The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.
© KYODOUnder-fire lawmaker hits back at criticism over S Korea war remarks
TOKYO©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
Video promotion
The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.
© KYODO
53 Comments
Jeff Huffman
No one is suppressing your "free speech." What's being censured is your idiotic suggestion that a war with S. Korea, which Japan might very likely lose anyway, would settle the matter at hand.
oldman_13
IloveCoffee
He did not raised a question. That was clearly a rhetorical question. He was clearly agitating and calling for war with South Korea. I also wonder if he is against the cancellation of the Comfort Women exhibition in Nagoya, or does he not consider that a major violation of people's constitutional rights?
Also, who exactly has "suppressed" his free speech? His tweet is still standing "free" in his twitter account. Also, you have a right to "free speech", but free speech does not mean speech free of consequences. You have a right to speak, others have a right to condemn you, boycott you, or fire you. Furthermore, you do not have "freedom of speech" rights on Twitter. That's a private American company, not subject to Japanese laws or constitution.
alwaysspeakingwisdom
Freedom of Speech
Norman Goodman
He received official government punishment for speaking. Attacks on the freedom of speech don't usually come in the form of a literal muzzle. When the government punishes you for speaking its an attack on free speech. And just because they have not gone as far as block Twitter does not mean they are not doing it. They are doing it and its shameful.
Do the hustle
This is what you get in a country run by bureaucratic idiots with no political education. TIJ!
Norman Goodman
Why are Kyodo and others saying his questions are remarks, comments and suggestions?
Cricky
So this is a moment of clarity between drunken outbursts?
He is obviously so smart that even a lifetime of tax payer money isn't enough to plan a drunken retirement.
itsonlyrocknroll
A minor opposition party lawmaker on Tuesday said his right to free speech is being curtailed by those critical of him for suggesting war with South Korea would settle a territorial dispute between it and Japan.
Minor is the operative word, so why offer this politican a platform, He is drunk without a cause.
Cricky
Drunkards, mentally challenged old men this is why Japan has stagnated for 30 years. Japan could be a dynamic world leader and will be after the current pastys move on.
Its just a matter of waiting.
Samit Basu
If the dude is so convinced of his beliefs, she should resign his post and join the SDF.
Don't tell others to march to their dooms without willing to put down one's own life.
But I warn you, Japan will lose far more than what it expected if it ever went to war with the ROK of 2019.
TheLongTermer
I dont know, allot of the underground media keeps the populace hating on Koreans. I cant count how many times Ive heard Japanese say bad things about Chinese and Koreans. This guy is just part of that machine. The weird thing is, once in awhile I will confront a Japanese about this and he/she will say things like "I dont hate them! how dare you say that! Japanese are not like that!" of course blame shifting to me. Japan needs to have an honest conversation with itself but Korea and China are to blame as well.
drlucifer
You forgot the media in your analysis, they are in the hands of
Entertainers, comedians some even without high school education. Who carry the believe that carrying a mic makes one a journalist.
TheLongTermer
My advice for a long stay in Japan is to stay in your lane, but know whats going on, that is if your an international minded, individual oriented personality. As soon as you go into theirs, its going to be a tough experience to keep your sanity. No naturalization, none of that non sense. The politics (as we see here) and group think is too much. Its counter intuitive but do not immerse yourself into it. Probably the same in Korea and China, or worse I hear. There is no alternative logic; its the majority on the same page and you, by look, nationality, language, etc are an outsider.
Tokyo-Engr
I agree; this is truly freedom of speech and I would like to thank Maruyama-san for exercising his right to speak and showing us all what an idiot he is.
JustMyThoughts
Ridiculous political party, politician and comments. Nothing will change as a result of this fools comments and grievances about an injustice that never suffered. Speak on my friend, we all need to know that people with your thoughts are with us.
elephant200
NHK Kara Kokumin Wo Mamoru To (the party to protect the people from NHK)
Some Japanese people said NHK is a propaganda channel for North Korea and Communist China!
NHK is very anti Japan! Is that true?
Wallace Fred
Because abes regime has enabled the racists to come out of the woodworks. As was expected.
quercetum
Feigning innocence is he. Isn’t war the only way of getting them back? Do you want them back? So how will you get them back?
