The magazine of The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan

September 2017 Volume 49 No. 9 ¥400

Facing North

Delicate Diplomacy:
North Korea in theera of Donald Trump

Takashi Tachibana:
A giant among Japanesejournalists

In profile:
Walter Sim of theStraits Times

Vol. 49, Number 9

September 2017contact the editors

no.1shimbun@fccj.or.jp
Publisher FCCJ
Editorial Assistants Naomichi Iwamura,
Photo Coordinator Akiko Miyake
Publications committee members
Dan Sloan, Nissan;
Gregory Clark, writer/columnist;
Geoffrey Tudor, Orient Aviation

FCCJ Exhibition:
Funky Days by
Yoshi Itokawa

In this issue
The Front Page
From the President by Khaldon Azharip16
4

Is Japan becoming an enemy of press freedom?
by Fred Varcoe

5

The view of the North by the press of the Southby Donald Kirk

6

Why is no-one talking to me? North Korea’s Kim
by Anthony Rowley

8

10

Takashi Tachibana
A giant among Japanese journalists
by Bradley K. Martin

12Club News
Exhibition: Funky Days: Portraits of Everyday Life
Photographs by Yoshi Itokawa
Senior Champs/
New Members/New in the libraryFCCJ

SEPTEMBER 2017

FCCJ COMMITTEE CHAIRSAssociate Members Liaison Milton Isa
Compliance Kunio Hamada
DeRoy Memorial Scholarship Abby Leonard,
David SatterwhiteEntertainment Sandra Mori
Exhibition Bruce Osborn
Film Karen Severns
Finance Willem Kortekaas
Food & Beverage Robert Kirschenbaum,
Mehdi Bassiri
Freedom of Press Abby Leonard
House & Property Khaldon Azhari
Human Resources Khaldon Azhari
Information Technology to be announced
Library, Archives & Workroom Koichi Ishiyama,
Suvendrini Kakuchi
Membership Andrew Horvat
Membership Marketing Anthony Rowley
Professional Activities Fred Varcoe, Ayako Mie
Public Relations Dan Sloan
Publications to be announced
Special Projects Haruko Watanabe
Web Committee to be announced
Foreign Press in Japan Robin Harding

ProfileWalter Sim
by David McNeill

The Truth About 'Tankman'
by Gregory Clark

FCCJ BOARD OF DIRECTORS
President Khaldon Azhari, PanOrient News
1st Vice President Anthony Rowley,Singapore Business Times
2nd Vice President Gregory Clark,
Writer/Columnist
Secretary Mary Corbett,Professional Associate Member
Treasurer William Kortekaas, Associate Member
Directors-at-Large Milton Isa, Associate MemberPeter Langan, Asia Times
Robert Whiting, Author, Freelance
Yoichi Yabe, Freelance
Ex-officio VacantKanji Yoshisuke Iinuma, The Oriental Economist
Associate Kanji Makoto Honjo, Associate Member

14

16

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan
Yurakucho Denki Building, North Tower 20F,
1-7-1 Yurakucho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-0006.
Tel: (03) 3211-3161 Fax: (03) 3211-3168 fccj.or.jp
Published by the FCCJ All opinions contained within
Number 1 Shimbun are those of the authors. As such,these opinions do not constitute an official positionof Number 1 Shimbun, the editor or the Foreign
Correspondents’ Club of Japan.
Please pitch and send articles and photographs, oraddress comments to no.1shimbun@fccj.or.jp
Read the Number 1 Shimbun online:
fccj.or.jp/number-1-shimbun
Cover Design: Ben Ridge

3

FRONT PAGE

The Foreign Correspondents’
Club of Japan
From thePresident
DURING THE MONTH OF AUGUST, I received more than 2,000 FCCJ
president-related e-mails sent to my computer, another 500 to mymobile phone and several dozen text messages, many of which required
an immediate response, sometimes after midnight.
These correspondences involved club business related to the FCCJ's
food and beverage operation, architect designs, human resource
concerns such as salaries, staff changes, promotions and contracts, andconsultations with lawyers. I understand this is all part of the job of being
the FCCJ's president, but it is also, as presidents in the past have said,
virtually a full-time job.
I am sure this was not in the minds of the FCCJ's founding fathers in 1945
when they established the club. But over the years, the club expanded tothe point where the president and boards of directors have to deal withrunning the business of a mid-sized company.
Of course, we have professional staff, member-advisors from thebusiness community, outside auditors – even lawyers – to assist us, but
at the end of the day, most of us are journalists trying to chase news andmake a living from it.
We expect this overflow of messages to our computers and phones willcontinue and we could be overloaded with issues to tackle.
However, so far everything is proceeding smoothly and my Board of
Directors intend to iron out any problems swiftly, so continue giving us
your feedback so we can respond to your needs.

The Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan is pleased toannounce the winners of its 2017 Freedom of Press
Awards and Swadesh DeRoy Scholarship Awards.
The Award Ceremony for both will be held at the
FCCJ on Monday, September 11, 2017. Dinnerfrom 6pm, Awards' Program from 6:30pm.
To attend, RSVP: front@fccj.or.jp
or call reception desk 03-3211-3161.
Seating is limited to first 100 registrants.
2017 FCCJ FREEDOM OF PRESS AWARDS
Japan Investigative Journalism Award
Haruhiko Yoshimura, Staff Writer, City News Department,
Osaka Head Office, The Asahi Shimbun&
Kenta Iijima, Staff Writer, Foreign News
Department, Tokyo Head Office,
The Asahi Shimbun
Lifetime Achievement Award
Takashi Tachibana
Supporter of the Free Press
Makoto Watanabe, Editor-In-Chief, Waseda Chronicle&
Tatsuro Hanada, Director, Institutefor Journalism, Waseda University

Another topic of interest: The club’s magazine, the Number 1 Shimbun, isready to enter a new stage. In the coming months, we will be looking atways to revamp and modernize our in-house mouthpiece. Not only will
we improve the print edition, we will also upgrade the website version.
As the FCCJ is a journalists’ club, look for more focus on journalist issues.

2017 SWADESH DEROY SCHOLARSHIP AWARDSThe Public Relations Committee, our newest committee, led by former
President Dan Sloan, will hold its inaugural meeting in September. The
main mission from my perspective is to promote the club and position us
for the onslaught of media attention as Tokyo gets ready for the Olympic
Games in 2020.

Pen Award
1ST Place
Trishit Banerjee, Tohoku University& Jennifer Lisa Wooden, Keio University

In the midst of these new developments, we still face an old issue: rumors.
It is my belief the best way to deal with rumors is to be transparent.
I am reminded of a lesson I learned from one of the top former Japan’s
Foreign Ministry spokesmen, Mr. Sadaaki Numata. I asked him once at apress conference about Japan's reaction to rumors related to its position
on a certain issue. He replied, smiling, “You answered your own question… they are merely rumors.”

