作者：刘芳
编辑：李晶 校对：程筱筱 翻译：吕峰
南京大屠杀是否发生，本身并不存在争议。真正需要被讨论的，是死亡数字如何被统计、如何被解释，以及这些数字在政治叙事中如何被使用。任何历史结论，一旦无法通过最基本的人口结构与算术检验，就已经偏离了史学讨论的轨道，转而成为政治工具。
1937 年以前，南京作为国民政府首都，人口接近百万。随着战局迅速恶化，政府南迁、军队撤离、学校停办、工厂内迁，大规模疏散迅速展开。离城者以青壮年男性为主，南京成为全国撤离最为彻底的城市之一，这直接改变了城内人口规模与结构。
多方第三方记录对南京沦陷前后的城内人口规模给出了高度一致的判断。1937 年 12 月，南京安全区国际委员会在正式文件中提到，集中在安全区内的平民约二十万人；美国外交人员的公务电报估计，城内人口在二十万至二十五万之间；负责安全区事务的德国人士，以及多位传教士和医务人员，根据避难点容量得出的结论亦大致相同。这些来源彼此独立，却从未出现五十万，更没有“城内三十万平民被杀”的说法。
由此可以确定第一组基础事实：南京城内平民总数约为二十多万人。
第二个无法回避的事实，是幸存者规模。日军进城后，南京安全区并未立即瓦解，而是持续运作，集中收容并保护了约二十万平民。这些幸存者并非事后推算的抽象数字，而是有明确居住、配给与管理记录的具体人群。任何关于南京的叙事，都必须承认：城内至少有约二十万平民被明确记录为存活。
第三组证据，是占领初期之后南京出现的人口回流与基本社会恢复，这一现实情形，与“城内发生三十万级别平民大屠杀”在社会学与人口学层面形成明显矛盾。 随着战事结束、局势相对稳定，一部分此前逃离的市民陆续返城，城市开始重新运转。一些研究者指出，人口回流本身不足以单独决定死亡规模，但若城内在短时间内发生三十万量级的平民屠杀，其社会后果不应仅体现为人口减少，而必然表现为长期、系统性的恢复障碍：大量岗位空缺、生产与服务链条断裂，以及由极端暴力所造成的持续恐惧，对回城意愿形成强烈抑制，其结果更应是回流迟缓、恢复困难。然而，结合战前人口基数、安全区幸存者记录与随后出现的人口回归情况，南京并未呈现出与如此规模屠杀相匹配的长期社会失序状态。基本生活秩序得以维持，社会运转逐步恢复。这一现实状况并不能用于“证明”具体死亡数字，却在既定人口结构框架下，进一步削弱了高死亡估计在城内语境中的合理性。
将上述事实合并考察，矛盾便十分清楚：城内平民总数只有二十多万，其中约二十万人被明确记录为幸存者，同时还存在战后回流现象。在这样的条件下，“南京城内三十万平民被杀”在算术层面难以成立。要维持这一说法，必须假定城内曾存在远超五十万的平民人口，或否认安全区幸存者的存在，又或将回流人口视为凭空出现，但这些假定均缺乏同时期证据支持。
正是在这里，中共叙事引入了一个关键前提：南京城内曾有“五十万平民”。这一数字并未见于 1937 年当时的安全区文件、外交电报或现场记录，更像是为既定结论倒推出来的人口设定，其功能在于为“三十万”提供算术空间。
为回避由此产生的矛盾，相关叙事不断模糊统计边界，将城内与城外、平民与士兵、战俘与溃兵、战斗死亡与非战斗死亡混合计算，最终把性质各异、责任不同的死亡压缩进一个情绪化的整数。这种处理方式并非史学研究，而是一种政治叙事策略。
更值得警惕的是，这一叙事体系对数字讨论实行事实上的垄断。任何质疑都会被迅速转化为道德或政治指控，方法问题被等同为立场问题，证据讨论被排除在公共空间之外。在这种语境下，历史不再允许被检验，只能被重复。
这一选择性执着，与中共对自身统治下大规模死亡的长期沉默形成了鲜明对照。大跃进时期造成的饥荒被定性为“三年自然灾害”，政策责任被系统性抹去；新冠疫情早期因隐瞒、封锁和打压信息而导致的死亡，则迅速被去责任化、去政治化处理。这些生命既缺乏持续、公开的统计，也不允许被严肃追问，更谈不上制度性的纪念。在这种选择性记忆中，南京被不断放大，成为转移责任与制造情绪的安全对象。
当南京被反复强调、并被赋予“不可讨论”的数字时，真正需要被追问的已不只是历史细节，而是动机本身。一个政权为何执着于放大他人造成的死亡，却对自身统治下的大规模死亡长期保持沉默，甚至系统性抹除？
南京在这种叙事中不再是理解战争残酷的历史事件，而被转化为政治工具，用以制造仇恨、转移视线。受难者被抽象为数字与符号，历史被固定为情绪表达与忠诚测试。这既是对南京死者的再次利用，也构成了对所有无法被纪念的受害者的共同伤害。
Manipulated Mourning and the Nanjing Narrative
Author: Liu Fang
Editor: Li Jing Proofreader: Cheng Xiaoxiao Translator: Lyu Feng
Abstract:This article is dedicated to commemorating the innocent lives lost in the Nanjing Massacre and to discussing this history on the basis of respect for facts.
