Originally published on February 13, 2020. This article introduces “Media Back-Report Card” from this month’s issue of Sound Argument and criticizes the reporting stance of the Asahi Shimbun and Mainichi Shimbun over Taro Aso’s remarks about “one people and one emperor,” the problems surrounding the Ainu Policy Promotion Act, the way nitpicking media have made politicians smaller and more timid, and Kazuhiro Haraguchi’s view of China.

February 13, 2020
One can clearly, clearly see the intention to use the Ainu Policy Promotion Act as sacred scripture and attack politicians who try to protect Japan’s national character, which has flourished around the Imperial Household.
The following is from “Media Back-Report Card” in this month’s issue of the monthly magazine Sound Argument.
Preface omitted.
The passages between ＊ and ＊ are mine.
There is another major reason why politicians in the Reiwa era have become small in scale.
It is the existence of the “nitpicking media,” with the Asahi Shimbun at the head.
The harm they have done by seizing on the “gaffes” of politicians they dislike, exaggerating them out of all proportion, and thoroughly attacking them, thereby intimidating politicians as a whole, is truly great.
Very recently, Taro Aso was again made a target.
At a local national political report meeting, he said the following.
“There is no country other than this one where, over the long span of two thousand years, in one place, with one language, one people, and one imperial dynasty centered on one emperor have continued.
It is a good country.”
The Asahi Shimbun and the Mainichi Shimbun stirred this up as a “problematic remark,” and Minister Aso “apologized and corrected” it.
Now, what exactly was the problem with Aso’s remark?
I have no idea.
The Asahi article states, “Last year, the government enforced the Ainu Policy Promotion Act, which explicitly identifies the Ainu people as an ‘indigenous people’ and aims for a society that respects their pride,” and apparently what it wants to say is that since the government has legally designated the Ainu people as an “indigenous people,” Japan is not “one people.”
If that is what it means, it should write so clearly.
While it is at it, it should also write that we dislike the solemn fact that “one imperial dynasty centered on one emperor has continued.”
One can clearly, clearly see the intention to use the Ainu Policy Promotion Act as sacred scripture and attack politicians who try to protect Japan’s national character, which has flourished around the Imperial Household.
First of all, there is also an argument that the Ainu people are not an “indigenous people” in the way American Indians, recently called Native Americans, are.
＊Recently, Masayuki Takayama taught us that a University of Tokyo laboratory had clarified the fact that all Japanese people, including the people of Okinawa, share the same DNA as the Jomon people.
The first time I ever saw arguments such as Okinawan independence was when I was regularly subscribing to Shukan Asahi.
The Asahi wrote about it with delight.
Agents of China—a one-party Communist dictatorship, a country that has made anti-Japanese propaganda its national policy, and a country aiming at Okinawan independence, the division of Hokkaido, the division of Japan, and then invasion and conquest—have been saying that the people of Okinawa are an ethnic minority, while the Buraku Liberation League, together with IMADAR, which is its true form, has been acting at the United Nations exactly according to China’s operations.
The work of the University of Tokyo laboratory instantly smashed the schemes of these vicious people.
At the same time, it smashed the sloppiness and absurdity of the United Nations, which so easily takes the words of such people at face value.
Japan must immediately conduct DNA testing of those who call themselves Ainu.
To begin with, Hokkaido is an extremely cold land, and it is a well-known fact that full-scale development began only after the Meiji era.
Before that, until the Heian period, the Tohoku region was called Emishi, and the Japanese who lived there were descendants of the Jomon people… the University of Tokyo laboratory has clarified that all Japanese people are so.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that the descendants of the Jomon people who were in the extremely cold land of Hokkaido continued the Jomon way of life until the Meiji era.
The monthly magazine I refer to also published a painstaking work that revealed the actual situation, including the fact that the central figure who began saying that the Ainu were an indigenous people was a believer in North Korea’s Juche ideology.
Even so, what is lowest… what is as malicious as can possibly be, is the attitude of the Asahi Shimbun.
The time has long since come for the Japanese people to realize that allowing this newspaper to continue existing forever is equivalent to handing Japan over to China and the Korean Peninsula.＊
In fact, 6,305 opinions were submitted in the public comment process concerning the basic policy accompanying the enforcement of the Ainu Policy Promotion Act, and almost all of them were reportedly negative.
According to the Hokkaido Shimbun, the Cabinet Secretariat did not publish 98 percent of the public comments, calling them “opinions not related to the proposal,” but what was the point of soliciting opinions?
To begin with, what were the Prime Minister’s Office and the Liberal Democratic Party doing when they so easily passed a problematic law?
Let the person responsible come out!
It was the same with the “Land of the Gods” remark long ago, but ever since a kind of “bullying journalism” became rampant, in which the media seize on a few words, demean the other person, force an apology, and then feel satisfied, politicians’ speeches and remarks have become more and more boring.
Until some time ago, Sunday morning terrestrial television programs in which leading politicians expressed their own views or debated were popular, but the only one that remains is NHK’s “Sunday Debate,” which it conducts almost as an obligation.
The other programs have disappeared.
When I asked a producer at a certain television station, he said it was because “politicians’ remarks became boring, and the ratings could no longer be obtained.”
How helpless.
If politicians’ mouths shrink out of fear of being attacked by the media, and if both ruling and opposition parties merely say beautiful-sounding things that no one can oppose, it is only natural that no one will watch.
Even if they repeat the currently fashionable SDGs（Sustainable Development Goals）, voters will only become indifferent.
In other words, politicians in the Reiwa era are becoming smaller not only in their actions but also in their words.
As I wrote this, I heard from somewhere a voice saying, “Haven’t politicians not only become smaller, but also become more stupid?”
No, no, I was about to say, that is too rude to the chosen representatives, when my eyes became fixed in astonishment.
A tweet by a politician named Kazuhiro Haraguchi said this.
“China is also a democratic country.
When I asked whether it was not a one-party dictatorship, they answered that it was not a one-party dictatorship by the Communist Party, and that there were six other parties.
They also have an attitude of protecting human rights.
I hope they will carry that through…”（January 17）
At first, I thought it must be strong irony, but judging from the fact that it had not been deleted at the time I was writing this manuscript, he apparently seems to think so in earnest.
They also have an attitude of protecting human rights?
What, has His Excellency Haraguchi wandered into a labyrinthine world where everything is the reverse of reality?
Even so, to think that a person who believes “China is also a democratic country” served as Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications in the Democratic Party administration.
People from such a labyrinthine world are teaming up with zombie Ichiro Ozawa and wriggling about in an attempt to seize power again, which sends chills down the spine.
If the alternative is to see hell again, perhaps we have to put up with politicians being “small.”