2nd Place
Marina Yoshimura, Waseda University
and Yale University Visiting Student

There will always be rumors in the FCCJ, but your president and board
will try to minimize them by following our profession's mission: Seek andreport the truth.
If you have a question, ask the board and we’ll respond. Or write to the
Number 1 Shimbun. It may mean more e-mails and phone calls for all ofus, but that’s part of the volunteer job.

Video Award
1st Place
Nguyen Chi Long, Tohoku University
Photography Award
1ST Place
Nonoka Aida, Chuo University &Fuad Ikhwanda, Tohoku University
Freedom of Press and Swadesh DeRoy
Memorial Scholarship Committees– Khaldon Azhari
4

SEPTEMBER 2017FCCJIs Japan becoming an enemy of press freedom?
Reporters Without Borders press conference failed to supply the answers

On the day that Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
present at the FCCJ to contribute to the survey.
by FRED VARCOE
founder Robert Menard visited the FCCJ 14 years
ago, some wag amended the organization’s WikipeOn the issue of press freedom, Deloire’s harshest
dia page to call it a “terrorist organization.” While there are probably not words were directed at more “traditional” enemies of the press, his list
too many who would go that far, the organization is not universally loved. including China, Russia, Syria, North Korea, Zimbabwe and Turkey.
And that’s true, to some extent, in Japan. When current RSF SecretaryGeneral Christophe Deloire spoke at the Club on July 21, he faced somehostile questioners demanding to know just why RSF ranked Japan alowly No. 72 on its World Press Freedom Index in 2016.
He was asked to provide a single example about his claims on why Japanwas downgraded, but he didn’t seem to have an answer other than generalizations.
“The Index is not about the quality of the press but about press freedom,”
Deloire explained. “Of course, Japan is a democracy with a huge levelof journalism and I would liketo say how we admire thepowerful newspapers andmedia outlets in Japan, butthere are more restrictions
and pressures than in othercountries.”
In response to strong demands from journalists attending the event that hespecify exactly what issues
had caused Japan to slip
down the rankings, Deloire
said that there were “problems” in Japan and seemed
to lay part of the blame on
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
while at the same time saying that Japan’s ranking on
the Press Freedom Index was“not an evaluation of prime
ministers.” One questioner
pointed out that Japan’s ranking had gone down since Abe came to power, implying that the Index was politically biased.
Japan was 53rd in 2013, 61st in 2015 and is now ranked 72.
Some Japanese journalists, clearly angered by such a viewpoint, pointed
out that no measures against journalists had been taken under the newanti-conspiracy law and suggested that Reporters Without Borders wasbasing its Index on theoretical possibilities rather than actual events.

And no press conference is complete without a comment on UnitedStates President Donald Trump: “President Trump sets a very bad example not only in his own country, but in the rest of the world, a world where
so many leaders now imitate him, accusing journalists of fake news.”“Without independent journalism – quality and independent journalism– it’s not only democracies that will suffer, but none of the key challenges for humanity will be solved,” Deloire concluded.
But his words on Japan's drastic fall in the Reporters Without Boarders press freedom ranking
were not convincing to some
non-Japanese journalists. An
American journalist said thatthe reasons given for Japan's
lowered ranking were the kisha club system, nationalists
harassing journalists on social
media, self-censorship and thestate secrets law.
"The kisha club system existed when Japan was ranked
at 11, so why is that a factor inranking Japan at 72 now?" thejournalist asked. "Nationalist groups harassing journalists on social media exists inalmost every country and hasfor years in Japan well before
it was ranked at 11. Again, whyis that a factor now?"
The reporter added that the new information in the RFS report concerns
the “State Secrets Law,” which has yet to be used against any single journalist in Japan, and suggested that the RFS based its ranking only on a
possible way the law could be misused. Yet, Estonia, ranked at 12, has alaw that allows for the arrest of journalists who refuse to reveal sources
and has actually arrested an Italian journalist accused by a government
official as being a propagandist for Russia.

While a number of Japanese journalists protested that Japan was oneof the freest countries in the world when it came to the media, Deloire
insisted that Japan needed to do more.

“I'm unaware of any example of Japan arresting any journalist for suchreasons,” he noted. “Spain, ranked at 29, actually has a gag law (The Citizen Security Protection Law) that allows for and has been used to fineand silence journalists – six so far. I also am not aware of any such law orsimilar action in Japan.”Deloire spent some time defending the openness and transparency of
RSF’s evaluation process, noting that the Index was based on questionnaires filled out by journalists in the various countries and inviting those

Freedom House ranks Japan at 27, World Audit ranks Japan at 30, so
it's curious why Japan's rating sank. After the event had concluded, someattendees asked for Japan’s results to be re-examined.
Fred Varcoe is a Chiba-based freelance
journalist and reluctant historianFCCJ

SEPTEMBER 20175

FEATURE
THE KOREAS

The
view
of theNorthby thepressof theSouth

Facing north

An official portraitof Kim Jong-un

South Korea’s lively newspapers offer a wide variety of opinion on theseheady days of conflict with their northern neighbor.
by DONALD KIRK

S

eoul’s sometimes rambunctious newspapers offer adiversity of views that comes as a refreshing surpriseto those expecting a certain uniformity befitting a
media bottle-fed by bureaucrats and the chaebol, the familyowned business conglomerates, that dominate the economy.
Yes, they’re easy to criticize on any number of grounds. No,
they’re a lot better, freer, more outspoken than the media inmany other countries – as seen in their often critical, disputatious, querulous coverage of South Korea’s epic domestic political issues and never-ending confrontation with theNorth.
The differences are sharply etched in attitudes toward
North Korea and the paradoxical efforts of the fledgling government of President Moon Jae-in to stand firm against theNorth and still bring about dialogue, even reconciliation.
Approaches toward North Korea range from free-wheeling to
restrained, as the media – like the public they serve – wrestle
with the question of how to reach a violence-free resolution ofa confrontation that if anything seems deeper, more dangerous today than when I first visited Seoul more than 45 years
ago as North and South Korean delegates met for Red Cross
talks that were supposed to resolve many of the same issues
that still divide them. For the media, the challenge is made all
the more difficult in that North Korea has developed nuclear
warheads and missiles that no one imagined at the time.
It’s not that publishers, editors, columnists and reporters
do such great jobs, but you do get a sense from a blitz of commentaries, editorials and news reports of the arguments thatare roiling Korean society in this time of transition that may

