Originally published on April 30, 2019, this chapter draws on a work by Masayuki Takayama, whom the author regards as the one and only journalist of the postwar world, and criticizes both the preferential treatment of so-called “weak” groups in Japanese society and the distortions in white scholars’ understanding of Japanese, Korean, and colonial history.
It argues that the generosity of Japan’s welfare, medical, and social security systems places the country’s poor in a uniquely privileged position by global standards, while exposing the shallowness of foreign commentators who analyze Japan without understanding that reality.
The piece further rejects arguments that treat the development of South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore as successes of Western colonialism, emphasizes the fundamental difference between Japanese rule and Western colonial domination, and sharply condemns The Asahi Shimbun for accommodating such white intellectual narratives.

2019-04-30
Japan’s poor are the richest poor people in the world.
In Japan, “the weak,” such as Zainichi and the elderly, throw their weight around, waste national funds, and cling to the rich so that all become poorer together.
Professor Smith does not know that reality.

What follows is from the latest work by Masayuki Takayama, the one and only journalist in the postwar world.

Even white people lie about the history of Japan and Korea.

Two hours by train from Manhattan, on a desolate seashore, stands Stony Brook University.
Though it is one of the State University of New York institutions, its history is shallow and few people know it.
Still, Professor Noah Smith, who teaches economics there, is known to some extent, and he has often uttered astonishing maxims about Japan as well.

The other day he was analyzing that the gap between rich and poor in Japan is terrible and now surpasses that of the United States.
This white associate professor does not know that although Japan has mountains of foreign rich men such as Ghosn and Masayoshi Son, among Japanese rich men there is, at best, only Yoichi Masuzoe.
And even that Masuzoe, once billed for the official car he had been using as he pleased, would before long fall out of the category of the wealthy.

On the other hand, Japan’s poor are remarkable.
They can receive welfare payments higher than what one earns by working earnestly, and nationality is not even asked.
In America, Obamacare has been struggling, but in Japan the poor are given health insurance even without paying premiums.
Even foreign permanent residents such as Zainichi, who have not paid taxes, can receive it for free.
On top of that, costly medical treatments such as dialysis, which in advanced medical countries come with age limits such as sixty, have no such restriction in Japan.
Japan’s poor are the richest poor people in the world.

In Japan, “the weak,” such as Zainichi and the elderly, throw their weight around, waste national funds, and cling to the rich so that all become poorer together.
Professor Smith does not know that reality.

This ignorant white associate professor has now begun saying that “the theory that white people became rich by exploiting colonies while the colonies remained poor is completely mistaken.”
Colonial rule was terrible.
For example, “Britain destroyed wheat fields in India and forced the planting of opium.
As a result, it brought about great famines again and again, India grew thinner and poorer, while Britain used the wealth it seized as capital to push forward industrialization, invent the steam engine, mechanize machinery, and thereby obtain even greater wealth.”

And then he says there are examples of “colonies that suffered such terrible treatment but are now extremely rich countries.”
Which ones.
“Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore,” he says.

What nonsense.
Neither Korea nor Taiwan were “colonies plundered by white people” as Professor Smith defines them.
They were ruled by Japan.
There, far from exploitation, the suzerain power instead built schools, improved the medical environment, developed infrastructure, and promoted development.
“That Korea, which was still in antiquity.”
Professor Hiroshi Furuta of the University of Tsukuba.
Was able in one leap to become a modern state thanks to Japan’s thirty-six years of rule.
Singapore too awoke under Japanese rule and was able to stand on its own by taking Japan as its model.

What Professor Smith should cite here is “Central Africa,” which he himself mentioned in his column.
There the underground resources are abundant, including gold, tungsten, and uranium, and the cash crop coffee also grew well.
A country that ought never to have become poor had its resources seized by Belgium, and on top of that its inhabitants, the Tutsi and Hutu, were made to fight each other, and even now the blood-soaked killing continues.
It is the finest possible example of colonial rule destroying both country and people.

To conceal one’s own colonial management like that, then switch the discussion to territories ruled by Japan and justify one’s own colonial rule, is the patter of a fraud.

Hiroto Ono, former chief editorial writer of The Asahi Shimbun, reverently featured a similar white professor, Barak Kushner.
This associate professor at Cambridge University, born in America, writes about postwar China and says Chiang Kai-shek was “fair” and Mao Zedong “showed a morally comprehending tolerance.”
But Chiang Kai-shek was a man who fawned on the white powers and betrayed Asia.
Mao Zedong was the man who said, “Starvation victims make good fertilizer for the fields.”
Their common traits were arrogance and ostentation, and on that same extension lie today’s invasion of Tibet and Uyghur and the seizure of the Spratlys.
Yet this professor refuses to see such realities.

He attaches strange resentment to the claim that, toward good China, the Japanese are cold and show “no interest at all” even in the fate of collaborators, Hanjian, from the time of Japanese rule.
Between the lines there seeps the arrogance that white people are always right and that we shall judge you fairly, but Ono does nothing but ingratiate himself and nod.

Incidentally, he came to Japan as an English conversation teacher and wrote Slurp about ramen culture.
Arrogance and contempt for Japan seep through between the lines.
Perhaps China spotted that, for he was given the name “Gu Ruopeng,” and now serves as a propagandist in Beijing.

It is Asahi’s business if it wishes to worship white people.
But that is no reason to present trashy white men as though they were admirable.

(Issue dated August 25, 2016)