This essay analyzes NHK’s subtle but deliberate narrative framing during coverage of the Asian Development Bank meeting in 2017. By introducing an obscure AIIB official and displaying a misleading caption, NHK created the impression of China as Asia’s new leader, raising serious concerns about media manipulation and foreign influence.

2017-05-05
In the postwar world, the one and only journalist of his kind, Masayuki Takayama, has consistently delivered the most accurate and severe critiques of NHK’s reporting.
Today, after watching both the 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. news programs, I became fully convinced that his observations were entirely correct.
During the 7 p.m. news, while reporting that the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) would be held in Japan for the first time in ten years, NHK strangely introduced—under the pretext that he had visited Japan around the same time—Thierry de Longuemar, a vice president of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which is effectively a Chinese-controlled organization.
This was a man virtually unknown to the Japanese public.
And what kind of caption did NHK display?
“Because a new leader is emerging…”
With this caption, NHK created the impression that today’s China is the new leader of Asia—indeed, as if it were the leader of the world—thereby conducting a clear act of impression manipulation upon the Japanese public.
What makes this even more egregious is that NHK aired this narrative precisely at a time when ASEAN, which had long relied exclusively on the U.S. dollar as a settlement currency, was finally taking steps to place the Japanese yen alongside the dollar—an entirely reasonable move intended to restore Japan’s true and rightful economic influence in Asia.
Moreover, readers of monthly magazines are well aware that the AIIB is, in reality, barely functioning as an institution.
Yet NHK made absolutely no mention of this fact.
Instead, it went so far as to portray China as Asia’s new leader.
The situation was such that one could say it would not be an exaggeration to claim that Chinese spies have infiltrated NHK’s news division.
At the very least, there are numerous individuals within NHK who are being guided or manipulated by Chinese intelligence agencies.
That is the only conclusion one can reasonably reach.
To be continued.