This article from Themis exposes how Asahi Shimbun reporter Keiko Yoshioka uncritically accepts Chinese propaganda, promotes fabricated narratives such as the Nanjing Massacre, and distorts historical facts regarding the renminbi, Mao Zedong, and Japan–China relations. Masayuki Takayama contrasts her behavior with the realities of U.S. media bias, China’s state-orchestrated riots, intellectual property theft, and Chiang Kai-shek’s atrocities. The piece also reveals how Japan’s English- and Chinese-language correspondents conceal inconvenient truths, capitulate to foreign pressure, and contribute to the degradation of Japan’s media environment. A must-read analysis for audiences in Japan and worldwide.

The following is from the November issue of the subscription-only monthly magazine Themis.
I subscribe to the magazine solely to read Masayuki Takayama’s regular column.
This article also proves that he is the one and only journalist, scholar, and writer in the postwar world.
He works, as a man of letters, with the strength of 120 million Japanese people for Japan and with the strength of 7.5 billion people for the world.
I, though unknown, have been doing exactly the same work since appearing as an online writer.
Both he and I continue this mission as long as we live.
It is required reading not only for the Japanese people but for people all over the world.

Asahi Shimbun’s Yoshioka, Who Swallows China’s Propaganda Whole, Lacks All Judgment

She introduces the anti-Japan propaganda Nanjing Massacre film without refuting it
Suing companies with baseless accusations and destroying them

In my brief biography, alongside assignments such as the Metropolitan Police Department beat in the social affairs section, appear postings as Tehran correspondent and Los Angeles correspondent.
But that does not mean I could speak Persian, and my English amounted only to what I learned by attending a cram school near the station before taking the post.
I was far from fluent.
However, that was an exception among correspondents, most of whom are graduates of foreign language universities or studied Russian or French at prestigious faculties.
Newspapers hire such people for their language skills, expecting them to become future correspondents.
Even on the front lines of the social affairs section, where we risk our lives, these people are viewed as just trainees who will eventually be sent to the Paris bureau if they majored in French or to the Moscow bureau if they majored in Russian.
English majors are versatile.
They go not only to the United States but also to India or Singapore, where English is the official language.
It is amusing how, for example, French-language specialists think France is the most wonderful country in the world.
De Gaulle and Pompidou appear to them as gods.
The “Japanophile” Chirac in fact had a hidden bank account in Japan and visited the country to move illicit funds in and out.
His supposed affection for Japan was just a pose to deceive the public.
But French correspondents collectively covered their ears and refused to report any of this.
I had no such sentiment.
When I was assigned to Los Angeles, I was shocked to find that American newspapers, even half a century after the war, still wrote from the perspective of the Tokyo Trials.
Whenever there was an article on North Korea, they always added the phrase “which Japan once colonized.”
For “Southeast Asia,” they always appended the phrase “which Japan once occupied and behaved brutally.”
The malice of the United States—refusing to let Japan rise again and justifying the atomic bombings—oozed from those expressions, yet Japanese correspondents refused to write about such realities.
To correspondents who are addicted to English, American newspapers are divine revelations.
So, being free from such linguistic intoxication, I decided to write a serialized report in my newspaper about the new ruling class that had emerged in America: the lawyers.
There are 1.35 million lawyers in the United States who graduated from law schools.
And more than 30,000 new graduates join them every year.
The U.S. armed forces—Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines—currently number 1.4 million.
A lawyer army of comparable size dominates American society.
They of course serve as courtroom lawyers, but now they control corporations, the media, Congress, and the core of government.
In the Clinton administration, for example, both President Clinton and First Lady Hillary were lawyers, and 25 out of the 28 cabinet-level positions were filled by lawyers.
Statistics show that this new ruling class makes up only a few percent of the population but receives 60 percent of national income.
They filed baseless lawsuits such as “I became ill due to silicone breast implants” and destroyed numerous major companies including Dow Chemical.
They fabricated claims against the light aircraft industry, which dominated the world market, and bankrupted Cessna and Viper, enriching only lawyers while increasing unemployment.
Believing that China would become a good slave factory, they pushed manufacturing to China and created the Rust Belt.
I introduced these ugly aspects of America using legal case studies.
The reaction came quickly.
First, former correspondents from my own newspaper criticized me, saying, “Stop the series and bring him back to Japan.”
Their only reason was “It will offend Americans.”
Even the Japanese Embassy warned, “The series will anger the United States,” and “You will be expelled.”

Looting and Rape Are Ethnic Traits of the Han People

For English-language correspondents, America is sacred ground, and they believe that any correspondent who criticizes it must not exist.
When undersea resources were discovered beneath the Senkaku Islands, Zhou Enlai suddenly declared, “That belongs to China.”
It is the nature of a nation of swindlers.
When Japan rejected the claim, Beijing incited the people to attack the Heiwado department store in Changsha.
Thousands of rioters looted jewelry, cosmetics, and apparel, causing damage totaling 3.5 billion yen.
In Qingdao, Aeon was attacked, Panasonic’s factory was destroyed, and damages reached tens of billions of yen.
Looting and rape are ethnic traits of the Han people.
But correspondents who specialize in the Chinese language wrote, “Japan was not the target. The riots stemmed from dissatisfaction with the Beijing government.”
They make arbitrary assumptions.
Why do they not write that looting is a crime?
Recently, Asahi Shimbun reporter Keiko Yoshioka wrote a column about China’s renminbi.
She said that Mao Zedong issued “kangbi” during the Sino-Japanese War.
She explained that the term meant “anti-Japanese currency,” but Mao never fought the Japanese military.
The Japanese military fought Chiang Kai-shek’s troops, who provoked Japan on behalf of the United States.
Why does Yoshioka ignore such history?
She rejoices that China, having grown economically thanks to Japanese aid, eventually developed the renminbi into an international currency.
She wrote that just as the dollar is represented by “$” and the euro by “€,” the renminbi began using “¥” as its symbol as an international currency.
She explained that because the Japanese yen is “yen” and China’s yuan is “yuan,” “they inevitably share the same symbol.”
Her column ends with the line, “What kind of history will Japan and China weave with the shared ‘¥’?”

Chiang Kai-shek, Who Killed One Million People

The Chinese lack originality.
They imitate everything.
They are intellectual property thieves.
They even try to get by with stealing currency symbols.
As a result, a massive internet fraud business emerged exploiting the two “¥” symbols.
One would think she should have sharply criticized China, saying, “Stop the theft.”
Yet Asahi Shimbun appointed the feeble Yoshioka as a writer for its Sunday column “Sunday Reflections.”
Recently, she wrote about going to see a propaganda film about the Nanjing Massacre.
The Nanjing Incident has neither verification nor evidence; it is a fabrication created by the United States and China.
Yet she declared, “The former Japanese military committed the atrocities.”
She also described a scene in which Chinese students, after hearing about the tragedy of the Nagasaki atomic bombing, said, “The Japanese military committed even worse atrocities.”
In China, the ones who committed atrocities were people like Chiang Kai-shek, who caused the Yellow River to burst and killed a million people.
There are countless such examples.
Why does she not refute them?
Is it not a century too early to let a correspondent who swallows China’s propaganda whole write a column?