Published on August 30, 2019.
This article introduces a Sankei Shimbun column criticizing the Japan High School Baseball Federation’s decision to have Japan’s under-18 national baseball team enter South Korea wearing plain polo shirts without the Japanese flag mark.
It argues that respecting the national flag and anthem is an international norm, and that those who do not cherish their own national flag cannot develop respect for the flags of other countries.

August 30, 2019.
They are showing consideration in the wrong place.
Respecting the national flag and anthem is an international norm.
Without cherishing one’s own national flag and the like, no heart that respects the flags of other countries can be born.
The following is from today’s Sankei-shō.
It is not enough simply to hide it.
At entrance ceremonies and graduation ceremonies in public elementary, junior high, and high schools, there were once intense opposition movements against raising the national flag and singing the national anthem, and some schools hung the Rising Sun flag, which should have been raised at the front, as if hiding it in a place as inconspicuous as possible, and treated that as having “raised” it.
▼Just when we thought such an age had passed, the teachers of the Japan High School Baseball Federation were different.
The high school Japanese national team, which will compete in the under-18 Baseball World Cup, entered South Korea wearing polo shirts without the national flag mark.
▼It was not forced upon them by the South Korean side, which complains about the “Rising Sun flag” at every opportunity.
It seems the High School Baseball Federation, out of consideration for the worsening Japan-South Korea relationship and in order to avoid confusion during travel, made the shirts plain.
They are showing consideration in the wrong place.
Respecting the national flag and anthem is an international norm.
Without cherishing one’s own national flag and the like, no heart that respects the flags of other countries can be born.
▼It is said that in the games they will play in the usual uniforms bearing the Rising Sun flag and the word “JAPAN,” but that is only natural.
Not only in games, but also at the Olympics and elsewhere, it is normal to see national teams entering airports in matching outfits with the Rising Sun flag on their chests.
The feeling of participating with pride as representatives must be the same for young high school students.
▼Sadayū Amano, an educator who served as principal of the former First Higher School and in other posts, recommended raising the national flag and singing the national anthem at school events during his postwar service as Minister of Education.
He valued having “love and pride” in one’s own country and regarded the loss of pride as “national suicide” (from Sadayū Amano — Believing in Reason, Living by Reason by Shigeki Kaizuka).
▼There are also results from awareness surveys of high school students and others showing that the proportion who think “it is important to serve one’s country” is lower than in the United States, China, and South Korea.
There are still teachers who do not stand when the national anthem is sung at ceremonies.
The natural feeling of showing respect for the national flag and anthem must not be obstructed.