TNL Media Group, a multilingual independent media and data platform based in Taiwan, has announced that Takeshi Yoshimura, the former head of Sankei Shimbun Taipei branch, has joined TNL Japan as Editor-in-chief. Mr. Yoshimura will begin editing TNL Japan this December.
Mr. Yoshimura was born in Akashi, in Japan’s Hyogo Prefecture. While studying at Nihon University College of Law in 1988, he studied abroad at Peking University. After graduation, he joined Sankei Shimbun in 1990, and was in charge of covering two important cases in Japanese society: the Glico Morinaga case and the Sekihōtai case. He also had experiences tracking organized crimes and doing reports about the royal family. At the same time, he began to grow his interest in cross-strait relationships while interviewing Japanese in China and Chinese in Japan who had migrated after World War II.
Mr. Yoshimura was chosen and sent to National Taiwan University to study by Sankei Shimbun during 2006-2007, and served as head of Sankei Shimbun’s Taipei branch from 2011 to 2014. After returning to Japan, he wrote a thesis “Policy towards Japan and across the strait of Ma Ying-Jeou Regime” to obtain a master’s degree of international intelligence from Nihon University Graduate School. After that, he served as director and editorial committee member of Sankei Shimbun’s Hiroshima General Bureau, and retired at the end of 2019 to become a freelance reporter.
He recently published a book, Bloody Winds of Asia (アジア血風録) (MdN Shinsho) and has been writing articles for magazines and online media, mostly on topics relating to the Taiwan Strait. He also hosts Hyper J Channel’s’s program “Yoshimura Tsuyoshi’s Asia Newsbook” and “Talk about Taiwan, visit Taiwan (“话しTaiwan·行きTaiwan”)” and serves as part-time lecturer in the Department of Oceanography at Tunghai University.
According to Mr. Yoshimura, Japan and Taiwan are like brothers who share the same issues. Yet every year, 5 million Taiwanese people visit Japan, while only 2 million Japanese visit Taiwan annually, despite its much larger population. Many Taiwanese are familiar with Japan, and he wishes to make more Japanese familiar with Taiwan.