Published on August 29, 2020, this essay introduces former International University professor and Itochu Corporation executive Takehiko Aoyagi’s award-winning paper, “Japan’s Greatest Enemy Is Its Self-Denigrating View of History: Let Us Escape the Spell of the WGIP,” submitted to the APA Group’s Seventh Essay Contest on a True Interpretation of Modern History. It examines the American occupation policy, the Tokyo Trials, the WGIP, Japan’s sense of guilt, the amplification and reproduction of a self-denigrating historical consciousness, and the intellectual framework of NHK personnel.

This essay, published on August 29, 2020, introduces a paper by Takehiko Aoyagi that the author discovered by chance while conducting an online search.
After graduating from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tokyo, Aoyagi joined Itochu Corporation and subsequently held senior positions in Japan and overseas, served as president and chairman of Japan Telematique, and became deputy director and professor at the Center for Global Communications of the International University of Japan.
The passage quoted here comes from the opening of Aoyagi’s paper, “Japan’s Greatest Enemy Is Its Self-Denigrating View of History: Let Us Escape the Spell of the WGIP,” which received an Excellence Award in the APA Group’s Seventh Essay Contest on a True Interpretation of Modern History.
The paper argues that the American occupation policy after Japan’s defeat implanted a sense of war guilt and responsibility in the Japanese people; this combined with the Japanese disposition toward sincere self-reflection, developed into a self-denigrating view of history, and continued to amplify and reproduce itself autonomously.
This essay connects that analysis to the reporting attitudes of Arima of NHK’s News Watch 9 and other NHK personnel.

2020-08-29
How Japan’s Self-Denigrating View of History Was Formed, Amplified, and Reproduced—Takehiko Aoyagi on the WGIP, America’s Indoctrination Policy, and Postwar Japan’s Sense of Guilt
This morning, while searching for something, I discovered a paper.
Both the paper and its author were entirely new to me.
I was relieved to learn not only that the paper was excellent, but also that its author had graduated from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tokyo and had built a distinguished career at Itochu Corporation.
After entering society, I met two lifelong friends.
Both of them were employees of Itochu Corporation.
Because both were exceptionally capable businessmen, they held important positions within the company.
In recent years, the company’s name has appeared in public discourse together with Uichiro Niwa’s pro-China statements, and this had caused me feelings of inward shame and discomfort.
Through my association with these friends, I had come to believe that the strength of a trading company lies in the fact that each of its employees is, so to speak, the proprietor of a small or medium-sized enterprise.
Above all, there was their remarkable ability to look at the balance sheet of a business partner and instantly grasp the condition of the company.
There was also their ability to examine a voluminous construction estimate, instantly check every detail, and determine whether the quoted price was appropriate—an ability that would surely make even Japan’s leading general contractors tremble.
I also felt that their strength—the union of intellectual ability, physical strength, and force of will—was itself the strength of Japan.
Itochu Corporation’s corporate message, “One Merchant, Endless Missions,” is displayed on the backstop at Jingu Stadium, the home ground of the Yakult baseball team, and every time I saw it, I thought that those words were exactly right.
The following is a profile of Takehiko Aoyagi, the author mentioned at the outset:
Former professor at the International University of Japan and holder of an academic doctorate.
Born in 1934 in Kiryu City, Gunma Prefecture.
Graduated from Gunma Prefectural Kiryu High School.
Graduated from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tokyo in 1958 and joined Itochu Corporation.
He subsequently served in such positions as general manager of the Food Department at the company’s Sydney office, general manager of the Agricultural and Food Products Department at the head office, and director of Itochu Systems Development Co., Ltd.
From 1985 to 1997, he served as president and chairman of Japan Telematique Co., Ltd., a joint venture funded by Itochu and NTT.
From 1995 to 2006, he served as deputy director and professor at GLOCOM, the Center for Global Communications of the International University of Japan, and from 2006 to 2016 as a visiting professor there.
His research fields extend across economics, business administration, public finance, information sociology, law, international politics, and security studies, and he describes himself as a generalist in the social sciences.
His numerous books include The Videotex Strategy (Information Science), The Cyber-Surveillance Society (Telecommunications Advancement Association), The “Excessive” Protection of Personal Information Is Destroying Japan (SoftBank Shinsho), Privacy Studies in the Information Age (NTT Publishing), Roosevelt Betrayed the American People and Dragged Japan into War, and The History of Japan Distorted by America in Order to Disarm the Japanese People Mentally (Heart Publishing), among many others.
I had discovered by chance the paper for which Aoyagi received an Excellence Award in the APA Group’s Seventh Essay Contest on a True Interpretation of Modern History.
It is a paper that must be read not only by the Japanese people but by people throughout the world.
In the opening chapter of his paper, I found a passage that perfectly describes the intellectual structure of Arima, who dominates NHK’s Watch 9, and of other NHK employees—people whom I had found truly unforgivable the previous night.
First, I will introduce that passage.
Indeed, the very title of Aoyagi’s paper strikes directly at the intellectual structure of Arima and the other NHK employees.
Japan’s Greatest Enemy Is Its Self-Denigrating View of History
—Let Us Escape the Spell of the WGIP—
Chapter One: The Origins of Japan’s Self-Denigrating View of History
■ America’s Indoctrination Policy—The Origin of Japan’s Self-Denigrating View of History
After the end of the war, the United States implemented a mind-control policy designed to indoctrinate the Japanese people and instill in them a sense of guilt concerning the Greater East Asia War.
Its purpose was to implant the belief that “Japan’s militarists deceived the people with a succession of lies and began a war of aggression; consequently, as punishment, Japan was subjected to massive air raids by the Allied powers and even had atomic bombs dropped upon it.”
This was also propaganda intended to establish that the International Military Tribunal for the Far East was legitimate under both international law and ethical principles.
Thus, the fiction that the Japanese people bore grave responsibility was constructed.
The sense of guilt produced within that framework emerged as a self-denigrating view of history among the Japanese people, who possess a sincere willingness to reflect upon their conduct.
It has continued to the present day through autonomous cycles of amplification and reproduction.
When apologizing, the Japanese convinced themselves that they were simply carrying out justice and that doing so was an exceedingly noble act.
Along with a sense of tragic solemnity, it was accompanied by a kind of sweet pleasure.
Every perceptive person should recognize that the passages I have emphasized in bold perfectly describe the intellectual structure of Arima, Ogoshi, Eriko Ikeda, and others like them.
To be continued.