Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Iwane Matsui/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Laser brain via FACBot (talk) 00:10, 30 September 2015 [1].

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Iwane Matsui

Nominator(s): CurtisNaito (talk) 03:11, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

This article is about Iwane Matsui, Japanese general and prominent pan-Asianist, noted for his involvement in the notorious Nanking Massacre.CurtisNaito (talk) 03:11, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

• If you mentioned the Nanking Massacre (and maybe other details) I imagine you'd attract more reviewers. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 06:07, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. I have expanded the introductory sentence.CurtisNaito (talk) 16:44, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Image review

• File:Iwane_Matsui.jpg: how does this meet point 2 of the URAA tag?
• File:Matsui_in_1933.jpg: when was the source published? Same with File:Matsui_and_Bose.jpg, File:Matsui_in_1945.jpg
• File:Koa_Kannon.JPG: since Japan does not have freedom of panorama for sculptural works, you'll need to indicate the licensing of the statue as well as the image
• File:Iwane_Matui_and_Asakanomiya_on_Parade_of_Nanking.jpg: can you please translate the description and source? Nikkimaria (talk) 01:58, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Regarding "File:Iwane_Matsui.jpg", the copyright of the photograph has expired in Japan and there is no evidence that it was ever copyrighted in the United States. Concerning "File:Matsui_in_1933.jpg", "File:Matsui_and_Bose.jpg", and "File:Matsui_in_1945.jpg", I admit the source in which I found the photos does not appear to give an explicit date of publication, but all the photos are dated to when they were taken so presumably they were published around the same time they were taken. I added a note to the file "File:Koa_Kannon.JPG" explaining that the statue was created in 1940. The copyright ought to be expired by now.CurtisNaito (talk) 16:42, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

• The URAA tag you are using indicates under what circumstances it can be used - I don't think these have been met
• We can't assume they were published around the same time they were taken - they may have been archival photos, for example.
• We'll need a licensing tag for the statue as well. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:58, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

I removed the photographs and added a licensing tag to the statue.CurtisNaito (talk) 18:41, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Driveby comments from Curly Turkey

• I probably won't do a proper review, but I have some comments:
  • Yasukuni. The article gives us no context on the significance of this event, or how it was gone about: how it was done secretively, how it didn't become public until 1979, the controversy it raised, etc. Also—six war criminals? There were 14 Class A war criminals alone, along with 1054 Class B and C. Is this supposed to mean six war criminals were enshrined at one ceremony? Were they all Class A? Of course, the Yasukuni article should deal with the fine details, but we need more context here.
  • "the Hitler of Japan": That's quite the hyperbole—who called him this? How widespread is it? I have to wonder if quoting it is perhaps WP:UNDUE—or at least should be better contextualized.
  • There's a mix of MONTH-DAY-YEAR and DAY-MONTH-YEAR dat formats—you'll have to settle on one style. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 06:40, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
• Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 06:06, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

I fixed all these issues. I think the confusion about the war criminals was caused by another editor who accidentally introduced some ambiguity while copyediting the article. Among the war criminals enshrined in 1978 were all seven war criminals executed by the IMTFE (including Matsui). Matsui was the only one of them who was not convicted of Class A war crimes.CurtisNaito (talk) 16:42, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

So, he was convicted and executed, but not as a Class A? What class was he, then? Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 21:06, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

This issue is mentioned in the article in this section, [2]. Class A war crimes means "crimes against peace"(plotting aggressive war in other words), whereas Class B/C means conventional war crimes/crimes against humanity(like mistreatment of POWs or civilians). Matsui was charged with Class A war crimes as well as Class B/C war crimes. The IMTFE was mainly convened to deal with Class A war criminals, but some suspected Class A war criminals like Matsui were also accused of Class B/C war crimes at the same time. Ultimately, Matsui was convicted of only one count, Count 55. Count 55 meant failure to uphold the laws of war, not plotting to start a war. In other words, Matsui was convicted of Class B/C war crimes. The Japanese language sources that I consulted including the book by Masataka Matsuura noted that fact that Count 55 was unrelated to Class A war crimes.CurtisNaito (talk) 21:37, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

But if he was convicted of only one count, that count would be either B or C, not both, right? Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 22:14, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

They are usually called Class B/C war crimes. On paper the Allies initially meant them to be two distinct categories of war crimes, but in actual practice it was impossible to tell the difference between them and so even at the time they were often referred to Class B/C war crimes. I guess I really should research an article for Wikipedia on Class B/C war crimes because it's a complicated topic to understand.