He is suggesting war and he to free to do so. His peers are also free to condemn him and his remarks.
Norman Goodman
quercetum You are intentionally ignoring the option of just letting the islands go since there is no way to get them (back) but through war. Why?
Laguna
Acknowledging that the Senkakus belong to Japan, Dokto to Korea, and the Southern Kurils to Russia - that is, the status quo - by all sides is the in the best interests of all sides.
Scrote
This fool is free to say what he likes. Similarly, others are free to slag him off for his idiocy. It's funny how these right wingers, who demand free speech for themselves, always start whining when people criticise them.
smithinjapan
Okay, let this clown go start the fight. See how long he lasts. What happened to the Russian jets that entered Korean airspace recently? They got a hail of gun fire in warning and had to turn about. What happens when they fly in Japanese airspace? Zip. Japan would be reduced to ashes in five minutes if a war started, then China and others would pick up the remains.
Heckleberry
Reduced to ashes? More like wiped off the map.
macv
SK has had compulsory military service for males since the 1950's and they live in constant state of readiness with DPRK on their border. I'd wager they are better prepared than Japanese young men.
AlexBecu
In 1965, after 14 years of hard negotiations, Japan and South Korea concluded the “Agreement on the Settlement of Problems concerning Property and Claims and on Economic Co-operation between Japan and the Republic of Korea.” Under the terms of the 1965 Agreement, Japan extended $500 million in grants and loans -- a sum that totaled 1.6 times as much as South Korea’s national budget then. All problems concerning claims between the two countries and their nationals were confirmed to be “settled completely and finally.”
Among the eight items in the “Outline of the Claims of the Republic of Korea against Japan” that were raised during negotiations, “accrued wages of the requisitioned Korean[s]” as well as “compensation of damages by war to the requisitioned Korean[s]” were included. The Agreed Minutes to the 1965 Agreement clearly state that the claims that were “settled completely and finally” included any that fell within the scope of these eight items.
OssanAmerica
There are two types of idiots, one are any Japanese politicians who make comments about using war as a means to settle disputes when the first paragraph of Article 9 specifically prohibits such an act. And second are the Korean nationalists who pound their chests claiming how South Korea could easily defeat a country that is constitutionally bound not to start any wars. Both are pretty pathetic in my book.
AlexBecu
S. Korea lawmakers can say anything about Japan.
Listen to their liberation speech, nothing but Anti-Japan propaganda and hate.
Let me clarify:
Go online and do your research, find out which government, which side talks more trash, bias, bashing, is it S. Korea or Japan government.
IloveCoffee
What punishment did he receive? He was just criticized.
Norman, philosophically and realistically speaking, there is no such thing as consequence-free speech. All speech has consequence. Very few people are in a position to really say what they mean, because almost everybody is either depended on their boss or their clients. When you belong to an organization, like the one Maruyama belonged, you sign a contract and give your consent to play by their rules. You are not free to speak your mind unless they ask you to. You are there to provide a service in exchange for money as agreed upon in the contract. You have contract obligations. Your behavior is limited to what is agreed upon in the contract. If Maruyama does not want politicians to criticize him, he is free to quit being a politician and become a normal citizen, then nobody from the government will criticize him for his twitter rants. So long as he is a politician, he represents the government, he is not free to speak his mind in that position.
Furthermore, like i already said, freedom to speak does not guarantee you freedom from consequences. Unless restricted by a legal agreement, you have a right to say whatever you want, but others have the right to condemn you, boycott you or fire you. That's why i said very few people are in a position to really speak their mind, because people are always depended on other people. Even if Maruyama hates LDP, which he probably does, would he be able to say that out loud? Very unlikely, since he is depended on LDP for his political career. Talking trash and negatively of Korea is very profitable in Japan at the moment, but if time comes, in the very long distance future, when talking badly about Koreans is seen as racist and something bad, very few people then would be in a position to speak badly of Koreans, because they would be afraid of public backlash.
