On the day Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo died, NHK quoted his words at length—not to condemn China’s human rights abuses, but to criticize Japan’s Abe administration. Drawing on an in-depth dialogue published in WiLL, this article exposes the political murder of Liu Xiaobo, the systematic torture of Chinese dissidents, and the profound moral collapse of Japan’s public broadcaster, which chose ideological posturing over truth and responsibility.

Liu Xiaobo’s words were quoted at length, with evident self-satisfaction, at the end of a program on the very day he died.
2017-08-04
I dedicate the following dialogue feature—published in this month’s issue of WiLL across fifteen pages in three-column format, and which can be said without exaggeration to be the finest contemporary analysis and critique of China—to Arima, the anchor of NHK’s Watch 9 and a senior NHK reporter, who on the very day Liu Xiaobo died used Liu’s words at length and with smugness not to criticize China or South Korea, which would at least have been understandable, but to criticize the Abe administration, and also to those in the current NHK news editorial department who share his way of thinking.
Nobel Peace Prize: The Country That Coldly Eliminates Liu Xiaobo
Fukushima Kaori, Journalist
Yaita Akio, Editorial Writer, Sankei Shimbun
Will the world remain silent as repression and torture are inflicted upon human-rights advocates?
The Truth Hidden in Darkness
Yaita
There are many strange aspects surrounding the death of Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese democracy activist who passed away on July 13.
After he developed liver cancer, the Chinese government released about three minutes of footage showing his life in prison.
In that footage, Liu Xiaobo says that he receives proper health checkups and exercises regularly.
There is also a scene in the hospital where a doctor asks him loudly, “You’ve had hepatitis for thirty years, haven’t you?”
This was likely staged to emphasize that he did not develop liver cancer while in prison.
It is painfully obvious.
Another point is that by the time the cancer was discovered, it was already terminal and had metastasized throughout his body.
And this despite the fact that regular medical checkups were supposedly conducted in prison.
The story does not add up.
Was he injected with something, or poisoned?
In any case, he was subjected to intense persecution while incarcerated.
Even after the cancer was discovered, he was not given proper treatment.
Fukushima
Liu Xiaobo’s wife, Liu Xia, was also under house arrest, and she has testified that “he was not allowed to receive treatment.”
There are many who speak of the possibility of a “political murder.”
Yaita
Chinese authorities leave inconvenient individuals untreated even when they are ill.
This was also the case with Zhou Enlai during the Mao Zedong era.
Even when Zhou developed cancer in his later years, Mao did not permit him to receive treatment.
Liu had been sentenced to eleven years in prison and was supposed to be released two years later.
Many people were waiting for the release of Liu, the spiritual leader of China’s democracy movement.
The one who feared this most was Xi Jinping.
I interviewed Liu many times.
At first, even when he received offers from abroad, he said he would remain in China out of a sense of responsibility toward the students who were killed after being influenced by him during the Tiananmen Square incident.
However, shortly before his death, he began to say that he wanted to go to Germany or the United States.
Perhaps he wanted to reveal the truth overseas before he died.
And by citing the need for medical care, his wife Liu Xia could also leave the country with him.
Even if he himself died, his wife could remain abroad and be freed from the surveillance of the Chinese authorities.
It is said that he also wished to secure freedom for his wife.
Torture Repeating Loss of Consciousness and Revival
Yaita
There was the incident known as “7.09,” in which human-rights lawyers within China were detained, and the situation is similar to this case.
Fukushima
That was the incident on July 9, 2015, when law offices in Beijing were raided simultaneously.
In the end, 309 lawyers were detained.
Yaita
As the truth is gradually coming to light, it has become clear that the detained lawyers were subjected to horrific persecution even in prison.
They were forced to take drugs that caused high blood pressure and subjected to torture that reduced people to a vegetative state.
They were made to lose consciousness by having plastic bags placed over their heads, and then revived—
and as this was repeated, oxygen would no longer reach the brain cells, and a person would become mentally incapacitated. I know several such people; after their release, they were like ruined shells of human beings.
It is possible that Liu was subjected to similar torture.
Fukushima
I also know several of the lawyers who were detained at that time, and after their release they suffered severe flashbacks and were in no way normal.
There were clear traces of drug administration.
I recently went to Hong Kong, and even now the so-called “Li Wangyang incident” has left deep scars in the hearts of Hong Kong media and the people of Hong Kong.
After Li was released from prison in May 2011, he spoke to Hong Kong media and exposed the reality of torture by the authorities.
Immediately after that content was made public, on June 6 he was found dead in a hospital room where he had been staying, “with a rope around his neck.”
It was announced as a suicide, but everyone regards it as a murder.
It would be unnatural for someone who had endured such brutal torture to choose suicide at that point.
Li was a peasant leader during the Tiananmen Square incident.
This incident was received with such shock that it is said to mark the beginning of the collapse of Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” framework and media freedom.
In other words, it became clear that even if an interview subject were murdered as a result of media coverage, no one would be able to uncover the truth.
From that point on, Hong Kong media became unable to conduct bold reporting that challenged the Chinese authorities.
When interview subjects are killed, journalists become too afraid to report.
The torture he exposed was horrific.
He reportedly was placed 20 times during his 21-year imprisonment into a narrow coffin-like box for periods ranging from one to three months.
There were, of course, no windows—only an air hole and a hole for excretion.
It was an environment where mosquitoes and lice bred in great numbers.
He spoke of having undergone every conceivable form of torture, to the point that his height was reduced by nine centimeters.
It was announced that such abnormal torture is still being carried out even today.
This manuscript continues.