at the time such annexations were often tolerated because the European empires were doing the same things, but by modern interpretations, it was a treaty produced by coercion and therefore null and void.

Read Korean history before annexation, the Chosen kingdom was a vassal state of the Qing Dynasty China and court assassination was the norm. The so called murder of their princess by Japanese troops is highly doubtful since there were no pictures of the princess at the time so the Japanese troops that went in would not have been able to identify her even if they wanted to kill her.
Annexation of Korea was war booty first winning against Qing and later asserted by winning against the Russians.
Japan also subrogated debts to foreign nations made by the Chosen Kingdom.
Cultural genocide is again highly doubtful unless you are talking about shermanism by introducing science. Fact is majority of the Korean Populous wasn't even able to use their own invented hangul letters.

Originally Posted by Lathdrinor

History is written by the victors, and corrected by the victims. I'll go with the victims' interpretation of this era, and not the victimizers', thanks.

which makes your opinion biased and pitifully meaningless.
Victims will stretch(blur) the truth while suspects will hide it.
There are things like perjury and I believe that in Korea, people's assets can still be confiscated when found guilt of collaborating with the Japanese so natually most people will not speak fondly.

Originally Posted by Lathdrinor

Incorrect. Anti-Jewish sentiment was deeply seated and came from a combination of economic, political, and religious factors. Before Hitler ordered the Final Solution, the Jews were blamed for MANY things - lack of patriotism, collaboration with Germany's enemies, defiling of German politics, erosion of German culture, plotting against Germany, etc. etc. etc. This is nothing new - anti-Jewish sentiment (anti-semitism) is widespread in Europe due to the Jews' disproportionate control of Europe's finances and their general "outsider" status.

But the Nazis took it to the extremes because they genuinely believed that the Jews were working against Germany and turning Europe against them. Here's Goebbels' last anti-semitic essay, as an example: http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goeb64.htm

So are you making a sweeping generalization that Jews were bad?
In any case, Japan did not have anything against the ethnic Chinese in terms of racism nor did Japan had any lavish scheme to cleanse the ethnic Chinese.
Just tried to subdue the resistance through ethnic choice.(Generalization and a bad choice I know but nevertheless those are the fact)

Originally Posted by Lathdrinor

I didn't say all 20 million were killed by the Japanese. About 6-7 million died as the direct result of Japanese military actions and war atrocities. Another 5-6 million died as a result of how the KMT ran the war effort. Famine during the time (caused by the war) killed another 2-3 million. If you want to believe that the figures were lower (ie 10 million), then simply scale those numbers. So it's 3-3.5 million as a result of Japan, 3 million as a result of the KMT, etc.

You'll still generate evidence and I really do not trust some so called historians since most of them also states that the figures for massacre of Nanking is also legitimate when then can't even create a working hypothysis concerning logistics of how Japan obtained enough supply to kill 300,000 people in such a short time.
There is a fact very little known but if the Nanking massacre was true then Japan was more efficient in killing people then the gas chambers in Auschwitz.　

Originally Posted by Lathdrinor

You need to understand the effect of Japan's invasion of China. China's agricultural economy, which sustained the lives of its 400 million citizens (around the time of war), was devastated by the war. What gains were made during the Republican period was destroyed by sustained Japanese offensives and bombings. The result was widespread famine, disease, and anarchy. Collateral damage, combined with numerous documented massacres, combined with forced labor under abhorrent conditions, combined with the effects of disease and famine, caused the large number of deaths.

And you are ignoring the fact that the warlord era decimated China before Japan came into the picture so again quite the sweeping generalization that Japan was the cause of all evil.

Originally Posted by Lathdrinor

And where are your facts? If you're going to dismiss all the numbers as Allies propaganda, you had better have some pretty damn good evidence. Otherwise, it's just right-winger talk.

So again if I am a right winger I wonder where does it place you in with your opinions?