He is an emeritus professor of intellectual history at Asia University, who maintains that the Nanjing Massacre committed by Japanese troops during the Second Sino-Japanese War is a hoax.
He argued in an opinion column that appeared in Sankei Shimbun that the book was "pure baloney", alleging that there was "no witness of illegal executions or murders".
In 2006, Xia Shuqin (夏淑琴), a Chinese woman whose testimony he sought to discredit in his book, took Higashinakano to court in China, winning 1.6 million yuan in damages.
[3] Higashinakano had claimed that she had not been a witness of the Nanjing Massacre and was not the child filmed by the missionary John Magee during the event.
On February 5, 2009, the Supreme Court of Japan ordered Higashinakano to pay JPY 4 million in damages to Xia Shuqin, asserting that he had libelously defamed her.