Class A war crimes are clear enough. Class A war crimes means plotting to start an aggressive war. I have read in other books that Class B was supposed to be for the mistreatment of prisoners or civilians in violation of pre-existing laws of war, whereas Class C was for any general massacres and persecutions on occupied territories not necessarily directly related to a specific law of war. However, most of the contemporary sources and most of the recent books that I consulted just call them Class B/C.

I did read at least one book, "The Politics of Nanjing" by Minoru Kitamura, which does explicitly say that Count 55 was Class B. However, the source also notes that "at the IMTFE, Class C War Crimes (Crimes against Humanity) did not constitute an independent category." I could cite Kitamura and say that Count 55 was Class B, but I figured I might as well go with standard practice and just call it Class B/C.CurtisNaito (talk) 22:37, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps a footnote would be helpful, as the general reader (the target reader) can't be expected to know that. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 23:30, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

A footnote has been added.CurtisNaito (talk) 18:41, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

• I was wondering if the Battle of Shoushanbu should be redlinked, but I can't find anything about it. Where is Shoushanbu? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:23, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Looking around some more, this suggests it was perhaps the Battle of Liaoyang? Some sources (like this) call it "Shoushanpu" or "Shou-shan-pu". I'm having no luck finding sources that call it the "Battle of Shoushan(|bu|p), though. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:30, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Multiple sources can confirm it was an engagement during the Battle of Liaoyang, as you can see in this map. Shoushanpu appears to be today's Shoushanzhen. Cobblet (talk) 09:04, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I will change it to "Shoushanpu". The sources cited refer to a battle at 首山堡, but they mostly call it "首山堡の戦闘".CurtisNaito (talk) 22:29, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Are tehre no English sources that refer to this engagement? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:43, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean – most Google results for "Shoushanpu" are referring to this. I've wikilinked the term to Battle of Liaoyang. Cobblet (talk) 23:15, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Comments from AustralianRupert

G'day, thanks for your efforts on this article. Not a topic I know much about, unfortunately, so I only have a few superficial comments/suggestions. I hope they help in some way:

• in the first sentence of the lead, the dates probably need commas: e.g. "July 27 1878 – December 23 1948" (commas to separate the day and year);
• year ranges such as "1906–1931" should be changed to "1906–31" per WP:DATERANGE;
• be careful of duplicate links. The duplicate link script reports a few examples of possible overlink, e.g: Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office; Kwantung Army; French Indochina; Sugamo Prison; Tokushi Kasahara; Communist Party of China;
• inconsistent presentation: "in the Army" and "in the army"; I think here they are being used to refer to a specific army (i.e. the Japanese Army), so they should probably be capitalised
• "flagship the Yura..." by convention, ship title's are usually presented in italics;
• " city massacred POWs": I don't think this abbreviation has been formally introduced;
• I think some of the sentences could be improved with the addition of introductory commas;
• "participated in an conspiracy.." --> "participated in a conspiracy"
• this doesn't quite seem to flow to me: "...US Army took away his ashes to prevent a memorial from being created. Actually, the..." Perhaps it might work better as: "...US Army ordered his ashes be taken away to prevent a memorial from being created. Nevertheless, the..."?
• " the International Military Tribunal for the Far East": probably best to add the abbreviation IMTFE in brackets here after the full presentation;
• "were officially shrined in Yasukuni Shrine..." --> "were officially enshrined in Yasukuni Shrine..."?
• "until the next year..." --> "until the following year";
• in the "Later assessments and historical perception" section, the first paragraph probably should end with a citation (it would probably just be possible to move Citation # 67);
• Anyway, that's it from me. Good luck with the review. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:01, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

