The Magazine of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan

November 2020 · Volume 52 · No. 11

How was it for you?
Lust, corruption and creative bankruptcy
at the heart of literary Tokyo

02 | FCCJ | NOVEMBER 2020

In this issue
November 2020 · Volume 52 · No. 11

After three tightly themed Number 1s,
we’re letting our hair down. Read on for
a new series on PAC speakers, reflections
on our South Asian connections, themaking of Marunouchi, intrigue in
Itabashi and Pennsylvania Avenue,a heartwarming animal rescue project,
and Karen Severns on a film portrait ofa Tokyo writer going downhill so fast hecould almost be a memory.

Contact the Editors
no.1shimbun@fccj.or.jp
Publisher FCCJ
Editor Peter O’Connor
Designer Julio Kohji Shiiki, www.sedo.co.jp
Editorial Assistant Naomichi Iwamura
Photo coordination Hiroko Moriwaki, Norio Muroi
Publications CommitteePeter O’Connor (Chair), Suvendrini Kakuchi,
Monzurul Huq, Robert Whiting, David McNeill
FC C J B OA R D O F D I R EC TO R S
President Isabel Reynolds, Bloomberg L.P.
Special Advisor to the President Monzurul Huq
1st Vice President Andy Sharp, Nikkei Asian Review
2nd Vice President Walter Sim, Straits Times
Treasurer Mehdi Bassiri, O.B.M. Co., Ltd
Secretary Ilgin Yorulmaz, Freelance/BBC World
Service Turkish
Directors-at-LargePeter O’Connor, Freelance
Simon Farrell, Custom Media K.K.
Mary Corbett, Cresner Media
Daniel J. Sloan, Freelance/Nissan Motor
Kanji Gregory Clark, Freelance
Associate Kanji Vicki L. Beyer, Freelance
Ex-officio Khaldon Azhari, PanOrient News
Regular Reserve Director: Pio d'Emilia, SKY TG 24
FC C J C O M M I T T E E C H A I R SDiversity Ilgin Yorulmaz
Publications Peter O'Connor
Website Simon Farrell, Andy Sharp
Associate Members’ Liaison TBA
Entertainment Sandra Mori
Exhibitions Bruce Osborn
Film Karen Severns
Finance Mehdi Bassiri
Food & Beverage Robert Kirschenbaum, Pio d’Emilia
Freedom of Press Justin McCurry, Simon Denyer
House & Property Isabel Reynolds
Human Resources Walter Sim
Information Technology TBA
Law Koichi Ishiyama, Suvendrini Kakuchi
Public Relations (inc. Marketing Membership)
Simon Farrell
Membership Andrew Horvat, Monzurul Huq
Professional Activities Tetsu Jimbo, David McNeill
Special Projects Haruko Watanabe
DeRoy Memorial Scholarship
Abby Leonard, Kazu Takada
Compliance Kunio Hamada, Mary Corbett
Election Reed Stevenson

THE FRONT PAGE
03

From the President
Isabel Reynolds

PROFILE
04

Hiroaki Fujii on the making of Marunouchi
Suvendrini Kakuchi

F E AT URES
07

South Asian journalists & the FCCJ

09

1973: The Kim Dae-jung affair

12White House’s “political” Voice of America
probe draws criticism

Monzurul Huq

Mark Schreiber

Justin McCurry

14

Obsession, lust and corruption in literary Tokyo
Karen Severns

PAC AF TERWORD
16

Once More with Feeling…
Yukio Edano, Leader of the Constitutional
Democratic Party
David McNeill

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan
Marunouchi Nijubashi Building 5F
Marunouchi 3-2-3 Chiyoda-ku Tokyo 100-0005
Tel: (03) 3211-3161 Fax: (03) 3211-3168 fccj.or.jp
Published by the FCCJ All opinions contained within
Number1 Shimbun are those of the authors.
As such, these opinions do not constitute an official
position of Number1 Shimbun, the editor or theForeign Correspondent’ Club of Japan.
Please pitch and send articles and photographs, oraddress comments to no.1shimbun@fccj.or.jp
Read the Number1 Shimbun online:
www.fccj.or.jp/number-1-shimbun

CLUB NEWS18

New members, Exhibitions,
Join the Film Committee,
New in the library, Regular by eggs

20

Exhibition: Animal Refuge Kansai

Cover photo ©2019 Barbara Film CommitteeINDEX03 | FCCJ | NOVEMBER 2020

THE FRONT PAGE

From the President
Dear members,

N

JULIO SHIIKI

o one can say the FCCJ doesn’t cater toa broad range of interests, and this pastmonth has provided a superb illustration of
how we can simultaneously be at the centerof different worlds. Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, a former member of SMAP, the boyband that dominated Japanese
media for decades, made a rare appearance to talk tomembers about his role as a transgender woman in thehit film Midnight Swan. The event has been viewed wellover 200,000 times on YouTube. Just two weeks later,
we provided a platform for the academics who weredenied appointment to the Science Council of Japan, in
what became the first serious setback for Prime Minister
Yoshihide Suga’s fledgling government. That press conference was front-page news for Japanese media. If you
missed either of these events, I highly recommend you
watch them online.

Meeting our mission
Our job of providing insights into Japan’s changing
society, politics and pop culture for club members
and the country as a whole is never an easy one. My
two short months in this job have brought home to me
just how much behind-the-scenes effort on the partof our staff and volunteers goes into coordinating theguests and livestreaming events for those who can’t
be present. At the same time, they have to make sureeveryone is protected as far as possible from the riskof Covid-19 infection.
If you want these efforts to continue, please keep supporting us as members, even if you are less inclined tovisit the club during the pandemic. Don’t forget, you canwatch the discussions live and ask questions remotely,even if you can’t attend in person.

F&B and committees
In other news, you may have heard that our food andbeverage vendor, BPI, who take care of the Main Bar
and the Pen & Quill restaurant, will be leaving us at theend of December. We’re in the final phases of picking a
successor to take over the operation, and in the mean-time we’re planning some special farewell offers formembers, so please take advantage of those in the last
two months of the year. Some members have asked
me about how best to support the FCCJ through these
unprecedented times. Enjoying a delicious meal at areasonable price is actually a great way of doing justthat. That includes eating at Masukomi Sushi on the
6th floor, or just picking up one of their wonderful takeaway offerings for lunch or dinner.
Finally, don’t forget that we are always looking formembers to join our committees and bring their expertise to various aspects of our management. We still havevacancies for the Associate Member Liaison Committee
and the IT Committee and would be delighted to hearfrom anyone who is interested in taking part. Please
don’t hesitate to contact me at president@fccj.or.jp, or
via the office.
● Isabel Reynolds has been reporting for Bloomberg inTokyo since 2012. She has lived in Japan for more than 20
years and been a Regular Member of the FCCJ for most ofthat time.

