河村名古屋市長の南京事件否定発言に関する海外報道
網羅しているわけではありませんが、とりあえず台湾、シンガポール、アメリカでの英語報道を集めました。
シンガポール The Straits Times (2012/2/24)
Tokyo governor backs Nanjing massacre denial
TOKYO (AFP) - Tokyo's outspoken conservative governor Shintaro Ishihara on Friday said that he agreed with the mayor of Nagoya's statement that the 1937 'rape' of Nanjing by Japanese troops never happened.Diplomatic sparks flew earlier this week when Mr Takashi Kawamura said he believes only a 'conventional fight' took place in Nagoya's sister city of Nanjing, instead of the well-documented massacre of Chinese civilians.
China says 300,000 people were killed in an orgy of murder, rape and destruction when the eastern city - then the capital - fell to the Japanese imperial army, and the incident has haunted Sino-Japanese ties ever since.
Beijing lodged a formal complaint over the denial and Nanjing officials said they were freezing twin city activities in protest.
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Asia/Story/STIStory_770279.html
アメリカ CNN (2012/2/23)
Fury over Japanese politician's Nanjing Massacre denialBy Paul Armstrong, CNN
February 23, 2012 -- Updated 1418 GMT (2218 HKT)Hong Kong (CNN) -- The mayor of a Japanese city has sparked outrage after playing down a well-documented massacre of civilians in China's former capital more than 70 years ago.
An estimated 300,000 people died when Japanese troops invaded the city of Nanjing in China's Jiangsu province in 1937, unleashing a campaign of rape, murder and looting that became known as the Nanjing Massacre. The event was recently portrayed in a movie starring Christian Bale called "The Flowers of War."
But earlier this week, Takashi Kawamura, the mayor of Nagoya, told a visiting delegation from Nanjing that he believed only "conventional acts of combat" took place there, not the mass murders and rapes, China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported. He repeated his assertion to Japanese reporters Wednesday.
"It is true that a considerable number of people died in the course of battle. However such a thing as so-called Nanjing Massacre is unlikely to have taken place," he said.
"I have said that without hesitation since people from Chinese Communist Party came to visit us. If they think it is not fact ... they can tell us openly as they want. I am ready to hold an open debate in Nanjing to discuss it."
Kawamura's comments drew fierce criticism on mainstream and social media in China, while Nanjing officials announced they would be suspending ties with Nagoya. The two cities have enjoyed close links since establishing a sister-city relationship in 1978.
"The historical facts of the Nanjing Massacre have been solidly proven. The claim by Kawamura is extremely irresponsible. We hope the mayor can admit the historical facts and draw lessons from the past," read a statement issued by Nanjing's information office and published by Xinhua.
A spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry expressed support for the decision at a news conference Wednesday.
"We have made our position clear on the Nagoya mayor's denial of the Nanjing Massacre and already lodged a solemn representation to the Japanese side," Hong Lei said, in quotes carried by Xinhua. He added that China was closely monitoring the situation.
An editorial in the state-controlled Global Times Thursday urged China to put pressure diplomatically and economically on Kawamura to apologize or resign. "We strongly suggest China uses its diplomatic resources to issue sanctions on Kawamura and put pressure on Nagoya," it said.
"If needed, we can also downgrade economic cooperation with Nagoya to add weight to the incident. Such actions are totally morally justifiable. Most of the reckless Japanese officials to deny history like Kawamura had paid their price."
Sina Weibo, China's Twitter-like micro-blogging service, made the incident "topic of the day," attracting more than one million related posts at the time of writing, with many choosing to interpret Kawamura's comments as Japan's official attitude on the Nanjing massacre and other historical issues between the two countries.
One comment from a user known as Sunnyzhouchufei read: "I was planning a trip to Japan in March, now after the incident I'm calling it off. Many Japanese are a polite and well-educated people, but denial of [the] massacre reveals that they are really hypocrites. So this is my way of protest: I'll travel around the world, but never set my foot in Japan!"
Another, called Linglan, said: "Apparently Japanese government is conniving with such comments, otherwise how on earth can a Mayor be so reckless? He must have spoken what's on this militarist government's mind. This incident is in line with the government's long-standing attitude of denying the crime they once committed on other Asian countries. This is shameless, pathetic and hateful. China should halt all ties with Japan all together."
Meanwhile, city officials in Nagoya attempted to repair the damage. "What our mayor said is only his personal opinion. As a city government, we are to follow the national government's perception that the occurrence of [the] Nanjing Massacre can not be denied," said Kazuaki Enomoto, a spokesperson for Nagoya City Government.
"We have been working on building a relationship with Nanjing City for 34 years till now. We are not doing anything about the mayor's idea of a 'debate.'"
Kyung Lah in Tokyo and Shao Tian in Beijing contributed to this report.
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/23/world/asia/china-nanjing-row/index.html
台湾 Taiwan News (2012/2/23)
Japan’s denial to Nanjing massacre enrages China, sister-city relationship over
The Chinese city of Nanjing has suspended its sister-city relationship with Nagoya, Japan, after Nagoya’s mayor expressed doubts that the Japanese Army’s 1937 Nanjing Massacre actually took place, the Nagoya City Hall said Wednesday.
