Kill-All Polcy? Chinese Propaganda!

kill-all policy, kill-all ...what's this?

Is the "kill-all" something  a common phrase among English speakers?  I had no idea. Simply killing all people around?  Soon I found this phrase is a special term to disgrace the Japanese.

Reading through the book "Unbroken," I have come across this phrase several times, the kill-all policy or the kill-all order. 

"kill-all,..., kill-all, ...  "

"...the Japanese employed the kill-all policy.  They murdered all five thousand Koreans." (p.354)

" ...In accordance with the kill-all order, ..." (p.502)

I searched this kill-all thing and found this:

"Three All's Policy; kill all, burn all, and loot all."

The kill-all something comes from this specific phrase.  Many people with the anti-Japanese sentiment claims this policy was implemented by the brutal Japanese Army in China.  The phrase is associated with Japanese cruelty.

It is very easy to show that this phrase was created by Chinese speaking people.  The Japanese speakers can never come up with this kind of words.

Let's study about Chinese characters.

In Chinese characters the phrase is written as;

三　光　作　戦

Japanese and Chinese people both use Chinese characters.  But the same character has different meanings sometimes.  We did not have much interactions for more than 1000 years until the 19th century.

Look at the characters one by one.

三         means three for both Japanese and Chinese

光 　　　is confusing.

作戦　　means policy or missions for both Japanese and Chinese


So, the problem is the middle one, 　　光

For Chinese speaking people, this character means;

   "bare, used up, or exhausted" as well as "light, or shine."

 So, the word implies cleared or eliminated.
Chinese people should be able to feel 三　光　作　戦 somthig brutal.


For Japanese speaking people, it simply means "light or shine."
 So, 三　光　作　戦  is "three-light" policy

 How come three lights are related to "kill all, burn all and loot all?"

Now you can tell the one who came up with this "Three-All Policy" is among Chinese speakers.

By the way, who taught this phrase to Hillenbrand?