A dialogue between Masayuki Takayama and Miki Otaka examining Mainichi Shimbun’s China Watch, China’s international propaganda, the Jeam-ri Church Incident, the “poisoned pen” described in General Taro Utsunomiya’s diary, and the lineage of anti-Japanese reporting extending from Port Arthur to Nanjing.

2020-08-05
Background
Continuing from the preceding chapter, this section presents a dialogue between Masayuki Takayama and Miki Otaka concerning China’s international propaganda, Mainichi Shimbun’s China Watch, the Jeam-ri Church Incident, General Taro Utsunomiya’s reference to the “poisoned pen,” and the influence of reporting on the alleged Port Arthur Massacre upon later narratives about Japan.
The original text follows.
Mainichi Shimbun has also been co-opted by China.
In fact, Mainichi distributed China Watch as a newspaper insert on the fourth Thursday of every month.
The following is a continuation of the preceding chapter.
A Deep-Rooted Propaganda War
Takayama: China has told lie after lie concerning the Wuhan virus, but is there not an even more deeply rooted propaganda war?
He Qinglian’s Chūgoku no Dai-Puropaganda, The Great Propaganda of China, published by Fusosha and translated by Kaori Fukushima, also describes China’s propaganda war in considerable detail, citing a wide variety of examples.
Otaka: As I also mention in this book, Mainichi Shimbun has been co-opted by China.
In fact, Mainichi distributed China Watch as a newspaper insert on the fourth Thursday of every month.
Takayama: In your book, you repeatedly discuss the Jeam-ri Church Incident of 1919, which was connected with Korea’s March First Independence Movement.
Otaka: That is the incident in which Japanese authorities are said to have massacred approximately twenty local Koreans.
Takayama: Even today, the incident is invoked as grounds for demanding an apology.
When I previously spoke with Maruhan chairman Han Chang-woo, he also cited it as evidence that “the Japanese are cruel.”
Otaka: You mean Han Chang-woo, the pachinko king.
Although he made his fortune in Japan through pachinko, which is prohibited in South Korea, I question whether it is appropriate for him to label the Japanese so casually.
It is an appalling situation when pachinko money is flowing to North Korea as funding for the development of nuclear missiles.
Diet members associated with pachinko, namely the Parliamentary League for the Promotion of the Amusement Industry, have switched their allegiance to integrated resorts, leaving one to wonder which country’s legislators they really are.
A parliamentary league ought to speak plainly to people such as Mr. Han, including on the issue of taxation, but it has misunderstood its very purpose.
Speaking of the Jeam-ri Church Incident, Japanese pastors visited South Korea last year as well, making a pilgrimage of apology.
Takayama: Your book quotes a passage from the diary of Army General Taro Utsunomiya referring to “foreigners who are wielding poisoned pens.”
The “poisoned pen” means journalists who deliberately seek to denigrate Japan.
Otaka: The Asahi Shimbun published a feature titled “The Utsunomiya Diary: Valuable Testimony to a Bitter History” on March 1, 2007, but deliberately omitted the reference to the “poisoned pen.”
Takayama: I believe General Utsunomiya’s observation carries considerable significance.
When we examine the assessments of Japan written by foreign journalists and scholars who came to Japan from the closing years of the Edo period through the beginning of the Meiji era, we find that they viewed Japan calmly and with sound judgment.
Otaka: There were many foreign specialists employed by the Japanese government.
For example, Lafcadio Hearn, also known as Koizumi Yakumo, and Ernest Fenollosa took a profound interest in Japanese culture and helped preserve and transmit it.
Takayama: Then, quite suddenly, foreign journalists and missionaries began speaking ill of Japan.
The turning point was the emergence of the story known as the “Port Arthur Massacre” during the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894.
The Japanese army fought courageously, treated surrendering Chinese prisoners with consideration, and provided medical treatment to wounded soldiers.
European newspapers reported those actions straightforwardly, but American newspapers presented an entirely different account.
One example was James Creelman, a correspondent for the New York World.
He wrote that, after capturing the fortress at Port Arthur, the Japanese army entered the city and brutally slaughtered twenty thousand Qing soldiers and local residents.
The Japanese side was thrown into confusion and protested that the report was entirely groundless.
Although it was a case resembling the impossible task of proving a negative, Japan went to great lengths to demonstrate that something which had never happened had not occurred.
Otaka: Wikipedia presents the Port Arthur Massacre as an established fact.
Takayama: Why did American newspapers publish such irresponsible reports?
Part of the reason was that yellow journalism was then at its height and stories were exaggerated, but the essential reason lay elsewhere.
The United States had forced Japan to open its ports and regarded itself almost as the guardian of this mysterious people possessed of a delicate aesthetic sensibility.
During the First Sino-Japanese War, however, the Japanese displayed brilliant naval warfare and fought cleanly and powerfully on land, without looting or slaughter.
Americans, who were still committing looting, killing, and rape during the Indian Wars, felt as though their own barbarity had been exposed, and they suddenly became hostile toward Japan.
Otaka: Did Creelman deliberately depict the Japanese army as cruel in order to reassure American citizens that “they are just as brutal as we are,” while also deciding that Japan should henceforth be portrayed more negatively than necessary in order to diminish its national prestige?
Takayama: A good indication is that assessments of Japan before the First Sino-Japanese War had been highly favorable.
The New York Times, for example, wrote that “both the Japanese and the Chinese are strange, but the Chinese are strange in an unpleasant way.”
After the First Sino-Japanese War, however, Japan was no longer portrayed in that fashion.
On the rare occasions when Japan was discussed, it was subjected almost exclusively to harsh criticism.
Thereafter, the fabricated Port Arthur Massacre became a model for reporting on Japan and eventually led to the Nanjing Massacre narrative.
Creelman later wrote similarly fabricated reports during the Spanish-American War of 1898, describing alleged Spanish atrocities in Cuba without even visiting the scene, thereby helping to justify America’s military actions.
He was a journalist who appears to have devoted his life to writing lies.
Laughs.
Otaka: He was truly a typical example of a foreign journalist wielding a “poisoned pen.”
Rather like an Asahi Shimbun reporter.
Wry laughter.