Published on July 14, 2019.
Through Masayuki Takayama’s commentary, this article critically examines The Asahi Shimbun’s reporting on the North Korea return project, its stance toward the abduction issue, and its view of Korea shaped by the GHQ historical narrative. It questions the newspaper’s handling of the issue under former president Hakoshima, its advocacy of Japan–North Korea normalization, and its treatment of the abduction of Yokota Megumi.

July 14, 2019.
Iwadare Hiroshi and others filled the page with excuses, saying that they had “written without conducting interviews,” but that “other companies did the same,” and above all that “it was the Japanese Red Cross that encouraged the return.”
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
The clever strategy of former president Hakoshima.
Hakoshima therefore used two pages of the opinion section to have “North Korea: Dreams and Despair” written in July 2004.
Iwadare Hiroshi and others filled it with excuses, saying that they had “written without conducting interviews,” but that “other companies did the same,” and above all that “it was the Japanese Red Cross that encouraged the return.”
It seems that Hakoshima apparently thought that, with this single article, he had “settled all the accumulated false reporting of the past ten years.”
In fact, from the very next day, the paper began commenting on North Korea in the same tone as Sankei.
Even if a returnee who had miraculously survived were to file a lawsuit, the paper would probably hold up this page and answer, “The reporting has already been corrected,” and “if you want to sue, sue the Japanese Red Cross.”
As long as Asahi itself is satisfied, it seems intent on forcing everything through as acceptable.
It is not normal.
Another belief of Asahi is the GHQ line about Japan’s “past of having turned Korea into a slave colony.”
Japan did bad things to Korea.
It believes that laying railways, building schools, and bringing electric light were done for Japan’s own convenience, and that Japan robbed them of their resources, enslaved them, and slaughtered them.
Therefore, when Japanese public opinion toward North Korea hardened over the abduction issue, Hakoshima had the paper write that “the abduction issue is an obstacle to the normalization of Japan–North Korea relations” in August 1999.
Even after Kim Jong-il admitted the abductions, the paper criticized public opinion by saying, “Do not close the window for the normalization of Japan–North Korea relations over something like the abductions” on September 18, 2002.
In its pages, too, it avoided touching on the abductions as much as possible.
Even when it did occasionally write about them, it devoted itself to harassment, such as deliberately publishing, in May 2003, the address of the family of Soga Hitomi, who at that time still remained in North Korea.
That is why “Megumi-chan” almost never appeared in Asahi’s pages.
That tradition still lives on today, and when Trump referred at the United Nations General Assembly to “a 13-year-old Japanese girl who was abducted,” neither the front page nor the inside pages of The Asahi Shimbun on September 20 carried a headline saying “Megumi-chan.”
It persisted in ignoring her thoroughly.
However, at this point, it finally realized that the United States had become intent on crushing North Korea.
Moreover, there were signs that Xi Jinping, too, would quietly follow Trump and cooperate in crushing the North.
This article continues.