Jin Matsubara, the Democratic Party of Japan's Diet affairs chief, declined Friday to retract his remarks almost seven years ago insisting that there was no Nanjing Massacre, a move likely to stir the controversy already brewing over an NHK governor's similar denial of one of the most notorious wartime atrocities committed by Japanese troops in China.
"You can understand my remarks if you read minutes (of the Diet sessions). (My opinion) is just like the remarks in the minutes," Matsubara told a regularly scheduled press briefing at the Diet.
During a session of the Lower House Foreign Affairs Committee on May 25, 2007, Matsubara maintained that the wartime Chinese government didn't claim there was or criticize a massacre by Japanese troops in Nanjing, leading to the natural conclusion that no mass-killing took place when they conquered the city in December 1937.