This is a continuation of the previous chapter.
Masayuki Takayama exposes how Asahi Shimbun concealed Fukasawa Ushio’s Zainichi origins until recently and then used them to frame Japanese society as discriminatory.
He highlights the violent tactics through which Zainichi secured welfare rights in postwar Japan and the Kaifu administration’s lenient permanent residency interpretation that allowed even convicted murderers to stay.
Takayama argues that such distortions prove they are thoroughly underestimating Japan.
He links this to the rise of the Sanseitō party and insists that Japanese people are beginning to reject Asahi’s GHQ-influenced narratives, signaling a possible awakening after eighty years.

Excessive Tolerance Toward Zainichi

Incidentally, in its August 11 editorial, Asahi wrote, “There was a factual error in claiming that Ms. Fukasawa’s roots were concealed.”
But as I already explained, it was Asahi that concealed them.
Fukasawa’s father was a first-generation Korean resident in Japan.
Her mother was second-generation.
Fukasawa herself naturalized in Japan in 1994.
She spoke about her Zainichi experience at a talk event in May 2023.
During kindergarten or elementary school lunch, she noticed no spoon was on her tray.
She said, “Sukkara, please,” using the Korean word for spoon, but no one reacted.
When she returned home and asked her mother, she was told, “Never use that word at school. Say ‘spoon’ instead.”
Even in 2012, when she won the literary prize, she said nothing about her Zainichi background.
Nor about being first-generation naturalized.
In 2019, when Shūkan Post published the September 13 feature “We Don’t Need Korea,” it caused major controversy.
At the time Fukasawa was writing a series for Post.
She was outraged by the feature, protested, and quit her series.
But even then she did not reveal her origins.
Only recently did she finally disclose her past and start to use it for promotion.
What is worse, until she revealed it herself, Asahi presented her as “Japanese writer Ushio Fukasawa,” letting her comment on women’s issues.
If her origins had been made clear and then she had spoken on Japanese issues, readers could still have received it objectively.
My column pointed out this distorted stance of Asahi.
But Asahi ignored the real problem and instead criticized me as exclusionary.
It is nothing more than nitpicking.
And yet this very method is what I have consistently warned against through Henken Jizai.
At any rate, behind this uproar lies Japan’s excessively tolerant attitude toward Zainichi.
For example, comedian Miyazon learned of his Korean background only when he visited the Samezu Driver’s License Testing Center in high school.
He was told a foreigner registration certificate was required to obtain a license.
He was shocked.
Similarly, Fukasawa wrote that though she was a foreigner, she could attend school and only learned later in life that she was different.
This kind of leniency is possible only in Japan.
In other countries, passports must be renewed every year and fingerprinting is required.

They are thoroughly underestimating Japan

In postwar Japan, countless people were destitute after war damage or repatriation from overseas.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare began providing welfare benefits to impoverished Japanese.
Then illegal Korean immigrants demanded, “Give us welfare too.”
They behaved violently and did as they pleased.
They covered rivers in town and built pachinko parlors on top.
They illegally occupied spaces in front of Shimbashi and Shinjuku stations and built bar districts.
And finally they demanded welfare benefits.
The first target was the Nagata Ward Office in Kobe.
Hundreds of Zainichi Koreans stormed the office repeatedly, detained the ward mayor, and assaulted staff.
They even attacked the Prime Minister’s Office.
If left unchecked, deaths could have occurred.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare yielded.
Through a bureau chief’s notification, it decided to provide welfare to Zainichi.
The law was bent by intimidation.
This fact has even been recognized by the Supreme Court.
When Chinese residents applied for welfare, the Court ruled: “There is no legal basis for providing welfare benefits to foreigners.”
That is natural.
The same principle should be applied to Korean residents.
Another unforgivable matter was the interpretation of permanent residency under the Toshiki Kaifu administration (at the time, Roh Tae-woo was president of South Korea).
Special permanent residency for Zainichi is exceptionally lenient.
Ordinary foreigners with permanent residency are deported if sentenced to one year in prison.
But for Zainichi with special permanent residency, ordinary crimes do not result in deportation.
Only if they commit a serious crime with seven or more years’ imprisonment, such as murder, are they subject to deportation.
At the time of Kaifu’s meeting with Roh Tae-woo, there were dozens of Korean murder convicts with limited terms.
Many of them returned to society and continued living in Japan.
Japan tried to deport them to Korea according to the law.
That was only natural.
But when Kaifu told Roh, Roh replied, “They cannot read Hangul or speak Korean. If you send them back, they will suffer.”
Kaifu easily accepted this argument, and Zainichi Koreans ceased to be deported.
Since then, even murderers may remain in Japan.
Such disregard for the law has prevailed.
The very foundation of special permanent residency rests on the falsehood of “forced conscription.”
They are thoroughly underestimating Japan.
This is also the reason why in the recent House of Councillors election, the Sanseitō party surged.
The phrase “Japan First” was criticized in unison by Asahi and other media.
But the results showed that many Japanese were indeed moved by it.
In that sense, Japanese people are no longer deceived by the narratives of Asahi, which has long obeyed GHQ’s demands.
Eighty years after the war, perhaps Japan is finally shaking off its brainwashing.
I hope that this uproar will serve as an opportunity for people to notice Asahi’s methods.
If so, Japan may change, even if only a little.