Photo/Illutration Nagoya Mayor Takashi Kawamura after a news conference at the city office on April 22 (Tomomi Terasawa)

NAGOYA--In an apparent contradiction with Japan’s pacifist Constitution, Nagoya Mayor Takashi Kawamura said dying for one’s country is “highly moral behavior” and emphasized that people have a duty to protect their country in time of war.

“We have to pay our respects to those who died (in war),” Kawamura told a news conference on April 22. “Sacrificing lives for the country is highly moral behavior.”

He was responding to questions after he announced that the city will hold a peace memorial ceremony on May 14, which has been designated as “Nagoya Peace Day” under an ordinance.

During World War II, the keep of Nagoya Castle was burnt down in a U.S. air raid on that day in 1945.

Kawamura said people should protect their own country in a war, citing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas conflict in the Gaza Strip.

“Devoting their lives for their country is a highly courageous act,” he said. “We cannot maintain welfare or peace unless everyone says, ‘Thank you very much,’ for such acts.”

Asked if teachers and students should discuss the issue of dying for the nation as “moral behavior,” Kawamura said they should give thought to it “to a certain degree.”

“It will bring great misfortune on Japan if people take it for granted that their country will be protected (by the United States),” he said.

Kawamura was also asked if his statement does not go against the spirit of the Constitution, which states, “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation.”

The mayor only said, “The Constitution was established under the (postwar) U.S. occupation. I think we are in an entirely different situation.”

After the news conference, Kawamura conceded that it is better if people do not have to sacrifice their lives to protect their country.  

“I do not want you to misunderstand my meaning,” he told reporters. “I am not necessarily encouraging people to sacrifice their lives, but unfortunately, wars break out.”

Kawamura, who is in his fifth term, has made controversial remarks in the past.

In 2012, he angered China by effectively denying that the Nanking Massacre, an atrocity that the Imperial Japanese Army committed in 1937 in the Chinese city now known as Nanjing, ever occurred. 

In 2019, Kawamura also called for cancellation of an art exhibition featuring a statue of a girl symbolizing "comfort women," who were forced to provide sex to Japanese soldiers during World War II, among other displays. 

He said the event "tramples on the hearts of the Japanese people."

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