Published on February 18, 2020.
This essay responds to a TV Tokyo WBS report on the illegal transfer of Japanese strawberries and sweet potatoes to South Korea, criticizing the disregard for intellectual property and lack of guilt over theft seen in South Korea and China.
It also questions the attitude of broadcasters who, instead of expressing genuine anger or calling for strict legal action by the Japanese government, merely say that “Japan must raise its brand value.”

2020-02-18
A female anchor who, in response to this matter, neither became genuinely angry nor made any comment such as that the government must pursue the matter strictly and legally.
I was just watching TV Tokyo’s WBS, and it was reporting that, in South Korea, Japanese strawberries and sweet potatoes are being illegally stolen and taken into South Korea.
I began watching from the segment on sweet potatoes.
Only the other day, I had just watched on some television program that Japanese sweet potatoes are popular overseas, including in Singapore, and that there is a company producing them.
So I was stunned and dumbfounded.
I immediately felt intense anger.
Just how rotten to the core are South Korea and China?
Professor Emeritus Hiroshi Furuta of the University of Tsukuba, one of the world’s foremost experts on South Korea, has referred to South Korea as a thief of islands and a thief of seas.
South Koreans and Chinese are peoples who feel no guilt whatsoever about stealing what belongs to others.
This was indeed proof that they are countries of bottomless evil and plausible lies.
Yet in response to this matter, the female anchor did not become genuinely angry, nor did she make any comment such as that the government must pursue the matter strictly and legally.
What she said was, “Japan has no choice but to raise its brand value.”
That is not the way to respond to being robbed or to having evil acts committed against us.
I was left with the suspicion that perhaps they are soft because the other party is South Korea.