Xinhua News Agency, Tokyo, January 18th, Title: Japan does not remove right-wing books, hotels are boycotted, Xinhua News Agency reporters visit

Xinhua News Agency reporters Lan Jianzhong and Ma Zheng

Recently, a large Japanese hotel chain called APA Hotel has caused public outrage on social media. The hotel has long placed English-Japanese bilingual books written by the group's owner Yuan Gu Toshio in all guest rooms, denying historical facts such as the Nanjing Massacre and the Japanese army's forced recruitment of comfort women. The APA Group recently stated that it would not remove the relevant books from the guest rooms, and its arrogance was boycotted by many foreign tourists traveling to Japan. After the news was exposed, many Chinese travel websites have removed the APA Hotel from their shelves.

Xinhua News Agency reporters visited an APA Hotel in the Shinjuku area of Tokyo on the 18th. The hotel is a 13-story building, not far from Shinjuku Station, which has the largest passenger flow in Tokyo, and has a superior geographical location. A corner of the hotel lobby is piled with a lot of stored luggage, and guests continue to arrive until after 23 o'clock.

The reporter came to the hotel room and found that the room was very small, only five or six square meters. He opened the drawer and found no books inside, but when he looked up, he found a few books in a transparent plastic shelf on the upper right corner of the dressing mirror.

The titles of these two books are "The Real History of Japan - Theoretical Modern History". The first volume contains the social commentary of Toshio Motoya from 2014 to 2015, and there is a note on the book saying "You can buy it at the front desk"; the second volume contains his social commentary from 2015 to 2016, but the author of both books uses Toshio Motoya's pen name "Fuji Chengzhi".

Both books are printed in Japanese and English, but no publisher was found after searching through both books. The books are full of Japanese right-wing views, including "The Nanjing Massacre was fabricated", "Comfort women are just ordinary prostitutes" and "The Far East Military Tribunal is the revenge of the victors against the losers". In the book, Yuan Gu also called for the use of the Japan-US alliance to confront China and realize an early constitutional amendment.

In addition to these two books, there is also a book called "Adversity is a Glorious Opportunity" in which Yuan Gu Toshio expounds the group's world strategy, and another book "AppleTown" magazine, which was also edited and published by Yuan Gu Toshio.

According to the hotel front desk clerk, some guests did buy a few books that day, but generally speaking, Yuan Gu Toshio's books on the so-called world strategy were not popular. The two books that he glorified aggression were mainly sold.

APA Hotel is affiliated with the APA Group and was founded by Yuan Gu Toshio in 1971. At first, the main source of customers were Japanese employees on business trips abroad. In recent years, foreign tourists from China and South Korea have also stayed. As of now, APA Hotel has 413 branches with a total of 66,950 rooms. Placing two books that distort history in each room will inevitably attract the attention of some guests and affect them. This is obviously the result that Yuan Gu Toshio is happy to see.

Recently, two New York college students uploaded a video of right-wing books denying the Nanjing Massacre in the guest rooms of the APA Hotel in Japan, which triggered a collective condemnation of the APA Hotel by netizens. On the 17th, the APA Group responded by publishing a statement on the placement of books in the guest rooms on its official website, emphasizing that "books will continue to be placed" and deliberately attached the content of the Nanjing Massacre in the book to the back, which was extremely arrogant.

Regarding the practice of the APA Group, reporters randomly interviewed several tourists on the streets of Tokyo. An unnamed Australian tourist said: "Everyone knows that the Nanjing Massacre did happen. It was shocking that it happened. It was an act of aggression by Japan at that time. The Japanese were very crazy at that time. Only by acknowledging this history and apologizing can we really look forward and such things will not happen again."

Another Australian tourist, Nicole, said: "If this hotel denies the past history, I will not choose to stay in such a hotel." Her companion James continued: "I agree with her point of view and will not stay in such a hotel. This behavior is terrible."

Chinese tourists are very dissatisfied with the practice of the APA Hotel and also said that they will not stay in the hotel. Wu Juxin, a tourist from Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China, believes that the Nanjing Massacre must be treated objectively and fairly, "because history cannot be denied", "I will not stay in this kind of hotel, and I must resolutely boycott this kind of hotel. I will tell this point of view to my friends and family." Yang Jieya, a tourist from Shenzhen, also said: "I think the behavior of this hotel should be broadcast on the Chinese media to let more people know not to go to this hotel again."

In recent years, right-wing forces in Japan have become increasingly rampant, which is not unrelated to the current policies of the Japanese government. However, at the grassroots level, exchanges between China, Japan and South Korea have not been greatly affected, and Japan receives a large number of Chinese and Korean tourists every year. However, the practice of APA Hotel is extremely bad and seriously violates basic business ethics.

It is understood that some Chinese companies have publicly stated that they will terminate their cooperation with APA Hotel. Chinese and Korean netizens have also called for "voting" with their feet to boycott the hotel. In China, many travel websites have removed APA hotel products.

Plastic Industry Video