Japanese Sorry for Slurring U.S. Blacks : Watanabe ‘Withdraws’ Remarks on Attitude Toward Bankruptcy

A Japanese politician apologized today for remarks he made implying that American blacks have no qualms about declaring bankruptcy.

Michio Watanabe, chief of the governing Liberal Democratic Party’s Policy Affairs Research Council and considered a possible future prime minister, made the remarks on Saturday.

“They (Americans) use credit cards a lot. They have no savings, so they go bankrupt,” Watanabe said in his speech at the party’s annual summer retreat.

“If Japanese go bankrupt, they would think it serious enough to escape into the night or commit family suicide, but among those guys over there (in the United States) are a lot of blacks and so on who would think without concern, ‘We’re bankrupt. Now we don’t have to pay anything back,’ ” he said.

Watanabe issued a statement today apologizing for his “misleading and inadvertent” comments.

“In speaking of U.S. personal consumptions on July 23, I made misleading and inadvertent remarks, though in no sense did I ever imply any racial discrimination,” he said in the statement.

Tells Regret at Remarks

“I very much regret that the remarks may have hurt the feelings of American friends and withdraw those words with apologies,” he said.

Watanabe’s comments were the latest in a series of controversial statements by Japanese politicians that have offended foreign countries.

Two years ago, former Premier Yasuhiro Nakasone told a Liberal Democratic Party meeting that the large number of blacks, Puerto Ricans and Mexicans in the United States brought America’s intelligence level down. That comment prompted widespread criticism of Nakasone in the United States, and he issued an apology.