The 2017 Kakei controversy escalated after the Asahi Shimbun reported an internal ministry document containing the phrase “Prime Minister’s intent.”
While the paper used it to suggest improper intervention by Prime Minister Abe, critics argued the document itself contradicted that claim.
This chapter examines the authenticity of the document and the article that sparked a controversy with potential political consequences.

The uproar ignited by the Asahi Shimbun created the possibility that even political upheaval could occur in Japan.
2018-01-04
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
The reason the Asahi plunged into a large-scale campaign over the “Kakei” issue is, as I have repeated, that it assumed Prime Minister Abe—being a friend of the chairman of Kakei—must have improperly intervened in the relevant administration so that Kakei Gakuen and Okayama University of Science could achieve their objective of opening a veterinary faculty, and the basis supporting this conjecture or argument of the Asahi was the Ministry of Education internal document obtained by the paper as a so-called scoop and prominently reported in its morning edition of May 17, 2017, namely the one containing the phrase “the Prime Minister’s intent.”
However, as we shall examine in detail later, although omitted in that article, the latter part of this document effectively denies the “Prime Minister’s intent,” and even to me it is fundamentally self-contradictory.
It was on the basis of such internal documents that the Asahi Shimbun fueled suspicions against Prime Minister Abe in that large-scale “Kakei” reporting beginning in the spring of 2017.
Since the “Prime Minister’s intent” document itself denies any directive from the Prime Minister, Mr. Ogawa naturally concludes that the Asahi’s campaign alleging Abe’s wrongdoing, built upon that document, amounts to fabrication.
In response, the written submission from the Asahi Shimbun maintains that there is no contradiction in the document in question and that rather improper intervention by Prime Minister Abe into normal administrative processes can be discerned, and in the eighth item of its submission it asserts grounds supporting this position.
Which side is correct, Mr. Ogawa or the Asahi?
Depending on that, it will also be determined whether the Asahi’s “Kakei” reporting can be condemned.
The uproar ignited by the Asahi Shimbun created the possibility that even political upheaval could occur in Japan.
Here I would like to settle the evaluation of the most crucial part of the submission, namely the article that served as the starting point of the “Kakei” uproar ignited by the Asahi Shimbun.
To do so, we must scrutinize with utmost care the front-page article of the Asahi Shimbun morning edition dated May 17, 2017.
This chapter continues.