Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Taro Aso, in part of a speech at a Tokyo symposium last Monday, called on politicians leaning toward revising the Constitution to learn from the teguchi (method) that the Nazi government of Germany used. Teguchi is a Japanese word that usually means a method a criminal uses in committing a crime.
In his speech, Mr. Aso also said he did not want debates on constitutional revisions to be done in a noisy environment. In his Friday statement, he retracted his reference to the Nazis as an example and said that it is highly important to discuss constitutional revisions in a calm manner.
Still, it was extremely inappropriate and careless of him to have referred to the Nazis' method in connection with discussions on constitutional revisions. All the more so because he is a former prime minister. Some countries might use his remarks for the purposes of anti-Japanese political propaganda.