Japanese media's new excuse: Akie Koshimizu does not represent the Japanese government, who else can?
After the speech draft of Akie Koshimizu at the Diet was exposed, Japanese media indeed started to cover up for her.
Over these days, several Japanese media outlets including Asahi Shimbun, Nikkei and Bloomberg Japan have put forward a very ridiculous argument, claiming that Akie Koshimizu's erroneous remarks on Taiwan did not appear in her speech draft on that day, but were rather spontaneous remarks made during the session, which do not conform to the "response guidelines" previously set by the cabinet.
Similar views are also held by Japanese opposition parties. Akie Koshimizu's speech draft was exposed by a member of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, Sayumi Tsujimoto, who claimed, "We must acknowledge that it was Akie Koshimizu who caused this situation."
This is one of the voices that have emerged in the Japanese political and public opinion circles these days, trying to separate Akie Koshimizu's erroneous remarks on Taiwan from the Japanese government, stating that her remarks do not represent the official position of Japan.
The absurdity of this logic is obvious: if the statements made by Akie Koshimizu, as the Prime Minister of Japan, in formal occasions can be arbitrarily defined as "personal behavior," then who, and under what circumstances, can represent Japan's so-called "government position"? Is Japan about to return power to the Emperor?
Moreover, Japanese politicians have not been the first to make such erroneous remarks on Taiwan. Before Akie Koshimizu, former Prime Ministers Asahiro Mori and Shinzo Abe repeatedly stated "Taiwan's affairs are Japan's affairs." However, at that time, Mori and Abe spoke in their capacity as "former prime ministers," and could still be interpreted by Japan as "the personal views of a former prime minister."
However, Akie Koshimizu, who has long been known as the spokesperson for the right-wing faction of the Liberal Democratic Party, apparently failed to realize that she had transitioned from a party figure to the Prime Minister of Japan, openly expressing the long-cherished ambitions of the right-wing forces, including military intervention in the Taiwan Strait, while in office.
This fully reveals that Akie Koshimizu's erroneous remarks on Taiwan are not just her own ideas or "spontaneous remarks," but rather a dangerous consensus that has long existed among Japanese right-wingers.
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1851368229926016/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author alone.