INDEX04 | FCCJ | NOVEMBER 2020

PROFILE

THERE GOES THE
NEIGHBOURHOODHIROAKI FUJII ON THE MAKING OF MARUNOUCHISUVENDRINI KAKUCHI

L

ike many of his colleagues, FCCJ associate member,
Hiroaki Fujii has started working more days at home,a trend that, he expects, will only expand against the
backdrop of the Corona virus. The change, however,has not fazed the veteran employee whose career at Mitsubishi
Real Estate now spans over three decades. On the contrary, hecannot believe his good fortune. His new office in Tateyama
nestles into the northern Alps.
“I spend eight hours a day at my desk with a cool breeze wafting through my window, listening to the songs of nightingales,”he muses.
Fujii, a law graduate, has long worked in real estate development across Japan, a deeply rewarding task, especially when it
revitalizes old cities and attracts new residents. Given his experience in the corporate world, he views the change in today’s
working culture as a new era. This era embraces teleworking
and flexibility and rejects tired management models tying
employees to gruelling commutes and long office hours.

Top picture: Marunouchi today from Google Earth.
Bottom: Marunouchi in the mid-1960s. Both the Kokusai Building and the
Yurakucho Building are under construction. The Yurakucho Denki Building
has yet to take shape.

INDEX05 | FCCJ | NOVEMBER 2020

PHOTO COURTESY OF MITSUBISHI ESTATE COMPANY LTD.

PHOTO COURTESY OF MITSUBISHI ESTATE COMPANY LTD.

THERE GOES THE NEIGHBOURHOOD

Hiroaki Fujii

Banishing the 80s gloom: leafy boulevards and al fresco dining in Naka Dori

“Take my own situation. Right now, I work four consecutive
days in Tateyama. I no longer have a tiring commute to theTokyo office from the suburbs. People like me appreciate thefreedom of working remotely. It is liberating and more productive,” says Fujii.

was bought from the Meiji government by the enterprising banker, Iwasaki Yasunosuke, creating the domain of Mitsubishi Shoji.
During the massive construction boom of the 1970s and 80s,
when Fujii entered Mitsubishi, Marunouchi was a natural hostfor banks and offices and a natural destination for that post-war
samurai, the salaryman. Two decades of drab, low-ceilinged
offices followed, and the area exuded the gravitas of the work
ethic. For real fun, office workers gravitated to the bars andrestaurants of Ginza or Shimbashi, and Marunouchi after dark
was little more than a ghost town.

Office vacancies
Indeed, social distancing has affected Japan’s corporate world
and that includes new challenges facing Tokyo’s lucrative realestate market. A recent Bloomberg article points out the capital’s office vacancy rate has risen to over 3 percent, the highest
since January 2018 and Morgan Stanley, quoted in the article,
forecasts it could climb to record levels over the next five years(Japan Times October 8th 2020, from Bloomberg).
To cope, says Fujii, whose company is the lead developer inthe capital’s posh Marunouchi vicinity, the focus is on innovative approaches to repurposing space. He points to the potent
example of the transformation of the Marunouchi Naka Doristreet linking Yurakucho to Tokyo station and Otemachi. The
avenue, familiar terrain for foreign correspondents, has shed its
dour business image of dark suited salary men to emerge, in thelast year, into an airy and sophisticated counterpart dotted with
open cafes and green walkways.
As Fujii sees it, the Covid pandemic has accelerated changes
that were already underway in younger, more tech-savvy business communities. “Their demands are the next growth opportunity,” says Fuji. He should know. Fujii is now the executive
director of OMY Area Management Association, a non-profit
organization established to foster interaction among businesses in the locality. The office, a FCCJ neighbour, hosts get-togethers for the business community. As he puts it, “Cultivating a
sense of belonging and collaboration is an important service intoday’s commercial property market.”Within the walls
Historically, Marunouchi, literally ‘inside the circle’, historicallywithin the (castle) walls, was the site of the former Edo castle,
constructed with a moat for Tokugawa Iyeyasu. In 1890 the land

Out of the shadowsToday, that past is barely a memory. The Naka Dori project has
cut road traffic and encouraged pedestrians. The paved streets
host regular street markets and food fairs. Diverse businessmodels are also increasing share office spaces and learning labsthat host seminars and webinars, such as the ongoing sustainable development campaign, a collaborative venture including
the Norin Chukin Bank, another member of the Marunouchi
neighbourhood. The aim is to generate start-ups and attractclients with a difference. “Relying on office rentals per se is aprecarious model,” maintains Fujii.
Still, the spotlight on a hybrid working system remains themost enthralling development for Fujii. A sports fanatic – heruns marathons and cycles for miles on uphill roads - his life
could not be more rewarding. “I now live in a larger space andhave more time for my family,” he said. Eating out is also a different experience. Instead of squeezing into expensive Tokyo
watering holes, he now prefers to relax at the small diners in his
neighbourhood and get to know his neighbours.
With the increase in satellite offices or ‘hubs’ outside urban
areas, Fujii sees cities attracting people for unique and exotic
business opportunities. “We live in exciting times,” he says.
“Tokyo has become a place for learning new things and meeting
new people. I look forward to the future.”● Suvendrini Kakuchi is Tokyo Correspondent for University WorldNews in the UK.

INDEX06 | FCCJ | NOVEMBER 2020

F E AT URE

SOUTH ASIA AT
THE FCCJ

WIKIPEDIA

REVIEWING OUR LEGACY

Isabella Bird, British explorer, writer, photographer and naturalist

KV Narain in full flow

MONZURUL HUQ

decades of this century (including the current incumbent) wehave not done too badly, although the proportion of women
members and Committee Chairs is still far too small. However,from the perspective of nationality, the FCCJ has done well,compared to many other press clubs. And here South Asian correspondents have played a historically important role.

