Drawing on a column by Rupi Abiru of the Sankei Shimbun, this essay examines media-driven image manipulation and an overt campaign to bring down the government amid efforts toward constitutional revision. Through testimony by former Prime Minister Mori and the trajectory since the first Abe administration, it exposes the fierce resistance of forces determined to preserve the postwar framework.

2017-07-28

Fearing constitutional revision, faltering, and resorting to image manipulation — an openly malicious campaign to topple the government.

The following is from an essay published today in a serialized column on page five of the Sankei Shimbun by Rupi Abiru, a figure who has consistently reiterated the basic duty of a journalist: to verify facts properly before writing. I have long referred to him as one of the very few genuine reporters still active in Japan today.
All emphasis within the text, except for the headline, is mine.

Fearing constitutional revision, faltering, and resorting to image manipulation.

In an interview article published on the political page of the Sankei Shimbun’s morning edition dated the 27th, former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori stated the following:
“The headwinds against Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are severe. It was the same when I was prime minister, but the media’s image manipulation is as terrible as ever. If they decide on a conclusion from the start and repeat day after day that ‘Abe is bad, Abe is bad,’ then of course approval ratings will fall.”

The author was in charge of covering the Prime Minister’s Office during the Mori administration as well, so he clearly remembers the media’s bashing of Mori at that time and the subsequent ‘anti-Mori’ movement launched from both inside and outside the Liberal Democratic Party in response.
The direct trigger was criticism of the initial response to the collision between a U.S. nuclear-powered submarine and the training vessel Ehime Maru of Uwajima Fisheries High School in Ehime Prefecture.
Before long, however, everything—from financial scandals involving LDP lawmakers to the slump in the Nikkei average—was lumped together into an atmosphere in which “everything was Mori’s fault.”

Later, the author heard Mori reflect as follows:
“The reason I was attacked so fiercely by the media was that they realized I was serious about revising the Fundamental Law of Education.”

The resistance and counterattack from forces that wished to strictly preserve the postwar framework defined by the General Headquarters of the Allied Powers (GHQ) after Japan’s defeat must indeed have been that intense.

An openly malicious campaign to topple the government.

All the more so because Prime Minister Abe, during his first administration, became the first in 59 years to achieve a revision of the Fundamental Law of Education, and now seeks to realize the main objective: constitutional revision.
Since May, when the prime minister presented a concrete proposal to explicitly state the existence of the Self-Defense Forces in Article 9 of the Constitution, media attacks using issues such as the plan by the Kake Gakuen educational corporation to establish a new veterinary school have intensified.
Among these, the Asahi Shimbun—which has clashed with Prime Minister Abe on issue after issue, including the abduction problem, foreign and security policy, and textbook and historical recognition matters—has moved to what government officials call an “obvious campaign to topple the government” in an attempt to absolutely block constitutional revision. This may be only natural.

Even in the morning edition of September 27, 2006—the day after the first Abe cabinet was formed—the Asahi carried an article with mocking headlines regarding cabinet and LDP executive appointments.
From that time on, it did not hide its malice, intent solely on attacking Prime Minister Abe.

“Afraid, faltering, and trapped,” “Abe’s ‘School Festival Cabinet.’”

To be continued.