Introduction This essay will be about the Nanking Massacre. I have always been interested in history and in particular war. In a history class in high school we briefly came across the Nanjing Massacre and it piqued my interest. When I was assigned the assignment I immediately understood that it would be an event that occurred during a war. There were many topics that could have been the focus of my essay, but in the end the Nanjing Massacre won due to less knowledge about this topic. In this essay the question that should be answered is: “What is the effect of the Nanjing Massacre on social relations between Japan and China today?” What is a massacre? Before we can discuss the Nanjing Massacre we must understand what a massacre is. A massacre is a specific incident in which a military force, mob, or other group kills many people and the perpetrating party is perceived as being in total control of the force while the victimized party is perceived as defenseless or innocent. There is no clear line or criterion that defines when a mass killing is a massacre. Public perception during and after the event plays an important role in this definition, also how a nation or culture wants to preserve its memory. What happened during the Nanjing Massacre? On December 13, 1937, Nanjing, the capital of Nationalist China, fell to the Japanese. For Japan, this should have been the decisive turning point in the war, the triumphant culmination of a six-month struggle against Chiang Kai-shek's armies in the Yangtze Valley. For the Chinese forces, whose heroic defense of Shanghai had ultimately failed and whose best troops had suffered crippling losses, the fall of Nanjing was a bitter, perhaps fatal defeat. When the city fell... halfway through the paper... the end result was that one of the towns surrendered, giving up on apologizing or admitting their wrongdoings. Conclusion: All in all we can say that the war had an impact on the social relationship between China and Japan. Of course as time goes by the old wounds will slowly dissolve, but I think the Chinese will never completely forget what happened in Nanjing. Here in the Netherlands we still make fun of Germans, even the younger ones. I can imagine that even the younger generation in China may still hear the stories and develop a prejudice against the Japanese. China and Japan will continue to trade and interact with each other, just as we normally do with the Germans. Their relationship may not be warm, but it is still there, however both will never forget what happened in those six weeks in Nanjing.