Jeff Kingston, director of Asian studies at Temple University Japan. An emergency economic relief package unveiled last week earmarked $22 million for the Japanese foreign ministry “to dispel negative perceptions of Japan related to infectious diseases,” and to strengthen communications about the situation in Japan — over the Internet and through its embassies.
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quote of the day
The fact that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is wasting taxpayer money to contain the plague of foreign criticism is indicative of a government that has handled this more as a PR crisis than a pandemic.
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gkamburoff
It sounds positively Trumpian.
kurisupisu
Obviously,Jeff doesn’t read the comments section on JT.
dagon
The question is: How many distressed families in this pandemic, or even going back to the ongoing Fukushima fallout, could have benefitted from this money?
Wallace Fred
One word. Tohoku.
aomorisamurai
Let's see how much of a PR crisis this is when COVID-19 really descends on this country.
Abe and friends think those shoddy, crappy little masks they're touting are going to save 'em?
Invalid CSRF
blahblah222
And Japan still treats it as a PR operation and will continue to do so. All the while Japanese media continue to sing praise everyday for the government response and how great the leaders are and how well Japan is doing. No wonder so few people abide by the stay at home “urgings”
Almost everything the Japanese government report are meant to mislead the public. The information they post on MHLW website in Japanese for Japanese people contains misleading information such as the disease cannot be spread by asymptomatic people up to last week.
Speed
22 million dollars. Let that sink in.
How many hospitals, beds, protective gowns, masks, and respirator machines can you buy and make with that?
Public relations?
JeffLee
Nearly 2,200 crisis-hit households (around 8,000 people) could have received over a million yen over a year, according to simple mathematics, enough to cover basic living expenses: rent/mortgage, food, energy. For shorter periods, many, many more working folks could be helped. Do you think the money is better spent on trying to improve Abe's public image instead?
Bruce Chatwin
A bit more context:
The money would be better spent on testing or helping the people and businesses affected by COVID-19.
https://www.lmtonline.com/news/article/Japan-sets-aside-22-million-to-buff-government-s-15202218.php
smithinjapan
Bang on. Of course, it'll just be dismissed because the person making the statement is not Japanese. $22M simply for propaganda.... wow. How are they going to dispel THAT fact?
FireyRei
Japan dispelling negative comments towards itself. It's unheard of! The world perpetuates this golden view of Japan, why? Because negative comments are erased.
Luddite
Orwellian.
Mocheake
That is Japan and it's far from surprising as they handle all things of that nature like a PR crisis. This country's politicians, talking-head celebrities, and TV shows are OBSESSED with making sure the world knows they are "great," never cause trouble, are just full of 'omotenashi', etc.
Tokyo-Engr
Oh Jeff......you are being way too kind here.......the way Japan has handled this is borderline criminal; including the practice of splitting families if God forbid someone needs to leave Japan due to a sick or dying relative overseas. Let's face it....as foreign residents of Japan we all now fully understand what the Japanese government is doing and how little they care for Japanese citizens and even less for us. They want "highly skilled foreign immigrants"...it will never happen, ever.
Confusius
Since there is no link here, 緊急経済対策(令和2年度補正予算外務省所管分)【計1,028億円】is the document in question and can be found under https://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/files/100042203.pdf
The part interesting for the quote:
我が国の状況や取組に関する情報発信の拡充【24億円】
感染症を巡るネガティブな対日認識を払拭するため,外務本省及び在外公館において,SNS等インターネットを通じ,我が国の状況や取組に係る情報発信を拡充。
A Japanese journalist actually mentioned an article from the Washington Post on all this in a tweet and got called an agitator, liar and more. There were also several people who dismissed everything since it was a foreign newspaper, some claiming that the foreign press is just making it up and more...
Hopefully it's just the nettouyoku again. I stopped counting after about 45 such tweets... Shooting the messenger or dismissing unwanted news is just as bad as believing everything you read.
Are any newspapers in Japan actually reporting on this? I wonder how people would react to such reports then.
Aly Rustom
Kingston is right
Jandworld
government has handled this more as a PR crisis than a pandemic.
right or wrong its populistic.