Tokyo's outspoken conservative governor Shintaro Ishihara on Friday said he agreed with the mayor of Nagoya's statement that the 1937 'rape' of Nanjing by Japanese troops never happened.
Diplomatic sparks flew earlier this week when Takashi Kawamura said he believes only a "conventional fight" took place in Nagoya's sister city of Nanjing, instead of the well-documented massacre of Chinese civilians.
China says 300,000 people were killed in an orgy of murder, rape and destruction when the eastern city -- then the capital -- fell to the Japanese imperial army, and the incident has haunted Sino-Japanese ties ever since. (AFP)
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