Originally published on March 1, 2019, this chapter sharply criticizes The Asahi Shimbun’s reporting on the so-called “NHK program revision issue,” arguing that it was a complete fabrication, while also highlighting Shinzo Abe’s negotiating skill during Koizumi’s visit to North Korea and the circumstances that led North Korea to admit the abductions.
It further argues that by tracing the protest campaigns linked to that fabricated article and the people involved, one can see connections to Chongryon-linked networks and North Korea.
The piece concludes that the structure in which The Asahi Shimbun and anti-Japan leftist forces used lies, fabrication, and impression manipulation as weapons to bring down figures such as Shinzo Abe and Shoichi Nakagawa has not fundamentally changed even in present-day political reporting.

2019-03-01
The likes of Asahi Shimbun, NHK newscasters, and opposition politicians may be able to fall easily into honey traps and money traps.
But needless to say, even standing on their heads, they could never pull off something like this.

I am reposting the chapter I published on 2018-04-15 under the title, Proceeding on the Assumption That the North Korean Side Was Bugging the Room, He Said to Prime Minister Koizumi, Then in Office, Loud Enough for Those Doing the Eavesdropping to Hear, “If They Do Not Admit the Abductions, Let Us Stand Up and Leave.”
What follows is a continuation of the previous chapter.

Perhaps because Tanaka Hitoshi had close relations with North Korea, he even attended Kiyomi Tsujimoto’s political fundraising party marking twenty years as a politician.
And it was Soichiro Tahara who praised such a Tanaka Hitoshi as “Mr. Foreign Ministry.”
But I am getting off track.

It was precisely because North Korea had truly been driven into an economic corner that it admitted the abductions.
However, in the negotiation process in which North Korea had no choice but to admit the abductions, Shinzo Abe, as one of the accompanying officials during Koizumi’s visit to North Korea, proceeded on the assumption that the North Korean side was bugging the room and said to Prime Minister Koizumi, then in office, loud enough for those doing the eavesdropping to hear, “If they do not admit the abductions, let us stand up and leave.”
This fact proves, to the utmost degree possible, that my assessment that Shinzo Abe was an exceptionally capable politician, rare in recent times, is entirely correct.
It goes without saying that the likes of Asahi Shimbun, NHK newscasters, and opposition politicians may be able to fall easily into honey traps and money traps, but even standing on their heads they could never pull off something like this.
After this, Kim Jong Il returned to the negotiating table and admitted the abductions.

At that time, the United States openly criticized both Iraq and North Korea, and in Iraq’s case it actually carried out an attack.
North Korea, for its part, must also have been aware that unless the Japan–North Korea negotiations achieved some measure of success, they themselves might be attacked after Iraq.
I think it was precisely because it was under pressure both economically and psychologically that it ended up admitting the abductions.

And Shinzo Abe, the very person who had forced from them the shame of admitting and apologizing for the abductions, which they most wanted to avoid admitting to the very end, must have been someone they wanted to destroy at all costs.
It was in that situation that Asahi Shimbun put out its fabricated article in January 2005.

Even now, the Japanese mass media have not reported the truth of the matter that this Asahi Shimbun “NHK program revision issue” was a complete fabrication.
It has never been properly corrected, and the content remains in the form fabricated by Asahi Shimbun.
After the falsity of the article’s content was pointed out, Asahi Shimbun launched one of its favorite verification committees and conducted a review, but although it had no concrete evidence, it still did not admit that the story was false.
Asahi Shimbun then even created what it called a third-party body to examine the issue and commissioned it accordingly.
And it produced the conclusion that, “Although there were reasonable grounds for the reporter to believe the suspicions to be true, it cannot be said that the reporting was sufficient.”
Needless to say, even to this day Asahi Shimbun has never properly corrected the article and apologized.

Among the members of Asahi Shimbun’s self-serving verification committee at that time were names such as Niwa Uichiro and Hasebe Yasuo.
To add further, in connection with the 2005 Asahi Shimbun article aimed at bringing down Abe and Nakagawa, along with linked false internal accusations and testimony, protest movements against Abe and Nakagawa were also carried out.
The following is from that time.

Emergency Japan–Korea Women’s Rally Not to Permit Insults and Defamation Against the “Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal.”
Demanding acknowledgement of error and an apology for statements distorting the facts.
Tuesday, February 1, 2005, 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Assembly at 12:30 p.m., strict punctuality.
Location: First Conference Room, Second Members’ Office Building, House of Representatives.
Access: Kokkaigijidomae Station Exit 1, Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line and Chiyoda Line.
Nagatacho Station Exit 1, Tokyo Metro Yurakucho Line.
Nagatacho Station Exit 5, Tokyo Metro Namboku Line.
Speakers.
VAWW-NET Japan.
Ryumiko Nishino, co-representative of the Japan Network for “War and Violence Against Women.”
Sumiko Shimizu, representative of the Japan Women’s Liaison Association in Solidarity with Korean Women.
Kim Shoko, chairwoman of the Central Headquarters of the Korean Democratic Women’s Union in Japan.
Yang Mi-gang, standing co-chair of South Korea’s “Asian Solidarity for Peace and History Education.”
Other participant remarks, adoption of the appeal text.
Organizer: Executive Committee of the Emergency Japan–Korea Women’s Rally Not to Permit Insults and Defamation Against the “Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal.”
03-3816-4344, person in charge, Chong.

Conference rooms in the Diet Members’ Office Building cannot be used unless arranged through a member of the Diet.
The one who arranged for the room to be used on that occasion was Eiko Ishige of the Democratic Party.
And if one googles Kim Shoko, whose name appears among the organizers of the protest movement, the Choson Sinbo immediately comes up.

One learns that she was a Chongryon executive.
And in older Choson Sinbo articles as well, the following appears.

She also seems to have been elected as a member of North Korea’s parliament.
I think it should now be clear that in this series of moves in which Asahi Shimbun wrote fabricated articles in an attempt to bring down Abe and Nakagawa, all the people involved were connected through North Korea.
VAWW-NET Japan may fairly be regarded as virtually North Korea itself, and like the Citizens’ Party, it may be understood as a subcontracting organization for North Korean operations.

Asahi Shimbun is ordinarily a newspaper of what one might call “casual fabrication reporting,” but when it comes to matters involving Specific Asia, I think there are not a few cases that appear to come as a set with operations by Specific Asia.
Before one even reaches the question of fairness and neutrality, the company called Asahi Shimbun itself has probably been contaminated by Specific Asia to a level from which there is no turning back.

Asahi Shimbun repeatedly uses its pages to complain that Prime Minister Abe listed only a small part of its past fabricated reporting.
But Prime Minister Abe has long been subjected to more than enough from Asahi Shimbun to justify however much complaint he may direct at it.
What is truly abnormal is that Asahi Shimbun is still able to operate as a newspaper company even now.

It cannot all be written in a single blog article, but the confrontation between anti-Japan leftists based in Specific Asia and Shinzo Abe has continued.
Yet the weapons of the anti-Japan forces are mainly “lies” and “fabrication.”
That structure has not changed at all even in the present Moritomo and Kake affair.
The only thing left for us is to spread information and weaken the power of the lying mass media that have become propaganda organs for Specific Asia.