LDP, DPJ ranks hear Nanjing denial lecture
Posted by Matt Dioguardi on March 8th, 2007
WHAT MASSACRE?
LDP, DPJ ranks hear Nanjing denial lecture
By JUN HONGO
About 30 lawmakers from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Japan gathered Tuesday to hear a controversial historian talk about why he figures the Nanjing Massacre is a “complete fabrication.”
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Shudo Higashinakano, a history professor at Asia University in Tokyo, told the small group that the Nanjing Massacre was simply Chinese government propaganda.
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The professor was invited by a group of 16 lawmakers who already agree with him, including Toru Toida and Tomomi Inada of the LDP, and Jin Matsubara and Shu Watanabe of the DPJ, the main opposition force.
Higashinakano is a well-known public figure. Last year the Nanjing City Intermediate People’s Court ordered him and another historian to pay 23 million yen in compensation to a Chinese woman for alleging in a publication that she had lied about having witnessed the massacre. Historians worldwide generally agree that the Imperial Japanese Army killed at least 150,000 civilians and raped thousands of women and girls during its occupation of the former capital of China in 1937 and 1938.
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Higashinakano told the group there was no organized rape or murder, and individual soldiers caught raping women were severely punished by their superiors.
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The group applauded Higashinakano at the end of his 90-minute talk and Matsubara said, “I’m convinced now that the Nanjing Massacre never took place.”
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According to the organizer, the lectures are to counter several films being made outside of Japan and will be released this year to mark the 70th anniversary of the massacre.
I’ve never studied the issue of the Nanjing Massacre, so can’t comment on it. However, what gets me here is Jin Matsubara’s comment. He’s convinced *now* after seeing the 90 minute lecture that the massacre didn’t take place?
There’s so much controversy here that it would seem prudent at least to subject one’s opinion to as much scrutiny as possible before offering it. Just hearing a 90 minute lecture is enough to convince Matsubara the Nanjing Massacre didn’t happen?
What’s also worthy of note here is that this issue seems to have crossed the aisle here. So is the Democratic Party really so different from the LDP? Is it possible for a Japanese voter to vote for a major party that doesn’t have nationalists in it?
March 15th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
I don’t understand these politician. Higashinakano is not an historian, there are lot of historian who are specialist about these theme. And they choose Higashinakano.
I thought all of these politician graduaded from universities. What did they learn?
Incredible.
March 19th, 2007 at 10:09 pm
Yes they all graduated from universities, but the only challenge in Japan is getting into a university. Once accepted, almost nobody fails to graduate. So it could be said that this is an education system which functions backwards.
Higashinakano must be very persuasive, in a television wide show he also famously “convinced” all-purpose gaijin David Spector that the Nanjing Massacre was a fabrication.