Foreigners in Japan

Washington Times Freelancer Slams Former Employer, Fails to Ethically Disclose Relationship?

Former Tokyo-based freelance journalist Christopher Johnson has been sending Cease and Desist letters to JapanProbe. In these letters, he claimed that his journalism “been beyond reproach for 25 years,” and implies that my recent blog posts pointing out inconsistencies in his “gaijin gulag” article are tarnishing his reputation. This prompted me to look further into his past work.

Freelancer hired by JVA in 2010, but rejected in 2011

In late 2010 Japan hosted the Volleyball World Cup. The Japan Volleyball Association (JVA) paid Canadian freelance journalist Christopher Johnson to write articles about the event.

The 2011 Volleyball World Cup was also hosted in Japan. Although Johnson once again applied for a job with the JVA, he was rejected.

The exact reasons behind the JVA’s decision are unknown. However, we do know Johnson’s side of the story. In a blog post dated November 11 2011, Johnson viciously attacked Hiromi Suzuki of the JVA, claiming that she unfairly blocked his assignment after he received the endorsement of a press officer of the International Federation of Volleyball (FIVB):

“…she cancelled Johnson off the list. ((Last year, though he wrote lengthy, detailed semi-final and final reports, he insisted on also doing a story for a newspaper I never heard of (the New York Times.) That was weird. Even worse, he went home from Hamamatsu on his day off to take care of his dying dog. And when I made mistakes calculating his travel expenses of 14,800 yen, he asked me to do the math again. He’s a troublemaker.))

[...]

“Before Johnson could conclude a deal potentially worth about 1.2 million yen, however, Suzuki seized the chance to get revenge on Johnson for causing “meiwaku” (trouble) by going home on his day off to take care of his dying dog. Over the phone, she told Baker that Johnson threatened to take her to court, and he still owed the JVA 1820 yen (about $25) in transport costs from last year.”

Johnson, who is writing about himself in the third-person, was clearly unhappy about missing out on the deal. The article seems to characterize Suzuki as a lazy idiot who disliked foreigners (“sent by her parents to ESL programs in London, she learned to hate English and distrust foreigners”). Rick Martin, the freelancer who was hired for the position the Johnson had hoped to fill, is characterized as someone hired because he “didn’t ask ‘difficult’ journalistic questions at press conferences.” Other JVA employees are also characterized as anti-foreign, and Japanese journalists are described as showing up drunk to volleyball matches.

[Update(Feb. ]: Johnson has since deleted his original blog post and replaced it with a NYT article. Knowing Johnson’s history of such behavior, I set up a Version tracking page. The cached version of the article is also still up. ]

Rejected freelancer writes articles slamming the JVA (without disclosing past employment)

A few weeks later, Johnson found two media outlets that were willing to publish articles that were intensely critical of the JVA:

• Japan Tobacco accused of marketing to girls at World Cup volleyball (Washington Times / November 24, 2011)
• Is Japan’s 2020 Olympic bid going up in smoke? Rest of the world fuming over tobacco sponsorship of sports in Japan. (CNN GO / December 6, 2011)

Japan Tobacco(JT)’s sponsorship of the JVA had been mentioned in Johnson’s earlier anti-JVA blog post. These two articles take that complaint a step further, framing it as story about anti-smoking campaigners who disapprove of JT.

Both articles failed to disclose Johnson’s past relationship with the JVA/FIVB. It is unlikely that any readers knew that Johnson had once worked as a JVA writer, and had just recently blogged about his intense frustration over having not been re-hired for JVA’s 2011 writing gig. From an ethical standpoint, this seems like a pretty massive disclosure failure. Shouldn’t readers have a right to know that they’re reading something written by a person that could be characterized as a disgruntled former JVA writer?

It is not clear if Johnson had disclosed his past work for the JVA/FIVB when submitting the article to the editors of CNN Go and the Washington Times.

Were cigarettes really being marketed to children?