6

not end happily. Much to the distress of many readers, it’s
impossible to get away from the reality that a giant named“ChoJoongDong” dominates the media landscape. That’s anacronym for the “big three” papers – Chosun Ilbo (circ. 1.5
million), JoongAng Ilbo and Dong-a Ilbo (both about 1 million),
all solidly conservative, nationalist and not sympathetic to
North Korea or the pro-Northers who show up at demos near
the American embassy, American bases and the site far southof Seoul where the Americans have implanted the countermissile battery known as THAAD, for “terminal high altitude
area defense.”
BUT WAIT. CHOOJOONGDONG DO not form a solid wall of
pro-government propaganda. They do report, by and large,
what’s going on, and independent commentators often write
stuff for them that’s not in line with everyone’s conservative thinking. Nor are ChoJoongDong the only source. Youngpeople who are not too absorbed by what they see on theiriphones and intellectuals of all ages turn to Hankyoreh Shinmun (circ. 250,000) for a liberal, leftist, viewpoint. Two otherpapers, historically conservative, have veered leftward inrecent years. Hankook Ilbo, which owns the English-language
Korea Times, and Kyunghyang Shinmun (both with circ. morethan 200,000) offer alternatives to the ChoJoongDong triumvirate though it’s hard to get away from the non-politicalreality that, day in and day out, the Big Three serve up morebasic news and information than their liberal rivals.
The differences between the biggest, most conservative
paper, Chosun Ilbo, and the leading liberal paper, Hankyoreh
Shinmun come out in their editorials and choices of what andhow to report, though both are relatively independent. After
President Moon’s speech on Aug. 15, a date celebrated in both
SEPTEMBER 2017

FCCJ

Koreas as the anniversary of the Japanese surrender in 1945,
Chosun Ilbo acknowledged that “Moon’s anti-war approach isa noble aim” but deemed it “equally important for him to lay
out a game plan if peaceful moves do not work out.” The paper
wanted to know, “Should we learn to live under the threatof a nuclear-armed North Korea or are there other options?”
Implicit in the question was whether one of those “options”
would be the dreaded preemptive strike against the North’s
missile-launching sites – a move that sane people fear would
invite artillery strikes on the South, opening shots of the second Korean War.
Hankyoreh had quite another take on Moon’s “Liberation
Day” appearance. A euphoric feature showed the relaxedpresident as a man of the people, chatting, sipping tea, wearing casual clothes, then two days later establishing rapport
on all levels on the occasion of the first 100 days of his presidency. “The Blue House has witnessed scenes that were unfamiliar in sheer ordinariness," the article began. “Opening thedoors to communication seems to have made the new president’s ‘honeymoon period’ last even longer,” it concluded. His“commitment to a peaceful solution,” the paper editorialized,
was even “more credible since it comes right when North
Korea and the U.S. appear to be each taking a step back.”
Nonetheless, the paper found it “regrettable” that he “did not
proactively seek a breakthrough . . .”ALL THESE PAPERS HAVE distinctive histories, generally under
the control of a single family or group. Hankyoreh, befitting
its role as a liberal voice, is a notable exception. Founded in1988 in the early stages of Korea’stransition from dictatorship todemocracy, the paper is actually owned by thousands of small
stakeholders – a true cooperative
venture. An opposition voice during periods of conservative rule,
the paper has been pro-government under “democratic” presidents, including President
Moon, elected in May after the constitutional court upheld
the impeachment of the arch-conservative Park Geun-hye,ousted and jailed with some of her close friends and aides
on charges of corruption and influence-peddling, among
other offenses. Kyunghyang Shinmun, founded by the Catholic Church in 1946 and controlled for a time by the Hanhwa
empire, survives as an employee-owned paper “on guard
against abuses of human rights and violations of personal
freedom” – the rationale for its campaign against Park andsupport for Moon. Both Hankyoreh and Kyunghyang, while
not uncritical of North Korea, pursue a relatively soft line inwhich talks with the North are a priority.
Not quite so far right as Chosun Ilbo, JoongAng Ilbo is stillfull of criticism of Moon’s pleas for dialogue. “We can hardly
rid ourselves of skepticism about his approach to the North
Korean problem if his considering the idea of sending a special
envoy to North Korea was really appropriate,” the paper editorialized, “as it could give Pyongyang exactly the wrong message.” Still, JoongAng, founded by the Samsung empire, thengranted independence, as it were, as a separate company withstrong Samsung ties, seemed willing, reluctantly, to give Moona chance. “No leader can satisfy all the people all the time,”
said the editorial, though “being different does not mean
being right” and “the only way to a successful presidency is theabandoning of self-righteousness and listening to opponents.”
Dong-a Ilbo, decades ago a liberal voice, now seems as toughas Chosun Ilbo in its outlook toward the North. “Going beyond
repeating ‘anti-war’ rhetoric,” said one Dong-a editorial, “theSouth Korean government should discuss the action plans
proposed by the U.S. together based on strong cooperation.”
The paper gives unconditional support to the U.S. alliance.
“The symbolic phrase of the ROK-U.S. alliance could not be
more apt now,” it said. “We should ‘go together.’” Anothereditorial, headlined, “S. Korea should achieve ‘robust peace’rather than ‘insecure peace,’” was still more emphatic. “Washington’s new North Korea policy to transform into ‘maximum
intervention’ through ‘maximum pressure’ is effectively
showing signs to generate effect.”
OTHER PAPERS ARE FAR less strident. The Korea Times, owned
by Hankook Ilbo, praised Steve Bannon, just before he was
dropped as Trump’s all-purpose strategist, for having made“the most reasonable assessment among U.S. officials about
North Korea’s nuclear and missile threat” – namely “that war
is not a viable option and that pulling out U.S. troops througha deal with China is a remote possibility to denuclearize
the North.” The paper, for which I write a column, found it“refreshing to hear a sobering voice from the U.S. administration, which has so far failed to produce a disciplined message
or coordinated policy to deal with the North Korean threat.”
Kyunghyang Shinmun, from its left-leaning stance, berated
Moon’s performance at in his 100th-day press conference forhaving “publicly designated North Korea loading a nuclear
warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) as‘the red line’” when “even the U.S., which has been mentioning military responses, has not clearly defined it.” His
remarks, said the paper, “clash with his repeated vows of‘no war.’” Hankyoreh agreed, predicting mention of a red line would“cause controversy, as it is the firsttime the South Korean government
has officially made an announcement regarding behavior that ‘will
not be tolerated.’”Headlines and topics in Chosun
Ilbo give quite a different picture. “S. Korea Must Restore
the Balance of Power on the Peninsula,” was the title of one
commentary. “When Will S. Koreans Wake up to the N. Korean Nuclear Threat,” asked another. “Moon’s Overtures to N.
Korea Are Troubling Alliance with U.S.”
No doubt such observations appeal to the innate conservatism of a society driven by North Korean actions and threats
for generations to view the North with suspicion if not hostility. The voices of protest, though, reveal a healthy lack of
unanimity among a reading public in which a media minority command a significant following. Korean papers, for all
their foibles, prejudices, biases and sometimes inaccuracies,
still manage to reflect a broad spectrum of news and views in
keeping with the spirit of democratic reform that took root inmassive protests 30 years ago and has endured through still
more upheaval this year.
North Korean bombast and rhetoric, missile and nuclear
tests all contribute to the free expression of opinions that isvital to the success of an open, democratic, capitalist country
whose record of success stands in stark contrast to the poverty and suffering of all but a privileged few in the North. If
the two Koreas ever reunite, one crucial reason undoubtedly
will be the record of the South Korean media in telling readers what they need to know.

