Tokyo - Japanese troops were told on Sunday to target foreigners to prevent looting and rioting in the event of a major earthquake, Kyodo News Agency reported.
Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara said in an address to Ground Self-Defence Force troops that foreigners were likely to riot and commit crimes because of the breakdown in order.
"Atrocious crimes have been committed again and again by sangokujin and other foreigners," he was quoted as saying.
"We can expect them to riot in the event of a disastrous earthquake."
The Japanese slang term "sangokujin" means "people from Third World countries" and was used in post World War 2 Japan as an insult for residents from the former Japanese colonies of Korea and Taiwan.
Tokyo metropolitan government officials could not be reached immediately for comment due to the weekend holiday.
A fervent nationalist, Ishihara has angered China by doubting its accounts of Japanese wartime atrocities and referring to it by the derogatory term "Shina".
After the Great Tokyo Earthquake of 1923, which killed about 100 000 people, unfounded rumours about riots among Tokyo's Korean residents led to Japanese mobs attacking and killing several hundred Koreans, many of whom were brought to Japan as slave labourers. - Reuters