This chapter examines how an unverified claim regarding East Timor—welcomed simply because it criticized Japan—was amplified domestically and then recycled internationally, revealing a media-academic pipeline that rewarded anti-Japan narratives.

April 29, 2016

This follows the previous chapter.

East Timor was a colony of neutral Portugal, and there were no conflicts whatsoever between the local population and the Japanese army.

Nevertheless, Waseda University professor Ken’ichi Goto wrote in the Asahi Shimbun that the Japanese army looted the islanders and killed fifty thousand people.

Asahi welcomed any lie, so long as it was criticism of Japan.

This story was then reprinted in Time Almanac 2006, the annual reference published by Time magazine in the United States, stating that “fifty thousand islanders died during the period of Japanese occupation.”

Once again, Japan was portrayed as brutal.

However, the islanders had lived under harsh Portuguese rule, surviving with nothing more than a loincloth.

Even the possession of saws or sickles was prohibited, on the grounds that such tools might become weapons of resistance.

If the Japanese army had looted them, one must ask: what exactly could they have taken?

It later became clear that Goto Ken’ichi fabricated this story after being told by Australian diplomat James Dunn that “the island’s population had declined after the war.”

To be continued.