First published: July 10, 2022
Republished: July 8, 2024
Republished: September 29, 2025
Republished again: July 29, 2026

This is the complete republication of an essay originally published on July 10, 2022, immediately after the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
It criticizes the media coverage surrounding the incident, warns about honey traps and money traps allegedly employed in influence operations by China, and calls upon those who truly love Japan to refuse intimidation and expose coercion rather than submit to it.
July 10, 2022
Even at this stage, the media, beginning with NHK, are reporting the facts in a distorted manner.
The perpetrator did not use a gun to suppress free speech.
He killed Shinzo Abe because he accepted as truth the false image of Abe that had been created by the mass media, beginning with the Asahi Shimbun.
It was nothing other than that.
The statements disclosed by the police vividly demonstrate this.
He apparently took at face value precisely the kind of fabricated reporting carried by media organizations like the Asahi Shimbun, and killed Mr. Abe.
As I began to write this chapter, I realized once again just how strange the reporting by the Japanese media truly is.
His mother became deeply involved with a religious organization and continued pouring money into it, destroying the family.
He therefore initially intended to target an executive of that religious organization, but gave up because the security was too tight.
Believing that the organization had close ties with Mr. Abe—presumably because some media outlet had reported it that way—he decided to target Mr. Abe instead.
From beginning to end, this was a crime created by the media.
It was the consequence of the vicious attacks on Shinzo Abe through fabricated reporting begun by the Asahi Shimbun.
Nothing could make me angrier.
Even a child could understand that the foolishness of the Asahi Shimbun was connected to the criminal act of such a foolish man.
Yet the media, beginning with NHK, together with the Asahi Shimbun and those who follow it, refuse to report this simple fact and instead describe the incident as a threat to democracy.
It was nothing other than a murder committed by a fool who believed the false image of Shinzo Abe—an image bearing no resemblance whatsoever to the man himself—created by numerous media organizations following the Asahi Shimbun’s malicious fabricated reporting.
Yet so-called scholars favored by the Asahi Shimbun and NHK speak of a crisis of postwar democracy.
Their responsibility, too, is truly grave.
It cannot be forgiven.
As I write this chapter, I am even more astonished that the Nara Prefectural Police, which it would not be an exaggeration to call the worst in history, seem particularly adept only at concealing the name of the religious organization against which the perpetrator held a grudge.
If Columbo were investigating this case, the first thing he would probably do would be to examine a complete list of politicians caught in Chinese honey traps and money traps.
The reason is simple.
If photographs showing a politician caught in a honey trap were distributed publicly, that politician’s political career could end in an instant.
The same applies to a money trap, but its impact would probably be nothing compared with the exposure of photographs from the scene of a honey trap.
For a country such as China, there could hardly be a more cost-effective and efficient means of threatening a targeted politician and compelling that politician to provide some form of assistance.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that such material possesses destructive power comparable to an atomic bomb.
In this respect as well, Shinzo Abe was a rare politician.
There was probably no politician anywhere less susceptible to a honey trap than he was.
As for the great majority of politicians other than him, every one of them is a human being who could, at any time, potentially fall into such a trap.
Today we live in an age of equality between men and women, so needless to say, women in every field can also become targets of honey traps and money traps.
The United States has the CIA and the FBI, so presumably they would be able to produce a list covering all politicians.
They would also investigate the circumstances under which Mr. Abe suddenly changed his schedule from Nagano to Nara.
From whom did the information come?
What information led him to go to Nara Prefecture?
There is something strange about this case.
Columbo would probably say, “My wife says there is something about this that just doesn’t seem right,” and then begin a thorough investigation.
I am not Lieutenant Columbo, so all I can do is say the following to politicians and to men and women throughout every sector of society.
If, in what might be called a momentary lapse of judgment, you fell into a honey trap and are now being threatened by a Chinese foreign influence operation with photographs taken at the scene, then reveal to the entire world that you are being—or have been—threatened and compelled to obey China, and resign from your position.
In other words, you must declare to China and make clear that you will not surrender to “unfathomable evil” and “plausible-sounding lies.”
For the very conduct of a country that employs honey traps and money traps is itself proof, in my view, that it is a country of “unfathomable evil” and “plausible-sounding lies.”
If you truly love Japan—its beautiful scenery, its mountains and rivers, its lakes, its forests, its streams, and its seas—
then cast aside in an instant such petty, narrow, and trivial concerns as your own advancement and success.
By doing so, you may temporarily lose your position.
But you will fulfill one of the most important duties of a human being living in the twenty-first century: to reveal to the world what you believe China to be—a country of “unfathomable evil” and “plausible-sounding lies.”
By doing so, you will show the world that even in the twenty-first century, the spirit of the samurai still lives within the Japanese people.
Since ancient times, Japan has had the tradition of “turning misfortune into fortune.”
Throughout Japan, even at this very moment, there must be countless people who, for what began as a momentary lapse of judgment, are paying a price far too severe—living in fear under threats from Chinese foreign influence operations and being forced to obey.
In order to save people in every field and every level of society who find themselves in such circumstances, and in order to save Japan, I deliver this chapter to you today.
This is a message delivered to save you by someone who was born in postwar Japan having, as I believe, been given a gifted mind by God, yet who, because of suffering within his family, lived a life like J. M. G. Le Clézio’s The Book of Flights.
I deliver it in place of the countless great figures Japan has produced—Kūkai, Saichō, Sugawara no Michizane, Nobunaga, and others—as their voice in the present age.
Nothing could do more to save Japan and the world than for you to risk yourself and demonstrate that you will not submit to intimidation from China, and for me to deliver this message to you and to the world.