As the United States halts UN contributions, Japan continues to shoulder the largest financial burden, yet its prime minister remains undervalued. This article examines how UN politics, Forbes rankings, and domestic self-denigration have undermined Japan’s global standing.

At a time when the United States has stopped paying its contributions, Japan continues to pay by far the largest amount of money to sustain the United Nations.
2016-12-24
Just think about it.
At a time when the United States has stopped paying its contributions to the United Nations, the prime minister of Japan—the country that continues to pay by far the largest sum in the world to maintain the UN—is not even ranked within the top ten of the list of the world’s most influential people, but is placed thirty-fourth, and Forbes remains utterly unperturbed in producing such a ranking.
As proof that Japan is one of the richest and most developed countries in the world, there once existed something called the Peace Boat.
One of the women who traveled the world on this ship is now a member of the National Diet from the Democratic Party.
What kind of woman is she.
She appears frequently on television, has a mind shaped by growing up reading the Asahi Shimbun, parrots the opinions of Asahi Shimbun editorial writers in a Kansai dialect, and has continued to heap abuse on Japan.
The mindset of this individual and that of the editors of Forbes magazine share the same roots.
Despite the fact that a phenomenon like the Peace Boat exists precisely because Japan is one of the richest and most advanced countries in the world, this woman has persistently disparaged Japan at every opportunity.
The reason the United States is a world leader is also because Americans are convinced that their country is the best in the world.
It is also because they have continued to proclaim that their democracy is the finest in the world.
That is why the world admires the United States, and why people seeking to immigrate to America never cease.
By contrast, no one would ever aspire to a country that, represented by figures like this woman, constantly denigrates itself at the United Nations, falsely portraying itself as a nation that violates human rights and women’s rights, and keeps pressuring UNESCO to issue recommendation resolutions as if such slander were international truth.
There is no way such a country could become a world leader.
She, along with Asahi Shimbun and the so-called cultural figures who have echoed this line, must open their eyes wide and see the reality that the Communist Party–ruled one-party dictatorship of China—where freedom of speech and human rights naturally do not exist—has continued to proclaim that it is number one in the world and that others should follow it, with the result that, even if driven by financial motives, not only small and weak countries but also Europe led by Germany, and even at times the Obama administration, have been tilting toward China.
To be continued.