US warship docks in Nagasaki

The USS Blue Ridge docked in Nagasaki yesterday for a friendship visit. The AFP reports that some of Nagasaki’s residents were not in the mood to welcome a US warship:

Hundreds of residents including atomic bomb survivors chanted, “We are opposed to the port call!” as the 19,600-ton vessel arrived in the southwestern city.

“We don’t want to see the US flag flying at this port and this feeling will not change until the United States takes a policy towards the elimination of nuclear weapons,” Osamu Yoshitomi, an official at Nagasaki city, told AFP.

Nagasaki’s mayor and regional governor both refused to take part in the welcome ceremony after unsuccessfully asking Japanese and US authorities to cancel the visit.

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14 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - February 6, 2009 at 7:09 am

Categories: Foreigners in Japan Tags:

jmadsen

A few “random” thoughts:

- I wonder what the point of a friendship visit like this is? Were there activities (ship board visits, etc.) planned? Did Nagasaki residents participate? How many? Who did the US Navy think they they are building friendships with?

- “Hundreds” of protesters? Who supplied that number? The news report (completely separate from the AFP report) seemed to show people lined up 2-3 deep, around 20 across. News crews have a habit of focusing in tight on crowds to make it look like there are many more people than there really are, but even so, it didn’t look like hundreds. The AFP report is date line Tokyo – the “official” who talked to the AFP reporter undoubtedly did it over the phone, after Mayor Taue released a statement.

Nagasaki is probably one of the more clueless places to have a US Warship visit, especially when they were specifically asked not to come, but I do feel the need to speak up about this sort of shoddy reporting. My first set of questions are what a real reporter might have checked into as well. What if, after a hundred people protested the first day, 10,000 showed up the second day for ship board tours. With lots of interviews with people saying “That was a long time ago and it’s nice that we are friends now” or something similar.

Changes the whole story, doesn’t it?
tokyojesusfist

While they’re at it, they should ask the US to take a policy towards eliminating unhappy thoughts. Because that’s about as likely to work as eliminating nuclear weapons.

ダビ

Yeah sure, the country with the second most nuclear warheads in the world can’t do anything towards eliminating nuclear weapons – bullshit.

Richard

And if the United States eliminated all its nuclear weapons, how long would it be before China and Russia decided to acquire a few islands from Japan? Or do their weapons magically vanish once the U.S. disarms?

The Overthinker

No, the US nukes are not in case the Chinese invade Japan, but because it is more likely that Martians will.

And the Russians already have acquired a few islands from Japan.

tokyojesusfist

Unless you’re suggesting that the US conquers or destroyes any nation that refuses to eliminate its stockpile of nuclear weapons, I really don’t see what they could possibly do.

helical

My thoughts:

1) This is by TBS news. Recently, they’ve stolen Asahi’s thunder when it comes to the reputation for shoddy/biased reporting and have been topping the list of “most hated news sources” in Internet public opinion. With that in mind, I would not be in the least bit surprised if the actual situation was like what jmadsen described.

2) One of the banner I could make out the writing reads “日本共産党”. Well of course *they’re* going to be there. No surpise there.
Another one is “…平和委員会・憲法改悪阻止県共同センター” on the horizontal one. The anti-constitution-amendment crowd are one of the more prominent loonies in Japan IMO. I personally disagree with their objective but even putting that aside, their oppose-anything-and-everything-military stance usually lacks rational or logical arguments to back it up and they never miss a chance to show up and chant, even in practically irrelevant settings … like this for example. Seeing them show up is barely representative of what general public opinion might be in reality.

That being said, I do agree with jmadsen in that it’s in poor taste for the navy to show up at a town they nuked a half-century ago, especially when the local mayor and governor asks for them to not come.

http://www.hormel.com Vonskippy

So is it also “poor taste” when all those Japanese tourists visit Hawaii?

Dandridge

If they come bearing warships, it would be Vonskippy.
And keep in mind, people, that the Japanese government during the 1930′s and 1940′s was a militaristic dictatorship. The average Japanese had little to no political power and had no say in their governmental policy. So, if any surviving members of the Kido Butai(Pearl Harbor Strike Force) and/or the military and political leaders that ordered it, go to Hawaii to commemorate their attack, that would be in “poor taste”.
The Overthinker

You might as well ask if it is poor taste for American tourists to visit Glover Gardens.

Bryce

“The anti-constitution-amendment crowd are one of the more prominent loonies in Japan IMO…”

Actually the number of civil society groups which oppose constitutional revision (well, of article nine anyway) has grown since Abe took over from Koizumi. It’s not really a lunatic fringe movement like it was for a few years in the nineties.

Eddie

“Friendship visit” – How incredibly insensitive.
KokuRyu

It is quite remarkable that both the mayor of Nagasaki and the governor of the prefecture refused to participate in the visit.
T13

I can understand not being to happy about a foreign warship visiting. But doesn’t the US government essentially count Japan as part of it’s extensive overseas empire? It’s kind of like Rome who kept garrisons in all its territories. Isn’t the tribute demanded by the US government the purchasing of treasury bonds to help finance the empire.

US warship docks in Nagasaki

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