This essay contrasts a genuine scholar devoted solely to facts with the Asahi Shimbun, whose reporting has been distorted by leftist ideology and false moralism.
It challenges the long-standing narrative that blamed Japan’s military alone for war, arguing instead that newspapers themselves shaped the ideology that led to war.

June 9, 2016

Misconceptions About a Scholar

Readers of the Asahi Shimbun, myself included, must have long assumed that Professor Terumasa Nakanishi, Professor Emeritus at Kyoto University, was a right-leaning figure.

However, the reality is that he is a genuine scholar who has continued to pursue nothing but facts.

The Ideological Distortion of the Asahi Shimbun

By contrast, the Asahi Shimbun has written articles distorted by a truly foolish ideology—a chaotic mix of leftist thought combined with superficial moralism.

Not only has it produced distorted articles, but it has repeatedly published fabricated reports aligned with the intentions of China’s one-party communist dictators and South Korea’s totalitarianists, all for the purpose of degrading the Japanese state and the Japanese people.

Rather than writing facts, it has written fantasies tailored to its own ideology.

Convergence with a Previously Published Essay

What follows is an essay I published to the world on May 27.

Readers who purchased the current issue of the monthly magazine Seiron (released June 1) must have been astonished to read his superb article spanning pages 148 to 161 in a three-column layout.

It must have felt as though a genuine scholar had perfectly demonstrated what I argued in my own essay below.

I have written several times about the episode in which Professor S of my alma mater, referring to the intellect bestowed upon me by God, told me, “You must remain at Kyoto University and support it on your own two shoulders.”
Those with true insight must have thought that his words were indeed correct.

They must also have felt anew the meaning of what I have written several times: that geniuses have flashes of insight while ordinary people do not, and that first-rate minds recognize first-rate minds, and geniuses recognize geniuses.

Who Started the War

Below is the essay I published on May 27.

Recently, in a chapter titled after my hometown’s Teizan Canal, I wrote about war.

At that time, I arrived at yet another idea unprecedented in the world.

I wrote that the twentieth century was a century of war.

I pointed out that the wars of the twentieth century were brought about by Western colonialism and competition for colonies.

However, in Japan, people have been steeped in an entirely different historical narrative constructed by the Asahi Shimbun—a narrative that is, in truth, utterly absurd.

Namely, that Japan’s military started the war.

The Asahi Shimbun has long continued to write that the ultimate source of that military was the Emperor, and that the Emperor therefore bore responsibility for the war.
There is no room for debate on this point when one looks at figures such as Yayori Matsui, the Korean newspaper world—which can be said to be a child of the Asahi Shimbun—the Okinawan press, or overseas readers including Alexis Dudden.

Those of us, myself included, who subscribed to the Asahi Shimbun for many years must all have believed this.

But would military men really think of starting a war?

Starting a war requires, so to speak, an ideology.

I declare, for the first time in the world and in complete opposition to conventional thinking, that soldiers do not start wars.

It was the Asahi Shimbun that made the military start the war.

Before the war, there was of course no internet, and not even television. What existed? Needless to say, only newspapers.
Radio may have existed as an accompanying medium, occupying a position much like television does today.

People from every field and every stratum across Japan were reading newspapers, with the Asahi Shimbun at the forefront.

It is impossible to imagine that all soldiers read ideological treatises designed to start wars.

Almost everyone read newspapers. They may also have listened to the radio.

It is no exaggeration to say that their ideology was the newspapers and the radio.

In other words, it was the newspapers that made the military wage war.

Yes, this fact—never before mentioned by anyone—flashed into the mind that God bestowed upon me precisely for that purpose.