Japan hotel chain under fire over denial of Rape of Nanking

A fast-growing Japanese hotel chain is facing criticism over a book penned by the hotel’s owner that says the Rape of Nanking was fabricated.

APA Group, a Tokyo-based land developer and operator of 400-plus hotels, drew fire for spreading the revisionist views of company president Toshio Motoya by putting the books in hotel guestrooms and also selling them.

The issue is the latest flap between the Asian neighbors over unhealed wounds from Japan’s aggression before and during World War II. It follows a diplomatic row with South Korea over a statue representing the “comfort women” who were used for sex in military-linked wartime brothels.

China has lodged a complaint, but APA says it stands by its owner’s views.

The issue surfaced this week when contributors KatAndSid posted a video on a social networking site describing the English version of “Theoretical Modern History,” a book Motoya wrote under the penname Seiji Fuji.

The video shows passages from the book calling the 1937 massacre an “imaginary” event concocted by China to blame Japan. The book also denies that Japan’s use of “comfort women” involved forced prostitution.

The massacre of Chinese citizens by the Japanese military in what became known as the Rape of Nanking is one of the biggest flashpoints between the two countries. China says up to 300,000 people were killed, while Japanese nationalists have said far fewer died or denied there even was a massacre.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has also expressed skepticism toward accounts of the Rape of Nanjing. The inclusion of Rape of Nanking documents on a UNESCO heritage list in October 2015 prompted Japan to suspend its contribution to the United Nation’s educational unit.

When asked about the book, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that “some forces in Japan have been denying history from the outset and even attempting to distort it.” 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.

APA hotel said in a statement that the book is meant to help readers learn “the fact-based true interpretation of modern history” and not aimed at criticizing a specific country or its people.

“We have no intention of withdrawing the book from our guestrooms even if we receive criticisms from those with different viewpoints,” it said. “Japan guarantees freedom of speech, and no one-sided pressure should be allowed to cause a retraction of a statement.”

In a statement on its website APA also reiterated its position that there is no documentary proof 300,000 people were massacred in the Rape of Nanking.

The hotel, however, did not respond to inquiries from the Associated Press earlier yesterday.

APA has expanded quickly in recent years, offering relatively reasonably priced, no-frills rooms across the country. About 5 percent of its guests are Chinese, according to local media. APA opened its first overseas outlet in New Jersey in 2015 and has since purchased a hotel chain in Canada.

Motoya is a vocal backer of Abe and is connected with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s ultra-conservative wing. He organizes lectures and invites leading revisionist historians, ideologues and politicians to speak.

The KatAndSid video, posted this week 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, who does not give her name, 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. Mari Yamaguchi, Tokyo, AP