The following is from a special interview between Masayuki Takayama and Masu Kiyoshi, a media watcher for the World Daily News, which appears in the current issue of the monthly magazine Hanada, pp. 196-202.
It is a must-read not only for Japanese citizens but also for people around the world.
Japanese citizens must go to their nearest bookstore to subscribe to it right now.
I'll let the rest of the world know as much as I can.
Clever public opinion guidance
Masu
Asahi has also been playing a flag-waving role concerning gender equality and the LGBT bill.
It even pulled out Tomomi Inada, a Diet member, and reported that "the passage of the LGBT bill is the responsibility of the Liberal Democratic Party" (June 8).
Takayama
In the evening edition of the same day's "Elementary Particles," Asahi wrote, "I perused former Defense Minister Tomomi Inada's 'My Viewpoint' in the morning edition. But will the LDP bury the LGBT bill? You said sarcastically, "But the LDP is burying the LGBT bill? Why are they making so much noise?
Masu
I think there is a common thread between gender equality and the debate on women and female emperors.
Six experts have considered stable succession to the throne, and such a meeting was held in 2005.
It was during the Junichiro Koizumi administration, and at that time, there were no male members in the Imperial Family except for the Crown Prince (the current Emperor) and Prince Akishino.
However, since the Imperial Household Law states that a male lineal male shall succeed the throne, Prime Minister Koizumi suddenly set up an expert committee on the Imperial Household Law to overcome the problem of succession.
The expert panel members were all scholars who were not experts in their fields, including the chairperson, Hiroyuki Yoshikawa, former president of the University of Tokyo (specializing in robotics), and Itsuo Sonobe, former Supreme Court judge.
The constitutional scholar who led the debate in the field was Yasuhiro Okudaira, professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo. Yasuhiro Okudaira, a professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, is a hardcore leftist who has been calling for the constitutional protection of the "Nine Articles Society" and has high hopes for the Communist Party to win power.
Even before the inauguration of the Council of Experts, Mr. Okudaira wrote in "The World" (August 2004 issue) that the birth of the matrilineal Emperor of Japan lost the traditional basis of the imperial family, and the Emperor was next to the unorthodox matrilineal Emperor of Japan. He suggested that it would lead to the denial of the emperor system itself.
In other words, this is the two-stage revolution theory of "matrilineal Emperor of Japan → abolition of the Imperial Family.
The Asahi Shimbun is similar to Mr. Okuhira's argument, but the Asahi Shimbun is cunning and does not say things as frankly as Mr. Okuhira.
It borrows the voice of its readers.
In response to a question on whether or not to revise the Imperial Household Law, one of the respondents (a 56-year-old man from Ibaraki) said, "It is the first step toward eliminating the emperor system" (Be, February 4, 2006).
Furthermore, when the panel of experts on the Imperial Household Law issued a report approving the Emperor as a female or female lineage emperor, the board suddenly raised the Emperor as a female lineage emperor, saying that the Emperor is "the emperor of the female lineage sought by the times" (editorial, November 25, 2005). Not only that, but when Prince Tomohito of the Mikasa family presented an alternative proposal to maintain the male line, the editorial "Mr. Tomohito, please refrain from speaking anymore" was published (February 2, 2006), as if to tell him to shut up.
In the first place, Asahi does not use honorifics in its coverage of the Imperial Family.
Takayama
So that's how they are skillfully guiding public opinion.
Masu
Apart from Asahi, one of the flag bearers for gender equality is Kiyomi Tsujimoto of the Constitutional Democratic Party.
She says the Imperial Family is "physiologically disgusting. I don't want to breathe the air near a family like that." Recently, she has retracted her theory and is in favor of a female or female emperor.
It is because he believes that the LGBT support movement will lead to the abolition of the Emperor.
Takayama
Just like Asahi, Tsujimoto is cunning, isn't she?
To begin with, calling Japan an LGBT backward country is wrong.
Men's sexuality has been recognized since the time of Kobo-Daishi. During the Edo period, homosexual male teahouses all over the country served as intermediaries for male prostitutes.
Ihara Saikaku's "Koshoku Ichidai Otoko" also depicts the enjoyment of sex regardless of gender.
Japan is a developed country when it comes to sexuality, but now they treat it as a backward country and make a fuss about recognizing the human rights of LGBT people.
Masu
Strangely enough, newspapers are hardly reporting on the status of AIDS infection these days.
As we know from the new coronas, it is crucial to identify the source of the infection.
However, when it comes to AIDS, they don't say anything about the source of infection.
Male homosexuals cause 70% of the spread of the infection.
It may be a consideration that reporting this fact would prejudice homosexuals, but I have to say that it is puzzling.
If we are going to make a fuss about recognizing the human rights of LGBT people, shouldn't we also take up the issue of AIDS head-on and have an honest discussion about it?
Takayama
They hide inconvenient facts.
Even in the case of the new corona, there is a bias in the reporting.
The number of infected people has dropped drastically, but not because of a state of emergency declaration.
It was due to the tightening of immigration restrictions.
To enter the country, you have to be confined in a government-designated hotel for ten days, have three PCR tests, and stay at home. Until then, there were almost no restrictions.
Masu
But the story about entry restrictions is hardly reported.
Is there any intention to do so?
Mr. Takayama said that Asahi is skillful in guiding public opinion, and that is exactly right.
Asahi was initially in favor of the revision of the Security Treaty in 1960.
However, when the Soviet Union and China opposed it, Asahi immediately changed its mind. It was an anti-Apartheid policy of blind obedience to China and the Soviet Union.
To cover this up, they used "public opinion."
They mobilized progressive cultural figures to create a convenient public opinion and then used that as the basis for their opposition.
The later diplomatic relations between Japan and China and the current anti-nuclear and anti-Olympic movements are the same.
In the Asahi evening newspaper, there is a series of articles called "Secrets of Public Opinion Polls. There is a story about public opinion polls during the GHQ occupation (May 28).
It is said that GHQ allowed only the most convenient parts to be published, and Asahi followed that method.
They are the poster children of GHQ.
Takayama
I don't know how much Asahi's argument has dragged down Japan.
This article continues.