The falling out began Monday, when Nagoya’s mayor, Takashi Kawamura, told a visiting delegation of Chinese Communist Party officials from Nanjing that he doubted that Japanese troops had massacred Chinese civilians. Most historians say that at a minimum, tens of thousands of civilians were slaughtered in Nanjing in one of the most infamous atrocities of Japan’s military expansion across Asia in the early 20th century.
The falling out underscored how differing views of history remain a problem in Japan’s ties with the nations that it once conquered. While such denials are common by Japanese conservatives like Mr. Kawamura, they are rarely raised in such a public manner, or directly to Chinese officials. But there is also a widely shared perception in Japan that China’s government plays up the massacre for its own propaganda purposes.
Still, the Japanese government scrambled to head off a full-blown diplomatic quarrel. The top government spokesman restated Japan’s official position that the massacre did, in fact, take place.
“This is a problem that should be appropriately resolved between the cities of Nagoya and Nanjing,” said the spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura.
The City Hall of Nagoya, an industrial city in central Japan, said it received what it described as a short and business-like e-mail on Wednesday morning from the city government of Nanjing saying that the Chinese city was temporarily halting all exchanges.
On Wednesday, Mr. Kawamura remained unrepentant, saying that he did not intend to retract the statement or apologize. He explained that his father had been a solider in Nanjing in 1945, and was treated kindly by city residents, which he said would have been impossible had an atrocity taken place there just eight years earlier.
“There are many opinions about the so-called Nanjing incident,” he told reporters, using the Japanese term for the killings in December 1937. “I have said I want to have a debate with people from Nanjing.”
Such disagreements between Japan and its neighbors have quieted from the early 2000s, when Junichiro Koizumi, then prime minister, angered many in China and South Korea by visiting the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo that honors Japan’s war dead, included executed war criminals.
However, questions of history can still disrupt relations. In Kyoto in December, Japan’s prime minster, Yoshihiko Noda, was rebuffed by the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, when Mr. Noda asked for removal of a statue in front of the Japanese Embassy in Tokyo that remembered women forced to work as sex slaves for the Japanese military during World War II. The South Korean leader responded by asking for compensation for the surviving former sex slaves, most now in their 80s. Japan says war-related reparations were settled when it established diplomatic ties with South Korea after World War II.
http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_content.php?id=1849870&lang=eng_news&cate_rss=news_Politics
アメリカ The New York Times (2012/2/22)
Chinese City Severs Ties After Japanese Mayor Denies Massacre
By MARTIN FACKLER
Published: February 22, 2012TOKYO — The Chinese city of Nanjing has suspended its sister-city relationship with Nagoya, Japan, after Nagoya’s mayor expressed doubts that the Japanese Army’s 1937 Nanjing Massacre actually took place, the Nagoya City Hall said Wednesday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/23/world/asia/chinese-city-severs-ties-after-japanese-mayor-denies-massacre.html
The falling out began Monday, when Nagoya’s mayor, Takashi Kawamura, told a visiting delegation of Chinese Communist Party officials from Nanjing that he doubted that Japanese troops had massacred Chinese civilians. Most historians say that at a minimum, tens of thousands of civilians were slaughtered in Nanjing in one of the most infamous atrocities of Japan’s military expansion across Asia in the early 20th century.
The falling out underscored how differing views of history remain a problem in Japan’s ties with the nations that it once conquered. While such denials are common by Japanese conservatives like Mr. Kawamura, they are rarely raised in such a public manner, or directly to Chinese officials. But there is also a widely shared perception in Japan that China’s government plays up the massacre for its own propaganda purposes.
Still, the Japanese government scrambled to head off a full-blown diplomatic quarrel. The top government spokesman restated Japan’s official position that the massacre did, in fact, take place.
“This is a problem that should be appropriately resolved between the cities of Nagoya and Nanjing,” said the spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura.
The City Hall of Nagoya, an industrial city in central Japan, said it received what it described as a short and business-like e-mail on Wednesday morning from the city government of Nanjing saying that the Chinese city was temporarily halting all exchanges.
On Wednesday, Mr. Kawamura remained unrepentant, saying that he did not intend to retract the statement or apologize. He explained that his father had been a solider in Nanjing in 1945, and was treated kindly by city residents, which he said would have been impossible had an atrocity taken place there just eight years earlier.
“There are many opinions about the so-called Nanjing incident,” he told reporters, using the Japanese term for the killings in December 1937. “I have said I want to have a debate with people from Nanjing.”
Such disagreements between Japan and its neighbors have quieted from the early 2000s, when Junichiro Koizumi, then prime minister, angered many in China and South Korea by visiting the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo that honors Japan’s war dead, included executed war criminals.
However, questions of history can still disrupt relations. In Kyoto in December, Japan’s prime minster, Yoshihiko Noda, was rebuffed by the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, when Mr. Noda asked for removal of a statue in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul that remembered women forced to work as sex slaves for the Japanese military during World War II. The South Korean leader responded by asking for compensation for the surviving former sex slaves, most now in their 80s. Japan says war-related reparations were settled when it established diplomatic ties with South Korea after World War II.
