Published on January 24, 2020. This article introduces an essay by psychiatrist Hideki Wada published in the Sankei Shimbun’s “Sound Argument” column. It discusses Japan’s response after Carlos Ghosn’s escape, its insufficient international communication on the comfort women issue, propaganda activities by South Korea and China, and the realities of information and public-relations warfare. It argues that Japan must focus not only on being right, but also on how it communicates its case to the international community.

January 24, 2020
Japan’s Poor Public Relations in the International Community
The Response After Defendant Ghosn’s Escape
Lies Spread Around the World Even on the Comfort Women Issue
Do Not Turn Away from the Reality of Information Warfare
The following is from yesterday’s “Sound Argument” column in the Sankei Shimbun.
Japan’s Poor Public Relations in the International Community
Psychiatrist Hideki Wada
The Response After Defendant Ghosn’s Escape
The escape abroad while on bail of Carlos Ghosn, former chairman of Nissan Motor Co., was such a shocking event that it will remain in Japan’s criminal history.
More than the sensational nature and scale of the incident, what interested me was the response afterward.
He immediately called only the media people he himself had chosen and held a press conference.
There, he claimed that there was no basis for the charges against him and that Nissan and the prosecutors had conspired to entrap him, but no evidence of this was presented at all.
And he unilaterally asserted the harshness of Japan’s interrogations.
From a Japanese point of view, this is utterly laughable, but judging from comments posted on YouTube and elsewhere, criticism of Japan’s judicial system was strong among people overseas.
In response, Japan’s Justice Minister Masako Mori promptly held a press conference, explained the accuracy of Japan’s interrogations and its consideration for human rights, and also gave that explanation to the foreign media.
Up to this point, she can be evaluated positively, but she then made the verbal slip that “Mr. Ghosn should prove his innocence in court.”
Under the principle of presumption of innocence, it is the prosecution that must prove guilt, so this contradicts common sense among foreigners.
One could say that it ruined all the explanations that had been given up to that point.
Unfortunately, the judicial systems of Japan and the West are different.
In the West, it is customary to try to settle matters in court even when evidence is insufficient, whereas Japan does not indict unless there is sufficient evidence, but when it does indict, the result is a 99 percent conviction rate.
It might have been more convincing to foreigners if Japan had emphasized the good public order in Japan and stressed that its system is not a bad one.
Even more than that, it would probably have won the sympathy of foreigners if Japan had appealed to the present anger over the gap between rich and poor by saying that if defendant Ghosn’s escape and crimes were allowed, public order could not be maintained, and crimes by the wealthy would be tolerated.
What I want to say is that, although Japanese people are particular about whether something is right or wrong, they do not give enough consideration to how they are seen by people overseas, and they are poor at public relations.
Lies Spread Around the World Even on the Comfort Women Issue
When one reads contributions by conservative commentators, they are well researched and persuasive.
However, it seems meaningless unless people overseas are made aware of them.
For example, even on the comfort women issue, there is not enough public communication to people overseas.
Although the Asahi Shimbun admitted errors such as the testimony of Seiji Yoshida, who claimed that comfort women had been forcibly taken, and retracted related articles, it made almost no effort to inform the world of this.
Therefore, even after that, the lie that comfort women were “sex slaves” has not been corrected, and comfort women statues continue to be erected overseas.
The fact that comfort women statues have been installed in overseas cities such as San Francisco in the United States, and that even a “Comfort Women Day” has been established, is because propaganda activities by South Korea and anti-Japan China have succeeded.
By continuing activities such as distributing large numbers of flyers and placing full-page opinion advertisements in newspapers, they distort the facts about comfort women for ordinary citizens and make them believe what they want them to believe.
However, because Japan has neglected efforts to communicate the facts, even if Japan’s side is the truth based on historical facts, few people believe it.
Unfortunately, even if there was no coercion and it was prostitution, understanding would probably not be obtained by today’s international standards.
However, it may be possible to accumulate and appeal to facts, such as the fact that the Japanese military at that time committed almost no rape.
In order to prevent South Korea from saying any more, it would also be possible to publicize the inhuman acts they committed against women during the Vietnam War and say, “Let us both reflect on the past.”
Do Not Turn Away from the Reality of Information Warfare
Japan was not always poor at “public relations” in the sense of making itself understood overseas.
In the last war, Japan appealed for liberation from Britain and France in Southeast Asia, and even today there are not a few pro-Japanese countries there.
Since the war, when people hear the terms information warfare or propaganda warfare, do they not take them in a negative sense and shrink back?
Japan’s intelligence agencies at the time were advanced in the sense that they not only gathered information but also conducted information manipulation.
In Manchukuo, the Manchuria Film Association, headed by Masahiko Amakasu as chairman, produced films that were also excellent as entertainment, made Ri Koran into a star, and made the people of Manchuria pro-Japanese.
However, after the war, that tradition was not inherited, and on the contrary, Japan came for a long time to believe the propaganda of people from the Korean Peninsula who are thought to have come from Japan’s intelligence agencies.
South Korea provides large subsidies in order to promote its own country through films.
The budget is said to be 40 billion yen.
This year, a South Korean film has been nominated not only for the Academy Award for International Feature Film, formerly the Foreign Language Film Award, but in six categories.
Direct subsidies for Japanese films amount to only about 400 million yen.
For human beings, truth is the reality they believe in, and it is subjective.
Japan should keep in mind the reality that unless it devotes effort and money to public relations, it cannot gain an advantage in the international community.
Hideki Wada