is a

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

ese

politician A politician is a person who participates in Public policy, policy-making processes, usually holding an elective position in government. Politicians represent the people, make decisions, and influence the formulation of public policy. The roles ...

who serves as a member of the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...

in the

Diet Diet may refer to: Food * Diet (nutrition), the sum of the food consumed by an organism or group * Dieting, the deliberate selection of food to control body weight or nutrient intake ** Diet food, foods that aid in creating a diet for weight loss ...

(national legislature). He was appointed Chairman of the National Public Safety Commission,

Minister of State for Consumer Affairs and Food Safety The , is the member of the Cabinet of Japan The is the chief executive body of the government of Japan. It consists of the prime minister, who is appointed by the Emperor after being nominated by the National Diet, in addition to up to ninet ...

and

Minister for the Abduction Issue The is a member of the Cabinet of Japan responsible for addressing the issue of North Korean abductions of Japanese citizens. The minister reports to the . As of December 2023, the minister in charge of the abduction issue is Yoshimasa Hayashi. ...

. Matsubara was formerly affiliated with Party of Hope and the Democratic Party (the

Democratic Party of Japan The was a Centrism, centristThe Democratic Party of Japan was widely described as centrist: * * * * * * * to Centre-left politics, centre-left, Liberalism, liberal or Social liberalism, social-liberal List of political parties in Japan, ...

Political career

Jin Matsubara and Hirohiko Fukushima 20120531 1

In the first cabinet reshuffle of Democratic Party Prime Minister

Yoshihiko Noda is a Japanese politician. He is the current leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP), and has been a member of the House of Representatives since 2000. From 2011 to 2012, he was the Prime Minister of Japan. Noda entered po ...

on 13 January 2012 he was appointed Chairman of the National Public Safety Commission,

and

. He left the cabinet on the 1 October 2012 cabinet reshuffle.

Tadamasa Kodaira is a former Japanese politician of the Democratic Party of Japan, who served as a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature). Early life and education Kodaira is a native of Iwamizawa, Hokkaidō and graduated from ...

replaced him as Chairman of the National Public Safety Commission and Minister of State for Consumer Affairs and Food Safety, and Keishu Tanaka took over as Minister for the Abduction Issue.

Personal life

Matsubara is married with three children. His oldest son Hajime Matsubara is a member of the Ota city assembly.

Views on Second Sino-Japanese War and the Second World War

He was a supporter of

right-wing Right-wing politics is the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position based on natural law, economics, authority, property ...

filmmaker

Satoru Mizushima is a Japanese filmmaker. Early life Mizushima graduated from Waseda University majoring in German literature. Career Mizushima is the main host of the right-wing Japanese media organization, Channel Sakura, which maintains an active YouT ...

's 2007 denialist film '' The Truth about Nanjing'', which denied that the

Nanjing Massacre The Nanjing Massacre, or the Rape of Nanjing (formerly Chinese postal romanization, romanized as ''Nanking'') was the mass murder of Chinese civilians, noncombatants, and surrendered prisoners of war by the Imperial Japanese Army in Nanji ...

ever occurred. In 2014 he refused to retract his comments denying the massacre. During Diet discussions of Japanese government efforts to clean up chemical weapons abandoned in China at the end of the Second World War, Matsubara questioned the existence of such weapons. On Monday 27 August 2012 Matsubara told a

House of Councillors The is the upper house of the National Diet of Japan. The House of Representatives (Japan), House of Representatives is the lower house. The House of Councillors is the successor to the pre-war House of Peers (Japan), House of Peers. If the t ...

budget committee meeting that he may propose to other ministers a review of the 1993 statement by then Chief Cabinet Secretary

Yōhei Kōno is a Japanese politician and a former President of the Liberal Democratic Party. He served as Speaker of the House of Representatives from November 2003 until August 2009, when the LDP lost its majority in the 2009 election. Kōno served as sp ...

admitting the Imperial Japanese Army's role in establishing and running "comfort stations" for troops with forcibly recruited

comfort women Comfort women were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. The term ''comfort women'' is a translation of the Japanese , a euphemism ...

, because "no direct descriptions of forcible recruitment have been found in military and other Japanese official records obtained by the government."

Visits to Yasukuni shrine

On 15 August 2012 Matsubara, along with

Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism The is a member of the Cabinet of Japan and is the leader and chief executive of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. The minister is also a statutory member of the National Security Council (Japan), National Security Coun ...

Yuichiro Hata was a Japanese politician of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and a member of the House of Councillors in the Diet of Japan. A native of Setagaya, Tokyo, and graduate of Tamagawa University, he was elected to the House of Councillo ...

became the first cabinet ministers of the DPJ to openly visit the controversial

Yasukuni Shrine is a Shinto shrine located in Chiyoda, Tokyo. It was founded by Emperor Meiji in June 1869 and commemorates those who died in service of Empire of Japan, Japan, from the Boshin War of 1868–1869, to the two Sino-Japanese Wars, First Sino-Japane ...

on 15 August since the party came to power in 2009. Matsubara made his visit to commemorate the 67th anniversary of the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

despite requests from South Korea to refrain from doing so, and despite Prime Minister

requesting his cabinet not to do so.Stuf
Japanese cabinet member makes controversial homage 15 August 2012
Retrieved on 15 August 2012

References

External links