Masayuki Takayama’s column in Shukan Shincho powerfully demonstrates why he stands as a singular journalist in the postwar world.
Through the example of Mahathir-era Malaysia, it exposes the lingering legacies of colonialism and the realities of nation-building.
The essay invites both Japanese and global readers to confront how little they truly know about the world.

This essay movingly proves that he is a one-of-a-kind journalist in the postwar world.
2018-01-25
The following is from Masayuki Takayama’s serialized column “Henken Jizai,” which concludes this week’s issue of Shukan Shincho.
This essay movingly proves that he is a one-of-a-kind journalist in the postwar world.
There is probably no Japanese person with a sound mind who would read this essay and remain unmoved.
People around the world, through this essay as well, will surely realize how little they know about the truth of the world.
If not for Japan.
When Mahathir first entered politics, Malaysia was in a terrible state.
Most of the best land in the country was owned by the British, and many of the people were addicted to opium brought in by the Chinese.
He placed as many as 120,000 addicts into facilities and enacted laws that made drug trafficking punishable by death, thereby removing narcotics from society.
After becoming prime minister, he used half of the national budget each year to buy back land owned by the British.
There were still negative legacies of the colonial era.
They were the Chinese who had grown rich from the opium trade.
They remained even after independence, and Lee Kuan Yew seriously intended to become the ruler of Malaysia.
How should they be dealt with.
For example, Vietnam, which achieved north-south reunification ten years later, confiscated the assets accumulated by the Chinese one after another.
Since money was their lifeblood, they attempted to flee overseas by boat.
Those were the people known as the boat people.
Mahathir was more compassionate than the Vietnamese.
As it was a Malay nation, he adopted the Bumiputra policy that made the Chinese second-class citizens, and for those who disliked it and chose to leave, he granted them the island of Singapore.
In August 1965, Lee Kuan Yew tearfully declared the independence of the Chinese island, but those were not tears of gratitude for Mahathir’s mercy, but tears of regret at having failed to take control of all of Malaya.
This manuscript will continue.