While other major newspapers remain silent, the Sankei Shimbun exposed the inclusion of a Kyoto University associate professor in Japan’s re-entry ban related to North Korea. The case reveals serious risks involving Japan’s national universities and nuclear technology leakage.

2016-05-02

Earlier, a friend of mine who switched his newspaper subscription from the Asahi Shimbun to the Sankei Shimbun after August of the year before last told me about an article published on the right-hand side of this morning’s Sankei front page.

On the left side, with another article placed between them, was an essay by Sakurai Yoshiko, a national treasure of Japan by any measure, describing facts that readers of Asahi and the Nikkei had never known.

I repeat once again: in today’s Japan, it is no exaggeration to say that the only newspaper that writes facts—that is, the only real newspaper—is the Sankei Shimbun. Even regarding the Bank of Japan’s recent policy mistake, Sankei wrote nothing that would have misled decision-makers.

As for the article in question, it reported that a male associate professor at the Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute had been included in Japan’s re-entry ban imposed as part of independent sanctions against North Korea, which has repeatedly conducted nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches.

The associate professor had previously received research grants from a Japan-based organization aimed at contributing to North Korea’s scientific and technological development. This exposed the reality that North Korea has been extending its reach toward nuclear technology at Japan’s national universities.

The professor specializes in nuclear engineering, earned his doctorate at Kyoto University, belongs to academic societies in Japan, the United States, and South Korea, and has participated in joint research projects with the International Atomic Energy Agency. He is known as a core researcher, having received awards for the high citation counts of his papers.

At the same time, it was revealed that he had received research funding in the past from the Kim Man-yu Scientific Promotion Association, which has close ties to North Korea and Chongryon.

This association was searched by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police in 2005, along with the Association of Korean Scientists and Engineers in Japan, in connection with the illegal export of pharmaceuticals to North Korea. The latter organization had also been implicated in illegal exports of precision equipment to North Korea and Iran.

The government’s decision to include the associate professor in the re-entry ban is believed to be aimed at preventing the outflow of Japan’s “nuclear brains” to North Korea.

The institute questioned the professor last month. While he acknowledged receiving notification from the Ministry of Justice in mid-February that re-entry would be prohibited if he traveled to North Korea, he claimed that he had “never traveled to North Korea” and stated that he had “no idea” why the measure was imposed.

When asked to submit his past official travel records, it emerged that he had traveled numerous times to South Korea, as well as to China, Europe, and the United States.

The institute instructed him not to respond to interviews from the Sankei Shimbun for the time being.

Kyoto University has produced prominent scientists, including principals of Korea University. Public security authorities believe that networks of Korean scientists connected to Kyoto University have close ties to North Korea’s scientific and technological development, which could be diverted to weapons of mass destruction.

Regarding this re-entry ban, Nishioka Tsutomu provides a detailed report in the June issue of the monthly magazine Sound Argument.

This issue had only just been purchased by me the day before, so I immediately read it.

To be continued.