Written on May 9, 2019, this essay questions the sheer abnormality of the Asahi Shimbun abruptly shifting its tone on the North Korean abduction issue without any acknowledgment of its own long history of praising North Korea as a “paradise on earth” and glorifying the Kim Il Sung regime.
Linking this reversal to Kakuei Tanaka’s normalization with China, favors granted to the Asahi Shimbun, and the role of figures such as Kenzaburō Ōe and Makoto Oda, it sharply examines the responsibility of postwar Japanese media and politics.

2019-05-09
Kenzaburō Ōe and Makoto Oda also appeared and repeatedly sang its praises on the pages of the paper.
And yet this Asahi Shimbun, which has kept singing hymns to North Korea for the past half century, now makes this enormous about-face.
At such a moment of reversal, is it not the custom of newspapers ordinarily to offer a note of acknowledgment?

This is the continuation of the chapter I published on 2018-12-18 under the title:
“Correspondents such as Iwadare praised Kim Il Sung, and kept writing that North Korea was a paradise on earth.
Kenzaburō Ōe and Makoto Oda also appeared and repeatedly sang its praises on the pages of the paper.”
Following the previous chapter… when one reads the celebrated work of Ikehara Fukio, who is truly first-rate and truly worthy of being called a graduate of the University of Tokyo, one cannot help but think what a fool Kakuei Tanaka was.
Mao Zedong and China, which were in the very depths of hell under severe economic sanctions from the Western nations for the Cultural Revolution, which was at once a colossal policy failure and one of the greatest mass murders in human history, a spectacle that overlaps with present-day North Korea…
Even to the point of breaking those sanctions…
Kakuei Tanaka extended the greatest massive financial and technological assistance in human history, and saved their lives…
Far from being thanked for even a single thing…
China, a country that continues attacking Japan through every possible fabrication…
In order to spread anti-Japan propaganda throughout the international community…
The one-party dictators of the Communist Party…
It was precisely Kakuei Tanaka who enabled and emboldened that country of “bottomless evil” and “plausible lies.”
Or perhaps, it seems, it was for the sake of currying favor…
With the Asahi Shimbun…
He had national land in a prime location in Tokyo let them acquire for next to nothing as headquarters property…
Kakuei Tanaka, who allowed this newspaper company to rule Japan…
That reminds me…
Back when I was subscribing regularly to Shukan Asahi…
Kenzaburō Ōe, in a special dialogue feature with the late Hisashi Inoue…
Was strangely praising Kakuei Tanaka, who had pushed through the normalization of diplomatic relations with China in the foolish manner described in the previous chapter.
I see.
It was only natural that Ōe would lavish praise on Kakuei Tanaka, who saved Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party and helped their arrogance grow…
And who also greatly helped the Asahi Shimbun in its domination of Japan…
Even so, Kenzaburō Ōe truly was an incorrigible man.
This is the continuation.
I believe it was probably the first time for the Asahi Shimbun.
Under the headline “Megumi Yokota,” it ran an article about a moment of family togetherness on the eve of her abduction.
The article, which ended with the words, “The next day, their daughter was abducted,” was accompanied by a photograph of the comb Megumi had given her father, Shigeru, during that family gathering.
No consideration for North Korea can be seen in this article.
In the past, the paper referred to that country as the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” and around the time of Megumi’s abduction, correspondents such as Tadokoro and Iwadare praised Kim Il Sung and kept writing that North Korea was a paradise on earth.
Kenzaburō Ōe and Makoto Oda also appeared and repeatedly sang its praises on the pages of the paper.
And yet this Asahi Shimbun, which has kept singing hymns to North Korea for the past half century, now makes this enormous about-face.
At such a moment of reversal, is it not the custom of newspapers ordinarily to offer a note of acknowledgment?
This稿 continues.