Some time ago, an elderly female professor from the Royal Ballet School of Monaco—highly respected by prima ballerinas all over the world—visited Japan.
At that time, she spoke about the significance of artists:
“Artists are important because they are the only ones who can shine light on hidden truths and express them.”
No one could object to her words.

Ken’ichi Ara is not only my senior from Sendai Second High School, my eternally beloved alma mater, but as readers know, I also hold deep respect for his achievements.
What follows is from his essay, published in the monthly magazine WiLL that arrived at my home on the 22nd, titled Ignorance and Fabrication in ‘Killing Commendatore’ (the Nanjing Massacre).
Reading it, I became convinced that one of my earlier evaluations of Haruki Murakami had hit the mark.
That Murakami is a person who subscribes to and thoroughly reads the Asahi Shimbun is beyond doubt—in other words, his mind has been shaped by its editorials.
Added to that is a mind further constructed by plagiarizing the ideas and styles of American writers (mainly short story authors) through his early translations, which marked the beginning of his career.
The decline of the publishing industry overlapped with the designs of anti-Japanese forces, and he was elevated to the status of a bestselling author.
In truth, it is no exaggeration to say that he is a fabricated image created to spread pseudo-moralism of the Asahi type.

When I learned that he had gained a fortune and was writing while staying in international resort hotels, a certain hypothesis immediately came to mind.
Chinese and Korean intelligence agencies would surely target him. Moreover, an international resort provides an all-too-easy stage for such operations.
If this hypothesis is mistaken, then he is simply a foolish man unaware that China is a country of “bottomless evil” and “plausible lies.”
He is also a fool if he does not know that, since ancient times, neighboring countries have always regarded China as a “dark-hearted nation” with deep suspicion.
Nor does he seem to know that Chinese bookstores have sections piled high with so-called dark-hearted books.

In my career as a business manager, I once encountered a man who prefaced his remarks about the Chinese with, “The Chinese are smart.”
He too was most likely a devoted reader of the Asahi Shimbun. As I recall, he had also graduated from Waseda University.
To make matters worse, he sometimes added, “They are even smarter than us.”
It goes without saying how deeply irritated and angry I felt inside whenever I heard that.
For, to put it bluntly, the Chinese are a people who worship nothing but power and money. That is why they are good at making money—nothing more.

This is required reading not only for the Japanese people but for people all over the world.

Starting from a Royal Ballet professor’s words on the artist’s mission, this essay critiques Haruki Murakami’s fabricated Nanjing narrative, drawing on Ken’ichi Ara’s analysis and exposing how China exploits false history.

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Ken’ichi Ara

Ignorance and Fabrication in ‘Killing Commendatore’ (the Nanjing Massacre)
Haruki Murakami’s Misguided View of History, Praised by China

Every autumn, the Nobel Prize becomes a hot topic.
For over a decade, Haruki Murakami’s candidacy has been anticipated.
Normally, it is a joy when a Japanese person wins the Nobel Prize.
But in Murakami’s case, it is different.

In 2017, Murakami wrote about the Nanjing Incident in Killing Commendatore.
China praised him, saying the Nobel Prize should be awarded to him.

On December 13 last year, as Japanese schools in China closed or shifted online, the Chinese Embassy in Japan called for prayers for the “victims of the Nanjing Incident.”
The Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall was filled with 8,000 people, raising fears for the safety of Japanese children in China.
If Murakami were to receive the Nobel Prize, China would glorify him, escalate the Nanjing Incident, and the lives of Japanese children could be endangered.

His novel Killing Commendatore unfolds around a painting of the same title.
The painting dates back to the late 1930s, with references to the signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact in 1936, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937, and then the claim that the “Nanjing Massacre” occurred in December 1937.

Murakami wrote:
“The Japanese army had no capacity to manage prisoners, so most of the surrendered soldiers and citizens were massacred. Historians differ on the exact numbers, but it is an undeniable fact that a vast number of civilians were killed in the fighting. Some put the Chinese death toll at 400,000, others at 100,000.”

Two years later, in 2019, Murakami published Abandoning a Cat, about his father.
Born in Kyoto, his father had been conscripted as a supply soldier in the 16th Division after the Nanjing battle, and later served again in the Fukuchiyama Regiment.
Murakami wrote that when he discovered his father had not participated in the Nanjing battle, he felt “as if a weight had been lifted.”
Yet he still presented the Nanjing Incident as undeniable fact, influenced by the bloody reputation of the Fukuchiyama Regiment.

That reputation recalls July 1987, when former soldier Shiro Azuma testified that his squad had killed Chinese civilians in Nanjing.
Unlike earlier one-off reports, the media this time pursued the story relentlessly.
Asahi Shimbun, Akahata, and Kyoto Shimbun all gave it massive coverage.
Asahi ran four features on Azuma by year’s end.
Akahata published a 36-part series on the Fukuchiyama Regiment starting August 14.
Kyoto Shimbun ran ten pieces starting July 5, 1988.

As a result, the association between the Fukuchiyama Regiment and the Nanjing Incident became etched into public memory.

The Regiment consisted largely of men from Kyoto’s Tanba and Tango regions.
Many still lived there when the media coverage broke, making verification easy.
When corrections were requested, Kyoto Shimbun dismissed them as “threats” against a soldier’s valuable testimony.
Readers began canceling subscriptions.

Finally, in December 1988, the paper published a dialogue with five men, including the former company commander of Azuma’s unit, all of whom declared his testimony fabricated.

In April 1989, the “Fukuchiyama Regiment Protection Association” was formed, declaring that the false testimony had defamed the regiment as a murderous band and must be corrected.
Though most members were already in their seventies, as many as 300 gathered.
Newsletters were issued, lectures were held, and hundreds of people attended to learn what the military and the battlefield were really like.

The Association called on members to investigate whether any civilian killings had occurred.
No such facts were ever found.
This article continues