Published on October 17, 2019.
This article introduces Masayuki Takayama’s renowned column “Henken Jizai,” examining the Malayan campaign, the battle for Singapore, Dalforce, and the historical background of the so-called purge of overseas Chinese, while criticizing the Asahi Shimbun’s reporting stance and its tendency to embrace narratives that denigrate Japan.

October 17, 2019.
Without even reading the articles of her predecessors, she simply immerses herself in the words of brutal and mendacious Shina people.
The Asahi Shimbun is not selling.
Perhaps Mayumi is to blame.
“Asahi reporter Mayumi Mori joyfully reported, ‘The state government was surprised and apologized.’”
I am republishing the chapter I first sent out on April 13, 2019, under that title.
The following is from Masayuki Takayama’s renowned column “Henken Jizai,” published in Shukan Shincho, which went on sale yesterday.
That Masayuki Takayama is the one and only journalist in the postwar world… and that he is as different as the moon from a snapping turtle from those delinquent foreigners who call themselves correspondents for major Western magazines, though it is presumptuous even to call them reporters, who dominate the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan… is an undeniable fact.
In this week’s issue as well… readers around the world will know, with astonishment… that he perfectly proves the correctness of my assessment.
At the same time, the world will know that the Asahi Shimbun, which you have mistakenly believed to be a newspaper representing Japan… is an assemblage of reporters who gleefully leap at comments that denigrate Japan, or who gleefully denigrate Japan themselves… in other words, reporters made of a masochistic view of history and anti-Japanese thought.
If they were the newspaper representing your country, what would you think?
Even if there were some problems, you would feel relieved to think that the newspaper company representing your country was certainly not an organization of employees whom it would not be an exaggeration to call traitors, as in the case of the Asahi Shimbun.
The Plainclothes Unit of His Majesty the King.
In late January 1942, when Singapore was about to fall, the Asahi Shimbun published a roundtable discussion about local Malaya, gathering together Mutarō Senda of Senda Shokai and other people concerned.
In Malaya, in fact, Shina people had been fleeing there since the time of the Opium War, ingratiating themselves with the white rulers, managing Malay laborers, and selling opium to them.
Senda introduced the fact that by the time the Showa era began, there were “about three hundred” schools for the children of Shina people.
By that time, the tension between Japan and China had entered Malaya just as it was, and Shina people began attacking Japanese companies and Japanese residents in Malaya.
One of those incidents was the case of Tani Yutaka, known as the Tiger of Malaya.
While he had returned to Japan, a group of Shina people attacked the town of Terengganu, violated his younger sister, cut off her head, and carried it away.
It was brutality characteristic of Shina people.
After returning from Japan, Yutaka pursued the group that had killed his sister, and he also attacked opium magnates, becoming feared among Shina people under the name Harimau.
The Shina people believed in Britain’s victory and carried out sabotage and terrorism against the Japanese Army.
In the roundtable discussion, it was said that the Shina terrorist groups had a controlling organization, Chen Jiageng’s “China Relief Fund,” which was connected to Chiang Kai-shek.
This organization had become the central anti-Japanese organ throughout the South Seas.
Incidentally, Chen Jiageng was also connected to Mao Zedong, and after the war, when the Communist regime was established, he abandoned Malaya and returned to his hometown in Fujian Province.
It was a foolish choice.
While fighting the British Indian Army, the Japanese Army also had to be attentive to signs of such Shina guerrillas.
Even so, it advanced an average of twenty kilometers per day.
The Japanese Army was truly strong.
Although the roundtable discussion did not touch on it, at that time in Singapore, Asahi war correspondent Torakichi Sakai reported that “there was a fighting group composed only of Shina people” organized by the British Army.
This unit was under the command of Lieutenant Colonel John Dalley, and since it numbered 4,000 men, it was more than large enough to be called brigade-sized.
Among its soldiers were also Communist guerrillas who had been imprisoned in Changi Prison.
Their defining feature was that they had no formal military uniform.
In other words, they were a plainclothes unit, and the only sign identifying them was a yellow bandana worn around the neck.
After the name of their commander, they were called “Dalforce” or “Dalley’s Desperadoes.”
When urban fighting with the Japanese Army began, they posed as harmless civilians and waited for opportunities to attack, and when pursued, they threw away their guns and fled into crowds of civilians.
Fighting in plain clothes in this way is, as it stands, regarded as guerrilla warfare in violation of international law.
If captured, even international law permits the death penalty.
In the battle for Singapore, some members of this Dalforce were captured, and the existence of their plainclothes unit became clear.
Today, Singaporean Chinese criticize the Japanese Army’s purge of overseas Chinese, but the ones who created the cause were unmistakably they themselves.
Recently, in Alor Setar, the first important city to be captured in this Malayan campaign, “a memorial praising Japanese Army soldiers as heroes” was restored by the Kedah state government, and its unveiling ceremony was held with great fanfare.
In response, local Shina residents began making a fuss, saying, “Chinese residents were killed by the Japanese Army,” and “Why are soldiers of an invading army heroes?”
“Asahi reporter Mayumi Mori joyfully reported, ‘The state government was surprised and apologized.’”
During the war, Shina people sided with the British Army and fought against the Japanese Army.
They also carried out despicable terrorism and even sent out plainclothes units.
With what mouth do they say that it was unjust for them to have been killed?
Incidentally, reporter Mori’s great predecessor, correspondent Sakai, reported on December 30, 1941, how the Malays of that state warmly welcomed the Japanese Army.
He also interviewed M. Dewa, the regent who was equivalent to the king of the state, and reported his words of gratitude for liberation by the Japanese Army: “The British looked down on us and oppressed us. Now the dawn of our people has come.”
Without even reading the articles of her predecessors, she simply immerses herself in the words of brutal and mendacious Shina people.
The Asahi Shimbun is not selling.
Perhaps Mayumi is to blame.