Interview with Ms. H

"From what I see, Japanese media generally likes the U.S. and doesn’t like China very much. You can feel this slant across different outlets. For example, in newspapers: Nikkei Shimbun is mostly read by people in business and tends to stay fairly neutral — it just reports the facts without much judgment. But others, like Yomiuri Shimbun with its political focus, or Sankei Shimbun and Asahi Shimbun, often lean more strongly. When they reported on livestreaming recently, Yomiuri was the very first to publish — and honestly, it felt like they were making things up, probably with some political backing behind it.

On television, the same trend appears: the mainstream media prefers to highlight negative stories about China. Nikkei might simply state what happened — like how China managed COVID — without inserting too much opinion. But overall, there’s a pattern: when it comes to China, the emphasis is negative; when it comes to the U.S., the coverage is much more favorable.

It’s also about what they choose to focus on. If they report on China’s real estate problems, they’ll pick an extreme example — say, a half-finished building — and magnify it. But when I travel to Shenzhen on business, I still see plenty of construction going on, big cities buzzing with activity. The reality isn’t nearly as dire as the headlines suggest. Still, these papers prefer the dramatic angle, because that’s what sells.

And when they write about America, especially topics like the stock market, people are eager to read. Young people who invest in U.S. stocks follow that news closely. Hardly anyone here cares about China’s stock market. So the media caters to that interest, amplifying U.S. stories in a positive light while pushing negative images of China."