America 1982-Chapter 571 - 122: Sacrifice

The United States Government has always been direct and impartial in its actions. For example, after being played for a fool by Japan, the Federal Government’s first response was to make all citizens believe that Japan had treated all Americans as fools, rather than just the dull and tedious Federal officials.

Thus, almost overnight, the domestic television networks were flooded with an atmosphere of hostility toward Asian countries. Whether it was CBS, ABS, NBC, Murdoch’s FOX, Turner’s CNN, TNT, Tommy’s BT Television Network, or VOX News Network, during this period, they all cooperated with the Federal Government to broadcast a variety of programs that bred negative sentiments towards Asian countries, including TV series, films, documentaries, and even discriminatory talk shows. Even the newspapers were filled with hostile reports and satirical cartoons.

That’s not to say there weren’t any media magnates who refused to go along. Old Turner initially declined to participate, believing that it was the Republican government’s reaction, comparable to that of a startled marmot, that was mainly to blame, rather than other factors.

Those who dared to stand up during this time of propaganda emphasis, including Tommy, could only offer moral support, then watch as Old Turner’s three television networks were fined over seven million dollars in total by the FCC, which found various violations and publicly prepared to penalize Turner’s defiant networks.

This made Old Turner come to his senses quickly, immediately canceling the previously scheduled domestic environmental documentaries, and switched to broadcasting documentaries about Pearl Harbor and the WWII fight against Japanese fascism in the Pacific.

Of course, this hostile propaganda mainly targeted China and Japan. As for South Korea, which had also participated in part of the cooperation, it was not affected much. According to the news Tommy learned, South Korea, after a slight intimidation by America, obediently revealed the details of the trilateral cooperation between China, Japan, and South Korea to the United States and terminated the cooperation, in exchange for American politicians publicly acknowledging that South Korea had replaced Japan as America’s most important ally in Asia.

After South Korea pulled off such a move, the greatest pleasure for Tommy was being able to sit in front of the TV and watch Japanese news commentary programs from across the Pacific. In those programs, the Japanese used almost every vile term imaginable against South Korea. The general sentiment was that while Japan was striving to extricate itself from being America’s economic colony and working tirelessly towards this end, South Korea took pride in becoming America’s colony and was willing to damage, even betray, other Asian countries for this. Some agitated Japanese citizens interviewed on the street even roared that it would only be after South Korea had an atomic bomb dropped on its territory by America that it would realize how shameful and stupid its current betrayal of China and Japan was.

There was a reason for the Japanese’s rage. America’s response to Japan’s trickery was very severe. One week after learning of the China-Japan cooperation, the then Prime Minister of Japan, Uno Sosuke, was ousted over a scandal, replacing him with a new Prime Minister named Kaifu Toshiki. After taking office, his first action was to call America, and then, America began to instruct the major television networks to reduce negative reports about Japan.

Uno Sosuke’s scandal was hardly worth mentioning, merely involving an extramarital affair with a geisha that ended without the customary payment to keep the woman quiet. It wasn’t that he was trying to renege on the payment, but rather he was too honest and frugal to afford it and had kept delaying the payment.

Because the geisha named Nakasai Mitsuko was a national treasure-level courtesan, the customary payment was a substantial sum, and Uno Sosuke could not come up with it. What brought him to power was his poverty.

The Japanese government had just been rocked by a scandal involving high-level officials accepting political kickbacks, forcing many to resign. The Japanese people found it extremely difficult to find a politician with a clean financial record. Eventually, after much careful selection and screening, Uno Sosuke was chosen to succeed the resigned former Prime Minister as the 75th Prime Minister of Japan because he was not part of the kickback scandal, and his financial records, which had been inspected numerous times, showed a clear and modest account.

In large part, the Japanese people chose him because they felt he was not that corrupt.

His romantic scandal had already been reported by the domestic Japanese media before he took office, but the public was completely disinterested, even considering the newspaper’s coverage as making a mountain out of a molehill. After all, compared to the astronomical sums of political kickbacks received by dozens of politicians, the love story between a poor politician and a famous geisha was trivial.

The reason it caused a stir was thanks to the handiwork of America’s The Washington Post and VOX News Network. The Washington Post’s Tokyo office, through certain channels, obtained an interview with the geisha. Abiding by the principle of not wasting resources, The Washington Post not only published the scandal involving the geisha Nakasai Mitsuko in its own paper but also introduced her to VOX News Network, allowing this Nakasai Mitsuko to appear before people from various countries around the world. Both unscrupulous media outlets used tactics such as deception and enticement to secure a wealth of intimate details of her relationship with Uno Sosuke, and they chose to make these details public, with no regard for privacy.

Most importantly, both The Washington Post and VOX News Network replaced the term "hush money" with "breakup fee." This was the most devastating blow to Uno Sosuke. If it was hush money, it would imply that the man was paying to ensure that as a geisha, she would not disclose their affair. Besides, there has always been a tradition in the geisha industry of paying hush money upon separation. Uno Sosuke not paying the hush money would sound normal to most people, as not everyone is a multimillionaire who can afford a fortune, especially since geishas have levels of prominence, with the more famous ones receiving higher fees.