Despite Japan’s massive ODA to China and South Korea, the facts were never conveyed to their citizens, nor did major Japanese newspapers demand correction. This text examines the consequences of that media silence.

May 1, 2016
This is a continuation of the previous chapter.
Anyone with a sound mind who reads this article should finally understand everything that has long felt wrong about their reporting.
I was genuinely shocked to learn that Tetsuya Chikushi bore a Korean name.
As for Katsuichi Honda, one can only say, “That figures,” but even so, the damage Japan suffered at their hands was enormous.
As I have repeatedly noted, not only was there not a single word of gratitude, but the Japanese public was never informed of the 30 trillion yen in ODA provided by Japan to China, or the massive aid to South Korea—more than twice the national budget at the time—that made the so-called “Miracle on the Han River” possible.
Had this money been used to rebuild pre-1983 structures and wooden houses, or to relocate homes perched on cliffs or atop active fault lines, then, to put it bluntly, not a single Japanese citizen would have had to die in the major earthquakes Japan has endured.
Just as Chinese citizens are unaware of Japan’s aid, South Korean citizens are likewise kept entirely uninformed.
That neither the Asahi Shimbun nor the Nikkei ever criticized or sought to correct this situation toward those countries is something their own subscribers know all too well.