Japan says may cut UNESCO funds over Nanjing massacre move
A Japanese government source said the committee that made the decision was made up of experts in document preservation, not in evaluating the veracity of historical content.
But a fresh chill seemed likely after China last month announced the arrest of two Japanese for spying, and Japan this week threatened it might halt funding for UNESCO over a dispute about documents related to the 1937 Nanjing Massacre.
The July meeting was overshadowed by China’s negative reaction to Japan’s new security legislation passing the Lower House of the Diet (the bills have since passed the Upper House as well and become law).
On December 20, 1937, a German Embassy clerk in China sent eyewitness reports to the Foreign Ministry in Berlin and the German Embassy in Japan, saying that, “there is no more miserable slaughter than the Nankinger Massacre”. Suga said Japan would also seek reform of UNESCO, which was the first United Nations organization Japan joined after World War II, in its 1951 return to the worldwide community. “We were not even allowed access to the contents of the document”, Suga said.
According to China government, Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in the massacre.
Beijing rejected Japan’s protest about the UNESCO move, the official Xinhua news agency said.
“China will consider such an opinion seriously and deliberate on it”, Hua said.
Japan’s official position is that “the killing of a large number of noncombatants, looting and other acts occurred”, though adds “it is hard to determine” the correct number of victims.
“Our country has never done such a thing”, he said at a press conference at which he called on China to release the detainees immediately.
When Japan’s Meiji era (1868-1912) industrial revolution sites were added to the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage list in July this year, South Korea opposed the registration, claiming that Korean workers were requisitioned during the war.
Global recognition of the documentary heritage that testifying to the atrocities committed in the city is an important part of worldwide efforts to preserve the collective memory of mankind and promote peace and justice.