Quoting Fukuo Ikehara’s book Did Emperor Showa Dislike the Asahi Shimbun?, the text examines the political circumstances surrounding the Asahi Shimbun’s 1992 reporting on comfort women and Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa’s visit to South Korea. It discusses the sequence of media reports, the government’s responses, and the developments that later led to the Kono Statement.

2019-02-06.
Just as the August 14, 1945 morning edition on the eve of the end of the war thrust the slogan “One Hundred Million as One Fireball” into the Imperial Conference, a “fabricated” article was targeted on the front page immediately before Prime Minister Miyazawa’s visit to South Korea in 1992.
The article reported by Asahi as “documents showing military involvement” in fact concerned the suppression of unscrupulous operators who were effectively engaged in kidnapping.
This is the chapter that was published on November 9, 2017 and November 9, 2018 under that title.
The following is quoted from the well-known book by Fukuo Ikehara, Did Emperor Showa Dislike the Asahi Shimbun?—The Giant Media and Its History of Fabrication (KK Best Book).
Because of Asahi’s “fabricated article,” Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa apologized eight times, as the newspaper deliberately targeted the timing just before his visit to South Korea.
The “war-time Asahi” forced Prime Minister Miyazawa to bow his head eight times in South Korea through articles claiming the “forced recruitment of comfort women.”
Just as the August 14, 1945 edition on the eve of the end of the war had thrust the slogan “One Hundred Million as One Fireball” into the Imperial Conference, Asahi again placed a “fabricated” article prominently on its front page immediately before Miyazawa’s 1992 visit to South Korea.
The sequence of events was as follows.
January 11, 1992.
Asahi’s front-page article: “Documents Showing Military Involvement in Comfort Stations,” “Government View Shaken,” “Defense Agency Library Finds Related Documents on Comfort Women.”
January 12, 1992.
Asahi editorial: “Comfort women were recruited or forcibly taken under the name of the Women’s Volunteer Corps.”
January 13.
Following Asahi’s continued reporting, Chief Cabinet Secretary Koichi Kato issued a statement of “apology and reflection.”
Kato, “foolishly,” apologized without first investigating or confirming the facts, and even did so before Prime Minister Miyazawa himself had apologized.
January 16.
During Miyazawa’s visit to South Korea, in the summit meeting with President Roh Tae-woo, he used the words reflection and apology eight times.
The documents that Asahi reported as “showing military involvement” were in fact materials concerning the suppression of unscrupulous operators engaged in kidnapping-like activities.
Asahi’s malicious distortion and pressure in its reporting ultimately led to the August 1993 “Kono Statement.”
Koichi Kato, who had long promoted himself as a liberal, was in many respects similar to Asahi.
He is said to have passed both the Asahi Shimbun and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs but chose to join the Foreign Ministry.
He was an “Asahi-favored” politician whose credentials consisted of his career path—University of Tokyo, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Liberal Democratic Party—and his political family background, as his father had also been a member of the House of Representatives.
However, after being sidelined by Hiromu Nonaka, his sudden rebellion known as the “Kato rebellion” effectively ended his political career, and he withdrew from politics before Asahi itself had to do so.