A Tokyo press conference on Friday marked the 103rd anniversary of the massacre following the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake and put the Tokyo earthquake back at the center of a disputed historical reckoning. Scholars and activists used the event to press Japan to face what followed the disaster, not just remember the quake itself.
Takakage Fujita said, “103 years ago, following the Great Kanto Earthquake, many Chinese residents in Japan and people from the Korean Peninsula were unjustly killed.” He added that “it was deeply regrettable that the current Japanese government has avoided confronting the massacre and that accountability for what happened has still not been seriously pursued.”
Tokyo press conference
The gathering in Tokyo took place on Friday and was organized as a commemoration of the 103rd anniversary of the massacre following the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. Suh Sung said that “uncovering the truth about human rights violations is meant to curb hate speech and discrimination prevalent in today's society and build a more just society for future generations.”
Lin Boyao told Xinhua that “xenophobic sentiment is once again on the rise in Japanese society and that Japan should face the issue squarely, seriously reflect on the past, apologize to the victims and make clear that such a tragedy must never happen again.” Lin Boyao’s call sharpened the day’s message: remembrance alone was not the point. The people gathered in Tokyo framed the anniversary as a demand for public acknowledgment and a direct response to present-day prejudice.
1923 Great Kanto Earthquake
On September 1, 1923, a magnitude-7.9 earthquake struck Japan's Kanto area and resulted in over 140,000 casualties. In the chaos that followed, Japanese militarist mobs fanned xenophobic sentiment and fabricated pretexts to incite violence against Chinese and Korean laborers.
The source says over 750 Chinese laborers and students were brutally killed, along with more than 6,000 Korean laborers living in Japan. Those figures sit behind Friday’s commemoration in Tokyo and explain why the event drew scholars and activists rather than a routine memorial audience.
Murayama Statement
In 1924, Japanese authorities formulated a compensation plan for the victims of the massacre, and that plan remains unfulfilled to date. Fujita’s criticism of Japan centered on that unfinished obligation, while Suh Sung tied truth-telling to the broader fight against hate speech and discrimination.
The immediate question left by the Tokyo earthquake anniversary event is whether Japanese authorities will move on the long-unfulfilled compensation plan or continue to leave the issue without new action. Friday’s press conference put that unresolved claim back into public view, with the victims named, the historical record restated and the demand for accountability repeated in Tokyo.