Samit Basu
@OssanJapan
Japan's preemptive attack on the Liancourt Rocks and the Southern Kurils considered kosher under the Japanese constitutional legal theory. Why? Because Japan claims both are Japanese sovereign territories under foreign occupation, and any preemptive assault to "recover" them would merely be a policing action entirely in line with the Article 9.
I am surprised you didn't know this.
Korea CAN put Japan into submission in a week tops, they aren't kidding.
The ROK is currently sitting on a stockpile of 5,000 ballistic and cruise missiles and are running out of storage spaces to keep them. This stockpile was meant to disable North Korea's core infrastructure, command, and air defense within the first 48 hours of the second Korean War, but they could easily be turned around and be used on Japan instead.
Tom Doley
I suggest you listen to one of your compatriot posters here on this site who previously admitted that individual rights to claim haven't been terminated by the 1965 agreement. Better still, maybe you should research your government's position prior to Abe's regime, which was consistently of the position that individual rights to claim haven't been extinguished.
nigelboy
It hasn't. The agreement simply calls for these frivolous lawsuits and absurd judgments to be that of the responsibility of the Korean government.
melonbarmonster
Same right wing Japanese trope. The real news is that these nut jobs are actually getting their way with Shinzo Abe. This is not going to end well for Japan.
OssanAmerica
What South Korea has or has not, or what it imagines it can or can not do to Japan is irrelevant. The first shot by South Korea against Japan would invoke Article 5 of the US-JPN Mutual Defense Treaty. There would be no South Korea left on the map in a matter of hours. An attack on a US ally with far more US military personnel and assets than in South Korea would put South Korea in the same category as North Korea as far as the United States is concerned. The UN Command HQ is based in Yokota Japan. A little thinking shows just how stupid it is to even consider SK waging a war against JPN. What I said about pathetic idiots stands.
Samit Basu
@OssanJapan
1) The ROK has no reason to attack Japan first.
2) This Maruyama dude is proposing that Japan attack Korea preemptively to recover the Liacourt Rocks.
3) The Liancourt Rocks are not covered by the US-JP Mutual Defense treaty.
4) So if a war breaks out per Maruyama's suggestions, then Japan's on its own.
OssanAmerica
\As I originally stated, this Maruyama is an idiot. Japan is prohibited from starting any war to resolve diplomatic disputes per the first paragraph of Article 9.
Therefore, the only way that a war could break out between Japan and South Korea is if South Korea attacks Japan. Because South Korea has no such restriction in it's constitution as Japan does.
IF South Korea attacks Japan, Article 5 of the Mutual Defense Treaty will go into effect, South Korea will be treated as an enemy state by the United States along with North Korea, at which point the Liancourt Rocks lose any significance whatsoever.
Therefore, anyone who goes on about how South Korea is or isn't militarily capable of defeating Japan is, likewise, an idiot.
Samit Basu
@OssanJapan
Once again, Japanese rightwingers interpret the Article 9 in such a way that preemptive attacks on the Southern Kurils and the Liancourt Rocks are legal police actions in compliance with the Article 9, and Maruyama is making his claims based on this legal theory.
Maruyama and many other Japanese rightwingers suggest the opposite, Japan preemptively attacking Korea to seize the Liancourt Rocks.
The JMSDF seriously considered this option too, until they concluded they could not defend Tsushima if the war broke out and ruled it out.
OssanAmerica
So one idiot tweets something that makes no sense, violates the constitution and is impossible. And other idiot argue about it ad infinitum. 자러 가다
showchinmono
Samit Basu
Get Real. When days entire world becomes chaotic enough came that even Japan would not hesitate to take military action just to recover those 2 rocks, would you think Japan's military power stay as it is now? Those Anti-Japan Koreans like yourself in Japan would have been expelled first of all for sure.
All SKorea has to do if they think it is one of civilized nations, rather than BS-ing its military powers, stop running away and just sit on the other side of table at ICJ.
oyatoi
OssanAmerica: 자러 가다
I know they’re idiotic, but is this idiomatic? Google translates it as ‘go to bed’.
Tom Doley
You should refer back to statements made by your ex-prime ministers, not the revisionist statements made by Abe. Even last week, Hatoyama-san made the following statement in Seoul.
