The Chinese government has expressed its outrage at a Japanese town’s efforts to get its collection of kamikaze pilot memorabilia granted UNESCO recognition.
The city of Minami Kyushu, in southern Kyushu of all places, has applied for UNESCO recognition of its morbid collection of last wills and farewell letters from kamikaze pilots who gloriously flew themselves into various American ships and patches of ocean.
It hosted an airbase which sent hundreds of the pilots flying at US targets as they went about the final destruction of Japan’s empire, and UNESCO world heritage status for the collection would “highlight the importance of world peace” (as well as quite possibly make them into a minor tourist attraction).
China is appalled at the prospect, with their foreign ministry lambasting their application quite thoroughly:
“The design behind the so-called application for the kamikaze pilots is very clear, which is to try and beautify the Japanese militarist history of invasion.”
“This intention is diametrically opposed to UNESCO’s objective of maintaining world peace, and must be strongly condemned and resolutely opposed by the international community.”
PM Abe’s insistence on visiting Yasukuni, modest increases to defence spending and efforts to appoint historical revisionists who maintain Japan’s wartime conduct was beyond reproach to every public body in his power have all conspired to grievously annoy China recently – although outwardly their conduct towards the previous DPJ government so keen to kowtow to them seems to have been little different.
The government of the US meanwhile, although quick to castigate Abe for visiting Yasukuni, have so far not bothered to comment on the crazed actions of a metropolis with as many as 37,000 inhabitants.
I specially went to see that place, and it’s not a “morbid collection” (maybe less than Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs museums can be called that) and the place is not glorifying them, I came out with a, more or less, “this was an error, this must not be repeated ever again” message.
This site is so awesome. I think I want to be a historian.
How kamikaze has anything to do with China…? Aren’t they aimed at American to begin with…? I don’t recollect China has any fleets for Japan to throw flying bombs at them, let alone the usurper Commie-China.
Then, the onu should also give recognition to those who dropped the atomic bombs on japan for helping to restore world’s peace. After all those nukes forced those genocidal monkyes to surrender.
Don’t they know the word “enough” ? The Chinese is still screaming on their forums to send one or two “little boy” to Yasukuni Shrine and now this …