All these changes have been implemented.CurtisNaito (talk) 18:41, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Cheers, I support promotion to FA. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:14, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Support on prose per standard disclaimer. These are my edits. A lively, readable account of a notorious general. - Dank (push to talk) 17:19, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Sourcing concerns from Hijiri88

I mentioned in the GA review back in May my concerns that the article relies far too heavily on sources published by right-leaning magazine companies, whose titles ("...の真実" = "The Truth about ...") set them up as being somewhat biased and fringe-y. My concerns were not addressed at that time, and the GA reviewer himself admitted that he was not capable of examining any of the sources. The principal author of this article, CurtisNaito, has since made it very clear that he has a poor understanding of WP:V and WP:RS and as a result virtually everywhere the History of Japan article quotes Henshall, that article's main source, it appears to be misquoting him. CurtisNaito has also repeatedly denied that any such misrepresentation of sources took place, and so his claiming in the GA review (and likely here too) that he has not been misrepresenting his sources in this article as well should be taken as suspect at best. Without a Japanese-speaking Wikipedian checking through all the places the Iwane Matsui article quotes a source like Hayase 1999 or Hayasaka 2011, I don't think we should just be assuming that they say what the Wikipedia article says they do. I tried to find a copy of Hayase 1999, indisputably this article's main source at present, so I could do this myself, but I couldn't find one because it is old, obscure and out of print. Using old, obscure and out of print sources should be acceptable when those sources are indisputably the best ones on the topic, but in this case it clearly is not. Neither Hayase nor Hayasaka are professional historians or specialists in this area, and I find it hard to believe that for such an important figure there are no sources written by mainstream historians, as CurtisNaito previously claimed to be the case. I don't doubt that CurtisNaito will try to claim again that my concerns have been addressed and collapse this comment as he did last time -- I will revert any such attempt to hide my comments just because the article's "owner" doesn't like them. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:20, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Mentioning other articles like History of Japan, which I recently brought to good article status, is not relevant here, though for the record, you have not yet shown that I misread any sources either there or here. The fact is that Hayase and Hayasaka are the only individuals who have written biographies of Iwane Matsui since 1938, so it's natural to use them. Furthermore, I wouldn't say that the sources are obscure, as they are both widely available in libraries and sold on Amazon.

During the good article review you were told by user Sturmvogel 66, "I'm not sure that those used here are actually biased, regardless of their origins. If you have anything substantial saying that they are, please provide them now." You never provided anything substantial, and you still haven't. Just because you haven't read the sources, does not mean that they are poor sources.CurtisNaito (talk) 14:48, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Looking quickly at your talk pages, you have both done a lot of quality work on Wikipedia ... thanks for that. Hijiri, I understand that you're skeptical, and I get that the article may rely too heavily on less-than-stellar sources; you might want to post a polite note at WT:MIL asking for help in finding sources. At FAC, "there must be a source somewhere that contradicts these sources" isn't usually a persuasive argument. - Dank (push to talk) 15:01, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

@Dank: I don't think that "there must be a source somewhere that contradicts these sources". I think that these sources probably don't say what Wikipedia claims they do, which is a problem that follows CurtisNaito around all the time. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:02, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

It's also worth noting that Curtis is again trying to silence dissenting voices (of whom there are as usual quite a lot) by opening an ANI discussion to get me site-banned for the above post. This user is not only very bad at reading sources and writing articles accurately based on said, but is extremely hostile and disruptive while doing so. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:14, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Furthermore, the description of Hayase 1999 and Hayasaka 2011 as "biographies" does not seem to be borne out by the chapter titles of both books. Again, I should stress that I have not read either book (perhaps if I knew last weekend that Hayase 1999 had been renamed again I could have found it...). That doesn't change the fact that CurtisNaito has apparently taken two out of the probably hundreds of books about the Nanjing Massacre and arbitrarily defined them as "the only two biographies of Iwane Matsui since 1938". CurtisNaito has previously been called out (twice) for his poor understanding of what constitutes a "biography". I suspect that in fact there are no book-length biographies of Matsui -- there are a lot of books about the Sino-Japanese War that discuss in varying detail his role in the war; the two books in question happen to (at least under some of their variant titles) name him on the cover. Someone needs to

