This article questions how and by whom rankings claiming Japan’s press freedom is lower than South Korea’s were created and promoted. It explores the mechanisms through which Japan was politically constrained in the international arena and why most Japanese citizens remained unaware of these tactics for so long.

April 21, 2016

Most Japanese citizens, myself included, were completely unaware of the methods used in cases like this until August of the year before last.
To begin with, what kind of person would create a chart claiming that Japan, a country possessing freedom and intellect on par with the United States and among the highest in the world, ranks lower than South Korea in terms of press freedom?
Which person of sound intellect anywhere in the world would believe such nonsense?
Most Japanese citizens, myself included, were completely unaware of the methods used in cases like this until August of the year before last.
If the Japanese people themselves did not know about matters concerning Japan, there was no way the rest of the world could have known.
That is how the extremely unstable world we see today was created.
For seventy years after the war and up to the present, it has become unmistakably clear which countries wished to keep Japan a political prisoner within the international community.
The country that created this situation was the United States, which committed what I have repeatedly referred to as an original sin, but the United States soon realized its own mistake.
Even now, the countries that continue to exploit the attitude of the United States at the time of Japan’s defeat are South Korea and China, along with roughly half of the German population who harbor the shallow desire to place Japan alongside the Nazis in order to lessen their own original sin, and a very small number of European countries that still seek to extract money from Japan.
The method used has been the continued practice of so-called civic groups, many of whose members being resident Koreans in Japan—an outrageous fact in itself—together with the Japan Federation of Bar Associations that has supported them, persistently reporting Japan to the United Nations in order to oppress and demean the country.
That the principal mastermind behind this activity was the Asahi Shimbun has already become a widely known fact.
And yet, rather than showing the natural anger expected of Japanese citizens toward a chart that placed Japan below South Korea based on so-called press freedom rankings manufactured in this way,
the reality is that those responsible behaved with unsurpassed childishness and malice, since it was something they themselves had orchestrated.
Even so, they brazenly broadcast it in a large segment on a flagship television program, and then, the very next day, casually printed it in the morning edition of a newspaper.
Where could one possibly find a greater evil than this?