The voices of protest reveal
a healthy lack of unanimity
among a reading public

FCCJ

SEPTEMBER 2017

Donald Kirk, journalist and author, has been covering the rise of
democracy in South Korea and the standoff with North Korea since
first arriving in Seoul as a correspondent for the Chicago Tribune morethan 45 years ago.
7

FEATURE

Why is no one talking to me?
North Korea’s Kim

AP PHOTOPOLITICS

by ANTHONY ROWLEY

W

atching the flailing (and failing) attempts by U.S.
President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe to stamp their authority on the North Korean "crisis," veteran observers (including myself) of the East Asia
scene have experienced a strong sense of déjà vu lately.

This takes me back to the year 2000 when I attended theGroup of Eight (G8) summit in Nago, Okinawa, to which Russian
President Vladimir Putin had been invited for the first time. As it
happened, the Russian leader arrived in Japan fresh from a visit
to Pyongyang.

We have “been here before” and each time the world goes
there, it gets more dangerous. Washington and its allies (notably
Tokyo, but also Seoul) have been railing for months and years at
Pyongyang over its missile launches while continually vilifying
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un – but without ever asking him
in person what he thinks he's up to.

At a press conference given by Putin, a Japanese journalist
asked the Russian leader in rather scandalized tones why hehad been to North Korea, "in the enemy camp" as it were. North
Korea's alleged abductions of many Japanese citizens in past
decades may have coloured the journalist's views.

Kim has become almost universally hated by people who never stopped to consider that he might have a case – or at least
without trying seriously to find out what that case was so thatthey could judge for themselves. Which, of course, leads on to
the conclusion that there are “none so deaf as those that do notwish to hear.”
There is, to my knowledge at least, no “hot line” between
Washington and Pyongyang or between Tokyo and the North
Korean capital. Instead, Messrs. Trump and Abe resort instead
to “megaphone” diplomacy, hurling mutual abuse instead ofengaging in dialogue. Yet Moscow (along, presumably, with Beijing) does appear to have a hot line with Pyongyang.

8

The calm and collected answer from an unabashed Putin
was, I felt at the time and feel even more so now, both wise andinstructive and one which more impetuous and less statesmanlike leaders on both sides of the Pacific Ocean would be wise toheed today.
It seemed to me, said Putin (and I paraphrase) that "the Americans were talking to us (Russians) and to the Japanese, Chineseand South Koreans about North Korea. The Japanese were talking to us about North Korea and the Chinese were talking to theSouth Koreans about North Korea."
But no one, added the Russian leader, was actually talking to
the North Koreans. So, he added with a frankness guaranteed

SEPTEMBER 2017

FCCJ

to disarm his critics, "I picked up the phone and called (North
Korea's then ‘Dear Leader’) Kim Jong-il and asked, 'Can I comeand talk to you?'"heard before and have usually been premised on a set of preconditions – North Korean unilateral disarmament – designed to beunacceptable to Pyongyang.

The late Kim Jong-il apparently replied to the effect, "Certainly. Why don't you come next week?" That was precisely what Mr
Putin did, and after his visit to the so-called "Hermit Kingdom,"
the supposedly reclusive North Korean leader began to loosen
up somewhat.

Yet, more than 60 years later, the world has moved on. China
is a major power capable of standing up to the U.S. and one withno desire to see U.S. troops stationed in South Korea drive rightup to its eastern border as they did in the 1950s under General
Douglas MacArthur.

So much so that several countries which until then had dutifully toed the shortsighted U.S. line of ostracising North Korea(or the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, DPRK, as it calls
itself) decided to grant it diplomatic recognition. Japan, ofcourse, was not one of them.

China will naturally do all it can to preserve North Korea's
territorial integrity and its viability as a state until such time
U.S. troops are withdrawn from the Korean Peninsula (andmaybe from Japan too) as successive North Korean leaders havedemanded.

Even then-U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright followedin Putin's footsteps and visited Pyongyang in 2000 to meet Kim
Jong-il in order to lay the groundwork for a visit by U.S. President Bill Clinton. Sadly, this never happened while Clinton wasin office.

Beijing will condemn North Korea's actions from time totime and indulge half-heartedly in economic sanctions against
Pyongyang, but China knows, and North Korea knows, that thenuclear threat is the only way to guarantee the status quo pending a more radical solution.

Today, we have an almost identical situation with major powers talking "about" rather than "to" the latest head of North
Korea, Kim Jong-un. Donald Trump indulges (from a distance) inhate speech promising Kim "fire and fury" and Kim, unsurprisingly, responds in like terms.

That solution is for the U.S. to sign a formal peace treaty with"the North," as the state is dismissively referred to in the U.S.
and Japan. Only then – and critically when the U.S. military presence in South Korea has been reduced – can meaningful talks on
Korean reunification begin.

Of course, all this is for public consumption, Trump practising the "art of the deal" in the only way he knows (diplomacy not
being his strong suit) by threatening to crush North Korea unlessit agrees to U.S. surrender terms and Kim (who even Trump call a"smart cookie") calling his bluff.

Unfortunately, no one (outside of China and Russia) seems tobe the slightest bit interested in holding talks with North Korea,
absent a clearly unacceptable (to Beijing as well as Pyongyang)agreement by North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons, its
only guarantee of safety.

Why doesn't Trump take a leaf out of Putin's book, pick up thephone and call Kim? He could even tweet his intention to do so.
That would be a diplomatic masterstroke that could assure even
Trump the legacy of being a statesman. And it could soften Kim's
defensive-aggressive posture.

So, we are condemned to continue with the absurd charade
where the U.S. and its allies seek to portray Kim Jong-un as a
mad dictator out to wreak havoc upon East Asia, a kind of "enfant
terrible" or "rebel without a cause." The charade is a dangerous
game when powers are armed to the teeth.

For that matter, why doesn't Japan's prime minister, Shinzo
Abe, take the lead andcall Kim, again giving him the reputationof being a statesman?
What can they be afraidof – that the "deranged
dictator" will lob a miniature nuclear warheadat them? Or are theyafraid of facing reality?

Maybe one way out would be for Chinese President Xi Jinping, Putin and Kim
to each present "theirside of the story" to theworld. If Western leaders, especially the one
currently
occupying
the White House, areunwilling to talk "to" Mr
Kim, he could find a way
to talk "over" them.

This reality is that the U.N. Supreme Commander had to accept
less than victory in 1953 against North Korea which had launched
war on U.S.-occupied South Korea in 1950. Instead, the allies hadto accept an armistice with the Korean People's Army and with
the Chinese People's Volunteers.

In the meantime, the North Korean “crisis” serves to help
deflect attention from the many problems that Mr. Trump and
Mr. Abe face at home with their domestic policies and scandals.
Nothing unites a nation better and faster than a perceived external threat. Veteran observers can only look on with the deepest
cynicism – and alarm.

“Donald Trump indulges (from a
distance) in hate speech promising Kim"fire and fury" and Kim, unsurprisingly,
responds in like terms.”

