Published on August 28, 2019.
This article criticizes reports that Japan’s high school baseball national team would enter South Korea without wearing shirts bearing the Japanese flag or the “JAPAN” logo out of consideration for South Korean public sentiment.
It argues that such excessive consideration, not even requested by South Korea, undermines national pride and effectively accepts anti-Japanese sentiment stirred up by mistaken political agitation.

August 28, 2019.
If they will not bear the national flag out of consideration for a foreign country, they should not become representatives of the nation.
To do something that South Korea has not even asked them to do.
Is the High School Baseball Federation stupid?
The following is from the blog of a person who reads my column on Ameba, https://ameblo.jp/genten-nippon/.
I have only just learned of this now and am stunned, and I think the great majority of the Japanese people would feel the same.
Japan’s high school baseball national team goes to South Korea without wearing the Rising Sun flag.
The Japanese national team will enter South Korea today, the 28th, and according to NHK News, Masahiko Takenaka, secretary-general of the Japan High School Baseball Federation, told reporters,
Out of consideration for South Korean public sentiment, we are thinking of not putting Japan to the forefront.
The worsening of Japan-South Korea relations and playing sports are separate matters, so I think it is important for us to play sincerely.
He thus explained the policy of wearing plain shirts instead of representative-team shirts bearing the Rising Sun flag or the “JAPAN” logo.
NHK News’s Twitter post, distributed at 8:21 p.m., drew a response in which the number of retweets reached four digits in less than three hours.
Comments also came in one after another,
Wouldn’t an honorable withdrawal be better?
If they are a national representative team, I want them to have pride.
If they will not bear the national flag out of consideration for a foreign country, they should not become representatives of the nation.
To do something that South Korea has not even asked them to do.
Is the High School Baseball Federation stupid?
Such criticism poured in.
Furthermore,

What is wrong with wearing the Rising Sun flag when entering and leaving the country as representatives of the nation?
Secretary-General Takenaka of the High School Baseball Federation is said to have judged, out of consideration for South Korean public sentiment,
that “it is not wise to provoke them with the Rising Sun flag logo and the like.”
In the current situation, where South Korean public sentiment is being stirred up by “the mistaken agitation of the government,”
to “show consideration” means to acknowledge it.
Does the High School Baseball Federation recognize that?
In making this decision,
with what people, organizations, or politicians did the High School Baseball Federation consult in advance?
It should make that clear.