H

istorically, men have dominated foreign correspondence, with phenomenal exceptions: Isabella
Bird (1831-1904), Martha Gellhorn (1908-1998), andOriana Fallaci (1929-2006) were all special observers of their time whose writings still resonate in ours. Isabella
Bird’s dispatches from Japan and China towards the end of thenineteenth century included not only correspondence but also
longer, richer accounts that still inform and engage more thana century after her death. Women like these inspired others tofollow, and their number has been rising in recent years, though
not as fast as the FCCJ would like.
Gender is an aspect of diversity in which we have underperformed but, with four female presidents during the first two

KV Narain
Our Workroom carries the name of KV Narain, an Indian who
was among the first non-Japanese Asian to play a major rolein Club affairs. He was followed by several others. We have a
Scholarship fund named after Swadesh De Roy, a distinguishedIndian who left a generous fund at the disposal of the Club to initiate a scholarship for aspiring young journalists. The Swadesh
De Roy Scholarship fund is still operational, with annual compe-INDEX07 | FCCJ | NOVEMBER 2020

SOUTH ASIA AT THE FCCJ

VC Lingam celebrating his 90th birthday at the Club

titions for students of journalism and media studies here andabroad. However, apart from the Scholarship, the life and careerof Swadesh De Roy himself have not otherwise been commemorated or made known to beneficiaries of the Scholarship set up
in his name. Clearly, he deserves more recognition.
KV Narain, in particular, was a Club stalwart. He chaired the
Library and Workroom Committee for years and worked hard to
make sure that those from the less powerful media around theworld had a place to work and research. The Internet was a longway off and our workroom and library were essential tools for manyof our regular members. KV, as he was known among colleagues
and friends at the FCCJ, was instrumental in giving the workroom
and information gathering facility a definite shape. Small wonderthat we honor KV by naming the place after him, though the commemorative plaque originally set up in KV’s honor seems to havegone missing since our move to the Nijubashi Building.
KV Narain first came to Japan in 1937 as a student. No sooner had he settled in Tokyo than Japan went into full-scale war
with China. KV stayed on after the war and began reporting for
Indian newspapers. He was subsequently made a regular correspondent of The Hindu, the left-leaning English-language daily
published from Madras (present day Chennai). In 1961, he joined
the Club, remaining an active member until 1998, the year hereturned to his hometown, Bangalore.

Firdous Khergamvala moderating a press conference

VC Lingam, Swadesh De Roy
and UD Khan
KV’s counterpart among associate members was VC Lingam,
the grand old man who was a regular at the Club until his deathin 2014. Like KV, Lingam also came to Japan to pursue tertiarystudies in the mid-1930s. He also joined the Club in the early
1960s and remained a member until his death.
Lingam’s legacy was built on by Swadesh De Roy, who cameto Japan as a correspondent of the Press Trust of India, a government-linked news agency. Swadesh joined the Club in 1964, ran forvarious posts, sat on the board and in 1979 became the FCCJ’s first
South Asian President. Both KV and Swadesh wrote for Number1
Shimbun. Swadesh contributed a regular column, “Up our Alley”.
The fact that contributions to Number1 Shimbun were all unpaid
gives some sense of these journalists’ devotion to our Club.
In the early 1970s the FCCJ saw the emergence of anothervery active South Asian. Umar Daras Khan or UD Khan was a
Pakistani who joined the Club in 1974 and remained a member
until his death in the late 1990s. Many of our veteran members
remember him as a perpetual loser in FCCJ presidential elections. UD Khan ran for President almost every year from the late1970s to the mid-1990s without ever bagging the top prize. This
failed to discourage him from helping to run the Club and he
was always available to serve on committees.

INDEX08 | FCCJ | NOVEMBER 2020

SOUTH ASIA AT THE FCCJ

Former Japanese Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira and Swadesh De Roy enjoying an initimate moment at the Club

Firdous Khergamvala
A close contemporary of UD Khan, Firdous Khergamvala was
set to be FCCJ President in early 2000 when premature deathrobbed him (and us) of victory. Firdous replaced KV as correspondent for The Hindu and he too was a regular presence inthe workroom. Firdous too served on various committees andwas elected to the Board several times. The Club later named
the small conference room at the Denki Building after him.
Again, this small mark of recognition was set aside when ourClub moved to its current premises. For the sake of knowing andhonoring our own past history, we do need to restore the Club’s
formal recognition of Firdous Khergamvala’s historic contribution to our activities.

Maintaining tradition
I myself am one in a line of South Asian journalists perpetuating
the rich and storied history of South Asians at the FCCJ. Our colleague Suvendrini Kakuchi is another. Both of us have served
as President and we remain active in various FCCJ committees.
Another important aspect of diversity we uphold is that we
represent the media of our own countries rather than the ubiquitous media of the Western world. This is in itself a challenge assometimes our hosts do not know who we are or which media
institution we represent.

KV used to recall an encounter with Indonesian officials
accompanying President Soekarno during one of his Tokyo visits in the early 1960s. As he was joining a press conference, anIndonesian official at the entrance asked KV for his affiliation.
When KV told the official that he was a Hindu, the man replied,“I wasn’t asking for your religion, I was asking for the name ofyour media.”
I still deal with similarly inane queries from hosts, many ofwhom confuse my name with that of my newspaper. More thana few invitations to press events addressed to “Mr. Prothom Alo”
have come my way. But this too is a part of diversity in practice as it shows that the Club is not just a forum for a significant
handful of media giants. As with South Asian, East Asian representation at the Club has grown significantly.
We could certainly do with a great deal more help andengagement from our Chinese, Korean and Japanese friends
and colleagues, both in running the Club and in making it a morecongenial place to visit. Historically, the problem has lain in thelanguage barrier. But this is gradually being eroded, and welook forward to far greater involvement in FCCJ activities fromboth East and South Asian Members.
● Monzurul Huq is Tokyo Bureau Chief of the Bangladesh daily
Prothom Alo and a former President of the FCCJ.

INDEX09 | FCCJ | NOVEMBER 2020

F E AT URE

1973: THE KIM
DAE-JUNG AFFAIR
INTERNATIONAL INTRIGUE IN IIDABASHI

Kim Dae-jung, newly elected head of the
opposition New Democratic Party of Korea,
with the late Peter “Shin” Higashi (AP) at
the Club in February 1971.

