Listening to the NHK coverage of several wars that are going on around the world, I’m wondering whether the people at NHK haven’t taken a hint from Fawlty Towers in reporting of the Russo-Ukraine war. They certainly are reluctant to “mention the war,” regarding numerous things going on in the world that are clearly and correctly referred to as wars every day by respected news sources around the world.
Wars in places such as Ukraine are referred to by NHK (in Japanese, the only language that matters regarding the position of Japan on such matters) as invasions, situations, conflicts, fighting, and other things, but almost never does NHK use the W-word.
To be fair, NHK does seem to permit non-NHK people who are being interviewed in somewhat uncontrolled and perhaps difficult-to-edit situations to use the W-word, but I have never heard it uttered from an NHK mouth in their news, and that effective W-word prohibition appears to extend to people who are being interviewed in an NHK studio, and who might be somehow connected to NHK, albeit via things other than NHK news; university professors come to mind. They are presumably asked to tow the non-war line, and tow it they do.
In a few online places where NHK reports the news in English, however, I have seen them use the W-word. It’s similar to the situation with regard to “immigration,” the Japanese word for which is never used officially with regard to people coming to Japan to live, even permanently, although Japan has traditionally and ironically referred in English to its having an immigration office. This could be the result of an unwarranted fear of the distaste the thought of immigration could evoke from the general populace.
Japanese is the only language that has any official standing in Japan. If something is said in English, it hasn’t actually been said, aguably doesn’t matter, and in any event can be denied by pointing to the officially recognized Japanese rendering or explanation. Surprise! Japanese is the governing language in Japan, and English is provided only as a convenience; and making English deniable is certainly convenient.
I think NHK needs to get real. Avoiding the use of the word war to describe what Russia is doing in Ukraine is not going to get Japan back its Northern Territories from Russia, and Japan was granted special permission from the the US to continue purchasing fuel from Russia in spite of the sanctions placed on Russia by allies of Ukraine. NHK really needs to get real. Calling the war a war won’t cost anything, other than perhaps the loss of Japan’s well-earned reputation for being excessively careful even, if it results in silly news coverage.