Japan hotelier under fire over denial of massacre
Print Edition
CHINA has lambasted a leading Japanese businessman for writing a book denying a wartime massacre of Chinese civilians and placing copies of it in rooms belonging to his hotel chain.
Toshio Motoya, chief executive of the Tokyo-based hotel group APA, writing under a pen name, denied the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, during which up to 300,000 Chinese people died in a six-week spree of killing, rape and destruction by the invading Japanese military.
The issue is the latest row between the Asian neighbors over unhealed wounds from Japan’s aggression before and during World War II. It follows a diplomatic flap between Japan and South Korea over a statue representing the “comfort women” used for sex in Japan’s wartime brothels.
The APA group has said it would not remove the book, placed in hundreds of its rooms, after revelations of its existence lit up social media and prompted an official response by China.
The massacre, often referred to as the “Rape of Nanking,” is an extremely sensitive issue in the often-tense relations between China and Japan, with Beijing charging that Tokyo has failed to atone for the mass murder and rape.
Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Tuesday that the book “again shows that some forces within Japan refuse to squarely face history and even attempt to deny and distort history.”
Coercive recruitment of “comfort women” and the Nanjing Massacre were crimes against humanity committed by wartime Japan and “an iron-clad fact recognized by the international community,” she said.
“History can never change over time, and facts will not fade away despite deliberate evasion,” she said.
The issue surfaced this week when contributor “KatAndSid” posted a video on a social networking site describing the English version of the book Motoya wrote under the pen name Seiji Fuji.
The video shows passages from the book calling the 1937 massacre in the Chinese city an “imaginary” event concocted by China to blame Japan. The book also denies that Japan’s use of “comfort women” involved forced prostitution.
The KatAndSid video, posted on the popular Chinese social media site Weibo, shows her buying the English-language version of Motoya’s book at an APA hotel in Tokyo, opening it and showing passages to viewers. It is subtitled in Chinese.
The narrator says that while the hotel’s owner has a right to express his views, people should be aware of his stance.
“People who give their money to this hotel deserve to know the truth about it,” she said.
APA acknowledged it had received “floods of opinions” and queries after a guest uploaded a picture of the book on the Internet.
It added that the publication was “not aimed (at criticizing) any specific state or nation, but for the purpose of letting readers learn the fact-based true interpretation of modern history.”
“Therefore, we have no intention to withdraw this book from our guest rooms,” the statement on its website said.
Motoya is a vocal backer of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and is connected with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s ultra-conservative wing.
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