1. find these books,
   
2. figure out if they are "biographies",
   
3. figure out if they are usable as reliable sources for Wikipedia to begin with (see also: [3]),
   
4. and then figure out if every place the article cites them they actually verify what the article says.
   

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:31, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, you keep on saying that there must be more books about Matsui, but the problem is that you still haven't found any. I cited a number of books about the Nanking Massacre which mention Matsui, but Matsui's life extends beyond just the massacre and it would be difficult to write a complete article on him without consulting a biography of him. Most of the time when you accuse me of misreading sources you admit that you yourself have not read the sources, and this time is no different. I have read the sources, I know that they are biographies, and I can verify their content.CurtisNaito (talk) 13:42, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, you keep on saying that there must be more books about Matsui, but the problem is that you still haven't found any. Please post a diff before making accusations like that. I never said there must be more books about Matsui; I said there must be better sources on Matsui. As far as I'm concerned, pretty much anything in a peer-reviewed journal is better than a popular book written by a freelance writer with only a journalism degree, whose personal website encourages use of Wikipedia as a source. JStor seems to have quite a lot.

I cited a number of books about the Nanking Massacre which mention Matsui, but Matsui's life extends beyond just the massacre and it would be difficult to write a complete article on him without consulting a biography of him. Again, if these details of Matsui's life are only discussed in fringe, right-wing sources written by non-specialists, then these details don't belong on Wikipedia. If they can be found in better sources, why are you arguing that they can't? And again, where is the evidence that these books, both of which place more emphasis in both their cover titles and the majority of their chapter titles to the Nanjing Massacre than to Iwane Matsui, are "biographies"?

Most of the time when you accuse me of misreading sources you admit that you yourself have not read the sources, and this time is no different. This is an off-topic personal attack, and is completely inaccurate. In the most recent case (the History of Japan article) I read the first forty pages of Henshall's book on GBooks -- every place your article cited these pages, it was misrepresenting what Henshall said. In more than one case it blatantly extrapolated from Henshall's vague wording a completely bogus factual inaccuracy.

I have read the sources, I know that they are biographies, and I can verify their content. And that's exactly what you said on the History of Japan article. And the Battle of Nanking article. And the Korean influence on Japanese culture article. And the Emperor Jimmu article. And the Soga–Mononobe conflict. In all of these cases but one (where I got tired and left instead of arguing further and seeking outside input) a unanimous consensus was formed that either you had not read the sources you claimed you had, or you had read them and had completely misunderstood them. Are they described on the book-jackets or anywhere inside as "biographies"? Are they classified as biographies in libraries and bookshops? (If so, could you tell me which ones? I still want to find a copy of Hayase 1999.) Are they described as biographies in review articles published in scholarly journals? Whether or not such review articles describe them as biographies -- do such review articles exist? What do such review articles think of the books themselves?

I generally only cite a source for factual claims on Wikipedia if (1) it is from a reputable scholarly press, such as a university press, (2) it was written by a recognized expert in the field, (3) it has been extensively cited or favourably reviewed by recognized experts in the field, or (4) I have checked it against several other sources that may or may not meet any of the first three criteria, and they all say the same thing. You not long ago made an off-topic remark about my applying the fourth criterion somehow violating Wikipedia sourcing policy -- my bringing up your own failure to apply any consistent sourcing criteria on this very article (as on other articles) in a discussion of whether the article should be promoted to FA status is completely appropriate. TH1980 responding to my doing so by posting a "support" !vote in order to "cancel out" my "vote" is ... not.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:17, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

