Historical Dictionary of United States-Japan ... - Bakumatsu Films

210 • PRUYN, ROBERT H.
steel, electric power, and marine transportation. The Ashida Cabinet
continued to espouse the Priority Production System, and this played
an important role in getting Japan’s economic recovery off the
ground. However, the RFB depended for its funds on floating RFB
bonds underwritten by the Bank of Japan and this precipitated accelerated
inflation. The Japanese government also provided a large
amount of price-support subsidy so that coal was transferred to the
steel industry at a price lower than cost and steel was transferred to
the coal industry at a price lower than cost. The Japanese government
issued a financial emergency order, but it could not stem the inflation.
Both the Katayama and Ashida Cabinets tried, but neither succeeded
to contain the high wages that partly caused inflation. Japan had to
wait for the Dodge Line to contain inflation.
PRUYN, ROBERT H. (1815–1882). Appointed American minister to
Japan by President Abraham Lincoln in 1861, Robert Pruyn served
until 1867. In addition to dealing with several tumultuous events in
Japan during the final years of the Tokugawa shogunate, he helped
guide several young Japanese men to colleges in the United States,
especially to Rutgers College in New Jersey, his alma mater. See
also JAPANESE STUDENTS IN AMERICA.
– R –
RAPE OF NANJING. After capturing Nanjing, the Chinese Nationalist
capital, in early December 1937 during the Second Sino–Japanese
War, Japanese soldiers went on a rampage of slaughter and rape. Surrendering
Chinese troops were summarily executed. Yet, the vast majority
of victims were civilians—old men, women, and children. The
number of Chinese killed by Japanese troops in the area of Nanjing
from December 1937 to February 1938 is still a matter of considerable
controversy, but most scholars put the total number at approximately
200,000—one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century. In addition
to the Panay Incident, which occurred on 12 December 1937 at the
nearby Yangtze River, the Rape of Nanjing inflamed anti-Japanese
sentiment in the United States. See also PACIFIC WAR; WORLD
WAR II.