Benjamin Lai is an expert on modern Chinese military and the author of The Dragon’s Teeth. Here, he talks about the startlingly far-right views of modern Japanese leaders.
On 15th January, two New York University students posted a 10-minute homemade video on Weibo, China’s top blogger website highlighting the controversial reading material that they had found in their hotel room, which denied the truth of the Nanking (Nanjing) Massacre. The video has now received over 95 million views since it was posted. Many Chinese after watching the footage promptly swore off staying at an APA hotel for life and many of the major Chinese travel websites including the NASDAQ-listed Ctrip.com has deleted APA hotels from their server. In response, APA acknowledged it has received “floods of opinions” but stated that they have “…no intention of withdrawing the book from our guestrooms…”.
The book that sparks the controversy is entitled “Theoretical Modern History II – The Real History of Japan, Japan Pride IV” by Motoya Toshio under the pen name Seiji Fuji. Motoya is an ultra-right-wing nationalist famous for his revisionist histories. He is also a multi-millionaire, CEO and founder of APA Group, a Tokyo-based land developer and operator of 400-plus budget hotels in Japan and USA. In the book, Motoya lambasts China by claiming the 1937 Nanking Massacre as ‘absurd’ and an ‘imaginary’ event concocted by China to blame Japan. Motoya further elaborates that the wartime practice of coercing Korean women as “comfort women” (Sex Slaves) by the
Kawamura Takashi is the current serving Mayor of Nagoya – another vocal Nanking denier. In 2012 his statements refuting the Nanking Massacre while receiving an official Chinese delegation led to the suspension of all official exchange between the two cities of Nagoya and Nanking.
Japanese military was also a work of fiction.
Unlike other ex-Axis nations like Germany and Italy, many Japanese ultra-rightwing nationalists like Motoya still adamantly refuse to accept any blame for Japan’s role in the wars she started. Many still blame the Americans for dropping the atomic bomb and see that as a criminal act for which Japan must take revenge.
In contrast, not only is holocaust denial a crime in modern Germany, but many Germans like Bettina Goering, the great-niece of Reich Marshall Herman Goering, felt so ashamed of her connection to her infamous ancestor that she has vowed to eliminate the Goering name through sterilisation surgery.
A gathering of ultra-conservatives: Motoya Toshio is wearing the stripy jumper and next to him is his wife Fumiko, who serves as CEO of the APA Group. Sitting in the centre is Shinzo Abe before he became Prime Minister.
After the end of WWII in 1945, the treatment of the former Axis leadership generally took two divergent paths. While Germany was systematically “de-Nazified” by the Allies through years of re-education, the treatment of Japanese war criminals was carried out in a haphazard fashion by the Americans. The de-fascism process was cut short as early as 1948 mainly due to the need of cold war anti-communist politics. The war crime trials were speedily concluded or cut short and many militarists holding high offices during the war years were allowed back into political office. Some went into business many became CEOs of huge corporations including Masaji Kitano who commanded the notorious unit 731 which conducted ghastly biological experiments on live prisoners, traded their knowledge for freedom and went on to find wealth through business. The best-known war criminal that escaped punishment was current Japanese prime minister Abe Shinzo’s maternal grandfather Kishi Nobusuke, a Class A War criminal who went on to serve as Prime Minister, not once but twice. His brother Sato Eisaku who had similar hard line views went on to serve from 1964 to 1972 as Prime Minister. Besides Abe Shinzo, his right-wing family includes his brother Kishi Nobuo, a current serving MP and Abe’s father served as Foreign Minister. Aso Taro, the current deputy prime minister and finance minister who also briefly served as Prime minister between 2008-9 is another ardent nationalist who harbours strong revisionist sentiment. One way or another Post-war Japan was run by men, who held ultra-rightwing conservative views. To put it another way, if you imagine a bunch of Ex-Nazi or closet Fascists who are vocal holocaust deniers still holding key government posts in modern Germany, I am sure most of Europe would be up in arms. This would explain why the Chinese are so angry whenever hard-line Japanese try to white-wash history.
So it can be fairly argued that, on grounds of short-term political expediency, America facilitated the continuing refusal by Japan to acknowledge its war guilt by its failure to punish Japan’s war criminals. This short-sighted action has allowed ultra-nationalist sentiment to remain in Japan, and what is most worrying is that many who hold such ultra-nationalist views are in a position of leadership. Which way Japan will turn in the future is very worrying indeed.
For more about the China’s relationship with Japan, check out Benjamin Lai’s latest book, The Dragon’s Teeth: The Chinese People’s Liberation Army—Its History, Traditions, and Air Sea and Land Capability in the 21st Century.
Published by Casemate Books, The Dragon’s Teeth is available from: http://www.casematepublishing.co.uk/index.php/the-dragon-039-s-teeth.html
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