Japanese ex-PM slammed as 'traitor'
19:48, 18 January 2013
TOKYO. January . KAZINFORM The Japanese government has criticized former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's acknowledgment of a "territorial dispute" with China over islands in the East China Sea, with the defense minister going so far as to use the word "traitor."
On his four-day private visit to China, Hatoyama told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday, "The Japanese government says there are no territorial disputes (between the two countries). But if you look at history, there is a dispute."
The remarks contradict his own government's position of indisputable territorial sovereignty over the islands that it calls Senkaku and that China calls Diaoyu.
"If his (Hatoyama's) remarks have been politically used by China, I'm unhappy," Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera said on television Thursday. "At that moment, the word of 'traitor' arose in my mind."
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