MARK SCHREIBERT

he abduction of South Korean politician Kim
Dae-jung from a Tokyo hotel on August 8,
1973 precipitated a major international crisis,with some media comparing it to the Israeli
Mossad’s abduction of Nazi fugitive Adolf Eichmannfrom Argentina in 1960. Almost a half century later, it still
evokes strong memories.
After a series of sometimes stormy negotiations, diplomatic relations between Japan and the Republic ofKorea (ROK) were normalized in June 1965, and by the
beginning of the 1970s, two-way trade, including granting of manufacturing licenses and technical transfers by
Japan, began taking off.

Park Vs. Kim
ROK president Park Chung-hee, a former army lieutenant general, had seized power following a 1961 coupd’état. Under pressure from its American ally, South

Korea held a presidential election on April 27, 1971, in
which Park was opposed by a charismatic 46-year oldmember of the New People’s Party, Kim Dae-jung.
Park, who had served as a junior officer in the imperial
army of Manchukuo in the waning months of World War
II, was an old-school authoritarian and disinclined torelinquish his power to a young upstart with nebulous
ideas about democracy.
Large numbers of ballots, including those of Kim andhis wife, had been ruled illegal; and in two major cities
where the opposition had its power base, administrative“oversights” resulted in many voters not receiving theirballots at all. After the official returns gave Park, with
6,340,000 votes, a clear win over Kim’s 5,400,000, Kim
denounced Park’s victory as a fraud.
On October 17, 1972, Park ordered the national assembly dissolved and banned all political activities. Portionsof the constitution were suspended, pending the promulgation of a new constitution by the end of 1972.
Kim’s reaction was to embark on a campaign aimed atINDEX10 | FCCJ | NOVEMBER 2020

1973: THE KIM DAE-JUNG AFFAIR
discrediting Park by rallying the large overseas Korean
communities in Japan and the U.S.
Kim had been issued an ultimatum ordering his returnto Korea, which he rejected, saying it was a “trap” to halt
his activities. On July 10, 1973, Kim flew from California
to Japan, where his contacts had arranged a special sixmonth visa waiver on medical grounds.

Trouble ahead
Upon Kim’s arrival at Tokyo’s Haneda airport, a sympathizer warned him of rumors that Korean yakuza basedin Japan were planning to make trouble, and he waspersuaded to cancel an auto excursion in Yokohama on
the weekend of August 4-5 out of abduction fears. By thistime, Kim’s staff had become highly agitated, urging him
not go anywhere without at least one bodyguard.
On August 7, Kim informed a Yomiuri Shimbun reporter of plans to organize a Japan-based group, tentatively
named the National People’s Congress of Korean Democracy, which he planned to convene on August 15, the anniversary of Korea’s liberation.
On the morning of Wednesday, August 8, Kim and his
secretary/bodyguard took a taxi from the Palace Hotelin Otemachi to the Hotel Grand Palace in Iidabashi for ameeting with Yang Il-dong, head of Korea’s Democratic
Unification Party, who was in Tokyo for medical treatment.
Kim’s secretary escorted him to Yang’s room, number
2211, and then went downstairs to the lobby for a latebreakfast while Kim, Yang and another Korean legislator
named Kim Gyong-in, who was also Kim’s distant relative, discussed their country’s political situation. Aftertaking lunch together in the room, Yang departed forthe hospital.

Abduction
About 1:15, Kim exited the room for his next appointment. As he stepped into the corridor with Kim Gyongin, a group of five or six men pounced on him, hustling
him into the adjoining room, 2210, while his relative wasforced back into room 2211.
Forcing Kim down on the bed, the men held a chloroform-soaked handkerchief over his face until he became
groggy. After several minutes the men dragged him to
the hotel elevator, where he was shoved into a waiting
car in the hotel basement.
Just before 2:00 pm Kim’s secretary/bodyguard went
upstairs and learned of the abduction from the other Kim.
How Kim’s abductors determined he would visit Yang’s
hotel room that morning — information known only to avery few persons — is one of the many unsolved mysteries of the case. In their 1986 work Yakuza, authors David
Kaplan and Alex Dubro quoted the Far Eastern Economic
Review as citing “informed sources” that Tosei-kai ganghead Chong Gwon-yong, also known as Hisayuki Machii,
was a leading participant in the abduction.
By 3:15 pm, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police issued an
emergency bulletin, and fearing that Kim’s abductors
would attempt to spirit him out of the country, put thenation’s air and seaports on special alert.
No such attempts were made to set up checkpoints
along the Tokyo Metropolitan Expressway, however,which was exactly where Kim’s abductors headed.
Bound and gagged on the floor of the car, Kim was driven to an apartment believed to be in Kobe’s Higashinada
Ward. There, he was relieved of his money, his Korean
identity card, business cards and wristwatch, and givena different set of shoes and clothing. His bindings werereapplied and his face was swathed in gummed tape sothat only his nose protruded.
At the port, Kim was transferred from a small motorboat
to the 536-ton freighter “Dragon Gold,” out of Busan, which
had been anchored in Osaka port from the end of July.

Retrospective

Kim Dae-jung besieged by the Korean press following his abduction

Some years later, the then-Minister of Justice Isaji Tanaka divulged that on the evening of the kidnapping, he’dbeen informed by a “certain superpower” that the American CIA had sent word to its Korean counterpart that it
would not tolerate Kim’s assassination. The quickness inreacting was supposedly out of concerns that Kim would
be weighed down and tossed overboard while at sea.
In his investigative work on the KCIA, journalist Kim
Jong-sik wrote that on August 11, the U.S. CIA’s station
chief in Seoul, Donald Gregg, certain that the KCIA wasINDEX11 | FCCJ | NOVEMBER 2020

1973: THE KIM DAE-JUNG AFFAIR
ROK Premier Kim Jong Pil had addressed a personal letter
to Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka acknowledging Korean
involvement in the abduction and extending “apologies
to Prime Minister Tanaka, Foreign Minister Masayoshi
Ohira and the Japanese people.”
On August 28, Japan’s ambassador to Seoul Torao
Ushiroku visited Kim’s home for 20 minutes — the firstencounter with any Japanese since his release.
By early September, a left thumbprint lifted by police
from the hotel room was confirmed as belonging to
Kim Dong-woon, First Secretary at the ROK embassyin Tokyo.
In March 1974, L.A. Times Tokyo bureau chief and
FCCJ president Sam Jameson interviewed Kim at his
home in Seoul.
“In the South, we had freedom, if not always bread.
Now we no longer have freedom,” Kim told Jameson. He
voiced his exasperation over the South Korean government’s refusal to permit him to travel abroad, owing to his
being “a witness in the investigation of his kidnapping”— this despite his not having been questioned since theprevious October.

