Based on a chapter originally published on September 2, 2015, this piece critically examines a column by Asahi Shimbun reporter Gen Takano and argues that the paper’s admiration of Germany and denigration of Japan reveal the pathology of postwar Japanese mass media, which has lost sight of Japan’s international value and historical role.
The author emphasizes that postwar Japan has contributed on a scale comparable to the United States to world peace, aid for developing countries, and support for the United Nations, and condemns Asahi’s call to “learn from Germany” as immature and deeply distorted because it ignores that reality.
The discussion further extends to Japan’s enormous economic assistance to China’s modernization, Germany’s approach toward China, the AIIB issue, Merkel’s visit to Japan, and the question of restoring the damage caused by the fabrication of comfort-women reporting.
The chapter argues that the Japan National Press Club should have been investigating the United Nations human-rights bodies and UNESCO, not Germany, and urges both Japan and the wider world to face this reality squarely.

2019-04-22
This was written by a reporter named Gen Takano of the International News Department,
but because he is utterly unaware of the strangeness of his own thinking,
it is all the worse.

This is a chapter originally published on September 2, 2015.
Reading the serialized opinion column written by an Asahi reporter in the Asahi Shimbun’s opinion section of September 2, 2015, I was truly appalled.
It was written by a reporter named Gen Takano of the International News Department, but because he is utterly unaware of the strangeness of his own thinking, it is all the worse.
Its awfulness is such that I am truly sick of even having to write about such truly awful thinking when confronted with it.
Anyone who reads this reporter’s article and nods along in agreement is someone completely brainwashed by the Asahi Shimbun.
I would be glad if, by reading this chapter of mine, they realize that.
Put simply, this article says: learn from Germany.
Even so, for what purpose does Asahi keep insisting that we should learn from Nazi Germany, which massacred the Jews.
The only ones who rejoice in their editorials are probably…
South Korea and China, which, in order to lower Japan’s international value…
Have persistently carried out anti-Japan propaganda everywhere and by using everything possible…
Constructed out of nothing but “bottomless evil” and “plausible lies.”
Or perhaps…
Those who, through that…
Not only want to turn Japan into a country equivalent to Nazi crimes…
In order to dilute the crimes of their own countries,
But also…
The German mass media, which have fostered anti-Japan sentiment among nearly half their own people…
And the people who go along with them.
It would be more accurate to say that the Asahi Shimbun is no longer a Japanese newspaper, but a newspaper of countries of “bottomless evil” and “plausible lies.”
Why.
Because they do not know Japan.
They know nothing at all of the true figure of Japan and the Japanese…
Of the magnificence of the culture the Japanese have nurtured…
Of the fact that its history is something rare even in the world…
And that is why they can say such truly idiotic things as that we should learn from Nazi Germany.
I…
Was the first person to make known to the world that they are not Japan’s finest players…
But at best people of merely middle-level examination-honor-student ability…
Yet when one considers that this article speaks for everything the Asahi Shimbun company is, even this description is now inadequate.
Raised in households that subscribed to the Asahi Shimbun, having grown up reading it closely…
They had somewhat good examination scores and went to Waseda.
Other than such people…
There is no one who can continue engaging in thinking like that of a kindergarten child itself without any shame.
They do not even know that Japan is, even now in substance, the world’s second great economic power.
They do not even know that after the war Japan has continued to provide overwhelming assistance, comparable to that of the United States, to developing countries and to the United Nations for the sake of world peace and the advance of human intelligence and freedom.
They stubbornly continue to uphold Article 9 of the Constitution, which from the standpoint of world reality it is no exaggeration to call absurd, and which was imposed by the United States during the occupation period…
And, for example, unlike Germany, they have never exported weapons such as submarines or warships to other countries.
And especially in the United Nations, although compared with China, which Japan after the war pulled out of poverty by providing vast financial assistance…
Japan has almost no voice at all,
In other words, setting aside its own national interest and calculations of profit and loss…
It continues to contribute purely for the development of the world…
Yet they do not even know that Japan is, alongside the United States, one of the greatest countries in the world.
It would be more accurate to say that the Asahi Shimbun is no longer a Japanese newspaper, but a newspaper of countries of “bottomless evil” and “plausible lies.”
Why.
Because they do not know Japan.
What kind of country, to begin with, is Germany.
If one considers its relationship with China, the answer is obvious at a glance,
but the Asahi Shimbun, prisoner of a false morality while holding distorted childish ideas, cannot see it at all.
The world ought to recognize clearly through this chapter this astonishing state of affairs.
Because that is the true reality concerning the peace of mankind and the progress of intelligence and freedom.
After the war, Japan gave China one of the largest economic assistance packages in human history…
And at last…
Enabled it to escape from being a poor country and transform itself into a modern state.
