This section examines a controversial UN report on Japan and questions the role of Japanese activists and media figures who supplied biased information. It asks why some choose to rely on foreign authority to damage their own country’s reputation in the international arena.

2017-06-15
The following is taken from yesterday’s front-page Sankei Shō column in the Sankei Shimbun.
All emphases within the text are mine.
Works on Japan written by foreigners are vast in number.
The American literature scholar Shoichi Saeki searched for such books by visiting antiquarian bookstores both in Japan and abroad.
He said that “the unexpected angles of illumination and the attention to detail repeatedly startled and opened my eyes.”
By contrast, the “Japan studies” of David Kaye, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, are surprising in a very different sense.
His “Report on Japan,” compiled in his capacity as UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, was filled with misunderstanding and prejudice.
For example, Kaye claims that direct and indirect pressure from government authorities raises concerns about the independence of the media.
On what evidence does he make such assertions?
In Japan, unlike in certain other countries, journalists critical of the government are not killed.
Nor are people detained simply for participating in demonstrations.
Kaye visited Japan in April last year at the invitation of the government.
Based on only one week of information gathering, the report was compiled.
With the help of capable interpreters, he should at least have carefully examined newspaper, magazine, and television coverage.
He would then have been able to grasp how diverse the information and opinions conveyed by the media truly are.
There are also factual errors regarding the comfort women issue and the bill to revise the Organized Crime Punishment Law.
He did not listen at all to explanations offered by the Japanese government.
One cannot help but suspect that he had reached his conclusions in advance.
What is most difficult to comprehend, however, is the mindset of the Japanese civic activists and media personnel who fed Kaye such biased information.
What possible meaning is there in using foreign hands to damage Japan’s image in the international community?
That said, if one were to analyze the principles driving their behavior, it might in itself produce an intriguing study of the Japanese character.