I'm neither a rightwinger nor a racist, but the Oct. 29 editorial, "China and Japan," disgusted me. It says at one point that "Many other Chinese leaders . . . also spent time in Japan . . . a fact that is ignored on both sides of Sea of Japan, or the East Sea, depending on your point of view."
First of all, the sea between Japan and China is not the Sea of Japan historically, which an elementary schoolboy knows. Next, "East Sea" is a very inappropriate proper noun to be used in such a context by any newspaper in Japan. This proper noun was rejected by the United Nations recently. It is not used by the Chinese; they use the Sea of Japan.
This editorial could be used by Korean governments as anti-Japan propaganda. If The Japan Times is trying to appease Koreans or, by mistake, Chinese readers, or pretending to be cosmopolitan, it will hurt the national interest, and that's one of the silliest crimes a newspaper can commit. Has The Japan Times outsourced its editorial writing to Koreans?
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