With no formal peace agreement, merely a cessation of hostilities, the two sides are technically still at war. The U.S. has no wish
to admit "defeat" now by signing a peace treaty with Pyongyang– and Pyongyang certainly has no desire to concede to U.S. terms
for a peace treaty.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said that Washington
might be willing to talk to Pyongyang. But such offers have been

FCCJ

SEPTEMBER 2017

Anthony Rowley is a former Business Editor and International Finance
Editor of the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review and has
spent some 40 years writing on Asian affairs from Singapore, Hong
Kong and Tokyo. He currently writes for the Singapore Buiness Timesamong other publications.

9

SERIESPROFILE

Walter Sim
by DAVID McNEILLSIM SAYS THE SINGAPOREAN media
are shrugging off once draconian
reporting restrictions. “Politicians
have told us off the record that theytreat us as the enemy.” Still, he adds,“there is no law covering protectionof sources, so it is quite difficult to
go into stories involving secret societies, drug-smuggling rings or prostitution.”
That baptism of fire on the crimedesk was the making of his career. His
reporting in Little India caught theeye of his bosses and he was asked tocover politics. Among his highlights
was reporting on the 2015 death of
Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s founding
prime minister, and three meetings
with former President S. R. Nathan.
As Asia’s earliest modernizednation, Japan has long been an inspiration to the region and Sim was firstdrawn here on a solo trip in 2012. “Ifell in love with it,” he says. He began
studying Japanese as a New Year resolution, which, he admits, eventuallybecame “tedious.”“What kept me going was the sunken costs,” he says. His fluent Mandarin
10

meant, in any case, that he already had
a head start on Japan’s kanji-based
writing system. So, when the Tokyo
desk opened up last year, he jumped.

HIS READERS, HE SAYS, love culture,
trend and crime stories from his
new beat – and the imperial family.
“The emperor is an important figure and there is a lot ofinterest in him as a person and his desire to abdicate.” Healso admits to an occasional predilection for “weird Japan”
stories.
“Whether the Japanese like it or not, they have to admit thereis this aspect of their culture that is beguiling – it’s a treasure
trove of stories for all of us.” As an example, he cites the fascination with sex toys. “There are so many stories about nothaving an actual relationship in favor of virtual partners.”
But Singapore doesn’t have the same appetite for dwellingon World War II as China and South Korea, or even some of theEuropean press, he says. “Singapore is taking a much more
forward-looking perspective on the war. Even though Japan was
the aggressor, South East Asia has been pretty open to inviting Japanese investment right from the 1950s, and that’s the
stance adopted by Singaporean politicians as well. By extension, The Straits Times doesn’t harp on about history either.”
Nevertheless, when Japan’s interminable spats over the
past affect regional politics, his newspaper perks up, henotes. “When Abe went to Pearl Harbor [last year] that waspage one.” The 2015 deal between Japan and South Korea thatwas hailed (perhaps prematurely) as a final and irrevocablesettlement of the comfort womenissue was also a major story in Singapore.
The Singapore media is also lesslikely to pull out what he calls the“warlike Japanese” trope when covering Japan’s more muscular strategy inthe region. Again, he says, the focus
for his paper is the implications for
Sino-Japan relations, the rest of Asiaand the U.S.-Japan Alliance.
Sim has two years left to go inJapan; frustratingly, his contract runsout before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
“I’d like to stay but it really depends
on whether my bosses are happy withme here.” Still, he has plenty of time
to clear up some of the mysteries of
his new beat. He still finds it odd, forexample, that Japanese companies
ask to see copy before going to print.
“I’m struggling to wrap my headaround that.”
Japan’s diminished image of itself
is also a puzzle, he says. “I find it fascinating – this perception Japan hasthat it is a small country. Perhaps
David McNeill writes for the Economist and otherit’s because I come from Singapore,publications. He has been based in Tokyo since 2000.
which is really small.”SEPTEMBER 2017

FCCJ

ANDREW POTHECARYL

The Singapore media isless likely to pull out the“warlike Japanese” trope
when covering Japan

ike many good reporters, Walter Sim has a knack for being
in the right place at the righttime. In 2013, about a year after joining The Straits Times, Singapore’s
biggest selling daily newspaper, hefound himself covering the citystate’s first riot in four decades.
It began after a migrant worker from India was crushed
under the wheels of a bus in Little India, a district heavily
populated with immigrants. About 300 angry foreign laborers fought police, torching emergency vehicles, until the riot
was quelled. Mass arrests and deportations followed.
Sim scooped his rivals by tracking down the identity of thebus victim. Sakthivel Kumarvelu was an Indian construction
worker and, like many of Singapore’s transient foreigners,
his family’s only breadwinner. The repercussions following
the events continue: The ethnic area is now more heavily controlled, for one.
The Little India Riot was at odds with Singapore’s image as
staid and scandal-free, which in any case is a bit of a myth,
it seems. “You’d be surprised,” laughs Sim. There were a lotof crimes.” During his year-and-a-half on the crime desk, hecovered a string of lurid corruption cases.
One involved a law professor on the hook in a sex-forgrades scandal; another a rare double murder, committed bya debt-ridden former policeman. Because of the element ofsex involved in many of the stories, says Sim, “readership was
naturally high and my profile was boosted a little bit.”FCCJ

