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The Electronic Telegraph - WORLD NEWS, (hursday)7 December 1995 Japan's war crimes denied in newspaper ad By Robert Guest in Tokyo A JAPANESE Right-wing group will run an advertisement in the New York Times today claiming that the raid on Pearl Harbour was not a "sneak attack", that the Rape of Nanjing did not happen, and that the Japanese army never forced Korean women into prostitution. The full-page advertisement is timed to coincide with the 54th anniversary of the bombing in 1941 that provoked America into declaring war on Japan. The Youth Liberal Party, which claims 100,000 members and one MP, paid £39,600 for the advertisement. Shinji Saito, the party leader, said the purpose was to correct the view that Japan behaved abominably during the war. "So many lies are told about Japan's war record that it looks as though we were a criminal nation," he said. "By clearing up these misunderstandings we can forge friendly ties with the rest of the world." The advertisement, addressed to "Dear American friends", claims that America did not receive Tokyo's declaration of war until after Pearl Harbour because of a "ludicrous blunder", involving slow and incompetent typists at the Japanese embassy in Washington. Most Western historians argue that the surprise raid deliberately flouted international law, but some believe the bureaucratic bungling theory. "These ghastly Rightists represent only a small minority of Japanese, but they are giving us all a bad name." Almost no one, however, agrees with the group's contention that only 2,400 civilians were killed by Japanese troops after the fall of Nanjing in 1937. China says 300,000 men, women and children were slaughtered in an attempt to terrorise the country into submission. Even Japanese textbooks admit 150,000 deaths. The advertisement shows a photograph of Nanjing citizens fraternising with Japanese soldiers to "prove" that the massacre never occurred. The picture is culled from a contemporary copy of Japan's Asahi newspaper, which was under constant state surveillance at the time. The advertisement says it is a "myth that Japanese troops enslaved innocent women for unsavoury purposes" during the war. The "comfort women" were almost all practising prostitutes, it claims. The brothels were run by private entrepreneurs, there was no official involvement and no woman was "forced into the profession", it says. In 1992, the Japanese government admitted that the imperial army compelled tens of thousands of mainly Korean women to serve as sex slaves. Korean historians allege that about 200,000 women, some as young as 12, were subjected to this torture. Thousands died of disease or committed suicide out of shame. Moderate Japanese reacted with horror to the advertisement. Shinichi Sakamoto, of the Japan Socialist Party, said: "Oh no! Not again! These ghastly Rightists represent only a small minority of Japanese, but they are giving us all a bad name." The agency that handles Japanese customers who wish to advertise in the New York Times, Nakayama Media International, confirmed that the advertisement will be run.
Here is a link that pertains to this Message: Alliance for Preserving the Truth of Sino-Japanese War