Unanswered questions
Tokyo Shimbun marks Kim Dae-jung’s death, 4th August 2009

the culprit, wired the State Department that, “We haveobtained evidence that the KCIA is responsible. Kim still
appears to be alive and we intend to take measures toensure his safe release.”
During his voyage, Kim was to learn he had at least
one sympathizer among the ship’s crew, when one whispered reassuringly, “Someone is looking after you.”
On August 12, the ship carrying Kim landed at a small
port adjacent to Busan. Kim was driven north in a van
and taken to a house somewhere in Seoul where he
was questioned by a young man as to why he had been
engaging in anti-government activities outside thecountry, an accusation that Kim hotly denied.
The man said he had been ordered to drive Kim home.
Shortly after 10 pm on August 13, after a 129-hour ordeal,
Kim rang the doorbell of his home. His family reactedwith jubilation and relief, with Kim’s wife, who had barely eaten or slept during the crisis, repeating, “It’s God’s
mercy” over and over.

US and Japanese media
On August 14, the front pages of every major newspaper in Japan carried photos of Kim, arms bandaged
and looking lean and haggard, describing his ordeal to
Korean reporters.
Three days later, Japanese newspapers reported that

Clearly the Kim abduction was a large-scale operation.
Yet to this day it has never been fully established how
high up the plot went, or whether the ultimate aim of theoperation was to force Kim to return to Korea, or assassination. The Japanese government eventually decided
not to push for a formal apology, allowing South Korea
to save face. Some cynics have pointed to the Kim incident as a classic example of Japan’s reluctance to takea firm stance on international issues not related to its
economic well being.
A decade after the incident, in August 1983, the police
closed their investigation. It was not until April 1995,
nearly 22 years after his ordeal, that Kim Dae-jung would
once again set foot in Tokyo. This time he was provided
with heavy security by his hosts.
On April 14, I was ushered into the FCCJ library andintroduced to Kim. I informed him I was writing a bookon Japan’s most famous postwar crimes including thestory of his abduction. His subdued reaction, in halting
English, clearly indicated he preferred to put the incident behind him.
Kim Dae-jung proved to be a hardy survivor in therough-and-tumble world of ROK politics. He was electedpresident in 1998 and awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in
2000. Alas, he did not live to see the unification of his
homeland, passing away in 2009 at age 85.
Portions of this article appeared in Shocking Crimes of
Postwar Japan (Yenbooks, 1996).

12 | FCCJ | NOVEMBER 2020

INDEXF E AT URE

WHITE HOUSE’S“POLITICAL” VOICEOF AMERICA PROBEDRAWS CRITICISMJUSTIN McCURRY

F

riends and colleagues of Steve Herman havevoiced dismay and disbelief following reportsthat the FCCJ’s former President (1997-8) is
being investigated for alleged bias against the
Trump administration.
Many current members will recall Herman, the WhiteHouse bureau chief for Voice of America [VOA], as anurgent, keyboard thumping presence in the workroom
at the Yurakucho Denki Building as he edited his latest
radio dispatch from Tokyo down to the last second.
After stints as a VOA correspondent and bureau chiefin India, South Korea and Thailand, Herman became
the network’s senior diplomatic correspondent before
being appointed White House bureau chief.

PHOTO COURTESY OF STEVE HERMANINDEX13 | FCCJ | NOVEMBER 2020

WHITE HOUSE’S “POLITICAL” VOICE OF AMERICA PROBE DRAWS CRITICISMAs the US presidential campaign reached its climax,
NPR reported that political appointees at the US Agency
for Global Media [USAGM] – the government body thatoversees VOA – had investigated Herman and compiled
a confidential report claiming his reporting had been
“unfair” towards Trump, in violation of the broadcaster’s
journalistic standards.

Trump appointee orders
investigation
According to NPR and other US media reports, Michael
Pack, the Trump-appointed chief executive of the USAGM,
ordered two political operatives he had hired as aides toinvestigate Herman’s reporting on the administration.
Pack seems to have been particularly troubled byHerman’s revelation that the US vice president, Mike
Pence, had not worn a mask during a visit to the Mayo
Clinic in April.
According to Jackson Diehl, deputy editorial page
director of the Washington Post, Pack’s appointees submitted a 30-page report recommending that Herman
be “banned from covering presidential politics becauseof an alleged “conflict of interest,” based on Herman’scomments on Twitter, where he has well over 100,000
followers, and on his social media “likes”. However, atthe time of writing, no action had been taken against
Herman.

