Japan/US: 'Our airline crews won't beat you,' Japan’s deputy PM tells US Audience

According to Japan’s deputy PM, Japan has a lot to offer America: Its people are "graceful" even amid hardship, worker morale is high, and you never have to worry about getting dragged off a plane like the passenger in the United Continental debacle. "Our social fabric has not been torn apart," Taro Aso said in a speech at Columbia University on Wednesday. Japanese people endured an economic slump, stayed calm and "the sense of pride among workers is still intact" he said, adding "Airline crew will not beat you," according to the text of the speech distributed to reporters at the event. Aso, 76, who hosted VP Mike Pence in Tokyo this week for a bilateral economic dialogue, is in the US for spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and talks with his G-20 counterparts. His comment on the airline crew was an apparent reference to an April 9 incident in which a passenger was forcibly removed from a United plane. Aso, himself a one-time premier who currently oversees the finance and banking ministries, has been known for blunt comments and the occasional verbal gaffe.<br/>