Map pictures put strain on Japan, China relations

TOKYO — Japan protested Wednesday to China over a newspaper’s depiction of exploding mushroom clouds in a map of Japan, calling it offensive.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters that Japan, as the only nation to have suffered atomic attacks, will “never tolerate” such a depiction. It was “extremely imprudent” of the newspaper, he said.

The Chongqing Youth News carried a full-page colour map of Japan, with the cartoon drawing of an exploding mushroom cloud over Hiroshima and Nagasaki and a title saying “Japan wants a war again.” In the map, the green Japanese archipelago on the blue background was marked with the names of the two cities and Tokyo, in both English and Chinese.

It was unclear if the map was an advertisement or a graphic meant to accompany a commentary on the following page. The commentary, titled “Have we been too friendly to Japan in the past?” criticized Tokyo’s decision to allow Japan’s military to use force to defend its allies, an action previously banned as unconstitutional. The newspaper was published on July 3, two days after Japan reinterpreted its warrenouncing constitution to allow a greater role for its military.

A man identifying himself only as Zhang, who answered the phone at the editors’ office of the Chongqing Youth News, said the paper had no comment on the matter. The paper is run by the city of Chongqing’s branch of the Communist Youth League, an organization that grooms university students for roles in the Communist Party.

Japan lodged protests to Beijing and the government of Chongqing, where the weekly paper is based. Tokyo also protested to the paper the day before. Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, who is from Hiroshima, called the paper’s allegation groundless and said Japan’s defence policy change is not intended to wage war.

The two Asian rivals are major economic and trade partners, but have been in disputes over uninhabited islands in the East China Sea and wartime history. Relations worsened in December after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited a Tokyo war shrine that honours Japan’s convicted war criminals among the 2.5 million war dead.

At Wednesday’s news conference, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei refused to comment directly on the map, while repeating Beijing’s position, saying recent Japanese actions have raised concerns among its Asian neighbours that suffered under Japan’s wartime aggression.