Drawing from Masayuki Takayama’s column in Seiron, this essay exposes the constructed narratives behind the comfort women issue and the Nanjing Massacre, highlighting the role of Asahi Shimbun and U.S. influence, and asserting Takayama’s unmatched position in postwar discourse.

February 16, 2016

What is the comfort women issue?
If asked, one could answer that it is “a story fabricated by the Asahi Shimbun to demonstrate loyalty to the United States.”

The one who likely directed it was Toshitada Nakae.
He was the successor to Toichiro Ichiyanagi, who was dismissed over the infamous coral graffiti incident.

Then as now, the Asahi Shimbun was instructed by the U.S. State Department to reinforce the masochistic view of history so that it would not fade.
Thus, Tomoo Hirooka had Katsuichi Honda republish the falsehood of the Nanjing Massacre.

That narrative was not created by Chiang Kai-shek.
American missionaries Magee and Bates were made to tell godless lies, which were then written by Durdin of The New York Times.
It was unmistakably a lie manufactured in the United States.

Seiki Watanabe introduced Seiji Yoshida, who claimed the “forced abduction of comfort women on Jeju Island.”
However, this story contradicted U.S. military interviews conducted with Korean comfort women in Myitkyina, Burma.

Those investigations stated that the women were “mere prostitutes,” and that their “living conditions and income were protected and they were free.”
The U.S. State Department was not enthusiastic.

The next Ichiyanagi therefore took a more twisted approach.
He vandalized coral and blamed it on the “degenerate mentality of the Japanese people,” but the act was exposed as self-staged.

After that, the United States urged Nakae to intensify coverage of the U.S.-made Nanjing Massacre.
However, Asahi had just issued an apology after the report on the “atrocities of the Miyakonojo 23rd Regiment” was exposed as false.

They wanted to avoid stirring up further trouble.

This essay continues.