This chapter offers a critical reading of Asahi Shimbun journalist Tetsuya Hakoda’s commentary on South Korea, arguing sharply that the root cause of the deterioration in Japan–South Korea relations lies in the Asahi Shimbun’s own reporting on the comfort women issue.
Through its treatment of the Abe Statement, its distorted assessment of Park Geun-hye, and its lack of remorse over its wartime reporting, it portrays how deeply the Asahi Shimbun has become detached from both Japanese public anger and political reality.

2019-04-22
The fact that the Japanese people have already reached the end of their patience.
Hakoda does not notice at all, and does not understand at all.
Is that not a truly terrifying thing.

This is a chapter I published on 2015-09-07.
What follows is an article written on September 4 in an Asahi Shimbun serial column by Tetsuya Hakoda, who was in charge of international editorials.
The passages in quotation marks are his writing.
The passages between the asterisks are mine.

“Summer, burdened with many turning points, is passing.
President Park Geun-hye of South Korea must not have felt at ease in August.
Because of Prime Minister Abe’s statement on the seventieth anniversary of the end of the war.”

On that day, I had not read this beginning.
If this were an opinion piece written by a Korean reporter, there would be no problem at all.
But the problem is that this is an article written by a person at the core of the Asahi Shimbun, a newspaper thought externally to represent Japan.
That is to say, by a person embodying the ideology of that newspaper company.
To state the conclusion, which a discerning person would grasp in an instant.
That is why Japan–South Korea relations deteriorated.

“The statement followed the Abe administration’s line of ‘disregarding South Korea.’”

It is already a historical fact that the comfort women issue fabricated by the Asahi Shimbun and spread throughout the world worsened Japan–South Korea relations.
Even so, Prime Minister Abe, as a statesman, is trying somehow to improve relations.
But needless to say, that does not in the least mean accepting the other side’s attacks based on absurd lies.
From Japan’s point of view.
Suppressing even the unforgivable anger toward the Asahi Shimbun.
Within the reality called politics.
As I have mentioned many times, Prime Minister Abe is a rare realist in recent times.
A realist is a person who holds no distorted ideology whatsoever and looks straight at reality.
And in order to look straight at reality.
Needless to say, one must also look at history straight, casting aside distorted ideology.
That is why he was able to produce such a splendid statement.
But all of the hardship that clung to the making of that statement.
May without exaggeration be called a disaster brought about by the Asahi Shimbun.
Regarding the grave crime Asahi committed against the Japanese nation and its people.
There is not even the first syllable of repentance.
This article by a reporter at the core of Asahi tells the whole story of Asahi.

“Nevertheless, in her speech at the ceremony the following day celebrating the seventieth anniversary of liberation from colonial rule, President Park gave it a certain degree of positive assessment, while expressing expectations for Japan’s future efforts.”

If people knew that the one writing this was not a Korean but a Japanese reporter at the center of Asahi, everyone would be astonished.

“The personalities of the leaders of Japan and South Korea are similar in some respects.
In particular, they share a certain strength of ego, which makes matters complicated.”

But what kind of human being is this man, after all.
Every decent person would be utterly appalled.
This man, as for what sort of people they are.
Proves one hundred percent the correctness of the definition I was the first in the world to make.

“In that respect, President Park, whose reputation for such conduct is well established even domestically, this time appeared to show the more ‘adult’ response first.”

This man.
As I have mentioned many times.
Places on the same level Prime Minister Abe, a true statesman worthy of the Nobel Prize.
And Park Geun-hye, who does not even know, let alone realize, the shamefulness of tattling diplomacy.
Indeed, he places Park Geun-hye above him.
One can only stand speechless with one’s mouth hanging open.

“The miserable relations between the two neighboring countries today were created by a diplomacy on both sides that was too narrow and too inward-looking.”

At this point, one cannot remain merely appalled.
Hakoda, what created the miserable neighboring relationship of today was.
That you fabricated this matter and spread it around the world.
And that the children of Syngman Rhee, raised in an education that is Nazism itself.
Or those under the influence of North Korea.
Have used it as ideal material for anti-Japan propaganda.
Throughout the world.
Using the utmost falsehood born of “bottomless evil” and “plausible lies.”
And continuing stubbornly to attack Japan and the Japanese people.
To this, the Japanese people, who may without exaggeration be called the most gentle and humble people in the world.
Have already reached the end of their patience.
Hakoda does not notice this at all, does not understand it at all.
Is that not a truly terrifying thing.
At the same time, what his article clearly indicates is this.
Asahi.
Has no remorse whatsoever regarding its fabricated reporting on the comfort women issue.