This is the complete text of Masayuki Takayama’s regular column “Nihon Keisei,” published in the subscription-only monthly magazine THEMIS.
Through the histories of Yohei Kono, Takeo Miki, Kakuei Tanaka, and Alberto Fujimori, this historic essay sharply examines the Asahi Shimbun, China-appeasing politicians, American political intervention, and the true meaning of national reform.

Full Text

Earlier, I introduced only the first half of Masayuki Takayama’s regular column “Nihon Keisei,” published in this month’s issue of the subscription-only monthly magazine THEMIS.
This is a historic and masterful essay that must be read in full not only by the Japanese people, but by people throughout the world.
I therefore present the complete text.
The Asahi Shimbun and China-Appeasing Politicians Must Recognize President Fujimori’s Achievements
Following Yohei Kono’s Death, the Asahi Writes as Though the “Forced Abduction of Comfort Women” Were True
Masayuki Takayama
Yohei Kono, Who Refused to Set Foot in Taiwan
Yohei Kono has died.
He was, above all, an infuriating man.
It may sound harsh to say so, but I felt somewhat relieved.
Then I read the Asahi Shimbun’s obituary article about him, and a different anger welled up inside me.
For thirty years, the Asahi spread Seiji Yoshida’s lies about the comfort women and demeaned the Japanese people.
It finally admitted that the story was false, yet it has still not apologized.
Nevertheless, the Asahi article brazenly refers to the “Kono Statement.”
When Kono was Chief Cabinet Secretary, he endorsed the falsehood that “forcible recruitment took place,” thereby supporting the Asahi’s succession of false reports about the comfort women.
The statement was supposedly based on testimony from sixteen Korean women who claimed to have been made sex slaves.
When the Sankei Shimbun later obtained the testimony records, however, the identities of most of those who had testified were unknown.
Those who could be confirmed to have existed were “Korean prostitutes who had gone to Osaka or Taiwan to earn money.”
Moreover, the contents of the statement had been coordinated in advance with the South Korean government.
In short, it was all fabricated.
Yohei Kono deserved permanent banishment from public life.
Yet the Asahi says nothing about whether the statement was true or false.
Instead, it writes that Kono “issued a statement acknowledging coercion by the Japanese military,” as though its reporting on the comfort women had been factual.
It is a thoroughly dishonest newspaper.
Kono committed other wrongs as well.
He did not merely curry favor with South Korea.
He also curried favor with China.
Two years after issuing the statement, Kono flew to an international conference in Thailand in his capacity as foreign minister.
Because of a typhoon, his aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing in Taipei.
Everyone else left the aircraft, but Kono remained alone on board.
It was a performance intended to show that he would not accept assistance from Taiwan, which China did not recognize.
After eventually reaching the conference venue, Kono hurried over to Qian Qichen and reported that he had not taken even a single step on Taiwanese soil.
This was the man who served as Japan’s foreign minister.
There have been other disgraceful politicians.
Take Takeo Miki, for example.
Like Kono, he was also miserly.
Through the so-called Shiina decision, he unexpectedly became prime minister just as the year-end gift season was beginning.
Mountains of year-end gifts arrived at the Miki residence from across the country.
Kakuei Tanaka distributed such gifts among the people who supported him behind the scenes and among reporters.
Miki did not.
He erected a prefabricated storehouse in his garden and put everything away inside it.
The reporters received nothing more than the usual weak tea.
Miki transformed the existing COCOM restrictions, which had excluded the communist bloc from weapons exports, into a comprehensive ban on arms exports.
He curried favor with China while presenting himself as a prime minister of peace.
It took fifty years, until Takaichi corrected it.
The Lockheed scandal was an American operation to destroy Kakuei Tanaka, and Miki acted as its willing instrument.
The basis for Tanaka’s conviction consisted solely of testimony by a Lockheed executive, half of which was false.
Miki therefore arranged for testimony given without cross-examination to be accepted as evidence.
That meant even lies could be treated as evidence.
