The mayor of a Japanese city that wants to register letters written by World War II kamikaze pilots as important global heritage, on Wednesday defended the plan, despite criticism it was glorifying war. The city of Minami-Kyushu last year filed an unsuccessful application to include farewell letters written by the suicide fighters on a United Nations world memory list. That outraged China, which condemned it as ‘an effort to beautify Japan’s history of militaristic aggression’. Mayor Kampei Shimoide told reporters in Tokyo on Wednesday that he believed the notes — lodged in the spot from which many of the suicide missions were launched — bore testament to the brutality of World War II. ‘Our project is in no way whatsoever being undertaken in an attempt to glorify, romanticise, or otherwise rationalise the historical legacy of tokko (kamikaze pilots),’ he said. ‘We believe that

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