Politics & Government

Japan Protests Headline of Time Magazine Interview with Kishida

Jiji Press

13:57 JST, May 12, 2023

TOKYO (Jiji Press) — Japan’s Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said Friday that his ministry has protested against the headline of an interview with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida the U.S. magazine Time ran in its online edition Tuesday.

While the headline initially read “Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is turning a once pacifist Japan into a military power,” it was revised to “Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is giving a once pacifist Japan a more assertive role on the global stage.”

“There were discrepancies between the headline and the content of the interview,” Hayashi told a press conference.

“The article in its conclusion adopts a tone that (the prime minister) is a leader tasked with a historic role of preventing the division of the world and we understand that such an explanation is reflected in the article as a whole,” he added.