SEPTEMBER 201711

FEATURE
JOURNALISM

Takashi Tachibana

A giant among Japanese journalists

Takashi Tachibana became famous morefamous for speaking truth to power.
by BRADLEY K. MARTIN
than four decades ago thanks to a
Leading a team of 20 journalists, relyhugely publicized investigative reporting not at all on leaks, he meticulously
ing project. Then, like the Washington Post’s
waded through an ocean of publicly available information to
Bob Woodward after Watergate, the frizzy-haired reporter chronicle Tanaka’s dealings.
refused to rest on his laurels. He has continued for decades to
He waited until a couple of days before the monthly magazine's
produce leading-edge journalism, scholarship and criticism.
deadline to start confronting officials with his findings. “A hastAnd now, late in the eighth decade of his life, the FCCJ is ier approach,” wrote T. Tokuoka of Mainichi Daily News, “might
honoring Tachibana with its Lifetime Achievement Award for have touched off a counteroffensive from the Prime Minister's
upholding and promoting freedom of the press. The presenta- quarters, which could possibly have wrecked the whole venture.”tion is scheduled for Sept. 11.
When the Bungei-Shunju editor was looking for someone to
Tachibana’s leadership of a Bungei-Shunju project involving lead the reporting project, “no establishment journalist would
relentless investigative digging in open sources is often credited touch it,” Newsweek reported. “They had all been pressured
as having played a major role in bringing down Kakuei Tanaka, away or they had too much to lose.”the more than typically corrupt prime minister who had beenTachibana hadn't been ground down to fit a Japanese daily
postwar Japan’s most powerful leader.
newspaper reporter's routine of covering briefings, followThe mainstream Japanese-language daily media initially gave ing kisha club rules and showing up at politicians’ houses lateTachibana’s reporting a lukewarm reception. The FCCJ inter- at night to receive the daily dose of wisdom. Another similarly
vened, arranging for Tanaka to speak at a luncheon – which intrepid reporter, the late Takaya Kodama, wrote in the magabecame the most famous (notorious, in some people’s view) zine's same issue about Tanaka's female “shadow,” Aki Sato.
Tachibana and Kodama eventually would be lionized as Japan'spress conference we’ve ever hosted.
Woodward and Bernstein.
Thanks to the fame that Tachibana thus acquired, he has
The magazine's 61-page exposé, TIME reported, was “a devasenjoyed remarkable freedom in what he has been able to reporton for the rest of his career. He’s made astonishing use of that tating chronicle of Tanaka's financial dealings through dummy
freedom and, still working at 77, continues to inspire youngsters corporations, secret bank accounts, incomplete tax statements
who wonder how they can get the real story in a country where and the use of vast amounts of money to buy support within theruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Tanaka clung to office
the kisha clubs rule.
just long enough to welcome President[Gerald] Ford to Tokyo.”“Over the years, Mr. Tachibana has conducted thorough research and reporting to
get to the core of many important subjects,”
TIME added that “Bungei-Shunju's featsays Kenichi Harada, 36, Seoul corresponwould have been a coup in any country.
dent for Jiji Press. “He’s a role model for a
But in Japan, where the press seldom menjournalist like myself. He’s written a number
tions the private peccadillos of governmentof books about journalistic methods, fromleaders, it was an unprecedented display ofwhich I learned a lot. His body of work will
hara (guts). The nation's last major politicalserve as textbooks for many young upcomscandal, the 1966 ‘black mist’ influenceing journalists.”
peddling affair, went unreported in the press until the mattercame before the Diet. This time, Bungei-Shunju's disclosures
Born May 28, 1940, in Nagasaki, Tachibana graduated in were ignored for nearly a fortnight.”
French literature from Tokyo University. His first job (1964) waswith Shukan Bunshun. After a couple of years, he quit the weekly.
What happened to turn the tide? “It was only when foreign
In 1967, he returned to Todai to study philosophy.
reporters grilled Tanaka about the article that big Japanese dailies began to print disapproving editorials,” TIME reported.
Finding it was hard to make ends meet as a young scholar,
he freelanced, writing articles for various magazines. In 1971,
Government outrage
he opened a tiny bar/snakku called Gargantua in Shinjuku“Why such docility?” TIME asked. “For one thing, Japanese
2-chome’s Golden-gai. He did the cooking, handling a large journalists have a tradition of pleasant bonhomie with their
number of menu items. He sold Gargantua in 1972 and left for news sources that makes hard digging difficult. Then there are
Europe and the Middle East to wander around.
the reporters' clubs … Beyond that, many major news organizations are in debt to banks that have close ties to the Liberal
The Tanaka ‘sting’
Democratic Party … Tokyo dailies have also built their offices on
Tachibana was a 34-year-old freelancer when he became government land relinquished to them through important poli-“Tachibana hadn't
been ground down
to fit a Japanesedaily newspaper
reporter's routine”

12

SEPTEMBER 2017

FCCJ

But the main effect on Tachibana’s career came from the factthat after the FCCJ presser the mainstream Japanese media
began asking tough questions – and within days the prime minister had to resign.
Foreign influence
While Tanaka never came back to the FCCJ, Tachibana became
friends with a number of foreign correspondents (including theauthor of this article) and went on to speak several times in the
club over the following decades.

ticians.”
At that October 21, 1974, FCCJ press conference, sarcasticsounding introductory remarks by the moderator, a HungarianCommunist correspondent, as well as tough questioning fromthe floor aroused government outrage. (See the account in theofficial club history, Foreign Correspondents in Japan, startingon page 207.) Tanaka grew so disturbed by persistent questions –which from the third question, by the late Sam Jameson, focusedon the Bungei reporting – that he walked out before the scheduled end of the conference. http://www.fccj.or.jp/component/k2/
item/490-mythbusting-the-tanaka-confrontation.html
Events that day caused something of a schism among theRegular membership. “The FCCJ was guilty of a fairly blatantintervention in Japan’s political debate, and it was not necessarily in favor of the good guys,” argues Gregory Clark, current Club
second vice president, who at the time was bureau chief of The
Australian.
Tanaka had made political enemies with his opening to China
two years before and Clark thinks the “good guys” were those
who backed the prime minister in that, while establishment
forces such as the Bungei publishing house attacked him. Twenty-two members, led by the late AFP bureau chief Pierre Brisard
and including Clark, apologized to the government.
Journalists besides Clark who got involved and who remain inTokyo include FCCJ former president and current life member
Gebhard Hielscher of Munich’s Süddeutsche Zeitung, who sat at
the head table as second vice president, and Hideko Takayama,then of the Baltimore Sun, who had read the Bungei-Shunju article to help her bureau chief, Matt Seiden, prepare a question for
Tanaka.
In Hielscher’s view, “Only the introduction by Bela Elias was
problematic, but that was in part also due to his somewhat limited command of the English language.” Otherwise, Hielschersays, correspondents spoke to the prime minister “in courteous
language.”
Although reporter Tachibana was not present for the press
conference, he drew a share of criticism. Clark, for example, says
Tachibana’s work on Tanaka was not all that original. Long preceding Tachibana’s package, Clark says, was “a savage article” inthe May 1972 edition of Bungei-Shunju on Tanaka’s “money politics,” written by right-winger Shintaro Ishihara – later to become
Tokyo’s governor.
FCCJSEPTEMBER 2017

Right after one of his FCCJ talks, in 1976 when he was preparing a major piece on the Lockheed scandal, Newsweek quoted
him as saying that “the establishment press has always playedjournalistic kendo at a meter's length from their opponent's
sword and has never closed in. I think some of the individual
reporters on the major papers will notice what we're doing, but I
think the impact on management will be negligible.”He always acknowledged an inspirational debt to investigative journalists abroad. For example, he wrote a book publishedin 1978 entitled Journalism wo kangaeru tabi, (Travels to Think
About Journalism) in which he interviewed David Halberstam
and other well-known journalists.
But although he continued to do political journalism, he alsobranched out to become a polymath. While people close to him
have lost count of how many books he’s published all say the
number is more than a hundred. “His strength is really his diversified interest in different subjects,” says Takayama, who moved
on from the Baltimore Sun to report for Newsweek and thenBloomberg News. “His interest went into so many directions it’s
been hard to keep up.”Those directions, she says, “have ranged from Kakuei Tanaka
to the sexual revolution in the U.S., from space to brain death,from the Japanese Communist Party to near-death experiences,from agricultural cooperatives to music, from science to theEmperor and Todai, from his own illness to the Pacific War.”
Tachibana, she recalls, “once produced record albums recorded at his own place under the label ‘Chez Tachibana.’ One ofhis major works was Uchu kara no kikan (Return from Space),in which he interviewed American astronauts about how theirspace trips changed their lives, and I think it is one of his best.”
One of his most recent works, published in 2016, is Toru Takemitsu – Ongaku sozo e no tabi (Journey Toward Musical Creation), over 700 pages of text based on interviews with the lateJapanese composer. Another 2016 Tachibana book title can betranslated as Tachibana talks about War.
This year some notable Tachibana interviews have appeared in
Bungei-Shunju. One is an interview with Tokyo Governor Yuriko
Koike, titled “Declaration of War Against the LDP.” Another, inwhich he interviews a specialist, is called “Diabetes and Cancer.”
Tachibana suffers from both.
Bradley Martin joined the club in 1977 and has worked for theBaltimore Sun, the Asian Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Asian
Financial Intelligence, Asia Times and Bloomberg News. His
forthcoming novel, Nuclear Blues, is set in North Korea. Alex Martinof The Japan Times also contributed reporting for this article.