You're assuming I misread sources based on your own previous accusations that I misread sources, but since none of your previous accusations were ever verified, this argument is not valid. Most of what you are saying are aspersions against me as a Wikipedia user, but featured article reviews are supposed to focus on article content. You have been asked repeatedly to find "anything substantial" supporting your belief that the sources are inaccurate, but you still haven't found anything like that. It's amazing how much text you are able to write criticizing biographies which you yourself fully acknowledge that you have not even read. The subtitle of Hayase's book is "松井石根人物伝" and Hayasaka's book is clearly listed on Worldcat as being a biography.CurtisNaito (talk) 14:29, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

You're assuming I misread sources based on your own previous accusations that I misread sources No, I'm not assuming anything (if I was, I would tag all the citations right now). I am saying that FAs should represent the very best of Wikipedia articles, and in this case the sourcing is clearly sub-par. This is not based solely on "my own previous accusations that I misread sources"; it's not even based solely on the indisputable fact that you did misread sources; the problems with the sources themselves are entirely separate from the question of whether you have misquoted them. Both of these questions need to be dealt with before the article can appear on the main page as a featured article, in my opinion.

Most of what you are saying are aspersions against me as a Wikipedia user, but featured article reviews are supposed to focus on article content. No, only a third of what I am saying are aspersions against you as a Wikipedia user: the third that relates to whether your past record of misquoting sources qualifies as evidence that you may have misquoted sources in this article as well. The other problems (the fact that so much of the article is based on openly-fringe sources and the fact that such sources should not be cited in the article at all) have nothing to do with you as a Wikipedia user. Please stop trying to make this personal, when I am commenting on article content.

You have been asked repeatedly to find "anything substantial" supporting your belief that the sources are inaccurate, but you still haven't found anything like that. (1) Neither of the authors are professional historians. (2) One of the books was published by a right-wing literary magazine. (3) The other was written by an author whose bibliography includes more about pro-golfing than the Sino-Japanese War. (4) The sources do not appear to be "biographies" by anything but the broadest definition of that term, but you repeatedly claim you consulted them under the assumption not only that that is what they are, but that no other "biographies" have ever been written on the subject. (5) The sources are obscure enough that I cannot verify their contents directly at the moment, but their titles both indicate that they are out to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS, which is not something Wikipedia should be doing. (6) Even if the article doesn't cite them in a manner that would violate Wikipedia policy as in point (5), then the article is abusing the sources by "neutralizing" them to say something different from what they actually say. I could go on...

It's amazing how much text you are able to write criticizing biographies which you yourself fully acknowledge that you have not even read. I'm not criticizing anything. I'm asking you to explain to me why I should trust them. The burden is not on me to pay for copies of these books or to wander around every library in Osaka looking for them. I have already wasted far too much time and effort trying to locate copies; now I just want some reason to give it up and let this article pass and be done with it, but your putting words in my mouth like in the above quote isn't making it easy.

The subtitle of Hayase's book is "松井石根人物伝" and Hayasaka's book is clearly listed on Worldcat as being a biography. Your above comment appears as five and a half lines of text on my screen, and the above was less than a line, but represents the only part of your comment that sincerely attempted to address my concerns. I guess I should thank you for kindly devoting about 15% of your words to responding to me directly and not making straw-man arguments. Unfortunately, even here you misrepresent the facts: the subtitle of Hayase's book (at least the 1999 cover photographed on Amazon) is "南京事件・松井石根人物伝" -- the book would appear to be about the Nanjing Massacre, just focusing a bit more on the life of Matsui than some of the others.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:16, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Both books contain plenty of biographical information on Iwane Matsui not related to the Nanking Massacre. If you would just take a brief look at the books before you started criticizing them, this would be instantly apparent. If you did that, it would be apparent how silly it is to deny that they are biographies. These are the only two biographies of Matsui in existence and they are certainly the highest quality sources available. Regarding the issue of burden, you were told during the good article review, "If they're unacceptably biased, prove it; the burden is indeed on you." You haven't provided any proof. All you're doing is writing page after page of vague speculation based on what you theorize the books which you have not read are actually about.CurtisNaito (talk) 15:25, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