Near the end of the Washington Times article it is revealed that the products being advertised were beverages:

“JT is a multi-products company and they are our sponsor as the beverage category for this World Cup.”

Readers are informed that the company in question, Japan Tobacco, has a beverage division. They are not informed that JT sells many very popular beverages such as Roots Coffee, Tsujiri Tea, Hot Lemon, and bottled variations of Doutor coffee and hot chocolate.

The JT name and logo are often used in coffee commercials:

It is possible that the articles mentioned in this post may be altered or deleted in the future. For the sake of posterity, here are some cached copies:

• Cached copy of Johnson’s November 2010 blog post about writing for the JVA
• Cached Copy of Johnson’s November 2011 Blog Post Attacking JVA Employees
• Cached Copy of November 2011 Washington Times article about JT’s sponsorship of JVA
• Cached Copy of December 2011 CNN Go article about JT sponsorship of JVA

Megalodon.jp is an automated site that creates cached copies of web addresses. Keeping track of what Journalists write on public blogs is not abuse.

[A huge thanks goes out to several anonymous cyber sleuths, who were kind enough to inform me about these volleyball articles. And, most of all, thanks to Christopher Johnson. ]

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Does K-Pop Group KARA Have Ties to North Korea?

Some Japanese netizens have a theory about this man, who has often been seen accompanying the South Korean pop group KARA:

They think he’s the same person as this ruffian who clashed with police outside the offices of Chongryon (Chosen Soren), an organization of pro-DPRK Korean residents of Japan:

They both share some facial features:

Those that see the “Korean Wave” in Japan as a fabrication are claiming that this is yet another example of how Korean pop culture’s popularity in Japan is part of an anti-Japanese conspiracy. They are not at all surprised that KARA would be seen associating with North Korean agents.

According to an article on the Rakuten/Infoseek Woman news site, the entertainment company that handles KARA has stated that the man is a “schedule manager” for the music group. They are looking into the accusations that he is a member of Chongryon.

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Sara Errani Admits She Avoided Tennis Tournament in Tokyo: Feared Radiation

Italian tennis player Sara Errani has confessed that she skipped the September 2011 Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo because she was afraid of radiation:

Sara Errani has admitted fears of a radiation leak after last year’s tsunami in Japan forced her to withdraw from a tournament in Tokyo.

Errani…..had previously cited only personal reasons for missing the event.

Had the tournament taken place in March or April, one might have been able to sympathize with her decision. Fearing a trip to Tokyo in September, however, was ridiculous.

Update: Christopher Johnson, the Canadian freelancer responsible for the infamous “Gaijin Gulag” article, has used his Twitter account to lash out at JapanProbe:

The sensational reports he filed after fleeing Tokyo in March 2011 were bad enough. Now he’s insisting that a short term visit to Tokyo in September would have been dangerous. And, just as he did back in March, he’s trying to insult those of us who stayed in Tokyo instead of fleeing. What an astounding display of stupidity.

It’s no surprise that event organizers asked reporters not to ask players about the radiation: the tennis tournament was not being held in a contaminated area and had nothing to do with Fukushima.

Update 2: Johnson has continued public tantrum about this post.

If you’re critical of a tennis player’s decision to avoid Tokyo because of radiation fears you are: a coward, a sexist, a dweeb, a geek, and a tool of the older male authorities.

VK has commented about this on Tepido.org:

Mr Johnson has been going off on one on Twitter about JapanProbe. They reported on an Italian tennis player who refused to play in Tokyo last September because of radiation fears.

Johnson retorted: extreme cowardice: blame healthy young female athletes for fearing nuclear radiation during meltdown.

“Nastiness” I could understand as a coherent comment, whether or not I agree with it. “Patronising wankiness” would pass the sense test. But “cowardice”? About people who didn’t flee, talking about someone too scared to come, said by someone who fled? Shaky grip on the language. And he’s quite clearly got a phenomenally loose grip on sciencey things. I’m surprised he’s got the courage to touch his computer.

