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Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara on Sunday fired a broadside at Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, saying his criticism of Japan was a "a third-rate political technique" to recover popularity at home.
Appearing on a Fuji TV interview program, Ishihara said Roh's repeated criticism of Japan over its colonial abuses and the Dokdo Islets was "a stopgap measure for President Roh to recover some of his popularity." He added, "For a politician it's a third-rate technique."
Senior Vice Foreign Minister Ichiro Aisawa, who also appeared on the show, said there was "no change" in the Japanese government's position that Korea's Dokdo Islets "are Japanese territory."
The show also gave airtime to the chairman of Japan's rightwing Society for History Textbook Reform, which is behind the controversial Fusosha textbook whitewashing the country's wartime atrocities. The chairman of the group said for Korea to demand corrections in the textbook was tantamount to "interference" in Japan's internal affairs.
Also making an appearance was journalist Yoshiko Sakurai who said Korean and Japanese scholars trying to conduct joint research so that the two countries can share an understanding of history were giving up. "Both Japanese and Korean scholars are now saying, 'Let's quit. It's impossible,'" she said. "Traditionally, in Korea and China, they think its good to attack Japan over the history issue, and there is a need to be correctly aware of this."
Meanwhile, an opinion poll conducted by the Sankei Shimbun on 500 men and women in the Tokyo area found overwhelming support for Education Minister Nariaki Nakayama's call that educational guidelines must clearly state Japan's sovereignty over the Dokdo Islets. It found 60.2 percent in favor, though opinion was split whether the two nations needed to share a common view of history, with 43.4 percent saying they did and 48.4 percent saying they didn't.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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