Japan hotel chain under fire for CEO’s book that denies Nanking Massacre
A book, available in the hotel chain’s rooms and written by the group’s chief executive officer, characterised as ‘absurd’ the Chinese position that 300,000 people were killed in the 1937 Nanking Massacre
A Japanese hotel chain is refusing to remove copies of a book, written by its CEO, from rooms despite complaints from guests that it denies the wartime massacre of Chinese civilians by Japanese troops.
APA Group, a Tokyo-based land developer and operator of 400-plus hotels, drew fire for spreading the revisionist views of company president Toshio Motoya by putting the books in hotel guestrooms and also selling them.
China has lodged a complaint, but APA says it stands by its owner’s views.
The issue surfaced Monday when contributors KatAndSid posted a video on a social networking site describing the English version of Theoretical Modern History, a book Motoya wrote under the pen-name Seiji Fuji.
Watch: video of tourists showing book that claims Nanking Massacre was fabricated
The video shows a female tourist buying the book at an APA hotel in Tokyo, opening it and showing passages calling the 1937 massacre an “imaginary” event concocted by China to blame Japan.