Furore over Nanjing Massacre books in Japan hotel

Japan hotel chain could remove books denying Nanjing Massacre from some hotels.

Japan hotel chain could remove books denying Nanjing Massacre from some hotels.

Published Jan 26, 2017

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A Japanese hotel chain at the

centre of a furore over books its president wrote denying the

Nanjing Massacre in wartime China is prepared to consider

removing the books from at least some hotels if it receives a

formal written request to do so.

Tokyo-based hotel and real estate developer APA Group came

under fire last week for books by president Toshio Motoya, which

contain his revisionist views and are placed in every room of

the company's 400-plus APA Hotels.

Motoya, using the pen name Seiji Fuji, wrote that stories of

the Nanjing Massacre were "impossible": "These acts were all

said to be committed by the Japanese army, but this is not

true."

China says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in Nanjing

from December 1937 to January 1938. A post-war Allied tribunal

put the death toll at about half that. To the fury of China,

some conservative Japanese politicians and academics deny the

massacre took place, or they put the death toll much lower.

Motoya has previously said the hotel had no intention of

withdrawing the books, which have appeared for years but only

became an issue in China last week due to a video posting on

social media, saying Japan's free speech laws protect him.

But APA said on its website on Tuesday that when

negotiations took place in April 2015 about using some hotels to

host athletes for the 2017 Sapporo Asian Winter Games on Japan's

northernmost island of Hokkaido, it received a verbal request

from a travel agent to remove all printed matter from rooms.

It added that if there was a formal, written request, it was

prepared to respond, without giving further details.

Officials for the Games, set to take place from Feb. 19 to

26, said they wanted to create the best possible environment for

athletes but had not spoken with APA since the hotels were

decided. They also had not been aware of the books.

"To choose host hotels for the Games, it is a prerequisite

that any hotels meet our standards that there will be no

promotion of any kind of political, religious or racial views,"

said Hisatsugu Yamazaki, manager of the Sports Affairs

Department at the organising committee.

"APA made that statement regarding removing printed matter

if there was a formal request. We would like to discuss things

with the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) and decide on a speedy

response," he added.

The OCA is the governing body for all sports in Asia.

APA did not immediately respond to requests for additional

comments.

China's tourism administration has urged tour operators to

sever ties with the hotel chain after an escalating row over the

denial, and there have been calls on social media for a boycott

of both the hotel and travel to Japan.

Motoya told Reuters in an email last week that Chinese made

up only 5 percent of guests at his hotels in Japan and he was

not worried about the impact of any potential boycott. 

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