Japan's right-wing politicians who react badly to foreign criticism are often insensitive to the feelings of foreign people whom they seem to despise. They seem to regard any foreigner who does not praise every aspect of Japan and points out that there were dark moments in Japanese history as a "Japan basher" and, accordingly, an enemy of Japan. This attitude is harmful to Japan's national interests and reputation.
I was shocked to read in a recent issue of the journal of the Foreign Correspondents Club in Tokyo a farewell article by the correspondent of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which I know from my service in Germany as a highly respectable serious journal that would never report sensational stories and always checks its facts.
When the correspondent wrote an article critical of the Abe administration's historical revisionism, the Japanese Consul General in Frankfurt, presumably acting on instructions from Tokyo, called on the paper's senior foreign policy editor to complain about the article.