Amid a chorus of Japan-bashing by U.S. newspapers, the Asahi Shimbun ran an editorial invoking “national dignity.”
Yet the real question concerns the dignity of voices spreading falsehoods—echoed by the New York Times and the Washington Post—and Asahi’s decision to align with them.

2016-04-01
The following continues from the previous chapter.
Upon becoming president, he attended Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York and proudly declared his Irish heritage.
In the United States, a so-called melting pot where people take pride in their homelands and bloodlines, the lone Japanese American Mike Honda cast aside pride in his own origins and cozied up to Koreans and Chinese.
It is hard to believe such a man is Japanese American, yet his words cannot be ignored when uttered by a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe therefore rejected his remarks.
Naturally so.
When Japan is subjected to baseless slander, it is the duty of the nation’s leader to refute it.
Then Norimitsu Onishi, a Japanese American reporter for The New York Times, poured fuel on the fire by claiming that the denial “reopened old wounds of former comfort women.”
The New York Times, whose brand thrives on hostility toward Japan, followed with an editorial asserting that violence occurred, that this was not commercial prostitution but repeated rape, and asking what could possibly be wrong with the phrase “sexual slavery by the Japanese military.”
The Washington Post likewise framed as historical fact the claim that “historians say the Japanese military detained 200,000 women.”
As U.S. papers joined in this chorus of Japan-bashing, the Asahi Shimbun ran an editorial declaring that “the dignity of the nation is being questioned.”
What Japanese people wish to question, however, is the “dignity of Japanese Americans.”
Why would Mike and Norimitsu lie to disparage their country of origin?
Sankei Shimbun correspondent Yoshihisa Komori offers part of the answer.
Mike, he reports, received money from a Chinese American organization connected to Iris Chang.
Including Norimitsu, this reflects nothing more than the baseness of character.
Yet the Asahi invokes “national dignity.”
At a time when Japan–U.S. cooperation is ever more vital against a China that spreads harm worldwide, one might expect a challenge to America’s dignity for aligning with “Korean falsehoods,” but that expectation is utterly misplaced.
To be continued.