Japanese Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma said the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan by the US during World War II was an inevitable way to end the war, a news report said yesterday.
"I understand that the bombing ended the war, and I think that it couldn't be helped," Kyodo News agency quoted Kyuma as saying in a speech at a university in Chiba, just east of Tokyo.
The US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki near the end of World War II, in the world's only nuclear attacks.
Kyuma, who is from Nagasaki, said the bombing caused great suffering in the city, but that he does not resent the US because it prevented the Soviet Union from entering the war with Japan, Kyodo said.
It is rare for Japanese Cabinet ministers to make such remarks.
However, the defense minister said later that his comments had been misinterpreted.
He told reporters he meant to say the bombing "could not be helped from the American point of view."
"It's too bad that my comments were interpreted as approving the US bombing," he said.
On Aug. 6, 1945, the US dropped a bomb nicknamed "Little Boy" on Hiroshima, killing at least 140,000 people in the world's first atomic bomb attack.
Three days later, it dropped another atomic bomb, "Fat Man," on Nagasaki. City officials say about 74,000 died.
Japan, which had attacked the US at Pearl Harbor, surrendered on Aug. 15, 1945.
Bombing survivors have developed various illnesses from radiation exposure, including cancer and liver diseases.
Kyuma's remarks drew immediate criticism from Japanese atomic bomb victims.
"The US justifies the bombings saying they saved many American lives," said Nobuo Miyake, the 78-year-old director-general of a group of victims living in Tokyo.
"It's outrageous for a Japanese politician to voice such thinking. Japan is a victim," he said.
In the US, the bombings are widely seen as a weapon of last resort against an enemy that was determined to fight to the death but instead surrendered unconditionally, six days after Nagasaki was attacked.
Critics, including many Japanese and also some Americans, believe then US president Harry Truman's government had other motives -- a wish to test a terrifying weapon, the desire to defeat Japan before the Soviet Union arrived and the need to strengthen Washington's hand against Moscow in what would become the Cold War.
Defense ministry officials were not immediately available for comment yesterday.
In January, Kyuma called the US decision to invade Iraq a "mistake" because it was based on the false premise that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Kyuma later said those remarks, too, were misinterpreted. He said he meant to say that he thought at the time that the US needed to be "more cautious."
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was