That Germany had absolutely nothing to do with this…
Is a fact that any adult in the world can understand…
Except the people of the Asahi Shimbun company who possess no more than kindergarten-level intellect.
China…
In the process of transforming into a modern state, learned thoroughly from Japan.
I happened, unexpectedly, to learn one example of this from the recent great explosion in Tianjin.
In other words, China, as a national policy of promoting industry, created in various places large-scale industrial zones similar to Tianjin.
More than 180 Japanese companies in Tianjin…
Japan…
Across various parts of China…
Likewise decided on the world’s largest-scale advance there, and made the greatest contribution to the national policy of the Chinese government.
It goes without saying that Germany cannot even be compared with Japan in this regard.
When, then, did Germany begin advancing into China in the way it does now.
Needless to say…
It was when Jiang Zemin began anti-Japan education…
To divert the eyes of the people away from the Tiananmen Incident.
Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, who had committed one great policy failure after another with the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution…
In other words, for China, Japan had been the savior of its very life.
That is why, after the Japan-China Friendship Treaty, Japan-China relations were truly a honeymoon.
Cities throughout Japan and cities in China became sister cities.
Germany of Volkswagen did not miss the chance when China tilted toward anti-Japan sentiment.
As readers know, I…
Was probably the first Japanese to state clearly in writing that Japan had no need to participate in the AIIB started by China.
Since last August, having stopped subscribing to AERA and Weekly Asahi…
I began subscribing to monthly magazines that until then I had scarcely read.
The real truths that cannot be understood while subscribing to Asahi are written in those monthly magazines.
From among those articles, I realized that the true nature of the AIIB was, in fact, China’s financing needs.
That is, China’s economic situation had significantly worsened.
Europe, suffering from Germany’s one-sided dominance, jumped at it without even understanding that…
And the result is what the world knows today.
But Merkel of Germany alone knew this earlier than the rest of the world.
Why.
Because she had ridden on China’s anti-Japan propaganda and had already entered large-scale automobile production in China.
Compared with China, which she visited seven times after taking office…
Japan, which it would be no exaggeration to say she had not visited…
She came to under the pretext of G7 consultations…
Because she realized that she had leaned too far toward China…
And had neglected too much her relationship with Japan, which is in substance still the world’s second great economic power, and thus came to repair relations.
And yet the Asahi Shimbun, which cannot understand even something at the level of a kindergarten child…
In desperation…
Arranged lectures and such…
In order to make Merkel criticize the Abe administration.
But, as you know, Merkel, not being a kindergarten child…
Responded to Asahi’s intentions only very slightly.
What, then, should we do about such an Asahi Shimbun.
The recovery of the damage and honor inflicted on Japan by the fabricated articles on the comfort-women issue…
Since there is room for this to be restored by Asahi itself placing opinion advertisements throughout the world…
Must, before anything else, be made to happen immediately.
It is utterly impossible to make them pay the 1,400 trillion yen in economic losses brought about by them.
Therefore…
To dismantle them swiftly…
And never again allow them to dominate Japan…
Is the urgent task of Japan…
And Japan as well…
And the world as well…
Must now, through this chapter…
Come to know it.
To be continued.
While writing the previous chapter, I realized that Asahi and Park Geun-hye are almost of the same kind.
In other words, Asahi did not even realize that Merkel is not at all that sort of person like them…
Nor did it realize that, to begin with, the only politicians who would make statements criticizing the prime minister of a foreign country they are visiting on important business are people like Park Geun-hye or Chinese officials.
In other words, they have the same kind of mental structure as South Korea and China.
No one, I think, would object to saying that the editorial by the Asahi reporter that truly appalled me yesterday embodied the entire essence of the Asahi Shimbun.
It was in the following passage that I first learned that the thing called the Japan National Press Club was doing such things.
Omitting the preceding text.
“When I heard such a phrase in the statement marking seventy years after the war announced by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on August 14, I thought of the German school I visited in July as a member of a reporting group planned by the Japan National Press Club.”
Omitting what follows.
Since the leading power in the Japan National Press Club is probably still the Asahi Shimbun, this reporting trip too was likely the result of Asahi’s intentions being at work.
It may have imitated the inspection tours that Diet members take during summer recess…
But would American reporters, for example…
Visit Germany in order to write newspaper articles saying that their own country’s education is inferior to that of another country.
Even without verifying it…
I think there is no way they would.
The United States is, alongside Japan, a country that has achieved the highest intelligence and freedom in the world.
Of course, the freer a country is, the more various problems it will also have.
But even so, it is no exaggeration to say that there are no people in America who belittle their own country.
Still less is there likely to be even one American who thinks Germany superior to the United States.
More than anything, if the Japan National Press Club had time to do such things, it should instead go and investigate, for example, the United Nations, the U.N. Human Rights Commission, and UNESCO.
Men of discernment should understand my point from that alone.