| > And? You realize that 1938 is before 1941? Sanctions were imposed in response to Japan invading China among other things. Japan was clearly the aggressor in Asia before 1938. Sanctions weren't the reason for Japan attacking, it was already on the path to do so before 1938. > The US ( and much of europe ) invaded china in the 1800s and by 1937 had committed hundreds of massacres. What's your point? The bad behavior of other countries didn't give Japan the license to invade China and engage in the same behaviors. >Why was Nanking so important? Oh that's right, it was the center of american and european colonization of china. No, Nanking is probably the most widely publicized and documented of Japan's atrocities against Chinese civilian populations. > BTW, the only nationality explicitly banned from the US was the chinese with the Chinese Exclusion Act. The idea that the US cared about chinese lives is laughable. Although the Chinese were initially targeted in the Chinese exclusion act, the bans there were expanded to include southern europeans and all of asia (e.g. United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind in 1923). |