To put it bluntly, The Asahi Shimbun is boring.
One of its signature features, “Tensei Jingo,” is written in an expository style that can scarcely be called a column; it cites obscure books and people, and usually ends by saying, “And in any event, Japan is to blame.”
The following is an article I published on March 1, 2019.
A well-read friend bought me a copy of the latest issue of the weekly magazine Shinchō, released today.
She bought it so that I could read Masayuki Takayama’s incomparable essay—the only one of its kind in the postwar world.
The notes marked with asterisks are mine.
Japan’s Century
To put it bluntly, The Asahi Shimbun is boring.
One of its signature features, “Tensei Jingo,” is written in an expository style that can scarcely be called a column.
It cites obscure books and people, and usually ends by saying, “And in any event, Japan is to blame.”
Even when discussing South Korea’s outrageous conduct, it changes the subject by saying, “That is because Japan colonized Korea,” while ignoring the fact that it was annexation, not colonization.
It discusses the last war solely from the American perspective, saying, “It was a war of aggression,” and, “Japan exploited the peoples of Asia and subjected them to suffering.”
Such a distorted column is promoted with the instruction, “Questions about it will appear in entrance examinations, so copy it out word for word.”
It is even worse than MacArthur’s campaign of indoctrination.
Its political reporting is equally appalling.
It ridicules Sakurada, the minister in charge of the Olympics, for being inarticulate and making verbal mistakes.
How is that any different from jeering at a person with a stutter for stammering?
It continually disparages Japan, yet extends the utmost warmth and consideration to China and Korea.
China has stolen advanced technology from other countries and profited by producing imitations.
Its imitation of the Shinkansen is a prime example.
But the moment Trump and Pence took forceful action to put an end to intellectual-property theft, China was left gasping.
There is also the theory that communist states last only 72 years.
Quite a few communist states have been established.
But all of them proved short-lived and collapsed.
Even the longest-lasting one, the Soviet Union, collapsed after 72 years.
China’s communist regime will enter its 72nd year next year.
Both history and Kaori Fukushima tell us that this is about the limit.
Yet Masato Hara, an editorial board member at The Asahi Shimbun, says, “I went to China, and everyone was full of energy. Alibaba’s executives said they were not worried in the slightest.”
He goes even further, saying that China’s GDP “is closing in on that of a declining United States and will overtake it at some point in the 2020s,” and that “America’s attempt to launch a trade war appears to be an expression of desperation and fear.”
He predicts that China—a merciless and vulgar country that lives by stealing intellectual property and carries out horrific ethnic cleansing against the Uyghurs and Tibetans—will become the superpower of tomorrow.
The very thought of such a country ruling the world sickens the Japanese, yet Hara seems to regard it as cause for celebration.
Japan ought to deliver a sharp and sobering rebuke to such a China.
Nevertheless, The Asahi Shimbun trots out Yoshimitsu Kobayashi, chairman of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives, and has him declare, “That will not happen.”
According to Kobayashi, “Japan’s days as a technological superpower are over.
China has now taken its technology, and Huawei dominates the telecommunications industry.
Yet the Japanese remain like frogs being boiled alive, entirely unaware of their predicament.”
He also harshly condemns the Japanese, saying, “The deteriorated Japanese people no longer have even the energy to take on something new.”
Yet Japan has continued to take on new challenges.
In the 1970s, for example, Japan used its own technology to build a nuclear-powered ship, following the United States, the Soviet Union, and Germany.
Japan also brought the dream reactor—the fast breeder reactor—into practical operation ahead of the rest of the world, but fake-news campaigns spearheaded by The Asahi Shimbun destroyed both projects.
Kobayashi is too poorly informed to know this.
If he knew it, he would not be expounding his boiled-frog theory about Japan in The Asahi Shimbun.
Kobayashi also regards “Japan’s 175 trillion yen in debt” as a problem and laments that funding for “the development of next-generation technology” cannot readily be found.
No.
Vast sums are already being disbursed as scientific research grants.
But those funds have been scattered among anti-Japanese leftists in the humanities, such as Jiro Yamaguchi.
Kobayashi has yet to grasp that either.
Does the rest of the world, then, share this pessimistic view of Japan?
Michael Schuman, author of Confucius and His World, declares, “The challenge of the 21st century is to establish formidable industrial strength capable of prevailing in international competition, and—believe it or not—the model is Japan.”
He says, “We have entered an age in which the enduring strength of tradition—not the makeshift power of a country like China—will prevail.”
Adair Turner, a leading authority in British economic circles, takes the same view as Yoichi Takahashi.
He says, “Despite its ageing population, Japan has used technological innovation to keep people in the workforce until the age of 70.”
He continues, “Although national debt exceeding twice GDP is said to be a burden, the reality is that it can be offset against government assets, and once the Bank of Japan’s holdings are taken into account, the actual figure is only 60 percent of GDP.”
The conclusion is: “In the 21st century, learn from Japan.”
Daniel Moss of Bloomberg likewise says, “The eyes of the world, previously fixed upon China, will now turn towards Japan, which has overcome the problems of ageing and deflation.”
The skies over Japan will clear when The Asahi Shimbun and the Japan Association of Corporate Executives disappear.
＊The redevelopment of Umeda Kita Yard posed a serious obstacle to The Asahi Shimbun’s attempt to attract tenants to the Nakanoshima Twin Towers—a project on which the company had staked its future.
Kita Yard was to be both a catalyst and a trump card for Osaka’s revival.
Umeda Kita Yard is one of the finest commercial locations in Japan—a place God left behind as a trump card for Osaka’s revitalization.
That is why Yodobashi Camera Umeda has the highest sales of all its stores.
The Asahi Shimbun used Yukiko Takenaka of the Osaka Association of Corporate Executives to throw the Kita Yard project into confusion.
Incidentally, the building on which Asahi had staked the company’s future was constructed by Takenaka Corporation.
Thanks to the scheme to derail the Kita Yard project and the economic boom brought about by Abenomics, Asahi was able to secure all the tenants for its new building in Nakanoshima.
As a result, The Asahi Shimbun is now a company that earns its profits from real estate and appears to have established a structure under which the company will survive even if its newspaper fails.
But will God truly allow this company of the basest and vilest traitors to Japan to go on existing?＊