I've said my piece. Until either I or some other reliable third party is able to check the sources nothing more can be said on this. My comments and CurtisNaito's responses are here for other users to see. That's enough. I'm going to (try to) go back to building an encyclopedia now. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:20, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

I haven't read Hayasaka's book and I'm not going to (though it's available at a local library), but googling around a bit it does seem that Hayasaka has a reputation as a right-wing journalist. His book arrived in the midst of a recent public revival of far-right revisionism, and his readers appear to be the type who buy into that stuff. The no shinjitsu in the title isn't the type of thing that suggests impartiality. Having said that, I don't know the topic deeply and can't say whether this article is biased, though nothing jumps out at me to suggest it is.

A separate issue is the "Later assessments and historical perception" (which I'm sure could be shortened, but whatever): this section seems unbalanced. We're given a single voice amongst his "detractors", Yutaka Yoshida, and get quite a bit of detail on his assessment which I think could be summed up better. But is Yoshida's assessment typical or widely ascribed to? Is he being used to represent the detractors' views; is so, is he representative? Here's an unofficial translation of the source cited. We then get three voices in the "too severe camp" (though a shorter paragraph). Again, how were these voices chosen, and how representative are they of their side's views? Perhaps these views really are representative, but the way they are presented seems unbalanced, almost haphazard. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:11, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Though Hayasaka's book was a useful and detailed source, almost all of the citations to Hayasaka in the article relate to Matsui's early life. I didn't cite him for anything related to the circumstances of the Nanking Massacre.

Regarding Yutaka Yoshida, I thought it was worth giving him attention because he is regarded as one of the leading scholars of the Nanking Massacre. He is author of the important book "Tenno no Guntai to Nankin Jiken", which is regarded by another leading scholar, Tokushi Kasahara, to be one of the most important sources of information on the Nanking Massacre. Yoshida gives a more detailed explanation of Matsui's responsibility than most authors, but note that in the Shokun magazine survey Toshio Tanabe, Keiichi Eguchi, and Akira Fujiwara each mention a few of the exact same points.

I selected Tokushi Kasahara and Masahiro Yamamoto because they are leading scholars on the Nanking Massacre. Minear was mentioned in Yamamoto's book so I added him in too because I found his comparisons interesting.

I will add some additional detractors to add balance.CurtisNaito (talk) 00:32, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

I believe I have included a representative range of historical viewpoints based off the sources cited in the article, but for the record I don't believe any definitive polling has been conducted on this subject so it's difficult to say exactly what balance ought to be included.CurtisNaito (talk) 00:51, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

I wasn't going to comment here again, but I did read the further comments by others, and was curious as to why the only historians being cited were Japanese (mostly writing in English, but not necessarily representing a Chinese or western view). I don't dislike the citing of primarily Japanese sources, as long as they give an accurate description of what the contemporary Chinese and western views are. I looked at the article and was pleasantly surprised to see that the 1945 CCP's view was cited and attributed to a reliable, scholarly source. However, the source was being misquoted: the source itself said "it held Matsui responsible for being a propagandist of an ultranationalist group rather than for the Nanjing Massacre", but our article said it "denounced Matsui as a war criminal because of his promotion of pan-Asianism, but no mention was made of the Nanking Massacre". This seems like a misrepresentation of what the source says "promotion of pan-Asianism" is not the same as "being a propagandist of an ultranationalist group", and (although it's a relatively minor problem) the source doesn't appear to say that there was "no mention" of the massacre (unless that is in the endnote, which I can't see in the Google Books preview). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:51, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm fine with the change, though for the record I did check the source mentioned in the endnote, and it refers to the Greater Asian Association, which may indeed have been ultranationalist by some definitions, but indisputably it was pan-Asianist. Matsui was mentioned because of his membership in that group, "rather than for the Nanjing Massacre."CurtisNaito (talk) 15:59, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

"Pan-Asianism" has never been defined, anywhere, as a war crime; the CCP classified him as a war criminal because of his propaganda work, and the source states that the crime for which he was accused was propaganda work for an ultranationalist group. Checking a book's sources, then combining the conclusions of the book itself, the conclusions of the book's sources, and one's own preferred descriptor of the group, when no one source directly says that the Chinese Communist Party condemned him for his pan-Asianism, is the definition of WP:SYNTH.

