A critical examination of front-page attacks by Asahi Shimbun against Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, coinciding with North Korean missile launches and G7 diplomacy. The essay exposes how media narratives threaten Japan’s national interest while the country conducts a global, long-range diplomatic strategy.

2017-05-31
How appalling Asahi Shimbun’s reporting has been over the past two weeks.
That Prime Minister 安倍晋三 is a politician of a caliber rarely seen in recent times, as I have repeatedly stated, should by now be recognized by the entire world.
And yet, unbelievably, within Japan there exist media outlets that not only refuse to evaluate Prime Minister Abe at all, but persistently scheme to drive him out by any dirty means, that is, by utterly unscrupulous methods.
While he maintains a near-murderous schedule and conducts diplomacy that looks down upon the globe, doing what Japan, a country destined to lead the world alongside the United States for the next 170 years, a country where “The Turntable of Civilization” is turning, must do,
about two weeks ago, the article that Asahi Shimbun placed on its front page concerned Moritomo Gakuen.
I became convinced that Asahi Shimbun is nothing less than a traitorous newspaper company.
I continue my subscription for monitoring purposes, but I have grown reluctant even to glance at it.
Then, about a week later, Asahi Shimbun once again ran a large front-page article attacking Prime Minister Abe with truly base motives, as if it were evil that one of his friends happened to be a school administrator.
Many readers with sound minds must have thought that Asahi Shimbun could only be described as having gone mad.
Moreover, these events occurred while Prime Minister Abe was working tirelessly at the G7.
Even more troubling is that the day the initial Moritomo Gakuen article was published was the very day North Korea launched a missile.
And on the occasion of the second school-related article, North Korea launched its second missile of that week.
Ri Chison, who serves as the foreign news desk editor at テレビ朝日, studied at Chongryon schools through high school.
What children are taught at Chongryon schools is essentially no different from the following.
[Omitted earlier text]
According to an article contributed to the online news site “Cho Gab-je Dot Com” by Kim Seong-uk, who has systematically covered South Korea’s left-wing movements, activists of “Jamin Tong,” to which Im Jong-seok belonged, held a training camp in late August 1990 at the Hantan River in Gangwon Province and adopted the following resolution of loyalty to Kim Il-sung.
“Long live Great Leader Kim Il-sung, long live Comrade Leader Kim Jong-il, long live national liberation people’s democracy. Under the leadership of the great leader Comrade Kim Il-sung and our leader Comrade Kim Jong-il, and under the command of the Korean People’s Army, we advance with the determination and resolve to fight until this life is exhausted.”
This is an excerpt from a genuine and truly substantive article by 西岡力, published in the July issue of the monthly magazine Hanada under the title “President Moon Jae-in: Korea’s Nightmare.”
Im Jong-seok, in Japanese terms, is a figure appointed as Chief Cabinet Secretary.
Who can say that there are no individuals like Ri Chison within Asahi Shimbun or NHK’s news divisions.
To be continued.