Nobukatsu Fujioka gives a little laugh as he dismisses the applause Premier Wen Jiabao received after addressing the Japanese Diet as 'just Japanese courtesy'.
'Politeness is part of our culture,' said the professor of education at Tokyo's Takushoku University.
Politeness does not stop the secretary-general of the Committee for the Examination of the Facts About Nanking and his colleagues bridling at the content of Mr Wen's speech.
'His speech was based on the basic assumption that only China is right and at the very outset he mentioned that Japan initiated the war against China, but history has proven that the Marco Polo Bridge incident was started by the Chinese side,' said Hiromichi Moteki, president of the Sekai Shuppan publishing house and another member of the 13-strong committee.
'On one hand he calls for friendship and amity while at the same time saying in his speech that Japan initiated a war of aggression. It is very contradictory.'
The committee was formally set up last month and grew out of a series of symposiums which attracted professors, historians, writers and politicians from both of the main parties, the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party and the opposition Democratic Party of Japan. It aims to disseminate 'correct knowledge' about the 'Nanking incident' of December 1937, particularly among young Japanese.