My randomly picking one instance where a source I happened to have some degree of access to turned out to be textbook OR; without a thorough examination, we don't know if the same is true for the other 150-odd citations. That's all I'm going to say on the matter. I hope others reading through this discussion will take this fact into account. Cheers.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 16:11, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, I didn't want to plagiarize the source. I seemed to me that "promotion" was an acceptable synonym for "propaganda". Pan-Asianism/Ultranationalism were regarded as war crimes because these ideas either explicitly or implicitly promoted Japanese expansionism. Your change was okay, but I don't think there was anything wrong with the way it was initially phrased.CurtisNaito (talk) 16:17, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Propaganda was a Class-B war crime; ultranationalism and pan-Asianism are personal beliefs, and cannot in themselves be war crimes. The action of propaganda was the war crime of which he was accused, and so changing the word "propaganda" to "promotion" ... well, it wouldn't have been a problem if you didn't also change "an ultranationalist group" to "pan-Asianism". It's not plagiarism to use the same words a source used when the closest available "synonyms" (although I think just about everyone would agree that "pan-Asianism" and "ultranationalism" are not synonymous) would distort the meaning. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 16:32, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, propaganda was also not generally classified as being a war crime by the international community, though Matsui's propaganda work was described by the IMTFE as a Class A war crime because he was allegedly inciting war (Matsui was acquitted of this charge). Class B war crimes refer to violations of the laws of war, and I'm not aware that any propaganda charges were classified as being Class B.

In general, when I cite a source in a Wikipedia article I change the wording slightly from the original source to avoid plagiarism. Promoting an ideology and propagandizing for an ideology are a similar choice of words.CurtisNaito (talk) 16:43, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Propagandizing for a group with a particular ideology is not the same as promoting a separate, unrelated ideology. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 16:49, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Matsui's propaganda work was carried out through the Greater Asian Association. If we needed to be really specific, without delving into the pan-Asian/ultranationalism issue, we could just say that he was doing promotion/propaganda with the Greater Asian Association.CurtisNaito (talk) 16:51, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Only about 0.001% of our readership know what the Greater Asian Association was. If the source says "an ultranationalist group", then we should say that. The group does not have a Wikipedia article to which we can link, and the word "ultranationalist" otherwise doesn't appear anywhere in the Iwane Matsui article. If what you are trying to say is that Yoshida's characterization is wrong, then you need to cite another source -- we don't "correct" what our cited sources say. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 16:56, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

The Greater Asian Association can be described with a wide plethora of adjectives. I thought that pan-Asianist was a decent and neutral term to use, but there are other options. I didn't correct Yoshida, but I did change the wording slightly as is normal when transferring source text into article text.CurtisNaito (talk) 17:01, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

NPOV is a good policy, but consistently "neutralizing" what reliable sources say (unless they are Nanjing revisionists ot Korean nationalists, or their name is Jared Diamond) goes against the spirit of the policy. If reliable sources refer to the group as "ultranationalist" then that is how it should be described. Before my edit the article said "pan-Asian" 11 times and didn't mention ultranationalism once. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:54, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

TH1980

Support This article shows high quality research and sourcing. Furthermore, another user recently gave it a very thorough copy edit, and it certainly appears to be featured article quality now.TH1980 (talk) 19:31, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Wow. TH1980 supports something that I oppose? I never would have seen that coming... Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:02, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

