Published on July 17, 2019.
Based on Yoshiko Sakurai’s serialized column, this essay examines the Asahi Shimbun’s intensifying criticism of the Abe administration ahead of the House of Councillors election.
It criticizes the newspaper’s framing of Japan’s stricter export controls toward South Korea as “retaliation,” its attacks on the prime minister in Tensei Jingo, and its ideologically biased reporting aimed at preventing constitutional revision.

July 17, 2019.
They are people of whom it is no exaggeration at all to say that they have continued to sell Japan out to them, and they are people who have gone along with “bottomless evil” and “plausible lies.”
After reading the following serialized column by Yoshiko Sakurai, I am truly overwhelmed with shame that I subscribed to the Asahi Shimbun until August five years ago.
The attitude of the Asahi Shimbun that Ms. Sakurai teaches us about below exposes to the whole world that this company consists only of the lowest kind of vulgar men and vulgar women.
At the same time, the very people who still subscribe to this newspaper are the people who drag Japan down….
They are not merely people who have continued to allow the tyranny of China and the Korean Peninsula.
It is no exaggeration at all to say that they are traitors who have continued to sell Japan out to them, and people who have gone along with “bottomless evil” and “plausible lies.”
They are people who have halted the progress of The Turntable of Civilization and created today’s extremely dangerous and unstable world.
If you do not want to suffer the torments of King Enma in hell, you should immediately stop subscribing to the Asahi Shimbun and switch to subscriptions to the four essential monthly magazines and to the Sankei Shimbun.
For anyone living in the twenty-first century, there is no other way to know the truth.
The Asahi Shimbun’s criticism of Abe intensifies before the election.
On July 4, the House of Councillors election was officially announced, and the whole world became dominated by the election.
Within that, the anti-Abe reporting of the Asahi Shimbun stands out.
On the front page of the July 7 edition, an article appeared under the byline of Kyohei Matsuda, deputy head of the political department.
Under the title “Will the politics of mockery continue?” it criticized Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as follows.
“Prime Minister Shinzo Abe compares the opposition parties with the failures of the Democratic Party administration and ridicules and disparages them.
He gathers among his own side and sneers.
There is a visible consciousness of placing oneself above the other side, looking down on them, and excluding them,” and, “‘The politics of mockery’ has been allowed to pass for six and a half years,” and, “If this ‘politics of mockery’ continues, democracy will not function.”
It seems that the emotion of hatred toward Abe is burning fiercely.
But if one looks at reality, is it not the case that many citizens feel that the three-plus years of the Democratic Party administration were a “nightmare”?
It is not that the prime minister is “gathering among his own side and sneering.”
The proof is that after losing power, the Democratic Party’s approval rating only continued to fall.
That is precisely why, before the House of Representatives election in October 2017, all of them finally tried to flee under Yuriko Koike.
But they were excluded, the Constitutional Democratic Party was born, and after many twists and turns, the Democratic Party for the People was also born.
Because the people have felt in their bones that they do not want a return of the “nightmare” of the Democratic Party administration, the Liberal Democratic Party has continued to receive public support in multiple elections thereafter.
Nevertheless, if these six and a half years of the Abe administration had truly been nothing but a “politics of mockery” toward the Democratic Party, there is no way the people would support Mr. Abe.
It is the Asahi Shimbun’s excessively distorted view that “mocks” the will of the people, and shows its arrogance.
Elections are important events that determine the direction of national politics at any time, but the House of Councillors election on the 21st of this month carries special importance.
Depending on the result, it will be decided whether the constitutional revision expected of the prime minister becomes possible, or whether it is postponed and effectively falls into impossibility.
In addition to the Constitution, important issues such as the economy, pensions, North Korea and the abductions, and the Imperial Household are piled up.
The Asahi Shimbun probably cannot bear the thought of Prime Minister Abe beginning work on these issues, especially constitutional revision.
It may be reasonable to see this as leading to its extraordinary criticism of Prime Minister Abe.
The “Tensei Jingo” column of July 3 is a tremendous example of this.
Comparing the prime minister to a dog.
In that column, the Tensei Jingo writer says, “Yawns are contagious.”
It then connects this to the statement, “Just like the trade war that the United States has launched against China, the Japanese government has embarked on export restrictions against South Korea.”
While saying, “There are problems on the South Korean side as well,” it dismisses the Abe administration’s measure as “misdirected,” and develops the following vulgar criticism.
