{"id":12280,"date":"2014-04-09T17:16:39","date_gmt":"2014-04-10T03:16:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=12280"},"modified":"2014-04-09T17:16:39","modified_gmt":"2014-04-10T03:16:39","slug":"japans-right-wing-swing-taking-on-nj-media-foreign-correspondents-blindly-swallowing-anti-japanese-propaganda-writer-alleges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=12280","title":{"rendered":"Japan’s Right-wing swing taking on NJ media: Foreign correspondents ‘blindly swallowing’ anti-Japanese propaganda, writer alleges"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hi Blog. As Japan’s right-wing swing<\/a> begins to be noticed and acknowledged overseas (I predicted this swing would happen quite a while ago<\/a>), foreign media are increasingly taking off the kid gloves, and dealing forcefully with Japan’s perpetual historical amnesia. So much so that it’s making some Japanese opinion leaders uncomfortable, and, as the article below attests, they’re pushing back against the apparent gaiatsu<\/em> by claiming the foreign correspondents are succumbing to “propaganda”. Have a read.<\/p>\n

Within, note how opportunist NJ panderer Henry Scott-Stokes<\/a> is being tossed around like a ball in play as evidence of something (hey, revisionism has more credibility if someone, anyone, from the NJ side will parrot their views). Debito.org has already covered the profiteering that some NJ<\/a> (particularly those who have no idea what has been written for them in Japanese) will engage in. Shame on them for becoming the monkey to the organ grinder.<\/p>\n

As a bracing counterpose, check out this other extremely angry article by Robert Fisk in the UK Independent on the Abe Administration and Japan’s burgeoning (and hypocritical) revisionism<\/a>; he’s clearly commenting outside of his comfort zone, but this is what will increasingly come out as the mask of “peaceful Western ally” that Japan’s elites have shamelessly worn for two generations continues to slip. \u00a0And this generation of elites, who have never known war (and will never have to serve even if there ever is one), will continue to extol the glory of it. \u00a0Arudou Debito<\/p>\n

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/<\/p>\n

Foreign correspondents ‘blindly swallowing’ anti-Japanese propaganda, writer alleges<\/strong>
\n JAPAN TODAY KUCHIKOMI APR. 10, 2014, courtesy of MS<\/strong>
\nhttp:\/\/www.japantoday.com\/category\/kuchikomi\/view\/foreign-correspondents-blindly-swallowing-anti-japanese-propaganda-writer-alleges<\/a><\/p>\n

TOKYO \u2014 In his \u201cEast Asia Anemometer\u201d (an anemometer is a device for measuring wind speed) column for the Sankei Shimbun column of March 29, Takao Harakawa accused foreign correspondents based in Tokyo of harboring \u201cblind belief\u201d in the anti-Japanese propaganda being generated by China and South Korea. He bases this on his observations from a recent press conference that in his view descended into a \u201cblame-Japan\u201d fest.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

China, he alleges, has ordered its embassies in various countries to engage in a worldwide campaign to criticize prime minister Abe for visiting Yasukuni Shrine last December. And South Korea recently went so far as to use the venue of an international comic exhibition to lambaste Japan over the sex-slave (\u201ccomfort women\u201d) issue.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