Stay classy, Mr. Johnson.

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Chinese Workers Who Survived March 11th Tsunami Return to Tohoku

A Japanese news report about a group of 15 Chinese “trainee” workers who survived the March 11th tsunami, went back to China, and are now coming back to Tohoku to once again work in factories:

Among the group are five workers whose lives were saved by Sato Mitsuru, who was commissioner with the Sato Fisheries Corporation on March 11th. After leading Chinese trainee workers to safety, Sato went searching for his family and was swept away by the tsunami. The story of Sato’s death was major news in China, where he was hailed as a hero.

According to the Yomiuri, the number of Chinese trainee workers in Japan dropped dramatically after March 11th. Thousands fled the Tohoku and Kanto regions due to radiation fears. Although numbers are slowly increasing, some are apparently steering clear of Tohoku.

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Japan’s Inability to Make Decisions / Kevin Maher Strikes Back

Remember Kevin Maher, who lost his position in 2011 as director of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Japan Affairs after American students told the Japanese media that he had called Okinawans “masters of manipulation and extortion” who were “too lazy” to farm fruit?

Now that he’s no longer employed by the U.S. government, Maher has been strongly denying the accuracy of media reports about his remarks and criticizing both the Japanese government and the Obama administration. He’s released a book in Japanese, called “The Japan That Can’t Decide“(決断できない日本), and it’s supposedly been selling pretty well.

He’s also found an audience in America. Here is a video (1 hour 35 minutes) of Maher giving a speech about the main ideas of his book at the Heritage Foundation, one of America’s most influential right-wing think tanks:

At the beginning of the speech, Maher gives his side of the story about the students and his remarks about Okinawa. He states that the media reports were based on notes taken long after his actual speech and implies that the students had political motives. He also says that the State Department offered him a position in Australia after his dismissal from service in Japan, but he refused to accept “hush money” from them. He wanted the freedom to speak freely to the public.

A Heritage Foundation blog post has summarized his critical views of Japanese politics:

Japanese officials have become so fraught with indecision, he said, that Japan is mired in a perennial policy stalemate. Maher identified several reasons for this situation, including a consensus-building parliamentary system that empowers small minorities to block major decisions, a loss of confidence among politicians resulting from Japan’s lost decades of economic stagnation, and an aversion to taking risks and assuming responsibility.

Maher blamed Japan’s consensus-building approach and emphasis on domestic political concerns for the ongoing stalemate over the planned U.S. military realignment on Okinawa, particularly the Marine Corps Futenma Replacement Facility. Japan has passed the buck on implementing the previously agreed-upon plan of relocating Futenma’s air assets to Camp Schwab, transferring 8,000 Marines to Guam, and reducing the burden on the local population.

Maher emphasized that Japan’s populace and political leadership must take security issues more seriously—a weakness underscored by the meager 1 percent of GDP spent on defense. Maher condemned proposals to relocate Futenma’s helicopters off Okinawa, noting that Marine Corps units must constantly train with integrated air, ground, and logistics assets. In his words, “if they don’t train together, they die, and we will not sacrifice Marines’ lives for Japan’s domestic political concerns.” Japan must simply wake up to its security environment and understand why U.S. Marines on Okinawa are essential to peace and security in the Pacific.

The AFP also had a story about him, in which focus was placed on his view of the Kan Administration’s weak response to the Fukushima crisis:

Maher said that the US government was privately terrified over the unfolding crisis. He accused Japan’s then prime minister, Naoto Kan, of evading responsibility and trying to pass the problem over to the plant’s operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Co.

“I remember sitting on a task force many a time thinking, ‘Who the hell is in control in Japan?’ The government’s not doing anything. Kan made one trip and flew up and got in the way and came back,” Maher said.

Maher said that he watched in horror as he saw television footage of a sole helicopter dropping water on the stricken plant.

