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.