After skimming the opinion column of Asahi Shimbun, the author sensed a serious lack of historical awareness. Before discussing contemporary issues, the roles of Hotsumi Ozaki, the Sorge Affair, and existing academic research must be examined. The essay questions the credibility of opinion leaders who ignore these foundations.

I skimmed through the opinion column of the Asahi Shimbun this morning, and if the Asahi Shimbun and the commentators who appeared in that column were to speak about today’s issues, then above all else,
2016-12-07

I skimmed through the opinion column of the Asahi Shimbun this morning, and if the Asahi Shimbun and the commentators who appeared in that column were to speak about today’s issues, then above all else,

I immediately thought that they should first investigate what Hotsumi Ozaki, who at the time was not only acknowledged by others and himself but was also praised as one of Japan’s foremost experts on China and a major Asahi Shimbun reporter, actually did while collaborating with Sorge, before speaking at all.

The two individuals who appeared there have probably not read at all the research results recently published in a monthly magazine by Terumasa Nakanishi, Professor Emeritus of Kyoto University.

At the same time, I was struck by the fact that one of the commentators, a woman, had connections with Oxford University.
This is because I recall reading somewhere an article stating that Oxford University provided significant cooperation when either the Nanjing Massacre or the comfort women issue was submitted for registration in UNESCO’s Memory of the World program.

Of the three lawyers who persistently asserted at the United Nations the outrageous claim that it was not about comfort women but about sexual slavery, and spread this view across the world, two were women.

I have written and appeared stating that everything begins with a single person, but precisely because of this, I had just been stunned to learn that there are countless so-called cultural figures, or rather distorted examination-elite types, who continue to demean and disparage Japan in places completely unknown to the majority of the Japanese people, and it is certain that all of them are readers of the Asahi Shimbun.

I immediately thought that today’s two commentators surely belong to that same category.

They demean Japan even to the extent of distorting facts, a trap into which many who have subscribed to and carefully read the Asahi Shimbun since becoming aware of the world likely fall.

To be continued.