“Incidentally, human yawns are apparently contagious even to dogs.
There is research showing that dogs are especially influenced by owners to whom they are loyal.
In the case of the Japanese government, perhaps this is closer to the mark.”
Is it comparing the Abe administration, that is, Prime Minister Abe, to a dog?
Such discourtesy is not permissible toward anyone.
However, the Asahi Shimbun probably thinks that any vulgar criticism is permissible against the prime minister.
Is this very sensibility not the gaze of “placing oneself above the other side and looking down” on them?
On the same day as the discourteous Tensei Jingo described above, the Asahi Shimbun carried an editorial titled “Immediately Withdraw the ‘Retaliatory’ Export Restrictions Against South Korea.”
It wrote as follows.
“Will Japan also join the foolish acts brandished by the United States and China in recent years?
Measures that distort the principles of free trade should be withdrawn immediately.”
The Asahi editorial writer places the “strengthening of export restrictions” against South Korea on the same level as the case in which China once stopped the export of rare earths over the Senkaku issue, and the case in which the Trump administration raised tariffs on steel and other products on security grounds, and condemns Prime Minister Abe’s measure.
The order has become reversed, but it was on July 1 that the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry announced that, “from the perspective of appropriately implementing export controls, it will operate a stricter system for exports to the Republic of Korea.”

1. South Korea had until now been regarded as a “white country,” but procedures would begin to remove South Korea from that list.
2. From the 4th, three items—fluorinated polyimide, resist, and hydrogen fluoride—would be excluded from the comprehensive export license system and would undergo individual export screening.
   On July 1, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Hiroshige Seko gave as the reason for these measures that “inappropriate cases had occurred in export control,” but regarding the contents of the “inappropriate cases,” he said there was “a duty of confidentiality” and did not provide a specific explanation.
   METI’s announcement immediately provoked responses from many quarters.
   One of them was an explanation by Masahiko Hosokawa, specially appointed professor at Chubu University and former director-general of METI’s Trade Control Department.
   He explained that this was not the “activation of export restrictions,” but merely the return of procedures that had been simplified since 2004 by giving preferential treatment to South Korea back to the ordinary procedures in place until 2003.
   Originally, individual permission is required for each contract, but if a country is considered trustworthy in terms of export control, it is designated as a “white country” and export procedures are simplified.
   In that case, it becomes possible to obtain a comprehensive license valid for three years, allowing exports at any time.
   Unreasonable criticism of the government.
   Prime Minister Abe has also stated repeatedly.
   “This is not an export ban.
   It also has nothing to do with the issue of requisitioned workers, meaning Korean wartime laborers.
   We have merely returned to the original state the preferential treatment that had been granted to South Korea.
   The EU countries did not originally treat South Korea as a white country, and our country is adopting toward South Korea the same policy as the EU.”
   Although the prime minister emphasized this, as of the 7th he had still not explained the “inappropriate cases” that Mr. Seko had mentioned at his press conference.
   On the other hand, Mr. Hosokawa clearly states that cases in which the aforementioned items exported to South Korea are diverted to North Korea are occurring frequently, or rather have become routine.
   July 7, “Sunday Report THE PRIME.”
   If the aforementioned substances, which can also be diverted to military purposes, are being diverted to North Korea, then it is only natural to remove South Korea from the white country list.
   I also want to emphasize once again that this measure merely returns the system from comprehensive permission to individual permission.
   In its editorial on the 3rd, the Asahi Shimbun compared it to China’s rare-earth export ban, but that comparison itself misses the point.
   Another mistake in the Asahi Shimbun editorial is that it regards this measure as retaliation by the Japanese government over the Korean wartime laborer issue.
   This measure has nothing whatsoever to do with the so-called requisitioned workers issue.
   Therefore, the Asahi Shimbun’s accusation that the Abe administration “has brought political conflict into economic exchange” does not apply.
   Its claim that “senior-level talks between diplomatic authorities should urgently seek a breakthrough” also misses the point.
   In the first place, the Japanese side has continued to call for talks on the requisitioned workers issue, but the South Korean side does not respond.
   The Asahi Shimbun’s unreasonable criticism of the government is probably nothing more than a product of its biased ideology, aimed at blocking an Abe Liberal Democratic Party victory because it sees such a victory as leading to constitutional revision.