Uesugi Chitoshi

Profile: Uesugi Chitoshi
Mr. Uesugi was born the third son of a Shinto priest in the city of Hida in Gifu Prefecture
in 1927. After graduating from Kokugakuin University with a degree in history, he
worked for 37 years as a high school social studies teacher. He retired in 1988. From the
time he was a high school teacher, he was attached to the Japanese Teachers’ Association,
an educational study organization, and undertook various studies and carried out
awareness programs to correct left-wing educational tendencies.
In particular, he undertook the responsibility of laboring for the alteration of the Japanese
Education Act, publishing Discourses on Amending the Japanese Education Act
(Japanese Teachers’ Library) in 1980, and Points of Contention with the Japanese
Education Act (Yoshimoto Co.) in 1984. In addition, he wrote a six-part series called
“Dear Hiroshima Board of Education” in the magazine Seiron, starting in September of
1997, raising questions about criticism of Japan’s national flag and anthem in the
educational milieu. The series received considerable feedback and created something of a
controversy, and served as an impetus to the establishment in 2002 of the National Flag
and Anthem Law. He published The “Hinomaru” and “Kimigayo” Seen as Our Supreme
Embodiment: the World’s National Flags and Anthems (Japanese Law and Culture
Studies Center) in 1991 concerning the problem.
He has written many other works primarily concentrating on historical problems.
Important works among them are Verifying the “Comfort Women” (Zenbô Co.) in 1993,
The Whole Story of the Comfort Women Problem (Kokumin Kaikan Library) in 1994,
Recapping the School Textbook Controversy and Educational Judgement (Yoshimoto
Co.) in 1990, The Great East Asia War as a War of Conflicting Cultures (Zenbô Co.) in
1995, and Jewish Refugees and The Whole World Under One Roof (Tenden Co.) in 2002.