This passage criticizes NHK’s News Watch 9 for presenting Japan–South Korea relations in a way that makes it appear as though the problem lies with Japan and the Japanese people, and then extends that criticism to former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, whose repeated remarks are seen as benefiting the South Korean side.
Focusing on issues such as the Japan–South Korea comfort women agreement, wartime labor rulings, and Takeshima, it argues that the existence of Japanese figures who encourage South Korea’s claims has invited misunderstanding and further emboldened Seoul, worsening bilateral relations.
Above all, the passage expresses a strong sense of alarm at the structure by which Japanese media and former political leaders effectively reinforce anti-Japan propaganda disseminated at the United Nations and in the West.
2019-03-01
They speak in such a way that, by uttering outrageous things and one lie after another, it sounds as though it is Japanese people who, even at this very moment, are carrying out anti-Japan propaganda at the United Nations and across Europe and America.

Among those now watching NHK’s News Watch 9, everyone except the information-weak who merely subscribe to the Asahi Shimbun and watch NHK news must have felt the utmost disgust…。
They must even have regretted having watched such a program.
What Arima and Kuwako are saying about Japan–South Korea relations is edited in such a way as to make it appear that the problem lies with Japan and the Japanese people; they utter outrageous things and one lie after another, and they speak as though it were Japanese people who, even at this very moment, are carrying out anti-Japan propaganda at the United Nations and in Europe and America.
In truth, their manner is really no different from that of Yukio Hatoyama described below.
The other day, I said that if NHK would begin its broadcasts by declaring that it is not Japan’s public broadcaster but South Korea’s national broadcaster, or perhaps China’s national broadcaster, then decent viewers would no longer have to feel sickened…。
Because naturally they would stop watching it altogether.

The chapter I posted on 2018-11-22 under the title, “Those who have learned for the first time what Yukio Hatoyama is doing in South Korea must have felt not only utter amazement but heartfelt anger,” is now running far ahead in first place in Ameba’s top fifty search rankings.
Those who read political columnist Rui Abiru’s serialized column in the Sankei Shimbun today and learned for the first time what Yukio Hatoyama has been doing in South Korea must have felt not only astonishment but genuine anger.
This Yukio Hatoyama, too, is a graduate of the University of Tokyo.
Surely this is the clearest possible proof that one must never assume that merely entering and graduating from the University of Tokyo means one possesses sound judgment.

Former Prime Minister Hatoyama backing South Korea.
Should one say it was just as expected?
On the 21st, the South Korean government announced the dissolution of the foundation established under the Japan–South Korea agreement on the comfort women issue.
A country that cannot keep international agreements or promises no longer needs to be dealt with, and frankly one would rather not even mention it.
But what is pathetic is that behind South Korea’s growing arrogance and self-indulgent behavior there are Japanese people who push South Korea on and egg it on.
Their representative is former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who in South Korea is called a “politician of conscience.”

“Re-negotiate the Japan–South Korea agreement.”
“The greatest problem is that two years ago the South Korean side should never have made an agreement saying that the matter was ‘resolved finally and irreversibly.’
Why did the South Korean government accept an agreement that carried the meaning, ‘We have apologized, so we will never apologize again’?
Is it not only natural that the South Korean people should be angry?”
These were words Hatoyama wrote on his own Twitter account in January of this year.
He is casting doubt on the settlement reached by the Japan–South Korea agreement and inciting the South Korean side.
And this from a man who, however imperfectly, once served as Japan’s prime minister.
According to a South Korean newspaper, when he visited Pusan University in October to receive an honorary doctorate in political science, he again argued that the Japan–South Korea agreement “should be renegotiated,” and also said this.
“The expression ‘irreversible’ gave the South Korean people an image of high-handedness and hurt their feelings.”

Again, on the 16th of this month, at a symposium held in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, on issues including the wartime labor question, he said the following regarding the South Korean Supreme Court ruling ordering Japanese companies to pay compensation.
“Japanese companies and the Japanese government must take it seriously.”
If one keeps saying nothing but such obsequious things, then of course one will be welcomed and fawned over in South Korea.
He himself may feel good playing the part of a “good man,” but has not the existence of people like Hatoyama only served to complicate and worsen Japan–South Korea relations?
No matter how different his remarks may be from the view of the Japanese government, if the South Korean side misunderstands the reality of Japan by saying, “Even a former Japanese prime minister says so,” and keeps repeating far-fetched and arbitrary claims as it does now, what will happen?
Naturally Japan will only intensify its criticism of South Korea and conclude that there is no choice but to ignore what South Korea says, but that in turn will provoke South Korean backlash and widen the gulf between the two countries more and more.
What would happen if, in a fit of rage, the South Korean side were to begin incidents such as firing on Japan Coast Guard patrol vessels or Japanese fishing boats around Takeshima, in Okinoshima Town, Shimane Prefecture?
At that point it would no longer be a matter merely of cold Japan–South Korea relations.
As for Hatoyama, ever since his time as prime minister I have felt in him a dangerous trickster-like quality that destroys the world order.
It is precisely Hatoyama’s words and actions, which at first glance may appear “well-intentioned,” that create serious tension between Japan and South Korea.

“Takeshima is not Japanese territory.”
Incidentally, the Penal Code contains a grave crime that has never once been applied.
It is “inducing foreign aggression” under Article 81, and no punishment other than the death penalty is prescribed for it.
The text of the article is as follows.
“A person who conspires with a foreign state and causes it to use armed force against Japan shall be punished by death.”
Of course, I am not saying that Hatoyama’s present conduct falls under this provision, but can one really say with certainty that such a possibility could never arise in the future?
Hatoyama has also claimed regarding Takeshima that “it is clear that it cannot be called inherent Japanese territory,” and with regard to the Senkaku Islands, over which the Japanese government maintains that no territorial dispute exists, he also ingratiated himself with Chinese officials by calling them “disputed territory.”
The way the South Korean government behaves is childish and emotional, but I feel that Japanese politicians who encourage it are even more frightening.
(Editorial Board Member and Political Desk Editor)