I have to agree that TH1980's support is suspect. Luckily the FA coordinators are not known for promoting based merely on number of supports. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 13:52, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree that the FA coordinators will likely correctly understand that this is not a "vote" but a content-based discussion of whether the article meets certain criteria. But I can almost guarantee that CurtisNaito will respond to my comment in the section above that I am "assuming bad faith" or making a "personal attack" against TH1980 for trying to "cancel out" my "vote". As an aside, isn't the fact that he clicked the edit button next to my sub-heading rather than the one at the top of the page somewhat suspicious? (Look at his edit summary.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:21, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Comment from Cobblet

I find it surprising that the remainder of Matsui's often-quoted statement made at the IMTFE is not given, which reveals much less appealing aspects of his attitude towards the Chinese that the article completely ignores. I'm referring to these words:

It has been my belief during all these years that we must regard this struggle as a method of making the Chinese undergo self-reflection. We do not do this because we hate them, but on the contrary because we love them too much. It is just the same in a family when an elder brother has taken all that he can stand from his ill-behaved younger brother and has to chastise him in order to make him behave properly.

This quote casts the other statements of his quoted in the article about Japan and China being "brothers" or that "Japanese troops are the real friends of China" in an entirely different light. This was not an isolated statement: at the outset of the war in 1937, he had said, "I am going to the front not to fight an enemy but in the state of mind of one who sets out to pacify his brother." (Quotes taken from Masao Maruyama's Thought and Behaviour in Modern Japanese Politics, OUP 1969, p. 95.)

The article as it's currently written – stressing at every turn Matsui's Sinophile tendencies and his alleged camaraderie with the Chinese people, and avoiding any hint of imperialist overtones when discussing his "pan-Asianism" – promotes the narrative that Matsui's actions were guided by a seemingly benign desire to "liberate Asia from Western imperialism". The quotes I've provided make it clear that his motives were far from pure – he clearly believed in the moral superiority of the Japanese and for him this was not a war of "liberation" but of punishment. It seems likely his vision of Asia was a Japanese-dominated one if he was capable of making such statements, even though the article seems to be trying to persuade us otherwise.

I've previously voiced concerns over the choice of sources in another FAC nominated by Curtis, Battle of Nanking. I see other reviewers here have again expressed concerns about the sources and their biases, and I wonder if the failure to more completely and neutrally examine Matsui's mindset is related to this. Cobblet (talk) 05:47, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, there probably were elements of both genuine pan-Asianism and Japanese nationalism in Matsui's worldview, though the sources I consulted including Hayase and Matsuura seemed to think that Matsui was a genuine pan-Asianist. Matsui always stated publicly that he believed personally in Japan's mission to liberate Asia, and I suppose there isn't enough proof to question that. Matsui wrote the same sort of things in his diary which he stated publicly.

I'll include the quotes which you suggest, though I don't really think that those particular quotes portray Matsui in a different light from the one in the article. Matsui often described Japan and China as "brothers" in public speeches, and I'm not so sure "brothers" is a codeword for imperialism.CurtisNaito (talk) 06:17, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Regarding that quote, I noticed that Maruyama Masao does at least agree that, "in fact it appears that the general really believed his talk about brotherly love." I added the relevant quotes in, though ultimately I suppose it will have to be left up to the reader to decide to what degree Matsui was sincere in his public declaration.CurtisNaito (talk) 06:41, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

An older brother chastising a misbehaving younger brother is a very weird way to express one's desire for fraternity and the other's liberation, to put it mildly. But of course this excuse of "we attacked them because we loved them and wanted to 'free' them" was not unique to Matsui's thinking but was entrenched among the Japanese leadership of the time and still maintained by today's right-wing revisionist historians. Providing these quotes makes it clear that Matsui was not just guided by his own innocent enthusiasm for all things Chinese but was also very much subscribing to the official ideology. Cobblet (talk) 07:41, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, it's not a contradiction—the idea was they would liberate them from Western domination, not that they would make them "free" in any Western sense. But yes such quotations give much better context. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:54, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Coordinator note: This seems to have more or less ground to a halt on the issue of sourcing. I've listed it in the Urgents box in an attempt to get some more independent reviews. --Laser brain (talk) 16:20, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. --Laser brain (talk) 00:10, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.