These two neighboring countries\u2019 persistent efforts to discredit Japan, suggests Harakawa, may finally be starting to show results, as the press event held in mid-March at the Foreign Correspondents\u2019 Club of Japan in Yurakucho, Tokyo, turned into a one-sided affair.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The event was intended to publicize the activities by a delegation of Japanese legislators in local government assemblies who had visited Glendale, California to protest Korean lobbyists\u2019 installation of a statue of a comfort woman in a public park.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But when it came time for questions, Harakawa didn\u2019t like the tone of the reporters at all.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the war, Korean laborers worked in the coal mines in Oita prefecture. Do you think they were sent there forcibly or not?\u201d was one question.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not here today to discuss laborers, this is a press conference about \u2018sex slaves,\u2019\u201d replied Yoshiko Matsuura, a councilor in the Suginami assembly, in an attempt to deflect his question.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Matsuura pointed out that the 1993 \u201cKono Statement\u201d apologizing to the sex slaves was based on \u201ccompletely vague testimony, and also noted that as a result of the controversy there, Japanese children residing in Glendale had been subjected to \u201cbullying and harassment\u201d by Korean children.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe statue of the \u2018comfort woman\u2019 erected in Glendale will leave a huge bill to be paid in the future,\u201d she warned.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The questions fired back by the correspondents in attendance, however, were \u201cconspicuous in the way they were either based on insufficient understanding or bias.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Another correspondent\u2019s remarks that \u201cYou\u2019re saying that the \u2018sex slaves\u2019 are a fabrication, but as opposed to merely making that statement, how many facts are there to support it? Presently Japan is continuing to lose sympathy throughout the world,\u201d is given as another example.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Tomoko Tsujimura, a member of the Komae City assembly who also attended the gathering, was quoted as saying \u201cSince the Japanese government is not completely responding [to the allegations], Japan\u2019s position is being outweighed by propaganda from South Korea, and I feel the foundations have been laid for many members of the foreign media to harbor feelings of disgust toward Japan.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

After the event, Kawahara said a sympathetic foreign journalist said to him, \u201cToday\u2019s event was not to ask questions to you, but to cast blame on Japan.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the background of the journalists\u2019 mindset, believes Harakawa, was a viewpoint echoing the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Details from the press event have appeared in the online versions of TIME magazine and Hong Kong\u2019s South China Morning Post. Neither of them were inclined to support Matsuura\u2019s views. TIME\u2019s reporter even wrote that the speakers\u2019 efforts to take the offensive over the sex slave issue was \u201clikely to do them more harm than good.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Interpreter at the event was Hiroyuki Fujita, an international journalist and translator of Henry Scott-Stokes\u2019 recent book (in Japanese) titled, \u201cFalsehoods of the Allied Nations\u2019 Victorious View of History, as Seen by a British Journalist.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cForeigners, especially citizens of the Allied nations (during WW2), tend to view the historical truth in terms of judgments handed down by the Tokyo war crimes tribunal,\u201d said Fujita. \u201cAccording to that view, Japan must be the villain, and anyone who attempts to assert something at odds with that is stereotypically tarred as a revisionist who is attempting to gloss over history. One of the very few correspondents who\u2019s an exception to this would be Mr Henry Scott-Stokes, who has really done his homework on the issues.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Japan faces an urgent need to assume a state of readiness to counter propaganda from China and Korea, including additional budgetary measures for issuing information, Harakawa concludes.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Japan’s right-wing swing begins to be noticed and acknowledged overseas (I predicted this swing would happen quite a while ago), foreign media are increasingly taking off the kid gloves, and dealing forcefully with Japan’s perpetual historical amnesia. So much so that it’s making some Japanese opinion leaders uncomfortable, and, as the article below attests, they’re pushing back against the apparent gaiatsu by claiming the foreign correspondents are succumbing to “propaganda”. Have a read.<\/p>\n

Within, note how opportunist NJ panderer Henry Scott-Stokes is being tossed around like a ball in play as evidence of something (hey, revisionism has more credibility if someone, anyone, from the NJ side will parrot their views). Debito.org has already covered the profiteering that some NJ (particularly those who have no idea what has been written for them in Japanese) will engage in. Shame on them for becoming the monkey to the organ grinder.<\/p>\n

As a bracing counterpose, check out this other extremely angry article by Robert Fisk in the UK Independent on the Abe Administration and Japan’s burgeoning (and hypocritical) revisionism; he’s clearly commenting outside of his comfort zone, but this is what will increasingly come out as the mask of “peaceful Western ally” that Japan’s elites have shamelessly worn for two generations continues to slip. And this generation of elites, who have never known war (and will never have to serve even if there ever is one), will continue to extol the glory of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,50,26,14,13,56,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bad-social-science","category-gaiatsu","category-ironies-hypocrisies","category-japanese-politics","category-media","category-nj-legacies","category-tangents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12280\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}