2023-11-12
The following is from Masayuki Takayama’s book, Japanese People! Wake Up!
It was first published in the February 2022 issue of the monthly magazine Themis, in installment 247 of “Warnings to Japan,” on pages 74–75.
Foreign Ministry Bureaucrats Who Disparage Japan, as Revealed by the Release of “Diplomatic Documents”
Former Bureau Director Sakutaro Tanino Worked to Arrange the Emperor’s Visit to China and Also Led the Kono Statement
Tanino Concealed the Political Exploitation of the Emperor
Last December, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs released diplomatic documents from thirty years earlier.
They are records from the time when Toshiki Kaifu, who recently passed away, was prime minister.
Each newspaper selected quite different subjects from the many documents released and turned them into articles, and it was amusing how clearly those choices revealed each newspaper’s character.
For example, the Sankei Shimbun pointed out the Kaifu administration’s “excessively pro-Shina” response to the Tiananmen Square incident of 1989.
What I had not heard before was that Kaifu went around persuading European leaders that “economic sanctions will not lead to the democratization of Shina.”
There was no possibility that Shina would democratize.
This was said to have been at Ichiro Ozawa’s direction, but Kaifu’s final job, too, was as an adviser to a think tank at Tsinghua University.
He himself was also a committed member of the pro-China camp.
The people of Shina do not overlook such things.
To contain the fallout from the Tiananmen Square incident, Vice Premier Wu Xueqian sounded out the possibility of an imperial visit to China the following year.
Yet the released documents state that Sakutaro Tanino, director-general of the Foreign Ministry’s Asian Affairs Bureau, who was present, “concealed this on his own authority”—this political exploitation of the Emperor.
“If it is made public now, the Japanese people will reject it outright, and the visit to China will not be possible”: this was a judgment made entirely from Shina’s side.
Thus, the Emperor’s visit to China came to fruition without the Japanese public knowing.
Having gained confidence from its success in exploiting the Emperor politically, Shina began manipulating the pro-China camp and sponging off Japan.
In addition to enormous amounts of ODA, it went around stealing Japanese know-how and grew ever more bloated.
And this gave rise to the grotesque Xi Jinping regime of today.
Yet the people of Shina feel no gratitude.
Two years after welcoming the Emperor, Premier Li Peng brazenly declared, “A country like Japan will disappear in another thirty years or so.”
Incidentally, under the next cabinet, that of Kiichi Miyazawa, Sakutaro Tanino turned the pack of lies about the “forcible taking away of comfort women” into historical fact and issued it in the form of the Kono Statement, covering the Japanese people in disgrace.
I do not think this man will meet a good end.
Japan’s Responsibility for Not Amending Its Constitution
The Asahi Shimbun did not cover matters involving Shina, instead taking up Japan–U.S. relations from Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait through the Gulf War.
At a time when the Cold War had already ended and the significance of the Japan–U.S. Security Treaty had diminished, the United States instead increased Japan’s share of the cost of stationing U.S. forces.
That was not all.
As the Gulf War became a realistic prospect, it threatened Japan, saying, “Join the multinational force.”
When Japan offered the explanation, “Well, even if we wanted to send troops, we cannot because of the constitution the United States imposed on us,” it was rebuffed with, “That is not the United States’ concern.”
The released documents do not mention this, but according to explanations from informed sources at the time, the counterargument was: “The United States also imposed American-made constitutions on the Philippines, Cuba, and Panama, countries it had occupied or colonized in the past, but those countries discarded their American-made constitutions as soon as they regained sovereignty.”
“Japan, however, has had half a century and still holds on to its constitution.
That is now Japan’s own responsibility.”
The point was that citing “the constitution the United States imposed long ago” as a reason for refusing to join the multinational force did not even constitute an excuse.
Incidentally, Trump has also said something to the same effect.
And so, as compensation for being unable to contribute troops to the multinational force, Kaifu ultimately paid 1.5 trillion yen ($13 billion).
Even then, Britain complained that it was too little.
Personally, I believe Japan should have opposed the assault on Iraq, regardless of the constitution.
That is because, as I wrote in my book Saddam Hussein Was Great, Saddam was an impressive man.
He freed his people from Islamic religious rules, had women remove their chadors, and gave them an education.
UNESCO even honored him as a man who had brought modernization to the Middle East.
Incidentally, Saddam’s favorite foods were pork spareribs and wine.
He had completely severed his ties with Islam.
Following Saddam’s example, Assad in Syria and Gaddafi in Libya also sought to modernize the Arab world, but Western reporting continued to convey the exact opposite.
Saddam did indeed invade Kuwait.
That was because Kuwait was not an Arab country but Britain’s “Kuwait Oil Company.”
They installed a local Arab as king, gave him a portion of the oil revenue, and made it look like an Arab state.
Demanding the Abolition of Fingerprinting for Korean Residents in Japan
That is why, when Iraqi forces invaded, there were no fewer than 3,000 British nationals in Kuwait.
To get them out, Britain immediately dispatched the Special Air Service, the SAS, and rescued them.
The multinational force was literally an apparatus of violence for recovering British property.
It is astonishing to hear Britain conceal those facts and tell Japan to “put up more money.”
Saddam survived that time, but ten years later, the United States used the 9/11 terrorist attacks as a pretext to launch another war, killed Saddam, and then killed Gaddafi as well.
That is the true face of the “Arab Spring,” which was portrayed in such a favorable light.
Japan paid $13 billion in tribute to those British and Americans.
It was only half the 3 trillion yen in ODA paid in tribute to Shina, but it is a deplorable story nonetheless.
The released diplomatic documents contain another case that shows even greater contempt for Japan.
It concerns diplomacy toward South Korea.
Since the Japan–South Korea treaty, South Korea had established a pattern of extracting one billion yen every ten years, but at this time Roh Tae-woo made an astonishing demand.
When he ran for president, Japan handed over to him Kim Hyon-hui, who had been apprehended by staff of the Japanese embassy in Bahrain.
As a result, the unraveling of North Korea’s abductions of Japanese nationals was delayed by more than twenty years.
In addition to that, Roh Tae-woo’s new demand was the abolition of fingerprinting for Korean residents in Japan.
Why should Koreans be fingerprinted when Japanese people were not?
Kaifu foolishly agreed to the demand that they be treated the same as Japanese people.
Soon after that took effect, the murder of a family of four in Setagaya occurred.
The perpetrator, who wore South Korean-made sneakers, left more than one hundred fingerprints and palm prints, but because of Roh Tae-woo, there were no fingerprints against which to compare them, and the case remains unsolved.
The released documents are filled with examples of the Japanese government putting the other country’s national interests first.
We should reflect on the fact that, as a result, Japanese people are suffering and being killed.
(February 2022 issue)