‘Straight down the middle’
Trump’s appointment of Pack, whom the Post described
as an associate of the President’s former aide and altright propagandist Stephen Bannon, has fueled accusations that the USAGM’s investigation was politicallymotivated.
The Asian American Journalists Association said
allegations by political appointees regarding Herman’s
journalistic integrity were “alarming”.
“They are the latest in a slew of insidious actions
undermining VOA’s editorial independence,” the AAJA
said in a statement. “We condemn any action taken that
undermines the journalistic independence of VOA,” it
added, noting that Herman is a long-time AAJA member
and board member of its Washington DC chapter.
The FCCJ Freedom of the Press Committee backed the
AAJA statement, saying it “stands behind Herman … andbehind the principles of press freedom”.
Regular members recall Herman as a hard-working
journalist who was among the first foreign reporters
to get close to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power
plant after it suffered a meltdown during the March2011 triple disaster.
“I’ve known Steve for more than a decade and in allthat time I’ve never known him to be anything other thanan impartial journalist,” said Martyn Williams, a former
FCCJ President and a journalist/researcher for the North
Korea Tech and 38 North websites.
“He’s straight down the middle and only interested in
the facts. In knowing him personally, I don’t think I canremember ever having any political discussions with
him that were framed around his beliefs and opinions
rather than the facts on the ground.”Suvendrini Kakuchi, Tokyo correspondent for University World News, agreed that Herman strived for objectivity in his reporting. “In conversations about news hewould keenly avoid sounding biased in his comments,”
she said, adding that the USAGM investigation was a“great disappointment”.
“I was also impressed by his generosity to otherworking journalists, such as sharing tips on producing
an effective radio broadcast and encouraging people tolook into new ventures and topics. As a President of the
FCCJ he was hugely popular,” Kakuchi said.
Julian Ryall, Tokyo correspondent for the Daily Telegraph and the South China Morning Post, said, “Foranyone to suggest that Steve is anything other thana straight arrow is just silly. But I guess they’re of theopinion that if they throw enough accusations around,
if the President’s ‘base’ swallows it and Fox picks up thecudgel, then something will eventually stick.”
Williams shares concerns that the investigation
was part of a “predictable” attempt by an increasingly
embattled White House to steer media coverage in amore favourable direction just weeks before the presidential election.
“What the White House and Trump fail to understandis that impartial, fair news coverage that shows the best
and worst of America is actually the best advertisement
for the country,” Williams said.
“VOA is targeted at countries where there isn’t a freepress, so to hear a state-funded broadcaster report critically but fairly on the administration projects a good
impression of the US and its democratic values.”
Herman, who has declined to comment publicly while
the investigation’s findings are still under deliberation,
was in familiar territory covering Trump’s campaign
stops in Nevada and Arizona, as Number1 Shimbun prepared to go to press.
“It’s sad that Steve is having to defend himself against
these accusations at the same time as doing his job,”
Ryall said. “I can only say that I hope his overlords [atthe USAGM] are swiftly replaced by a new administrationand he can get back to doing what he does best.”● Justin McCurry is Japan and Korea correspondent for
the Guardian and the Observer, and co-chair of the FCCJ
Freedom of the Press CommitteeINDEX14 | FCCJ | NOVEMBER 2020

F E AT URE

OBSESSION, LUSTAND CORRUPTION IN
LITERARY TOKYO© 2019 BARBARA FILM COMMITEE

Writer meets museon his way downhill

FATHER TO SON, PAGE TO SCREEN
KAREN SEVERNSO© 2019 BARBARA FILM COMMITEE

samu Tezuka, the godfather of Japanese comics,
began serializing his second adult manga, Barbara,in 1973. His most celebrated work, from Astro Boy
and Kimba the White Lion onward, had been aimed
at adolescents. His mature, more literary content might wellraise eyebrows outside Japan, but dark deviations from routine
creations were virtually a moral imperative for Japanese artists
in the 60s and 70s, as they responded to society’s upheavals.
Loosely inspired by Offenbach’s fantastical The Tales of Hoffman, in which the muse of poetry demands absolute fealty froma philandering poet, Barbara was a satire on Japan’s literary andpolitical establishments as well as an exploration of the limits of
the authorial voice.
It was also sexually charged, supernaturally tinged and morethan passing strange. Autobiographical in the Cocteauian sense(“all artists paint their own portraits”), its depiction of a famous

Director Macoto Tezka

INDEX15 | FCCJ | NOVEMBER 2020

OBSESSION, LUST AND CORRUPTION IN LITERARY TOKYO© 2019 BARBARA FILM COMMITEE

Barbara, bemused in Mnemosyne's lairauthor’s gradual descent into debauchery (some of it taboo)and eventual madness could be understood allegorically.
Long considered unfilmable, the controversial erotic manga
has now reemerged in a live-action adaptation directed by theauthor’s own son, Macoto Tezka, with backing from an international team of producers and acclaimed collaborators, including
legendary cinematographer Christopher Doyle (In the Mood for
Love, They Say Nothing Stays the Same).
Tezuka’s Barbara follows bestselling erotic fiction writer
Yosuke Mikura, played by former SMAP superstar Goro Inagaki
with world-weary panache. He prowls the backstreets of latenight Shinjuku in sunglasses, going downhill fast in a failed effort
to carouse away his own creative bankruptcy. Despite standingat the pinnacle of literary success, with groupies and fawning
politicians to prove it, Mikura has become a slave to cripplingsexual perversions, leading to peculiar encounters with animals
and inanimate objects whom he hallucinates into women.
Rescue seems to arrive in the form of a belligerent, unkempt
young woman named Barbara (Fumi Nikaido), whose ministrations — alternately tender and insulting — promise to jolt Mikura
out of writer’s block. But when Mikura’s suspicion that Barbara isan actual muse is confirmed (her mother is named Mnemosyne,
after all), he drifts further into even darker territory, and is soon
testing the extremes of depravity.

reimagining of his father’s story in 2018 to celebrate what would
have been the legendary figure’s 90th anniversary. A visual artist in his own right, Tezka made an early mark with his debut
feature, The Legend of the Stardust Brothers. He has continued
to create films in every genre while also serving as the caretakerof his father’s legacy (a staggering 700 manga volumes and 60
animated works).
He has said that he first read “Barbara” as a young lad,and that it made a deep impression on him. But while he had
adapted other Tezuka work in anime form (most notably BlackJack), the decision to bring “Barbara” to life came only after hefelt confident that he could imbue it with his own vision of his
father’s primary concerns.
As Tezka told an audience after the film’s world premiere atthe 2019 Tokyo International Film Festival, “I think there aremany similarities between [the setting of the manga in 1973]
and now, such as the increasing wealth gap and the public’s
frustration toward the government. The manga is a good fit forour modern times.”
Join the Film Committee on Tuesday, November 17 at 7:00 pm
for a sneak preview of Tezuka’s Barbara (ばるぼら). The director
will be on hand for the Q&A session. (Japan, 2019, 100 minutes.
In Japanese with English subtitles).

Making his mark

● Karen Severns is a writer, educator and film programmer. She has

Macoto Tezka started mounting this sensual, phantasmagoricalchaired the FCCJ Film Committee since 2009.

