Tongzhou Incident
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The Tongzhou Incident (通州事件) or Tungchow Mutiny of (July, 1937) was an assault on Japanese troops and residents (including Korean-Japanese) cause by Chinese troops.
Tongzhou (通州, Tōngzhōu) was a strategic post in an eastern district of Beijing. At that time, Japanese troops were stationed there as well as "the East Ji Anti-Communist Autonomous Administration", a Japanese puppet in Tongzhou. On July 29, the troops of "the East Ji Anti-Communist Autonomous Administration" attacked Japanese troops, then killed Japanese residents (including Koreans who were Japanese nationals at that time). According to Japanese statistics (which could have been altered in favor of the Japanese), approximately two hundred Japanese residents were killed in the massacre. The majority of women were raped and some were killed in brutal fashions.
The massacre shocked public sentiment in Japan, and this incident has often been used to justify military intervention under the guise of protecting Japanese property in Beijing, by the Japanese government. Chinese historians believe that this incident was but one of the excuses Japan used to justify its 'peaceful' military campaign in China.
Reasons for the Chinese attack on Tongzhou may have been because of the invasion and annexation of Manchuria, and the Marco Polo Bridge Incident a few years earlier. These incidents incited anti-Japanese sentiment among the Chinese, thus possibly causing the massacre.
The Tongzhou Incident appears mostly in Japanese far-right literature, and very rarely in Western, Chinese and other sources. Chinese historians believe that the right-wing organizations in Japan use this incident to downplay the atrocities committed by the Imperial Army in the Nanjing Massacre upon the citizens.
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