13

FEATURETTE

The Truth about 'Tankman'
by GREGORY CLARK
shortage of reports telling us that the revenge attacks by soldiers outside
the Square against the crowds and students who had attacked them soviciously were a Tiananmen Square massacre. Nor is there any mention of
the fact the regime had originally tried to send in unarmed soldiers who
were mocked and easily blocked by the crowds.
In the background of the Tankman photo is a burned-out bus. Who was
supposed to have done that? This and other photos of burned buses are
made to appear that they were burned in revenge for the soldiers’ attacks.
In fact, they came before, not after, and remain as a major reason for
Beijing’s anger over the protests, protests it originally tolerated for almosta month and with which some regime members had tried to negotiate.
What’s wrong with this photo? (A print of the famous 'Tankman' photo graces thewalls of the FCCJ conference room.)
Ask any news addict and he/she will tell you it shows a brave Chinese student(Tankman he has come to be called) trying to stop a column of Chinese army tanks
en route to suppress protesting Chinese students on the night of the Tiananmen
Square massacre on June 3/4, 1989.
Time magazine has declared it “an iconic picture of defiance in the face of aggression.”
The reality is just about the complete opposite.
According to the man who took the photo, AP photographer Jeff Widener, thephoto dates from June 5 the day after the Tiananmen Square incident. The tanks
were headed away from, and not towards, the Square. They were blocked not by
a student but by a man with a shopping bag crossing the street who had chosen toplay chicken with the departing tanks. The lead tank had gone out its way to avoid
causing him injury.
I would also add that there was no massacre in Tiananmen Square on the night ofJune ¾. There was fighting and killing but it was almost entirely outside the Square;
Widener notes how that evening he saw a soldier being dragged from his troop
carrier by angry crowds and killed.
The New York Times has run the Tankman photo several times, most recently in anarticle praising publication of some other photos claiming a “new look at Tiananmen
protests” (NYT February 25). The paper prides itself on its accuracy, to the pointof regularly running a column listing even minor article corrections. Yet it refuses
pointblank even to acknowledge receipt of a note from myself pointing out the
inaccuracies in its description a photo which is used to fuel anti-Beijing protests
around the globe, Hong Kong especially. How can a paper that prides itself as aleader in accurate reporting be so obstinate?
Admission: I like the New York Times. Few other newspapers would dare to squanderso many column inches on domestic issues many would see as marginal. But as
if to balance a liberal bias in domestic affairs it seems to want to go overboard incriticising foreign regimes. Its mistaken reporting on Iraq’s WMD was notorious, tothe point where this time it ended up having to apologize. But it shows no desire toapologize for the enormous publicity it gave to the original myth of a Tiananmen
Square massacre – the report of soldiers with machine guns mowing down students
in the hundreds.
And talking of photos, when do we get to see photos of the event that triggered it
all: the petrol bomb attacks on troops in buses entering Beijing to clear the Square
and remove the bitterly anti-Beijing crowds surrounding it. The photos exist. I know
Reuters has some – blackened corpses of incinerated soldiers strung up under
overpasses, badly burned soldiers seeking refuge in stairways. But we have no
14

True, the crowds had every reason to be anti-Beijing, having suffered 30
years of crazy government policies. But that is no excuse for the Western
media negligence, recorded in excruciating detail by former Washington
Post bureau chief in Beijing at the time, Jay Mathews, in a well researched1988 Columbia Journalism Review article titled: “Reporting The Myth of
Tiananmen, and the Price of a Passive Press.”
Mathews tracks down what he calls “the dramatic accounts that buttressed
the myth of a student massacre.” He notes a widely disseminated pieceby an alleged Chinese university student writing in the Hong Kongpress immediately after the incident, describing machine guns mowing
down students in front of the Square monument (somehow numerous
Westerners, including a Spanish TVE film team, failed to notice this).
Mathews adds: “The New York Times gave this version prominent display
on June 12, just a week after the event, but no evidence was ever found to
confirm the account or verify the existence of the alleged witness.” Andfor good reason: The mystery report was very likely the work of the U.S.
and U.K. agencies based in Hong Kong and only too willing to plant antiBeijing material in cooperative media.
Mathews notes that the New York Times reporter, Nicholas Kristof, who
had been in Beijing at the time, challenged the report the next day but hisarticle was buried on an inside page and so “the myth lived on.” Ironically,
this was the same Kristof whose colorful reporting of military actions
during the riot had earned him a notable press award and had done muchto solidify the “massacre” story. If anything, it was his willingness after the
event to challenge the phony Hongkong report in his own newspaper thatdeserved the award.
Another key source for the original massacre myth, Mathews says, wasthe student leader Wu’er Kaixi who claimed to have seen 200 students
cut down by gunfire in the Square. But, he notes, “It was later proven thathe left the square several hours before the events he described.” Wu’er
visited the FCCJ on July 21 using his alleged Tiananmen experience in apress conference promoting Press Freedom.
Before criticising others, Western media – the NYT especially – shouldlook at their own willingness to run fake news and fake photos while
ignoring real news and real photos.

Gregory Clark is a Chinese speaking former Australian
diplomat, university staffer and longtime member of the
FCCJ. As a correspondent based in Tokyo in 1971 he organised
an Australian team to join in the pingpong diplomacy overCanberra’s opposition. He also speaks Russian and Japanese andgrows kiwi fruit in the Boso peninsula.
SEPTEMBER 2017

FCCJ

CLUB NEWSFCCJ EXHIBITION

Funky Days

Portraits of Everyday Life
Photographs by Yoshi Itokawa
I AIM TO PHOTOGRAPH the joy of life! If i
could listen to the heartbeat of the person
standing in front of the camera, synchronizing
my breathing with theirs, and discover new
possibilities that provide mutual stimulation,
wouldn’t that be great?!