“Is that the best Japan can do?” Maher said. “Frankly what happened is the US government called in the Japanese ambassador and said, look, you have to take this stuff seriously. We don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Maher said that the United States was even looking at whether it would have to evacuate some 100,000 Americans, although it soon became clear that Tokyo was not in harm’s way.

Maher thinks that in the early days of the crisis, there was nobody at the government level who wanted to take responsibility for the Fukushima crisis. The Kan Administration wanted it to be “Tepco’s problem” instead of the government’s problem. This was “irresponsible” behavior. After about March 16th, the crisis management increased greatly.

Some of the points he makes in the speech:

• The scandal about his alleged remarks took place was top news the day before the earthquake/tsunami. After March 11th, newspapers on the mainland devoted their attention to the gigantic disaster. But the Okinawan press supposedly thought Maher’s scandal was more important, and gave it more attention than the disaster.
• The Okinawa base issue is just like the issue of hold-out houses in the middle of Narita Airport: Japanese politicians try and fail at consensus-building, so a small minority can spoil policies that should help the entire country.
• When Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashed in 1985, Japanese SDF helicopters could not send down rescue crews because it was dark and they lacked night vision equipment. The American military offered assistance, but were rejected. As a result, injured survivors died while rescuers waited until sunrise. Maher thinks that bureaucrats turned down the American offer because they thought that it would take too long to build a consensus for its approval.
• Because Japan’s crisis management system relies on consensus-building, it basically has no effective means to deal with a crisis. (He doesn’t know how one would translate the idea of OBE into Japanese.)
• Japan needs to understand that “not deciding is deciding.”
• The real problem is that politicians do not want to take responsibility for tough decisions. If you build consensus before making a decision, everyone is responsible for it. But if you have to decide something without consensus, you’ve got to take responsibility.
• People in America who tell the Japanese to “put aside” the North Korea abductee issue are wrong. If American citizens were kidnapped by Cuba, America would probably go to war. How can you tell Japan to just ignore such a problem?
• Japan and America should not ignore the fact that China is a “totalitarian dictatorship.” China is a “real threat” to Japan.
• The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force should aquire nuclear-powered submarines to counter China’s growing naval strength.
• Japan needs to face security issues head-on and make the difficult decisions that need to be made. This involves explaining the necessity to the Japanese public.
• The relocation of Futenma Air Station to Henoko is the best solution available. Unfortunately, it will probably not be implemented. (But the security relationship between America and Japan is still functioning well. )
• Keeping Futenma’s helicopters near the other Marine bases on Okinawa is vital for their training. And adequate training is a matter of life and death to the marines. Unlike the Japanese, they face the realistic possibility of being sent to a war zone. (Unnamed Democrats criticized him after he said this to Hatoyama’s advisors in 2010.)
• Noda has the potential to be a stronger leader than Hatoyama or Kan. But it is difficult to look forward and predict how things will turn out.
• Japan needs to restart most of its nuclear reactors. Otherwise, electricity shortages will seriously damage the economy.
• The population is declining because many people aren’t optimistic about the future of Japan.
• He isn’t criticizing traditional Japanese culture. Japanese politicians in the 1950′s and 1960′s knew how to make decisions. Japan’s current problems are brought on by a lack of confidence, possibly due to economic stagnation.
• “The Japanese people deserve better politics.”

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“Gaijin Gulag” Victim Christopher Johnson Discloses Visa Information ( Work Visa Application Paperwork, But No Approval? )

Part I: Visa status announced, then deleted

A quick update on the ongoing tale of Christopher Johnson, a freelance journalist whose Narita Airport “Gaijin Gulag” story has been picked up by several major news websites (The Economist, Boing Boing, Reddit).

In my last post, I noted that Johnson’s refusal to disclose his visa status had created considerable controversy about his account of detention and deportation.

