The U.S. has officially recognized the Chinese government’s oppression of the Xinjiang minority as a violation of the international law crime of “genocide,” but there are dissenting voices in Japan, with the Mainichi Shimbun reporting today that a Foreign Ministry official told a meeting of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s Foreign Ministry Council that “Japan does not consider it genocide. “Some LDP lawmakers have accused Japan of being too soft, and the Internet is abuzz with calls for The Japanese government to toughen up.
The newspaper reported that the former U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo grabbed the day before the graduation of the Trump administration on the 19th of this month, announced that the U.S. State Department found that China still carries out “genocide” against ethnic minorities such as the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. The Biden administration’s new Secretary of State Blinken also agreed with this view, and the Japanese government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Kato Katsushin, only “will continue to pay attention to this human rights situation” at a public press conference, without clearly expressing Japan’s attitude.
However, in the meeting of the Foreign Ministry held by the LDP, the official in charge of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who was invited to the meeting, said that Japan does not consider it as genocide, and in response to the criticism of Japan’s weak attitude by the LDP lawmakers, the report pointed out that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs explained that this cannot be used to criticize the Japanese for having a negative attitude towards human rights issues, and that Japan will cooperate with the relevant countries in response.
The report also pointed out that, considering the economic relationship between Japan and China, the Japanese government avoids publicly criticizing China’s human rights issues, but if the Biden Administration will continue to adopt a tough attitude toward China, the pace between Japan and the United States may be different. Speaking to the media after the meeting, Rep. Masahisa Sato, head of the LDP’s Foreign Affairs Department, said that while the economy is important, human rights is a major theme and Japan must be involved in changing China’s oppressive human rights practices.
The news also caused an uproar among netizens today, with many of them lamenting the pro-China faction in the government and asking the LDP not to underestimate the public opinion that more than 90% of the Japanese people hate China.
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