MF Investigative Journalism

This is a week old, but following on the General Tamogami essay scandal in Japan a few weeks ago, Roy Berman at Mutantfrog wrote an excellent piece on the suspicious background of the event, and the blog post has just been quoted by a pulitzer-prize winning historian, Herbert Bix, author of Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, in an online piece at Japan Focus. This is frankly blogging at its absolute best—investigative journalism, done purely with online resources, by a person with the right background and language skills.

To summarize (and slightly abridge) the conclusion:

Motoya Toshio is a very successful construction and real estate entrepeneur, with extreme right wing views, an obsession with political leaders and celebrities, and an otaku-esque fascination with military things. Having built his company into the massive APA Group, he used his company’s publicity apparatus to promote his political ideas, and his significant financial leverage to support Japanese politicians supportive of his militaristic agenda. He appears to have also used those political connections to promote large business projects, and when his company became embroiled in a serious construction inspection scandal, he also turned to his political allies for help.

Combining his attraction to both power and military, he invited ASDF General Tamogami Toshio into his circle, bringing him to address the launch party for his latest right-wing tract. Motoya then had APA sponsor an essay contest promoting his book—possibly an illicit use of corporate funds—with the grand prize awarded to Tamogami, in a decision I suspect was actually arranged by Motoya personally.

Motoya was probably hoping that Tamogami, who had a history of making controversial public statements and escaping serious censure, would be able to continue the main-streaming of right-wing militaristic views, but his gamble failed. His friend Abe Shinzo was no longer Prime Minister, having perhaps spent too much of his political capital defending Motoya’s APA Group and Huser during the earthquake proofing inspection scandals, and Aso’s government was not interested in risking blow-back by defending a general who had so egregiously violated the rules on political speech by uniformed officers. Fukuda Yasuo had worked to improve relations with China and other neighbors following the Abe administration, and perhaps newly appointed Prime Minster Aso Taro, despite his right-wing views and his own well-earned reputation for making gaffes decided to take the pragmatic route.

And to answer one question of Roy’s in his post—Apa is not a listed company and is not publicly traded on any stock exchange. It’s shareholders are not disclosed and through a cursory search no information is available online.