Hayao Miyazaki — the Oscar-winning creator of many of Japan’s best-loved animated films — yesterday denounced Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s plan to expand the role of the military and urged him to make a clear apology for World War II.
Miyazaki, 74, often explored pacifism and environmentalism over half a century of filmmaking until he officially retired in 2013. His comments come as Abe is poised to push legislation through parliament as early as this week to allow Japan to defend other countries, amid concerns over an increasingly assertive China.
“I think we are going in completely the wrong direction,” Miyazaki told reporters in a wood-paneled room at his studio complex in western Tokyo. “It’s impossible to stop the expansion of China through military force. We have to find another way and I think that’s the purpose of having a pacifist constitution.”
Photo: AFP
Miyazaki’s views chime with those of many ordinary Japanese, with media polls showing the majority are against the passage of the new defense legislation. Forcing the bills through parliament would likely further damage Abe’s falling public support, potentially undermining his control of his ruling party.
Miyazaki won an Academy Award in 2003 for the film Spirited Away, but did not attend the ceremony, later saying he had not wanted to visit the country that was bombing Iraq. He received a lifetime award from the Academy last year.
The Wind Rises, Miyazaki’s last feature-length movie before retirement, was a fictionalized account of the life of Jiro Horikoshi, designer of the Mitsubishi Zero aircraft used in the attack on Pearl Harbor that drew the US into the war. The film depicts Horikoshi as an aeronautics enthusiast dismayed at the use of his creations for war.
Miyazaki urged Abe to make a clear apology to China in a statement to be issued next month to mark the 70th anniversary of the war’s end.
“It must make clear that the war of aggression was a mistake and our deep regret that it caused great damage to the people of China,” Miyazaki said. “There are many people who want to forget that, but it must not be forgotten.”
This year, Miyazaki became one of the representatives of a fund backing a campaign against construction of a new US military facility on the southern island of Okinawa. About 50,000 people have donated to the Henoko fund, raising more than ￥380 million (US$3.08 million) since its establishment in April. His voice broke as he said no apology could be sufficient for Japan’s poor treatment of the people of Okinawa.
“I am against the construction of a base on reclaimed land at Henoko,” he said. “It’s like building a target.”
People across the nation demonstrated at the weekend against Abe’s security legislation, which would enshrine in law his reinterpretation last year of the constitution. An Asahi Shimbun survey published yesterday showed 56 percent of respondents were against the passage of the bills, with 26 percent in favor.
The issue divides artists as deeply as the rest of society.
Nobel Prize laureate and author Kenzaburo Oe has spoken in defense of Japan’s pacifist constitution.
On Abe’s side is author Naoki Hyakuta, whose best-sellers include a novel about kamikaze pilots — who has publicly denied that the Nanjing Massacre took place.
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
‘SHOCK TACTIC’: The dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has fired his vice premier, compared him to a goat and railed against “incompetent” officials, state media reported yesterday, in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory. Vice Premier Yang Sung-ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.” “Please, comrade vice premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said. “He is ineligible for an important duty. Put simply, it was
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
RSS