Caption: Brief statement from Nikkei Japan On the same day, our MOFA immediately synchronized a press release stating that Nikkei had cited an unknown source on February 28 to question the loyalty of the Armed Forces in defending the country. It claimed that after our country expressed serious concern, Nikkei had published a statement on March 7 on the same page as the original report.
However, after we checked the so-called “clarification,” it merely stated that “the statements in the report represent only the personal stance and opinions of the interviewee and do not represent the position of the Nikkei Shimbun; we regret the trouble caused by this report and will strive for fairness in future reporting.” This move completely fails the principle of proportionality—it’s like screaming insults in the main street and then offering a whispered apology in a back alley.
What Nikkei did was only clarify that the report wasn’t the newspaper’s stance; it did not actually clarify whether the report’s content was true. In other words, the Japanese side’s position effectively remains one of continuing to accuse our entire military of being communist spies.
From the MOFA at the top down to Nikkei and the Taiwan-Japan Relations Association, everyone is playing word games.
One cannot help but question whether the DPP’s MOFA is simply engaging in self-deception. Even the source of the data was allegedly provided by the Taiwan-Japan Association—so what exactly is Ambassador to Japan Frank Hsieh doing?
Caption: The self-deception of the DPP government’s MOFA
This is the current state of the entire DPP government: ignoring the nation’s serious business, always focusing on other matters for the next election. We even have the absurd situation where soldiers on Matsu have no food to eat—is this how a war is supposed to be fought?
All these issues make one doubt whether the current government truly cares about the nation’s dignity. Meanwhile, the DPP is quick to act on other matters, such as requesting an extra 120 million TWD budget for universal subsidies. They are certainly very diligent in those areas.