"The Japanese government should go back to its judgment that as for the issue of laborers, the individual rights to claim damages were not completely and finally resolved in the 1965 treaty," said Hatoyama, who served as prime minister in 2009-2010.
Hatoyama said that Shunji Yanai, then director of the treaty bureau at Japan's foreign ministry in 1991, told a parliamentary session at the time that the normalization treaty did not put an end to individual rights to damages.
"It was the official view of the Japanese government in the past, that (forced labor issue) was not finally and completely resolved by the treaty," he said.
showchinmono
Yes he once was the PM of Japan for 9 months or so , a historical inextinguishable fact of NIGHTMARE of Japanese history. You know, however, this Loopy himself is not a treaty binding two nations. You should just laugh him away as a shame of Japan, but should see how generous Japan as a country is, ignoring and letting a lunatic do as he likes. No ones, no ones care about him in Japan.
Samit Basu
@showchinmono
Yes, because of the 250% government debt load.
It takes money to become a military power, but Japan has no money to be one.
showchinmono
You had better learn balance sheet of J-Government and of Japan as nation plus the size of forein ccy reserve.
oyatoi
An honorable man does the honorable thing, emulating Willy Brandt’s heartfelt 1971 apology to the Poles, to apologize to Koreans for the unspeakable horrors that went on inside Seodaemun Prison.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jOosVkrUcg4
An all too common and totally reprehensible revisionist take on said ex-PM by an armchair warrior profoundly short on empathy. Can you blame people for having doubts about the sincerity of Japanese contrition?
“Yes he once was the PM of Japan for 9 months or so , a historical inextinguishable fact of NIGHTMARE of Japanese history. You should just laugh him away as a shame of Japan, but should see how generous Japan as a country is, ignoring and letting a lunatic do as he likes. No ones, no ones care about him in Japan.”
Fortunately, you’re not all like you.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LA5b5VzGbzI
Tom Doley
Typical. Excuse after excuse after excuse after deny after deny after deny. Next it will be blame after blame after blame.
Whether he was in office for 9 months is irrelevant. You missed the important bit where Japanese governments prior to Abe all held the position that individual claims were not settled by the 1965 treaty.
Seriously, why does Abe and co lie after lie after lie. The truth will eventually come out and this will be one hell of a bruising for your egos. You might as well stop the lies now and act honorably, you know, like a real adult, instead of a petulant child.
Peeping_Tom
"It takes money to become a military power, but Japan has no money to be one."
Au contraire; they've got so much money they can afford to be indebted with themselves.
Unlike China, the US of A and even my beloved Blighty.
"Japan keeps top creditor nation status as external assets grow"
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-japan-economy-assets/japan-keeps-top-creditor-nation-status-as-external-assets-grow-idUKKCN1SU01J
showchinmono
Tom DoleyToday 12:16 am JST
Really? You may as well try to understand Abe's position about Individual rights of claim through the present minister of Foreign affairs Taro Kono Hope it is not too difficult for you to understand so that you could possibly stop your excuse after excuse after excuse after deny after deny after deny followed by blame after blame after blame.
https://www.taro.org/2018/11/%E6%97%A5%E9%9F%93%E8%AB%8B%E6%B1%82%E6%A8%A9%E3%83%BB%E7%B5%8C%E6%B8%88%E5%8D%94%E5%8A%9B%E5%8D%94%E5%AE%9A.php
showchinmono
oyatoiSep. 5 11:43 pm JST
Like I said, whatever this loopy did or said on his hands and knees at the museum which displaying horror shows like typical ancient Korean torture scenes to traumatize and indoctrinate young kids, he is just a person neither PM any longer nor the treaty which is to bind two nations. One wonders how come he didn't do the same when he was PM of Japan and visited SK in 2009. Like this loopy, Like Kan. Those 3 years under DPJ were nothing but nightmare for Japan. That happens unfortunately. How generous Japan as a nation is. This kind couldn't have happened if it was SK.
And what about this Japanese-Korean in your 2nd link?
oyatoi
Showchinmono: “How generous Japan as a nation is.”