INDEX16 | FCCJ | NOVEMBER 2020

PAC AF TERWORD

ONCE MORE
WITH FEELING…
YUKIO EDANO, LEADER OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRATIC PARTYDAVID McNEILLY

ukio Edano is imprinted on the minds of many
Japanese for his role in the 2011 Tohoku disaster. For several harrowing weeks, Japan’s thenChief Cabinet Secretary was one of the nation’s
most visible faces, appearing on TV daily in a rumpled
boiler suit to reassure the public that his government
had the Fukushima nuclear crisis under control.
The rest is history: in 2012, Edano’s Democratic Partyof Japan (DPJ) lost power to a rejuvenated Liberal Democratic Party, in large part due to the perception that
Fukushima showed a government doing precisely what
it said it wouldn’t do: lose control. The party shrank, split

and dissolved into infighting between some of its biggest political egos. Now the DPJ is back for a second try.
Call it Democrats Mark II.
Edano returned to the FCCJ at a PAC presser on September 23rd as newly elected leader of the center-leftConstitutional Party of Japan (CPJ), following the merger of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan andthe Democratic Party of the People. As if harking backto their glory days, some of the party’s 150 lawmakers
wanted to revert to the party’s 2009 name.
Whatever they call themselves, Edano’s new crew face
an uphill fight. The CPJ’s parliamentary strength is still
dwarfed by the LDP and its allies, who have 450 seats.
Once written off by some, the LDP, meanwhile, has jud-INDEX17 | FCCJ | NOVEMBER 2020

OBSESSION, LUST AND CORRUPTION IN LITERARY TOKYO
dered back to life. Before his recent departure as party
leader and prime minister, Shinzo Abe led the LDP-led
coalition to six straight election victories.

Outsider policies
Edano was keen to point out how much he and Yoshihide Suga, Abe’s successor, have in common. Both are“outsiders”, entering politics via the backdoor rather
than the dynasties that spawned Abe and many others.
Both are ex-chief cabinet secretaries: Edano during
the 3.11 disaster and Suga during the coronavirus
pandemic. As Edano put it, “The fact that we are now
leaders competing for political power is a point I’d liketo emphasize.”
But he was equally insistent on their differences.
Where Suga led a pro-business party that had invested heavily in “neoliberalism,” a
CPJ government would work for“Disparities anda fairer distribution of wealthand “protect the lives and livelidivisions that havehoods of people.” It would camwidened within ourpaign to reduce the 10% consumption tax (doubled during
society over the last
the Abe era) to zero and instead
30 years”. Japan istax corporations, “which aremaking huge profits”.
the only country in“From the time of the Nakasone
the industrializedadministration (in the 1980s)
through Koizumi and Abe there
world where
has been a stance of neoliberaleconomic growth has ism, of placing priority on compestagnated, he pointed tition and putting responsibilityon the individual – the smaller theout. “We believe wegovernment, the fewer regulacan be a new choicetions, the better,” said Edano. “We
are proposing a society wherefor people.”
people will cooperate and support each other, and where thegovernment will be proactive in
helping people overcome risks and barriers.”
Rebuilding lives amid the pandemic had become
especially pressing, he said, given the “disparities
and divisions that have widened within our society
over the last 30 years”. Japan is the only country in
the industrialized world where economic growth has
stagnated, he pointed out. “We believe we can be a
new choice for people.”
There was more: the CPJ would make Japan a world
leader in renewable energy – while pulling “as quickly
as possible” out of nuclear power. “Global warming is
the highest priority for all of humanity for this century
and into the future,” Edano said. Japan’s technology
and skills meant “we should be domestically aiming for100% renewable energy and utilize these technologies
to share around the world.”

Prospects
It was inspiring stuff but will voters buy into Democrats Mark II? After all, Mark 1 seemed a bit shambolic.
Before being derailed by the 2011 disaster, DPJ leader,
Yukio Hatoyama had promised to slash Japan’s huge
public works spending, transfer funding to welfare,
health and education, tackle the nation’s powerfulbureaucracy, and begun transforming Japan’s ColdWar alliance with Washington.
The party’s opponents said Hatoyama lacked the killer
instinct needed for hand-to-hand political combat with
the LDP, which had been in office for all but 10 months
since 1955 - and so it proved. Hatoyama fell at the first hurdle – abandoning his pledge to move the American military base, Futenma, out of Okinawa. His party, in any case,always seemed ideologically conflicted, a motley crew ofleft and right united mainly by their distaste for LDP rule.
This time would be different, insisted Edano. “Anyone who is in the party has agreed to sign up to theparty’s clear basic principles.” One of the problems
with the DPJ was a lack of experience, which had led todisagreements within the party, he admitted. “Our new
party is based on the lessons that have been learned
from the past and we have strong confidence that we
can move forward.”
As for Okinawa, Edano’s party would again seek toredress the issue that sank Hatoyama: the imbalance ofUS military forces on the tiny main island. Step 1 would
be cancelling construction of Futenma’s “replacement”
base off the fishing village of Henoko. “We place importance on the US-Japan alliance and wouldn’t try to railroad through any changes, yet it is possible to come up
with a solution that includes the base not going ahead.”“Even without the base it is possible to ensure there issufficient presence of the US military in the region.”First up, of course, there was the small matter of
weakening the LDP’s grip on power, which means
grappling with if not matching the party’s vast political
network – and coming up with 233 CPJ candidates. “Wecannot compete against this unless we grow own network,” admitted Edano. “I am hoping that by the timeof the next general election, we will be recognised as a
viable choice.”● David McNeill is co-chair of the FCCJ’s Professional
Activities Committee and a professor at the Departmentof English Language, Communication and Cultures at
Sacred Heart University in Tokyo. He was previously acorrespondent for The Independent and The Economist
newspapers and for The Chronicle of Higher Education.

