In my September 16, 2017 article, “What Proves That This Influence Continues Even Today Is the Asahi Shimbun and the University of Tokyo Faculty of Law, Among Others,” I discussed, through Yoshiko Sakurai, the difference between genuine intellect and false intellect.
Because I had subscribed to the Asahi Shimbun for many years, I had not sufficiently read Yoshiko Sakurai’s essays.
That fact itself shows the harm caused by the Asahi Shimbun-like discourse space.
If one continues reading the Asahi Shimbun, one is deprived of opportunities to encounter genuine intellect, genuine commentators, and genuine Japanese people.
Except for the occupation period after its defeat in war, Japan is an extremely rare country in the world that has preserved its own civilization for 2,600 years without being invaded and ruled by other peoples or other countries.
The person who stands in continuity with that nation’s tradition and makes that tradition known to the world is the one who possesses genuine intellect.
I saw Yoshiko Sakurai as precisely such a person.
She clearly pointed out that China bears primary responsibility for North Korea’s nuclear issue.
The perspective that China was behind the spread of nuclear technology to North Korea, Pakistan, Iran, Libya, Algeria, and other parts of the Third World is something that the Asahi Shimbun-like discourse space and the postwar intellectuals aligned with it could never see.
Deng Xiaoping sought to spread nuclear weapons throughout the Third World and make China its leader in order to counter the United States and the Soviet Union.
Unless one sees through this Chinese-style scheming, one cannot see the essence of North Korea’s nuclear issue.
Yoshiko Sakurai was shining light on that hidden truth.
The person who can shine light on hidden truths and concealed truths, and give them expression, is the true artist.
In this sense, Yoshiko Sakurai is a genuine intellect of the twenty-first century and a genuine artist.
What, then, of Haruki Murakami?
He did not correctly know Japanese history, and he made statements and descriptions that could be used by anti-Japanese propaganda from China and the Korean Peninsula.
His description connected to the theory of 400,000 in the Nanjing Incident, and his statement to the effect that Japan should continue apologizing forever.
These are not the words of genuine intellect.
They are the words of a postwar intellectual created within the Asahi Shimbun-like discourse space, the remnants of GHQ’s occupation policy, Marxist brainwashing, and a masochistic view of history.
At this point, I saw the difference between Yoshiko Sakurai and Haruki Murakami as decisive.
One sees through the essence of China and the hidden truths of international politics.
The other utters words that may, as a result, serve the anti-Japanese propaganda of China and the Korean Peninsula.
This difference is not merely a difference of thought.
It is the difference between genuine intellect and false intellect.