ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the looting and plundering of books that took place during the time of the Nanjing Massacre from December 13, 1937 to the middle of February 1938. The Nationalist Government moved the capital from Beijing to Nanjing Massacre after successfully quelling of the warlords during the Northern Expedition from 1926-1928. According to the documents from Japan and China, during the Nanjing Massacre the Imperial Japanese Army was also engaged in the systematic looting and plundering of a total of 897,178 volumes of books from a large assortment of libraries in Nanjing. Some Japanese insisted that "Japan's war was fought as a war for cultural progress" and praised the looting of books as a strategic weapon as a unique phenomenon in world history. The details regarding the repatriation of the Chinese books can be worked out through the Committee on Sino-Japanese Relations in the 21st Century, which could establish a semi-governmental and/or non-governmental agency to carry out the project.
