戦前期外務省記録 支那事変関係一件
２ 支那事変関係公表集（第二号）２
https://www.jacar.archives.go.jp/das/image/B02030683900 p.20, p.21
日支両軍の態度に関する情報部長談話（十二月一日）
STATEMENT OF THE FOREIGN OFFICE SPOKESMAN MADE ON DECEMBER 1, 1937.
Two news items appearing in the Japan Advertiser of December 10 have coincidentally brought into sharp relief the contrasting attitudes the Japanese and the Chinese forces toward those things which are dear to mankind. One is the report of the New York Times correspondent in Nanking describing the utter destruction of that Chinese capital by the Chinese forces themselves. The report says that the correspondent was informed by neutral military observers who spent several days inspecting the war zone that the Chinese soldiers have been recklessly razing towns and villages surrounding Nanking, not only destroying cultural establishments and institutions representing billions of yuans of wealth accumulated by their ancestors and by the sweat of their own labour, but ruthlessly slaughtering innocent inhabitants who are simply bewildered by the vandalism of their own countrymen.
The other news item is the report concerning the advice which General Iwane Matsui, commander of the Japanese forces in the Shanghai area, sent to the commander of the 
Chinese forces defending Nanking, in which the Japanese commander, expressing his desire of preserving intact the cultural and historic establishments in the ancient walled city out of respect to the civilization of the East, and preventing unnecessary sacrifice of human lives, urged the Chinese to surrender peacefully.
Latest reports from the front say that the Chinese refused the Japanese advice. What this refusal will mean will become apparent as we get further news from the battle-field. But it is a pity that, by the stubborn and futile attempt of the Chinese forces, tens of thousands of innocent people in that area, already deprived by their own soldiers of their homes and means of subsistence, are to be left to the mercy of the elements when the rigorous cold of the winter is approaching. That the Japanese forces will mete out thoroughgoing punishment to those recalcitrant Chinese forces is a foregone conclusion.
