Originally published on April 21, 2019.
This essay criticizes the structure through which the opaque screening system of UNESCO’s Memory of the World, China’s anti-Japan propaganda, and Katsukazu Honda’s Nanjing Massacre reporting in Asahi Shimbun became intertwined, allowing falsehoods to spread across the world.
Drawing on a Sankei Shimbun article, it condemns the sloppiness of UN institutions, the modern fascism of the Chinese Communist Party’s one-party dictatorship, and the distorted understanding of Japan found even in circles around The New York Times.

2019-04-21
China, having begun to wear the face of a great world power, had Katsukazu Honda, Asahi Shimbun’s leftist-turned-thuggish reporter… .
Write, as a major scoop article in Asahi Shimbun, exactly what they wanted said, under the name of the Nanjing Massacre.

The following facts… .
Were presented yesterday by Sankei, now the most decent newspaper in Japan… .
In a precious article that, for the first time, informed us of the actual condition of UNESCO’s Memory of the World, something absolutely indispensable for clarifying and understanding why such things happen… .
There can be no doubt that, just like the Japanese people, people throughout the world knew nothing at all about this reality.
Fascists exploit precisely such gaps.
Readers will remember the words I wrote before… .
That evil is carried out by taking advantage of the gaps in people’s hearts… .

It goes without saying that the one-party dictatorship of the Communist Party, that form of fascism, is evil itself.
That they… .
For the sake of anti-Japan propaganda… .
Have been carrying out grand propaganda activities under the slogan of commemorating victory in the struggle against fascism, seventy years after the war, is nothing less than the height of grotesque absurdity.

If they truly hate fascism, and if they must always prevail over fascism… .
Then the Chinese people must no longer avert their eyes from the fascism in their own country.
You must immediately overthrow the fascism called one-party Communist dictatorship.
Unless you do that, you should already realize that you have absolutely no right to carry out propaganda activities such as those described above.
For this is neither the nineteenth century, nor the twentieth, but the twenty-first.

What follows is the article on page 3, continuing from yesterday’s front page in the Sankei Shimbun.
The bold emphasis other than the headline is mine.
*The comments below are also mine.

Non-public, with no opportunity for rebuttal.
UNESCO screening.

In the screening of UNESCO’s Memory of the World, the opacity of the process by which registration is approved has been criticized, and voices have arisen calling for efforts to improve transparency.
Whereas in the same UNESCO framework, World Heritage and Intangible Cultural Heritage registrations are debated in public settings, Memory of the World is screened by a non-public International Advisory Committee, and then endorsed by the Director-General of UNESCO.
Because the committee held from the 4th to the 6th was also closed to the public, Japan had no opportunity to rebut the claims.

Because of such a mechanism, with regard to the “Nanjing Massacre documents” and the “comfort women-related materials” submitted by the Chinese side for registration, the Japanese government had no choice but repeatedly to protest and request withdrawal through diplomatic channels.
Moreover, the Chinese application materials could only be viewed in summary form on UNESCO’s website, while the specific documents and photographs were not disclosed in advance, leading Japanese researchers to say that disclosure should be demanded.

The reason the registration process lacks transparency lies in the difference in origin between it and World Heritage or Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Unlike those other two, there is no underlying international treaty, and not only governments but also municipalities, organizations, and even individuals can apply for registration.
The screening too differs from the other two, which are discussed by representatives of treaty signatory states, whereas in the case of Memory of the World it is conducted by experts selected by the Director-General.
The reality is that the framework was not designed with political misuse in mind.

*Everyone should be astonished that such a dubious and shoddy organization exists within the United Nations.
At the same time, Japan has long continued to bear an enormous sum, as much as one-fifth of the operating funds shared among all 185 member states, for an organization in which such things are allowed to prevail.
This too is an utterly absurd situation.

And yet, even though it is practically as if China pays nothing at all, it has begun to assume the face of a great world power… .
And had Katsukazu Honda, Asahi Shimbun’s leftist-turned-thuggish reporter… .
Write, as the Nanjing Massacre, exactly what the Chinese side wanted said in a great scoop article for Asahi Shimbun.
This year, in the course of a debate in Shukan Bunshun with Fujioka, a former professor of the University of Tokyo… .
He confessed, saying, “I did not verify anything.
I merely wrote what was in the materials handed to me by the Chinese side.”
It is a fact that his article was transmitted to the world and has been regarded as truth, especially in circles around The New York Times, a friend of Asahi.
The world ought by now to realize that circles around The New York Times possess an extremely slipshod understanding of Japan. *

A senior official in the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology said, “The procedures are simplified, and the operational structure is small in scale.
There is no way to know how authenticity and importance are being investigated.
This may lead to debate over the need to improve the framework.”