A critical reflection on how ideologically driven media coverage distorted historical understanding in postwar Japan, obscured security threats from China, and delayed essential national awareness.

2016-03-01

Until August two years ago, readers of newspapers such as the Asahi Shimbun must have been made to believe that Shōichi Watanabe was a right-leaning commentator.
I myself thought so, leaving no room for doubt.
In other words, Asahi Shimbun’s reporting was colored.
It did not convey facts, but rather its own ideology—that was Asahi Shimbun.
The thought of what might have happened had August two years ago not occurred is truly chilling.
The severity of their conduct—their childish and malicious nature—has already been pointed out.

Now then, Shōichi Watanabe was born in Yamagata Prefecture, which borders my own home prefecture.
Watanabe taught me historical facts that I, having read Asahi Shimbun, had never known.
Inspired by his essays, something extremely important flashed through my mind like a revelation.
I feel that Watanabe is reading my own writings.
The opening essay of the April issue of the monthly magazine WiLL was written by Watanabe.
When readers read the passage below, they will feel that Watanabe has succinctly proven in essay form exactly what flashed through my mind.
If Watanabe has not read my arguments, then it means that we possess exactly the same intellect.
Readers will surely be struck by how the passages emphasized in bold are exactly the same as what I myself wrote the other day.

[Omitted preceding text.]

As I have already noted regarding North Korea, when one looks around Japan’s immediate surroundings, the threat from China is becoming more real with each passing day.
Around the waters near the Senkaku Islands, territorial incursions continue almost daily, and armed vessels have even begun to appear in the surrounding seas.
China is “militarizing fortified bases” on the artificial islands it has reclaimed in the South China Sea, but this is not because it intends to wage war against Vietnam or the Philippines.
These are preparations to cut off Japan’s sea lanes and choke the country.
China knows that resource-poor Japan was tightened by embargoes before the war and was driven into conflict.

As proof, when Japan–China relations deteriorated during the Democratic Party administration over the nationalization of the Senkaku Islands, China immediately imposed an embargo on rare earth exports.
They believed, “This will surely bring Japan to its knees.”
In other words, when the time comes, they are prepared to “tighten the screws on Japan.”

The continuation to be introduced in the next chapter will surely leave all Japanese citizens with sound minds utterly stunned.
Japan has continued to sustain the United Nations by paying the largest financial contribution second only to the United States.
Simply because people continued to read newspapers such as the Asahi Shimbun, such foolishness was allowed to persist for seventy years after the war.

There is nothing more childish and foolish than this.