Johnson’s article is an ever-evolving work. He has been constantly editing his blog post, changing the wording of old passages and adding new information. His latest edit may have answered the big question about his visa.

It now has a new passage (emphasis added):

Though I had work visas dating back to 1989, and papers saying the government had acknowledged the receipt of my application to renew my work visa, I was detained at Narita airport and expelled.

If this is correct, it seems to confirm what many people had suspected: Johnson did not have a valid work visa. Paperwork stating that the government had received an application does not grant permission to enter the country. Should immigration officers have assumed that the application would be accepted? [UPDATE: Less than two hours have passed since I made this post, and Johnson has DELETED the above-mentioned passage from his blog post! Just how are we supposed to explain that? ]

I have been in similar situation. I applied for a visa renewal but during the month that it took to process the paperwork, my previous visa expired. I was told that I could remain in the country until I received the results of the renewal application. The validity of the re-entry permit in my passport was tied to the date of the previous visa. So if I left the country during that week of “limbo” between visas, there was a high risk that I might not be allowed back in. I was also not supposed to engage in work during the period between visas. If Johnson’s case was the same, it is baffling that he left the country before the new visa had been approved.

Oddly enough, Johnson has not changed an older passage about the visa situation:

I first had a work visa for Japan in 1989, and my last renewal began in 2008. I have never overstayed, and never broken laws in Japan.

Did he apply for a renewal in 2008 and not receive a response until 2011? I might be safe to assume that one of the two passages is wrong. Maybe the most recent one? It sure is hard to fully understand a situation when the details keep changing…

Johnson also added a passage about a “similar” case (taken from a credible source – an anonymous internet comment):

In an account similar to my own, a Canadian using the pseudonym “mxlx3″ explained his ordeal in a comment to The Economist’s Banyan blog. After 11 years working legally and paying taxes in Japan, he lost his $125,000 per year job, all his possessions in his apartment, and his Japanese fiancee, because bureaucrats messed up his renewal for a work permit. After his sponsored work visa expired, immigration officers told him to leave Japan and come back on a tourist visa while his new employment visa was being processed. But upon returning from Guam in 2002, he was detained and expelled.

Johnson has stated today that his visa status “has been explained,” but questions remain: had the previous visa expired? Why had he left the country before the renewal was processed?

Part II: Johnson Changes His Story Again

Update [Jan. 26]: For the past several days, a user called “imcanjapn” had been leaving comments on the Economist’s website, closely mirroring Christopher Johnson’s statements on other sites. After several users claimed to have “outed” him as Johnson’s sockpuppet account, he disappeared.

Now, Johnson himself has appeared on that comment thread, making new claims about his visa status:

Those who accused me of doing “visa runs”, “over-staying” or “gaming the system” for 22 years have been proven false. I had work visas dating back to 1989, and documents from the immigration department regional office in Tokyo in 2011 that acknowledged they were processing my application to renew my visa to continue working legally in Japan as a freelance journalist. Under new regulations, I was allowed to keep my passport during this time. Immigration officers in Tokyo kindly told me several times I could leave and return to Japan during this process, thanks to new procedures. I had no problem returning to Japan, on this same basis, from trips to Canada and Germany in 2011.

Commenting on the older version of his article, which stated that he several beers on the short morning flight, Johnson claimed that he was “not drunk or high upon arrival at Narita.”

He continues to claim that officials did not tell him the reason why he was given an expulsion order. Once again, he has implied that the Japanese government was out to get him because of his heroic truth-telling. Supposedly, Johnson used to work for NHK World, but was “blacklisted” by them because he started spreading the word about how NHK was “squandering of millions of yen of taxpayers funds on cash-cow programs which can’t be seen in Japan.” (Isn’t that the whole point of NHK World – to make programs for an audience outside Japan?)

If his latest claim about visa status is true, one wonders why he has evaded answering questions about his visa. Why would he hide that information, and lash out at people who asked about it? Why in the world would he leave such critical details out of the original version of his story. It makes no sense at all. Few of his critics are likely to trust him now.

