February 22, 2013 Maps

Kuribayashi's Map

February 22nd, 71 years after President Franklin Roosevelt ordered General Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines to ensure that he would not be captured by the invading Japanese, Japan remains a topic of concern in Washington.

In Japan, on the 22nd, nationalists will gather in Matsue, Shimane Prefecture to celebrate Takeshima Day. The event marks the incorporation on Feb. 22, 1905 of the rocky islands (Dokdo to the Koreans) in the Sea of Japan as Japanese territory. The ruling LDP is sending its executive acting secretary general, Hiroyuki Hosoda who is a Matsue native and its director of the LDP’s Youth Division former Prime Minister Koizumi's popular son Shinjiro Koizumi, who also attended the event last year. They will be accompanied by a record 18 Diet members. The Abe Administration, reneging on a promise not to send an official representative, plans to have Parliamentary Secretary Aiko Shimajiri from the Cabinet Office present.  She is elected from Okinawa. This would be the first time anyone from among the top three posts in a ministry will attend the ceremony since it began in 2006. Shimajiri is a member of the Diet members' group that promotes official visits to Yasukuni Shrine on August 15.

In New York City, Bonhams will hold an auction of items from the Pacific theatre of World War II. Offered for sale are items ranging from monuments and medals to ship models and samurai swords. Top lot is the original 1945 Iwo Jima Monument model unveiled in Washington in November 1945 and possibly the original Iwo Jima map used by Commander Tadamichi Kuribayashi for the defense of the island by the Imperial Japanese Army, February - March 1945. Kuribayashi's grandson, Yoshitaka Shindo, who is Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications in Abe's Cabinet. Shindo is well-known as an outspoken advocate for Japan's territorial rights and is one the legislators that landed on a Senkaku islet in August 2012. He was also one of the signatories of the November 4, 2012 FACTS advertorial in the New Jersey Start Ledger dismissing the claims of the Comfort Women as fabrications designed to dishonor Japan.

And in Washington Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will have his first meeting with U.S. President Barak Obama. Later in the day, at 4 o'clock, he will give a speech entitled Japan is Back in the basement of CSIS to selected and vetted Japan and Asia experts and CSIS contributors. He plans to map out his plan to revive Japan's economy.