Whether the Nanjing Massacre occurred is not itself in dispute. What truly requires discussion is how the death toll has been calculated, how it has been interpreted, and how these numbers have been used within political narratives. Any historical conclusion that cannot withstand the most basic tests of population structure and arithmetic has already departed from the realm of historiography and entered that of political instrumentation.
Before 1937, Nanjing, as the capital of the Nationalist government, had a population approaching one million. As the military situation deteriorated rapidly, the government relocated southward, troops withdrew, schools were closed, and factories moved inland. Large-scale evacuation unfolded swiftly. Those leaving the city were predominantly young and middle-aged men, making Nanjing one of the cities with the most thorough evacuations nationwide—directly altering both the scale and structure of the city’s population.
Multiple independent third-party records provide highly consistent assessments of Nanjing’s population immediately before and after its fall. In December 1937, the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone stated in official documents that approximately 200,000 civilians were concentrated within the Safety Zone. Official telegrams from U.S. diplomatic personnel estimated the city’s population at between 200,000 and 250,000. German nationals responsible for Safety Zone affairs, as well as several missionaries and medical workers, reached similar conclusions based on shelter capacity. These sources were independent of one another, yet none ever cited a figure of 500,000—still less the claim that “300,000 civilians within the city were killed.”
From this, the first set of basic facts can be established: the total number of civilians inside Nanjing was approximately a little over 200,000.
The second unavoidable fact concerns the scale of survivors. After the Japanese army entered the city, the Nanjing Safety Zone did not immediately collapse; it continued to operate, concentrating and protecting approximately 200,000 civilians. These survivors were not abstract figures inferred after the fact, but concrete populations with documented residences, rations, and administrative records. Any narrative of Nanjing must acknowledge that at least around 200,000 civilians were clearly recorded as having survived within the city.
A third body of evidence lies in the population return and basic social recovery that occurred after the initial occupation period. This reality stands in evident tension, at the sociological and demographic levels, with the claim that a massacre of 300,000 civilians took place within the city. As hostilities subsided and conditions stabilized, some residents who had previously fled gradually returned, and the city began to function again. Some scholars note that population return alone cannot determine the scale of deaths; however, if a civilian massacre on the order of 300,000 had occurred within a short period, its social consequences would not be limited merely to population reduction. It would necessarily manifest as long-term, systemic obstacles to recovery: massive labor shortages, broken chains of production and services, and persistent terror induced by extreme violence, strongly suppressing any willingness to return. The expected outcome would therefore be slow return and prolonged dysfunction. Yet when the prewar population base, Safety Zone survivor records, and subsequent population return are considered together, Nanjing did not display the enduring social disorder commensurate with such a massive massacre. Basic living order was maintained, and social operations gradually resumed. This reality cannot be used to “prove” a specific death toll, but within the established population framework, it further weakens the plausibility of high death estimates in the context of the city proper.
When these facts are examined together, the contradiction becomes clear: the total number of civilians in the city was only a little over 200,000; approximately 200,000 were explicitly recorded as survivors; and postwar population return also occurred. Under these conditions, the claim that “300,000 civilians were killed within Nanjing city” is arithmetically untenable. To sustain this claim, one would have to assume that the city once contained far more than 500,000 civilians, or deny the existence of Safety Zone survivors, or treat returning residents as having appeared out of thin air—assumptions for which no contemporaneous evidence exists.
It is precisely here that the Chinese Communist Party’s narrative introduces a key premise: that there were once “500,000 civilians” within Nanjing. This figure does not appear in Safety Zone documents, diplomatic telegrams, or on-site records from 1937. It more closely resembles a population assumption retroactively constructed to accommodate a predetermined conclusion, its function being to create arithmetical space for the figure “300,000.”
To avoid the contradictions that follow, related narratives increasingly blur statistical boundaries, mixing city and countryside, civilians and soldiers, prisoners of war and routed troops, combat deaths and non-combat deaths—ultimately compressing deaths of different natures and responsibilities into a single emotionally charged integer. This approach is not historical scholarship, but a political narrative strategy.
More troubling still is the de facto monopoly this narrative exerts over numerical discussion. Any questioning is swiftly transformed into moral or political accusation; methodological issues are equated with ideological positions; evidentiary debate is excluded from the public sphere. In such a context, history is no longer permitted to be examined—it may only be repeated.
This selective fixation stands in stark contrast to the long-term silence surrounding mass deaths under CCP rule. The famine caused during the Great Leap Forward was labeled “three years of natural disasters,” with policy responsibility systematically erased. Deaths resulting from concealment, censorship, and repression of information during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic were quickly de-responsibilized and de-politicized. These lives lack sustained, public accounting, are not allowed to be seriously questioned, and are far from receiving institutional commemoration. Within this selective memory, Nanjing is continually magnified, becoming a safe object for deflecting responsibility and mobilizing emotion.
When Nanjing is repeatedly emphasized and endowed with a “non-negotiable” number, what truly demands scrutiny is no longer merely historical detail, but motive itself. Why does a regime obsessively amplify deaths caused by others while maintaining long-term silence—or even systematic erasure—of mass deaths under its own rule?
In such a narrative, Nanjing ceases to be a historical event for understanding the brutality of war and is transformed into a political instrument, used to manufacture hatred and divert attention. Victims are abstracted into numbers and symbols; history is frozen into an expression of emotion and a test of loyalty. This constitutes a second exploitation of the dead of Nanjing and a shared injury to all victims who are denied the right to be remembered.
