This essay examines why Asahi Shimbun failed to report the clear statements made by a Keidanren-led delegation to China.
The author identifies this silence as an expression of Asahi’s long-standing pseudo-moralism, previously evident in its coverage of the coral reef incident and echoed by TV Asahi.
The piece argues that such distorted moralism has inflicted serious damage on Japan’s corporations and society as a whole.

September 24, 2016
This pseudo-moralism appeared in exactly the same form in the articles written at the time of the coral reef incident.
As readers already know, the presidents of Keidanren and similar organizations are people who correspond to my seniors, classmates, and juniors.
The fact that the delegation to China clearly expressed its views to the Chinese side was not reported at all by Asahi Shimbun, and I believe this is because Asahi knew that its true nature had been seen through and that it had, in effect, been given its final notice by them.
The article written by Kiyotai Kitabatake in the previous chapter represents precisely the reality of Asahi Shimbun’s pseudo-moralism, which I have repeatedly pointed out.
This pseudo-moralism appeared in exactly the same way in the articles written at the time of the coral reef incident.
On “Hōdō Station,” the news program of TV Asahi, a subsidiary of Asahi Shimbun, Furudate, who was raised on Asahi’s reporting, appeared as a desk editor of the foreign news section, and when he summoned a person whose homeland is North Korea with a smile that seemed to say, “Look, I am a moralist,” I was, as you know, one of the first people in Japan to be utterly astonished.
What happens when one subscribes to and carefully reads for more than forty years a newspaper that believes appointing as a foreign news desk editor someone who studied at a Korean school and at Peking University constitutes moralism.
I was subjected to unbelievable experiences and nearly lost my life, while the group of companies that Japan proudly presents to the world were exploited for the sake of regime maintenance through completely arbitrary and self-serving judgments that ignored international treaties such as the Japan–China Peace Treaty and the Japan–South Korea Basic Treaty, based on the assumption that postwar Japanese would behave as entirely docile and non-confrontational people, and enormous sums of money were extorted from them.
It is obvious to anyone that moralism has absolutely nothing to do with appointing as a foreign news desk editor someone whose homeland is North Korea, who graduated from a Korean school, and who studied at Peking University.
To be continued.