Japanese official draws rebukes for remarks on Tokyo's war past

[DS]

TOKYO -- A senior Japanese politician drew rebukes from Beijing and Seoul yesterday for playing down the so-called Rape of Nanking and Japan's annexation of Korea and for reopening wounds from his nation's militaristic past.

The blowup could prove an embarrassment for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's government ahead of the Aug. 15 anniversary of World War II's end in 1945.

Takami Eto, a three-time Cabinet minister who leads the third-largest faction in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, dismissed as ''a big lie'' estimates that the Japanese Army killed as many as 300,000 civilians during the 1937-38 occupation of the Chinese city of Nanjing, then called Nanking.

''To say 300,000 people were killed in the Rape of Nanking is a pure fabrication, a big lie,'' Eto, 78, was quoted as saying Saturday in a speech to a local party chapter, according to the Asahi newspaper and other national dailies.

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/195/nation/Japanese_official_draws_rebukes_for_remarks_on_Tokyo_s_war_past+.shtml

[Zech Marquis]

1. these kind of insenstitive remarks

and sheer bineheaded stupdity in japanese politics, will not allow any of the other countries in Asia (especially China and South Korea) to really respect Japan. Not all Japanese are like this idiot, but once in a while you do meet them. One nice young lady spoe in a similar tone, when i told her my gf is Chinese. I almost wanted to say something really bad, but instead I just walked away and haven't spoken to her since. Treat others like you'd want to be treated. Sadly, there are still a large number f Japanese who won't even take heed...


But the ones who have know the deal :) I'd wish there were more of them instead of the stupid numbnuts like this fool in the Diet :argh:

[psychopomp]

2. Disappointing? Yes.

Surprising? NO. The ruling LDP is replete with extreme-right wingers. They usually behave themselves in the limelight and save these sorts of pearls when they blather to their constituencies in more intimate settings. Former PM Mori pretty much talked himself out of a job when he went with the "Japan is a divine nation inhabited by gods" line.

If Japanese people ever decide to bring their leaders down to size it will because of comments like this and these, regarding the recent revelation of a rape "club" at one of the country's premiere universities:

...Seichi Ota, a Parliament member of the governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), remarked during a lecture in Kagoshima, "The students that perpetrated the rape proved that they had youthful energy. So, aren't they normal?" His intelligence is questionable. Mr. Ota was once an assistant professor at Fukuoka University. Also, he served as the Director-General of the Administration and Coordination Agency.

or...
"It is wrong for women to dress mostly naked. Men are black panthers, so leniency can be thinkable for the rapists."
-Remarks attributed to Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda, which he denies, by weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun.

more on the gang rapes

[Zech Marquis]

3. oh yes, the biggest group of fools outside of the states!

Mori is on the same level as *--a mere puppet being controlled by the elite. The last thing I saw him was to fly over for lunch with *, and then he was replaced by Koizumi. And Koizumi has been nothing more than a fanboy of * :eyes:

You can do a whole novel on those LDP guys--imagine if every single GOp thug was busted for mass fraud--I was in Japan in 1988 when the Recruit scandal brke out. Ever damn LDP member was caught in it. And I really, really hate Nakasone--the comments he made about black Americans still burns me up :argh: No wonder the LDP kisses up to the pukes--they're cousins!

[psychopomp]

4. Former PM Mori was the official special envoy to Myanmar

last May.


With the trouble in Myanmar these days how could anybody think that sending this guy was going to help? He's as thick as Raygun ever was...

[Art_from_Ark]

6. Actually, what did Mori in were his actions during the submarine incident

in which he continued to play golf after hearing of the sinking of the Japanese fishing school boat.

"Hey, there's nothing I can do. Now watch this drive..."

[Zech Marquis]

7. exactly

his sorry ass was on the golf course, and when he learned of the accident, he KEPT playing :argh: it was like,"oh well, did you see make birdie/"

[Art_from_Ark]

5. This kind of stuff happens all the time in Japan

The previous huff was when Koizumi went to Yasukuni Shrine to pray for the Japanese war dead. China and Korea voiced their disapproval

[molok555]

8. A buncha Korean didn't just rebuke

him-they cut off their pinky fingers with paper cutters. A nasty display in front of the Japanese Consulate.

My wife HATED Mori. Why? "He is SO Yakuza. Just look at him". And we all now which wing of the bird the Yakuza ride on.