A celebrity plastic surgeon and outspoken right-wing Japanese nationalist has offered to pay almost $100,000 for the capture of a Chinese vlogger who defaced a controversial war shrine in Tokyo.
Chinese social media user “Iron Head” posted a video of himself on Saturday criticising Japan for discharging radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant and urinating on the Yasukuni Shrine, before spraying painting the English word “toilet” on the pillar.
Dr Katsuya Takasu responded by putting a bounty of 10 million Yen on X (A$96,430) for the video blogger’s head, and said: “A country that tolerates blasphemy against the warriors who died defending the country is not an independent country.
“If they are caught, I would like them to be punished accordingly.”
Iron Head has returned to China, and was tracked down by a Japanese reporter in the city of Hangzhou where he was asked about the incident but said he had nothing to apologise for.
6月1日，著名打假网红“铁头”发布了自己前往靖国神社，在石柱上撒尿用红漆涂写英文“厕所”的视频。
据悉，此举是为了兑现他此前“2024年12月31日前，去小日本干他们，干两个地方”的承诺。
铁头曾因拍摄打假题材视频引发网友关注，但在今年二月，因在直播中自曝嫖娼经历而被国内全平台封禁。 pic.twitter.com/4EszchaDdQ— 李老师不是你老师 (@whyyoutouzhele) June 1, 2024
The shrine, which honours Japan’s 2.5 million war dead, told the Associated Press Iron Head’s actions “degrade the dignity of the shrine” and were “extremely regrettable”. The Shinto memorial’s enshrinement of war criminals and visits by Japanese politicians are controversial in China and Korea.
Dr Takasu is a household name in Japan due television commercials for his cosmetic surgery business, but has been targeted by Jewish groups internationally for his opinions about the Holocaust and his praise of technological progress made by Nazi Germany. He has also questioned the numbers of Nanjing Massacre deaths.
After saying that he believed the death toll at Auschwitz and the number of Holocaust victims had been exaggerated, the Simon Wiesenthal Center reported him to the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery, which expelled him in 2017.
Jeffrey Hall, a politics lecturer at Kanda University of International Studies, told Reuters that Dr Takasu has a huge social media following which he uses to “espouse his right-wing nationalist views”.
“He often shares social media posts of him visiting the graves of seven war criminals at Mount Sangane, which is far more controversial than Yasukuni because it is specifically devoted to executed war leaders rather than all of Japan’s war dead,” he said.
A spate of similar attacks on monuments honouring great Australians have been defaced by left-wing extremist activists in Melbourne this year, but no arrests have been made by Victoria Police despite the perpetrators posting footage of themselves carrying out the attacks.
