A July 9, 2020 commentary examining Shinzo Abe’s resistance to Chinese political influence, allegations surrounding China’s use of honey traps and money traps, Joe Biden’s dealings with Beijing, Toshihiro Nikai’s pro-China stance, and concerns about NHK’s coverage of Donald Trump and Prime Minister Abe.

July 9, 2020
A Political Leader Who Would Not Succumb to China’s Honey Traps or Money Traps: Shinzo Abe’s Character and Fundamental Questions About NHK’s Reporting
The following text was written as an introduction to an article by Soju Watanabe published in the monthly magazine WiLL under the title “Trump’s Enemies: Their Appalling True Faces.”
Soju Watanabe is one of the world’s leading researchers of modern and contemporary Japanese–American history.
This article should be read not only by the Japanese people but by people throughout the world.
It presents facts and arguments that people who rely solely on news programs produced by NHK and on the editorial positions of newspapers such as the Asahi Shimbun would never be able to learn.
When Joe Biden was Vice President of the United States, China unilaterally declared an air defense identification zone over the East China Sea.
It was a serious development that Japan could never accept or overlook.
Vice President Biden traveled to Beijing, accompanied by his businessman son, in order to convey the United States government’s position to the Chinese side.
Questions were subsequently and repeatedly raised in the United States concerning large sums of Chinese-linked money that flowed into business ventures connected with Biden’s son.
Vice President Biden then returned to the United States without having forced China to withdraw its air defense identification zone.
I could not understand the judgment of those involved in NHK’s News Watch 9, who continued to report favorably on Biden without sufficiently examining this series of events.
Whenever I watched the program’s repeated anti-Trump coverage, I felt profoundly disturbed.
Eventually, I almost completely stopped watching News Watch 9.
I could no longer tolerate what I regarded as the abnormality of its reporting stance.
One issue that symbolized the problems within NHK’s reporting was the wording used in its opinion polls concerning Prime Minister Abe.
Among the reasons repeatedly presented by NHK for not supporting Prime Minister Abe was the response, “I cannot trust the Prime Minister’s character.”
I sensed a strong intention behind the repeated inclusion of this question.
During the Democratic Party of Japan administration, which was nothing less than a national nightmare, both Japan’s national strength and its international presence declined to an extraordinary degree.
The excessive appreciation of the yen and prolonged deflation reached their extremes, while young people faced an exceptionally severe employment environment.
With the establishment of the second Abe administration, Japan finally began doing what it was required to do as a nation in which the turntable of civilization was turning.
Recent reporting showed that Ichiro Suzuki also understood the magnitude of the results that followed.
It is true that Toshihiro Nikai played a certain role in supporting the Abe administration, one of the most stable governments in modern Japanese history.
I had therefore given Nikai credit for that contribution.
However, I could not approve of his attitude toward China.
Nikai had long been known as one of the leading pro-China politicians in Japanese politics.
Yet no matter how conciliatory his attitude toward Beijing might be, China would not cease its activities around the Senkaku Islands.
The conduct of Chinese government vessels makes that clear.
It has repeatedly been alleged internationally that China uses honey traps, money traps, personal relationships, economic benefits, and propaganda as instruments of state influence.
Prime Minister Abe was undoubtedly one of the few leading Japanese politicians who would never yield to such Chinese approaches.
In terms of personal character as a political leader, I remain convinced that Prime Minister Abe was a man of the highest caliber.
By contrast, can the people within NHK’s news division who repeatedly asked whether the Prime Minister’s character could be trusted confidently declare that they themselves have never been influenced by a foreign government’s honey traps, money traps, economic pressure, or propaganda operations?
Naturally, no particular employee can be described as an agent of a foreign power without concrete evidence.
Nevertheless, it is entirely legitimate to examine which country ultimately benefits from particular reporting and whose arguments that reporting reinforces.
After observing NHK’s reporting for many years, I have serious doubts as to whether at least some journalists have unconsciously assisted Chinese propaganda efforts.
The duty of a journalist is not to guide the public toward a predetermined political position.
It is to investigate facts, monitor those in power, present differing positions fairly, and provide citizens with the information necessary to form their own judgments.
A journalist who abandons those principles is unqualified to perform the role.
Yet such people repeatedly included the statement, “I cannot trust the Prime Minister’s character,” in opinion polls concerning Prime Minister Abe.
I therefore ask those who control NHK’s news reporting:
Was it truly Prime Minister Abe who had lost the trust of the Japanese people?
Or was it the journalists who introduced their own political intentions into their reporting and attempted to steer public opinion?
NHK employees receive some of the highest salaries in Japan as members of the nation’s public broadcaster.
If they fail to fulfill their responsibility to provide the public with fair and accurate information, their conduct must be subjected to rigorous scrutiny.
How many Japanese citizens truly believe that Toshihiro Nikai was a politician who could never be influenced by the various approaches made by the Chinese side?
Prime Minister Abe, by contrast, sought to defend Japan’s national interests and the international order of the free world without being swayed by Chinese pressure or economic inducements.
The character of a political leader should not be defined by the wording of a television network’s opinion poll.
It should be judged by what that person protected, what that person refused, and what decisions that person made when confronted by a national crisis or pressure from a foreign power.
In that sense, it is clear that Shinzo Abe was a political leader of the highest personal character.
The article by Soju Watanabe introduced at the beginning will be presented in the following chapter.