The Japanese continue with their foot-in-mouth public relations. After yesterday's comfort women comments from Osaka mayor Toru Hashimoto, here's a photo of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, taken at an Air Self-Defense Force base on Sunday:
What's the problem? Well, Unit 731 was a notorious biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army based in Harbin, Manchuria, during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II, and was responsible for some of the most appalling war crimes carried out by Japanese personnel. The patients, including infants and the elderly, were infected with diseases and subjected to vivisection without anaesthetic, amongst other unspeakable cruelties.
General Shirō Ishii, the chief medical officer, was a Joseph Mengele figure who, disgracefully, was given immunity after the war by the Americans in return for sharing his ill-gotten information, and died peacefully in Maryland in 1959.
An unfortunate mistake by the Japanese PM, then? You'd think so. But there's that "Leader S. Abe" written just above the "731", which suggests that this particular plane was picked with at least some deliberation. And he's certainly aware of the significance of the number: a news program in 2006 showed a picture of Abe during a report on Unit 731, prompting complaints from the man that this was a deliberate attempt to damage his political career. So yes, he knows exactly what "731" means.
The Chinese, and the South Koreans, haven't been slow to respond:
The press in Seoul suggested the Abe picture was an intended affront to countries like China and South Korea which suffered under Japanese occupation and colonization.
“Abe’s endless provocation!” said the picture caption on the front page of the country’s largest daily, the Chosun Ilbo.
“Abe’s pose resurrects horrors of Unit 731,” ran the headline in the English-language Korea JoongAng Daily....
The Japanese Defense Ministry suggested the number on the trainer was simply coincidental.
“There was no particular meaning in the number of the training airplane the prime minister was in on Sunday. Other than that there is nothing we can say,” a ministry spokesman told AFP in Tokyo.
South Korean ambassador to Japan Shin Kak-Soo said he knew of nothing that indicated there was any intent behind the use of a plane numbered 731, but that Japan needed to pay attention to perceptions.
Likening Japan’s sticky relationship with its neighbors to that between a school bully and his targets, he said: “There is a gap between the perception of a victimiser and that of a victim.”
He said Japanese empathy toward Koreans on the history issue “would prompt a faster healing of wounds.”
The prominence given to the photo will likely fuel public anger in South Korea which has already been aroused by the recent visit of Japanese cabinet ministers and lawmakers to a controversial war shrine.
The Yasukuni shrine in central Tokyo honors 2.5 million war dead, including 14 leading war criminals and is regarded by South Korea and China as a symbol of wartime aggression.
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