2024-01-13
China and South Korea Lie as Naturally as They Breathe
December 7, 2023
The following is from the “Preface” to Masayuki Takayama’s book China and South Korea Lie as Naturally as They Breathe, which I published on December 31, 2020.
This article once again proves that he is a journalist without equal in the postwar world.
Emphasis in the text is mine.
Preface
When North Korea fired its first missile, Japan imposed sanctions for the first time.
It banned the Mangyongbong from entering Niigata Port.
That was a severe blow.
The ship brought methamphetamine and counterfeit dollars into Japan, and on its return voyage it took out pachinko money, electronic equipment needed for missile and nuclear development, and even nuclear experts such as professors from Kyoto University.
Even the cancellation of a single voyage would result in losses of several billion yen.
And they were told, “Never come back.”
Chongryon was stunned.
So what happened?
For some reason, whenever this kind of uproar occurs, another uproar invariably follows immediately: “A threatening letter containing a bullet was sent to Chongryon’s Niigata Prefectural Headquarters” (Asahi Shimbun).
The Asahi Shimbun explains that right-wingers angered by North Korea’s hard-line stance made the threat and sent a bullet to show that they were serious.
The Japanese government’s sanctions, it says, are no different from the actions of short-circuited right-wingers who send bullets.
It even adds the plausible commentary that an adult judgment is required.
Television commentators with no wisdom simply repeat Asahi’s commentary and say things such as, “Is it really all right to stand on the same side as the extreme right?”
But if one thinks calmly, why would a short-circuited right-winger with no wisdom write a letter to “Chongryon’s Niigata Prefectural Headquarters”?
Even someone with wisdom would probably not know that such an office existed, much less the name of the recipient.
Did the right-wingers telephone Chongryon and ask, “Is there a facility connected with the Mangyongbong in Niigata, and if so, what is its address?”
This extraordinarily well-timed “letter from the right wing” is highly suspicious.
One can see a “fabricated operation” created by Chongryon with the cooperation of its close friend, the Asahi Shimbun.
Thirty years ago, Sekihotai attacked the Asahi Shimbun’s Hanshin Bureau, killing and wounding two reporters.
The attack was attributed to right-wingers angered by Asahi’s biased reporting.
But genuine right-wingers such as Shusuke Nomura did not run or hide even when he set fire to Ichiro Kono’s residence; he evacuated the occupants before setting it ablaze.
Right-wingers do not engage in cowardly surprise attacks from the shadows.
Asahi says that some right-wingers make noise in the streets, but many of them are not Japanese.
Japanese people, and all the more so Japanese right-wingers, do not like noise.
Finally, Shusuke Nomura went to protest directly to Toshitada Nakae, president of the Asahi Shimbun.
Nakae was the man who had Takashi Uemura and Yoshiaki Yoshimi write lies and denigrate Japan.
Standing before such a contemptible man, Nomura spoke calmly from beginning to end about his sorrow for his country, admonished Nakae, and then took his own life.
When Seiji Yoshida’s lies were exposed, Nakae honestly apologized, something rare for an Asahi person.
He became a little more human.
Seen in that light, the cowardly and insidious method used in the Hanshin Bureau attack raises the question of whether right-wingers really committed it.
Then who did it, and for what purpose?
MacArthur indicted the Class-A war criminals on Emperor Showa’s birthday and executed them on the birthday of the Crown Prince, later Emperor Emeritus of the Heisei era.
MacArthur’s draft constitution, in other words the “plan to execute Japan,” was approved by the Cabinet on February 22, Washington’s birthday, and promulgated on Emperor Meiji’s birthday.
It came into force six months later, on May 3, but that date had no particular historical connection.
The pro-Constitution Asahi had long wanted to make May 3 “the day of Japan’s execution.”
It had been hoping that some memorable evil deed would occur on that day to remind people of Japan’s militarism and brutality.
And then, precisely on May 3, Sekihotai attacked the pro-Constitution Asahi.
Ever since, every year on Constitution Memorial Day, Asahi has continued publishing pages that use the late reporter Kojiri to criticize and curse Japan’s past.
Asahi’s dream of rendering Japan powerless is also something sincerely desired by the United States, China, South Korea, and even North Korea, which loves assassination.
The possibility cannot be ruled out that the perpetrator took Asahi’s wishes into account, or that there was consultation and cooperation.
One of the people who pointed this out was National Police Agency Commissioner General Takaji Kunimatsu.
He said, “We will investigate without limiting ourselves to right-wingers.”
Immediately afterward, he was shot, and the investigation in that direction stopped.
Things went Asahi’s way.
Things are often not what they seem.
Trump’s attack on Syria was also not what it seemed.
He was outraged by the horrors of poison gas and launched missiles in the name of justice.
But it is the United States that has long been fond of poison-gas weapons.
Even in the First World War, the amount of poison gas used increased one hundredfold after the United States entered the war.
Although the countries had agreed to prohibit poison-gas weapons, during the Second World War the United States brought yperite to the European front, where an accidental leak killed 83 American soldiers.
Furthermore, the United States is the king of poison gas, having even supplied Iraq with plants for manufacturing poison-gas bombs, including sarin (The New York Times).
There have also been many reports that the anti-Assad forces in Syria used American-made poison-gas bombs that had previously been buried in Iraq.
There was no reason for Assad, whose continued rule Trump had accepted, to go out of his way to take the risk of using poison gas.
There is a strong possibility that it was a staged act carried out by someone with an agenda.
In such cases, if we consider how those countries behaved in the past and cui bono—who benefits—we begin to see what was previously invisible.
This book is a collection of columns that appeared at the beginning of Seiron, and I would be pleased if it helps readers see the “intentions” that lie behind appearances.
Masayuki Takayama