Nishida's comments distort history of Battle of Okinawa

ASAHI
May 12, 2025

Liberal Democratic Party Upper House member Shoji Nishida speaks with reporters. (Takeshi Iwashita photo

It was an extremely insensitive comment that dismissed out of hand the efforts made by the people of Okinawa and others to pass on to future generations the lessons of history by inscribing in memory what transpired during a wretched war.

Based on a sloppy understanding of the facts, the speaker himself was the one “rewriting history” that he claimed took place.

Upper House member Shoji Nishida of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party spoke at a symposium sponsored by those supporting amending the Constitution in Naha on Constitution Day, a national holiday held on May 3.

Touching upon an explanation at the Himeyuri-no-to memorial for students who died during the Battle of Okinawa in World War II, Nishida repeated his argument that it was “terrible” and “rewriting history.”

He said the context of the explanation was that, “The Japanese army kept coming in, and the Himeyuri unit ended up dying. And then the Americans came in and liberated Okinawa.”

But the director of the Himeyuri Peace Museum clearly said that such an explanation never existed in the past or now.

After his comments were reported in an Okinawa newspaper, Nishida held a news conference and said it was based on his “impression” from a visit to the site about 20 years ago and that he did not remember the exact wording.

He added that if someone else had read the explanation that person might have come up with a different impression.

That view must be described as irresponsible because it ignores the facts.

During the waning days of the Pacific War, Okinawa was considered a sacrificial pawn before any fighting on the Japanese mainland.

A total of 200,000 Japanese and U.S. soldiers and others died in the fierce fighting. Of that number, about 94,000 were said to be Okinawan civilians.

It was not a case of those Okinawa residents becoming entangled in the fighting, but the result of military mobilization that called for the military, public and private sectors to live together and die together.

At the symposium, Nishida also said that education in Okinawa about the war, including the interpretation of the ground battle, was “ridiculous” and that “we have to create a history that we can accept.”

He likely wanted to legitimize the decisions made by the government and the military of that time.

But the same mistake will likely be repeated from a stance of turning one’s eyes away from inconvenient facts and interpreting history in a self-centered manner.

While Nishida said it was “regrettable” if his remarks hurt the Okinawan people, he initially refused to retract his comments because he said they were based on facts.

We can only be flabbergasted at his attempt to turn responsibility onto the mass media when he said the problem was with the reporting.

The LDP's Okinawa prefectural chapter criticized Nishida’s comments and junior coalition partner, Komeito, called for a retraction and an apology.

Nishida will be up for re-election in this summer’s Upper House election so the question remains as to whether the LDP will officially recognize him as its candidate and whether Komeito will endorse his candidacy.

There has not been any noticeable response from Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and other LDP executives.

Having said an assessment of the past war was important in this 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, Ishiba’s insight will be called into question.