This essay rebuts the Western media narrative criticizing Japan’s justice system over the arrest of Carlos Ghosn, arguing that Japan’s investigation and detention procedures are conducted equally under domestic law.
At the same time, it sharply points out the hypocrisy of Western countries that long ignored anti-Japan indoctrination in China and South Korea, while presuming to condemn Japan from a moral high ground, and it also notes that Ghosn in fact received exceptional treatment while in detention.

2019-04-09
To begin with, what right do you have to criticize Japan, the finest nation in the world, when you have continued for seventy years after the war to leave untouched the Nazism called anti-Japan education in China and South Korea?
Even inside the detention house, Mr. Ghosn was given “VIP treatment.”
He was moved from a solitary three-tatami cell to a room with a larger bed.
Even though lawyers normally cannot meet detainees during the New Year holidays, this too was permitted as a “special measure.”
This is a chapter I published on 2019-01-10 under that title.
Regarding Ghosn’s arrest, The New York Times is criticizing the character of Japan’s judicial system with the same foolish contempt toward Japan that it displayed before the war.
The French media are the same.
Apparently other Western media are the same as well, and though I find it truly tiresome, to borrow the favorite phrase of a University of Tokyo professor who is also an NHK cultural commentator, Japan’s judicial system is not merely something about which you have absolutely no standing to complain.
Rather, precisely because it is excessively democratic, interrogations here take many times longer than they do in your countries.
To begin with, what right do you have to criticize Japan, the finest nation in the world, when you have continued for seventy years after the war to leave untouched the Nazism called anti-Japan education in China and South Korea?
In order to teach you that fact accurately, I found myself having to ask a book-loving friend to buy me a copy of Shukan Bunshun.
First, let me begin with an article posted online by Fuji Television.
—Is it common for someone to be arrested this many times?
Desk Editor Hiramatsu.
It is said that there were various other ways in which suspect Ghosn had privatized Nissan as a company and diverted funds for personal use.
If so, then it is possible that, not limited to the present charge of aggravated breach of trust, he could be rearrested once more on some other suspicion.
In terms of “rearrest,” the possibility of a third “rearrest” is not zero.
—People overseas are angry that Mr. Ghosn’s detention is too long, aren’t they?
Desk Editor Hiramatsu.
This is an arrest within Japan.
The investigation is being conducted according to Japan’s legal system, so if he were treated preferentially just because he is a foreigner, other Japanese defendants would complain, wouldn’t they?
Japanese and foreigners alike must be treated in the same way.
Even as it is, various embassy people are visiting suspect Ghosn every day, bringing items for him and talking with him.
Personally, I think, “Isn’t he already being treated too preferentially just because he is a foreigner?”
If the detention period were shortened even further, Japanese defendants would be angry, wouldn’t they?
So I absolutely do not think special treatment merely because he is a foreigner should be allowed.
If anything, this time they could be even stricter.
(Commentary by Fuji Television Social Affairs Desk Editor Hidetoshi Hiramatsu.)
The following is from yesterday’s issue of Shukan Bunshun.
Even inside the detention house, Mr. Ghosn was given “VIP treatment.”
He was moved from a solitary three-tatami cell to a room with a larger bed.
Even though lawyers normally cannot meet detainees during the New Year holidays, this too was permitted as a “special measure.”