One user on the FG forums responded to Johnson’s new claims with the following:

“Maybe Chris Johnson was lucky on his earlier entries, maybe they were during the life of the previous visa, or maybe the decision not to allow his renewal was made coincidentally during his time in Korea. Maybe he misunderstood what Immigration were telling him, and looked at it all a bit too optimistically.

Or maybe it is a global world conspiracy by NHK, Serbians and the nuclear industry specifically targetting him. I wonder which is more likely.”

Extra: Unlike those other foreigners…..

Update: Reading over Johnson’s article, I noticed one interesting passage in his blog post (emphasis added):

But I didn’t flee Japan like thousands of foreigners after the March 11 disasters. I made personal sacrifices to tell the world about the plight of disaster victims, to generate sympathy for Japan. I earned income from sources outside Japan, and spent it inside Japan.

I thought this whole “flyjin” issue was behind most of us, but since Johnson wants to bring it up, let’s take a look at the record. Some quick Googling found that Johnson did indeed stay in Japan after the disaster. However, while millions of us stayed at our homes and workplaces in Tokyo, Johnson joined the panic-stricken and got the got on a bullet train.

On March 16th, Canada’s CTV network aired a telephone interview with Johnson, who has bravely decided to stay in the city of Hamamatsu..which he claims could still be in harm’s way. Johnson implies that the people who didn’t flee Tokyo were the ones who had given in to fear.

(In the video, CTV has erroneously included “On the line from: Tokyo” at the top of the screen.)

—-Begin Transcript——

News anchor asked him how close he is to the exposed areas.

CHRIS JOHNSON: “…I’m not sure if I’m in the exposed area or not…..[explains that Hamamatsu is "a little over a hundred kilometers" southwest of Tokyo]…I decided to come here so that I could still be close to Tokyo but…uh…I wanted to get out before there was any sort of mass attempt at an escape…[mentions strong winds near Hamamatsu]….But if…if there is a meltdown, I am going to try to get down to Osaka or anywhere south, if I can.”

News anchor asked him if he is personally concerned.

CHRIS JOHNSON: “I think everybody is…COUGH excuse me..I am one of the LAST people I know to leave Tokyo. All my friends left earlier. Basically anybody that had small children we-were leaving. When I took the bullet train, the high speed Shinkansen bullet train here, it was just full of Japanese mothers with their babies. While their husbands were still working in Tokyo today. But even…uh…Sony for example..uhm..normally has 6,000 people working at their headquarters. They only had about 120 today. Everybody else has left.”

News anchor asks where people are going.

CHRIS JOHNSON: “They try to go to where they have relatives in other parts of the country that are outside the disaster zone. Or a lot of them go to Osaka, stay in hotels. In fact, I am told the Austrian embassy has relocated to Osaka. A lot of foreign journalists have moved down there too. So everybody is just sort of waiting and watching…and uh..fearful about the situation. But there are a lot of people still in Tokyo and a lot of people are not able to leave. They don’t know where to go. They don’t have a lot of money and a lot of people are sort of paralyzed with with shock and fear…”

—-End Transcript——

Small Update: Johnson’s own Twitter posts have directly contradicted the claims he made on Canadian television:

So on TV in March he claimed that all his friends had fled. On Twitter in January 2011, he’s saying that a large number of his friends did stay. So, which is it? They can’t both be true.

There you have it: Christopher Johnson did not flee Japan like thousands of other foreigners. No way. He only contributed to the English language news reports that exaggerated the exodus from Tokyo and encouraged others to flee. For his heroic service, he apparently deserves special treatment at immigration checkpoints.

For the latest information, check out these discussion threads about Johnson’s article:

• Forum thread on F-cked Gaijin.
• Discussion on Tepido.org
• Discussion on Debito.org
• Discussion on Reddit
• Discussion on the Economist website

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