Dear People of the World (formerly Dear Americans)

I've heard from one Japanese student living in Shanghai that those who participated in the demonstration march were small portion of Chinese. China has a big population. Even 20,000 demonstrators is not big scale.

It is said Chinese government is using anti-Japan sentiment to distract people's attention from failures of the government's economic policy that created wider gap between the rich and the poor.

But yes there are problems on our side which provoked such riots.

One is Prime Minister Koizumi's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine that enshrined A-class war criminals of WWII. A-class war criminals were political leaders of that time including PM Tojo who ordered to attack Pearl Harbor. They are the invaders for Chinese but heroes or victims for Japanese right wingers. Koizumi and ruling party is backed up by such right wingers. The right wingers claim Tokyo tribunal that convicted A-class war criminals was unfair because the judges there were all from victors' countries. Also they claim Japan's war in China and against US was just war.

The other reason is related to the right wingers' interpretation of the history between China and Japan. They believe Japan is always right. They believe we should deny any unfavourble facts in our history such as atrocities in Nanjing, 1937. They've been campaigning to delete such facts from textbooks with politicians.

As a result, this year's newly published textbooks reduced such facts telling from previous edition.

This is outrageous. The right wingers believe it is good for our country. No. They are wrong. They are just embrassing our country.

As for A-class war criminals, I agree with their claim of unfairness of the court at that time, but we have to be aware of their responsibilities of the wrong corrupt war.

The below picture is taken in Nanjing (Nanking) last September. I was at the grave of victims of Nanking Masscre. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people were brutally murdered by Japanese army.

I do not support the riots but I understand the anger of Chinese people.