Yoshi Otokawa has been
photographing the city of Osakaand its people since 1980. He
was active in new music and thetheatre during the latter-halfof the 1960s and he became an
independent filmmaker from1980, producing documentaries
such as Tokyo Dancing! Africa andLemon Soap. Otakawa's work has
appeared in many magazines, hasbeen published in several photobooks and he has had exhibition,
mainly in live music clubs formany years.

16

SEPTEMBER 2017

FCCJ

CLUB NEWSJOIN THE FILM COMMITTEE . . .
. . . on Tuesday, Sept. 19 at 6:45 pm (note early start time)for Ernesto, the fact-based story of the Japanese-Bolivian
physician who fought with Ernesto “Che” Guevara – and died,as Guevara did, in a CIA-assisted ambush in Bolivia – 50 years
ago this October. A Japan-Cuba coproduction helmed by Junji
Sakamoto (Face, KT, The Projects), the film is at once Cold
War history, compelling relationship drama and cautionary
tale. Ernesto stars Joe Odagiri as Freddy Maemura Hurtado,
a second-generation Japanese-Bolivian who becomesradicalized while in Cuba pursuing medical studies. In acareer-best performance, Odagiri disappears completely into
the role, speaking Spanish throughout and bringing a slowburn fire to his physician-turned-soldier. Ernesto opens witha historic 1959 scene, shot in Hiroshima. Just months after
the Cuban Revolution resulted in the ousting of U.S.-backed
dictator Fulgencio Batista, Guevara visits Japan in his role as
diplomat for the communist government. Without notifying
his hosts at the Foreign Ministry, he goes to the Hiroshima
Peace Memorial Park to pay his respects. Then he turns to a
Japanese journalist (Nagayama) who had followed him there.
“Why aren’t you angry at the Americans?” he demands. “Theydid horrific things to you.” It is a question that hangs heavily
over the entire film. Junji Sakamoto and Joe Odagiri will beon hand for the Q&A session. (Japan, 2017; 149 minutes;
Japanese with English subtitles) 								– Karen Severns

SENIOR CHAMPSKAZUO ABIKO AND HIS doubles partner Toshio Chomabayashi
won the senior men's doubles championship for age 70 and over at
the annual Karuizawa International Tennis Tournament in its 101st
year. The finals of the week-long tournament were played on Sunday,
Aug. 6. Kaz, former AP newsman and general manager for Northeast
Asia, served as FCCJ president in 2001-02. The tournament was heldat the historic Karuizawa Association Tennis Court, where JapaneseEmperor Akihito and Empress Michiko met over the nets about 60
years ago. The love story of the then Crown Prince and Michiko
Shoda, a commoner, was dubbed the “tennis court romance.”
Kazuo Abiko (left) and Toshio Chomabayashi

YOUR ADIN OUR PAGES
Advertize in
Number 1 Shimbun
Contact
no.1shimbun@fccj.or.jp

FCCJ

SEPTEMBER 201717

CLUB NEWS

New
Members

REGULAR MEMBERSJENNIFER BERNSTEIN, Japan Times
JESSE JOHNSON is the News Desk Manager at the Japan Times.
Johnson studied journalism at university and worked for several
local daily and weekly papers in Nevada before working five years inJapan as a teacher, translator and theme-park guide in Fukushima
Prefecture. He joined the Japan Times in 2007 as copy editor.
PROFESSIONAL/JOURNALISTASSOCIATE MEMBER
Kaoru Kozuka, The Nikkan Gendai
ASSOCIATE MEMBERS
Daniel Isaacsen, Monolith Communications
Inc.
Kiyoshi Akasu, Soka Gakkai
Takatomo Ajima, CDI Medical, Inc.
Jun Hashimoto, Denkishizai Co., Ltd.
Yutaka Iimura, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Yoshiaki Inaka, Asahi Printech Co., Ltd.
Hisao Ikeuchi, Saimul International, Inc.
Kyoichiro Kamibayashi, KCJ Group Inc.
Atsuhiko Katoh, Meditranse, Inc.
Shinichi Kimura, Takahashi Law Office
Takao Kemmochi, The Bank Of TokyoMitsubishi UFJ
Katsunori Makino, Makino Corporation
Osamu Mizukami, Health Promotion Clinic
Junichi Matsushita, MBK Co., Ltd.Sachiko
Murakawa, ECC Co., Ltd.

Toshihiro Mochizuki, Shunkosha
Incorporated
Yoshisaburo Mogi, Mitsubishi Foundation
Masamori Niimi, Kictec Inc.
Koji Nose, KCJ Group Inc.
Sayaka Nakazawa, Delegation du Quebeca Tokyo
Keita Oyama, Otsuka Corporation
Shinichi Ototake, No affiliation
Shinya Ozawa, Sogo Development Co., Ltd.
Takashi Suzuki, DSV Air & Sea Co., Ltd.
Osamu Wada, No affiliation
Shinji Yamasaki, Veritas Ltd.
REINSTATEMENT (ASSOCIATE)
Shimon Tokuyama, Mitsubishi Corporation
Machinery, Inc.
Yoshinori Uchikawa, No affiliation

New in the
Library

Nagasaki: The British Experience, 1854-1945
Brian Burke-Gaffney
Global Oriental
Under the Loving Care of
the Fatherly Leader: North
Korea and the Kim Dynasty(Paperback)Bradley K. Martin
Thomas Dunne Books
Gift from Bradley K. Martin
15 Years in Afghanistan: The
U.S. Military in Afghanistan
As Seen Through the Eyes ofStars and Stripes Journalists
Terry Leonard (ed.)
Pediment Publishing
Gift from Stars and Stripes
Daitoryo o ayatsuru bankatachi: Himerareta mitsugetsu
no hyakunen (1) (2)Nomi Prins; Kiyomi Fujii (trans.)
Hayakawa Shobo
Gift from Nomi Prins
Shirosagi de shiru roshia: Gorubachofu
kara puchin madeKazuo Kobayashi
Kamakura Shunjusha
Gift from Kazuo Kobayashi

PITCH USYOUR STORY
Please send your story ideas tono.1shimbun@fccj.or.jp, and be sure
to note whether you have (or haveaccess to) visuals.
Our rates are ¥20 per publishedword, ¥20,000 for a front coverphoto. Photo essays: ¥15,000 for fullpage photos and ¥5,000 for smaller
shots. All payments will be made incredit to your member account.

18

Obei no shinryaku o nihon dake ga gekiha shita:
Hannichi wa kiseki no kuni nihon eno shitto de aru
Henry Scott Stokes; Hiroyuki Fujita (trans.)
Goku Shuppan
Gift from Hiroyuki Fujita
Infomudo konsento:
Kanja no sentaku
Ruth R. Faden; Tom L.
Beauchamp; Tadaaki Sakai(trans.); Yoichi Hata (trans.)Misuzu Shobo
Gift from Tadaaki Sakai
Sekai o honro shitsuzukeru
chugoku no nerai wa nanika:
2014-2015 nen
Rryoichi Hamamoto
Mineruva Shobo
Gift from Ryoichi Hamamoto

SEPTEMBER 2017

FCCJ

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