been involved in fights or fired machine guns. Japan is doing what the Americans can't do. It would probably be no good to have blue eyes and blond hair. Luckily, we Japanese have yellow faces." Kyodo News reported that he had said on 4 February 2006, "our predecessors did a good thing" regarding compulsory education implemented during Japan's colonization of Taiwan. On 21 December 2005, he said China was "a neighbour with one billion people equipped with nuclear bombs and has expanded its military outlays by double digits for 17 years in a row, and it is unclear as to what this is being used for. It is beginning to be a considerable threat". On 28 January 2006, he called for the emperor to visit the controversial Yasukuni Shrine. He later backtracked on the comment, but stated that he hoped such a visit would be possible in the future. Mainichi Daily News reported that on 9 March 2006 he referred to Taiwan as a "law-abiding country", which drew strong protest from Beijing, which considers the island a part of China. On 23 September 2008, Akahata, the daily newspaper published by Japanese Communist Party, released a compiled list of these and other statements as the front-page article criticizing Asō. This compilation as well as similar lists of blunders have been frequently cited in the Japanese media. Yahoo! News reported that he had said on 9 January 2009, "To work is good. It's completely different thinking from the Old Testament." While speaking at a meeting of the National Council on Social Security Reform, in 2013, Asō referred to patients with serious illness as "tube persons" and remarked that they should be "allowed to die quickly" if they desired it. "Heaven forbid I should be kept alive if I want to die", he is quoted as saying. "You cannot sleep well when you think it's all paid by the government. This won't be solved unless you let them hurry up and die." In 2014, while campaigning in Sapporo for the general election, Asō said that rising social welfare costs were not solely due to an aging population. He said, "There are many people who are creating the image that (the increasing number of) elderly people is bad, but more problematic is people who don't give birth". The comment was labeled as insensitive to those who are not able to have children for biological