You’re not wrong there! That Japan has the generosity of heart to elect leaders of vision and compassion is something we should all applaud. Thank you for reminding us.
oyatoi
AlexBecu: “In 1965, after 14 years of hard negotiations..... were “settled completely and finally” included any that fell within the scope of these eight items.”
Given that the Occupation of Japan did not end until 1952, and subtract three years because of the Korean War, when nobody was doing any negotiating, I’d like to know where you get your 14 years for a treaty that was concluded with an unrepresentative dictator in 1965.
Insisting that this abysmal deal wiped the slate clean is nothing but an exercise of the grossest self-deception.
showchinmono
@oyatoi
You asked me the same thing and I gave it to you at last which you either ignored or missed. Not sure what makes you stuck on 14 years so much and how come you can't locate information, plenty of them everywhere. If it is 13years or just 10 years, what would change?
I guess you read Japanese. I link wiki. In case you don't trust, just look into the reference quoted in there.
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E5%9B%BD%E3%81%A8%E5%A4%A7%E9%9F%93%E6%B0%91%E5%9B%BD%E3%81%A8%E3%81%AE%E9%96%93%E3%81%AE%E5%9F%BA%E6%9C%AC%E9%96%A2%E4%BF%82%E3%81%AB%E9%96%A2%E3%81%99%E3%82%8B%E6%9D%A1%E7%B4%84#%E7%AC%AC1%E6%AC%A1%E4%BC%9A%E8%AB%87
Or there's something like this
https://parkjunghee-turningpoint.weebly.com/korea-japan-diplomatic-normalization.html
You know 1st round meeting was held in 1952 Fen15~ but there was preliminary plenary meeting in 1951 Oct.
For more detail information about this preliminary conference
http://www.yoshabunko.com/empires/Postwar_nationality.html#1951-10-20
SF treaty was signed by all the plenipotentiaries already on Sep 08 1951 for effective 1952 April 28.
You are welcome.
oyatoi
Showchinmono: For an issue as complex and fraught as Korea-Japan postwar settlement treaties, with divergent opinions and no side having a monopoly on the truth, it necessitates taking a detached stance, consonant with the nuances of divergent opinions culled from a variety of sources. On these terms you fail lamentably, displaying a breathtakingly shallow erudition that betrays all too clearly its parochial underpinnings. Upon close examination, the first of your links, a potted Japanese history of negotiations, exhibits clear pro-Japanese bias. It’s clearly evident in the language used and the deliberate bolstering of Japanese claims and downplaying of anything which supports Korean views, undermines Japan’s, and goes against your own jaundiced ones. The second of your links, a paean to that Korean traitor Park Chung Hee, (Japanese collaborator names, Takagi Masao and Okamoto Minoru), is laughable. Enlisting such a divisive figure in your argument is simply ludicrous and only serves to underline the completely tone deaf stance which many Japanese people such as yourself adopt when Koreans confront them with the unpalatable reality of your forefathers cruelty.
You accuse me of quibbling about the exact number of years it took to reach the 1965 decision, saying it doesn’t matter and that nothing would have changed. Au contraire! It is imperative that people understand that these negotiations were not wrapped up smoothly and expeditiously, but were mired in dissension from the beginning, that they occurred in a fitful and desultory fashion, and punctuated by a civil war which was itself a direct consequence of Japan’s failed colonial project. Whilst there were two sides, one held all the cards and was determined, myopically, to do everything in its power to pay out pennies on the pound. As partisan as your first link was, I encourage anybody interested in the truth to interrogate it closely. They’ll see that Japanese perfidy and penny pinching pettiness literally oozes from this document. Contrary to what the writers intend, the only conclusion a reasonable person could take from this potted history of negotiations is that bad faith arguments lead to bad agreements. The 1965 agreement was doomed from the moment it was signed, and only the Japanese think otherwise.
"SF treaty was signed by all the plenipotentiaries already on Sep 08 1951 for effective 1952 April 28."
In order to minimise any possible future reparations liabilities, the Japanese made strong representations against Korea’s inclusion as a participant in the SF negotiations. Japan’s ‘victory' in having Korea excluded was instrumental in facillitating the bargain basement travesty of a treaty finalised in 1965 with Japan's collaborator friend president at the time.