INDEX18 | FCCJ | NOVEMBER 2020

CLUB NEWSNew members
ASSOCIATE MEMBERS
BARBARA WAGNER-GMEINER is a native of Eisenstadt
and Vienna, where after a foray in fashion design she
studied economics. Since 2007 she has been the Head ofCommunications at the Esterházy Private Foundation in
Eisenstadt, (Esterházy Betriebe GMBH), working on management
structures and on the preservation, restoration, and expansionof the region’s historical monuments and collections:
https://esterhazy.at/en/about/esterhazy-foundations
TOM WILSON came to his new posting at the Australian
Embassy in late January this year, just before COVID-19
started to spread. He first came to Japan as an exchange
student at the International Christian University High School
and is enjoying reconnecting with Japan and getting to know
fellow Club members.
ESTEBAN MIYASHIRO NAKAIMA is a professor at Aichi
Toho University (Nagoya), Faculty of Business. Nakaima-san
is Okinawan but was born in Peru. He has worked on IT for
Amazon, Microsoft and Citigroup. He loves travel and has visited
all 47 prefectures in Japan.
BENJAMIN SKEPPER is an internationally acclaimed Australian/Japanese artist, classically trained musician, qualified lawyer,
and published researcher. In 2007 he founded the creative
enterprise Contrapuntal KK, immersing creative thinkers at theintersects of art, culture, science and technology. He is also a
Research Fellow of the Moscow State Conservatory in music,
genetics and medicine.
PROFESSIONAL/JOURNALIST ASSOCIATE MEMBERS
JUN KITAJIMA is a professor at the Graduate School ofInformation and Communication teaching Intelligence Strategy
and Global Public Affairs. He specialises in anti-corruption issues,
especially bribery. He enjoys boating, diving, photography, film
and reading the classics.
REGULAR MEMBERSFRANCESCO BASSETTI is a freelance journalist and editor
specialising in environmental issues. He writes about climate
science for the Euro-Mediterranean Centre on Climate Change(CMCC), Renewable Matter, LifeGate.com, and the Japan Times.
MARA BUDGEN is a freelance journalist specialising insustainable development. As Chief Editor of the Englishlanguage issue of LifeGate Media, Italy’s top sustainability
communications company, Mara manages fifteen contributors
from four continents. She also writes for the Japan Times.

INDEX19 | FCCJ | NOVEMBER 2020

CLUB NEWS
Exhibition
11/9 - 12/4

Animal Refuge Kansai

New in the library
1
Foundation of the Future: The Global
Battle for Infrastructure
Anthony H. Rowley
World Scientific
Gift from Anthony H. Rowley

2

KYOKO HARADA

Flash of Light: Wall of Fire: JapanesePhotographs Documenting the Atomic
Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History
University of Texas Press
Gift from "Hankaku Shashinundo" jimukyoku(「反核・写真運動」事務局)

3
Kitten finds new amusement and friendship at ARK.

NPO Animal Refuge Kansai www.arkbark.net

Join the Film
Committee
November 17 at 7:00 pm
for a sneak preview of
Tezuka’s Barbara (ばるぼら). The director will be on
hand for the Q&A session.
(Japan, 2019, 100 minutes.
In Japanese with English
subtitles).

Labor and Imperial Democracy
in Prewar Japan
Andrew Gordon
University of California Press

4
Intimate Disconnections: Divorce
and the Romance of Independence inContemporary Japan
Allison Alexy
The University of Chicago Press

5
Pure Invention: How Japan’s Pop Culture
Conquered the World
Matt Alt
Crown

INDEX20 | FCCJ | NOVEMBER 2020

ANIMAL REFUGE KANSAIIT TAKES AN
ELIZABETHANIMAL REFUGE KANSAI, 1990-2020

MARY CORBETTW

hen Elizabeth Oliver first opened thedoors of her home to set up a refuge
for abandoned animals in 1990, she hadalready been a 10-year veteran in the
Kansai area volunteering for a national welfare organization. Long troubled by the negligible rate of adoption
and alternative care options for animals against an
extremely high number being routinely euthanized by
the Public Health facilities and animal welfare groups,
Oliver’s new organization, Animal Refuge Kansai, quickly
became a leading advocate for education and change toimprove the plight of pets and to tighten laws governing
the unregulated state of the pet industry.

Breakthrough
ARK’s big break into national prominence came suddenly when the Hanshin Awaji Earthquake devastated alarge area of Kansai in 1995. Overnight, 600 animals lost,
homeless and with few facilities to take them in except
to be euthanized, arrived at ARK. Extensive media
exposure led to an army of volunteers, many celebrities
amongst them, arriving from across the country. The
ensuing media frenzy was not only a breakthrough for
ARK, but a game changer for Japan’s public awarenesstowards the prevention of cruelty to animals.

Tackling the pet boomSoon after, an unprecedented pet boom swept acrossJapan, with negligible regulatory infrastructure to protect the surging number of pets sold, supplied primarily
from unlicensed and untrained ‘balcony breeders’ whofollowed the cues from the media to anticipate the next
flavor-of-the month and send makeshift mills into overdrive. An early wave of popular puppies were of medium

to large size breeds, completely unsuited to Japanese
homes. The population of abandoned early boom Huskies and Dalmatians skyrocketed. Next came the large
number of store-purchased pets in need of serious medical intervention, many of them due to the exceptionallyhigh incidence of unchecked inbreeding in Japan.

Positive developments
Some respite and hopes of a new awakening followed
when the official national euthanasia statistics dropped
dramatically, only to be revealed that the pounds, runby the Hokenjo Public Health facilities, had stopped taking in ‘dead stock’ of unsold puppies and kittens frompet shops. There are hundreds of thousands of animals
born, and not accounted for in official statistics, which
are now being euthanized by the mills and pet shops.
During the early 2010s, Britain averaged over 1,300
cases of cruelty cases being prosecuted annually, while
Japan, with twice the population, averaged 13. Prevention of cruelty and advocacy for better protection
remains predominantly in the hands of private citizens
and welfare groups.
ARK has been supported by a wide network of advocacy groups, volunteers, donors and collaborators
throughout Japan, and the world, through its 30 years.
It does indeed take a village to rescue animals, to houseand care for them, to find them forever homes. Morework and funding are needed to expand our educationaland regulatory advocacy activities and to complete our
Sanctuary in Sasayama. The photographs and artworks
in this Exhibition have been contributed to this special
FCCJ collection by supporters, many of them artists
active as ambassadors for ARK.
● Mary Corbett is a writer and documentary producer basedin Tokyo and is a member of the FCCJ’s Board of Directors.

21 | FCCJ | NOVEMBER 2020

HAMABREEZEANIMAL REFUGE KANSAISo Beautiful, So Inbred
Ken was originally purchased at a pet
shop and soon manisfested major medical
complications common to American
Shorthairs. The problem is particularly
pronounced in Japan where most ‘breeders’
are neither licensed, nor such commonplaceinbreeding practices regulated.
NPO Animal Refuge Kansai
www.arkbark.net

INDEX

22 | FCCJ | NOVEMBER 2020

KYOKO HARADA

ANIMAL REFUGE KANSAIBath Time for Moon Bear
Newly arrived Moon Bear says ‘NO’ to a
blowdryer after his welcome shower at ARK,
and was adopted soon after, to lead a new life
as a member of a diplomatic family.
NPO Animal Refuge Kansai
www.arkbark.net

INDEX

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