Yusuke Yoshinaga of the Special Investigation Department falsely claimed, “Americans swear on the Bible, so they do not lie.”
Thus, exactly as the United States intended, the destruction of Kakuei Tanaka was carried out.
On the day of Eisaku Sato’s state funeral, Miki was struck in the face and sent flying by a right-wing man who had approached him to hand over a written remonstrance.
The man explained his motive by saying, “When I saw Miki’s face, I became furious.”
Anyone looking at Miki, who pandered to both the United States and China, might have felt the same way.
The blow was described as one that embodied the feelings of the Japanese people.
For some reason, Kono escaped such punishment.
Yet there are many politicians who appear dangerous, including Takeshi Iwaya, Shigeru Ishiba, and Junya Ogawa.
Particularly ugly are those Constitutional Democratic and centrist lawmakers who receive as much as twelve million yen a year in national-policy research funds, yet buy nothing but a single copy of Shukan Bunshun.
Without even checking whether its contents are accurate, they devote themselves entirely to personal attacks on Takaichi.
There would be nothing surprising about divine punishment descending upon them at any time.
Are there no politicians who are truly Japanese in spirit?
Looking around, I found one.
It was Alberto Fujimori, who passed away two years ago.
Reforming Tax Evasion, Nepotism, and Bribery
When Fujimori became president in 1990 at the head of the new party Cambio, meaning “reform,” Peru had already collapsed.
Its economic growth rate was minus five percent, and its foreign-exchange reserves were also in negative territory.
The inflation rate stood at 7,600 percent, while the tax collection rate was only four percent.
Tax evasion, nepotistic appointments, and bribery were rampant.
At the same time, communist guerrillas freely engaged in looting and murder and abducted many women.
The cause of the country’s collapse was that a small group of people of Spanish descent, known as the cien familias, controlled the legislature, government offices, and businesses, and monopolized the profits.
Fujimori privatized state-owned enterprises.
He abolished the import-quota system, which had been a source of corruption, liberalized trade, and introduced a consumption tax to secure government revenue.
He also reduced the government bureaucracy, which had become bloated through nepotistic hiring, to an appropriate size.
The Ministry of Education, which had employed four thousand people, was reduced to two hundred.
The money saved on personnel costs was used to build elementary schools.
When we went to interview him, he laughed and said, “Every weekend I attend the opening ceremony of a newly built elementary school, so I have no time to relax.”
Fujimori’s greatest achievement was the “presidential coup,” or autogolpe.
He mobilized the military, suspended Congress, and replaced the bicameral legislature with a unicameral one.
He also halved the number of legislators to 120 and abolished parliamentary pensions.
Another achievement was the destruction of tens of thousands of communist guerrillas, including members of the Shining Path.
He reinstated the death penalty and declared that guerrillas would face execution.
At the same time, he promised reduced sentences to those who surrendered.
The United States Destroyed President Fujimori
As a result, half of the guerrillas surrendered.
Information obtained from their testimony enabled the authorities to capture the leadership in a single sweep.
Hundreds of women who had been held captive were also freed.
They had been used as sexual outlets by the guerrillas and had also been forced to bear the next generation of guerrilla fighters.
Through these sweeping reforms, Peru’s inflation rate fell to only a few percent, the national budget moved into surplus, and education became widespread.
However, the white elites who had previously controlled the country lost both their privileges and their incomes, leaving them deeply resentful.
The United States was also displeased by “reforms carried out by a Japanese man in its own backyard.”
Michael Shifter, a professor at Georgetown University, criticized Fujimori, saying that “through his coup, Fujimori destroyed the wave of democratization that had taken root in Peru.”
Like Kakuei Tanaka, Fujimori was ultimately destroyed by the United States.
This time, however, the Peruvian people elected his daughter Keiko as president.
This is regarded as evidence that they recognized Fujimori’s achievements.
The Japanese media, which follow the intentions of the United States, do not understand the meaning of this Peruvian presidential election.
Were they capable of understanding it, they would realize that a great prime minister now stands before their very eyes.