<figure id="attachment_259412" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-259412" style="width: 4000px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="afe110c3"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2022/08/aflo_193824897.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-259412" class="wp-caption-text">Suddenly, Foreign Minister Hayashi became a hot topic on social media. He stayed on, but the fallout&#8230;</figcaption></figure>
 On August 10, the Kishida administration and the new cabinet were announced, but dark clouds were hanging over them.
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 The day before the announcement, &#8220;#Hanitora&#8221; was one of the trending words on Twitter. Honeytraps are, of course, an abbreviation for &#8220;honey traps,&#8221; which in Japanese means &#8220;beauty traps. It is an old-fashioned method in which a woman is blackmailed or threatened later on for her sexual tricks.
 What was the background behind such a dangerous word becoming a trending topic?
 The trigger seems to be a tweet by Mr. Iitaka Igawa, former chairman of Daio Paper Corporation, on April 8.
 When I had dinner with the late former Prime Minister Abe on April 4, he said, &#8220;Mr. Hayashi is probably caught in a Chinese honey trap. He also told us his rationale. (Original text.)
 Mr. Ikawa posted this along with an article titled &#8220;Prime Minister Adjusts to Retain Foreign Minister Hayashi. He said that former Prime Minister Abe had told him before his death that he suspected that Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, who had been retained in his post, might have been caught in a Chinese honey trap.
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 Unfortunately for Mr. Hayashi, this was the catalyst for the spread of the #honeytrap, although the post was based solely on testimony and its authenticity was not known.
 In addition, the content of the post made him feel that his life was in danger.
 《When I muttered that I would write about bribe cash-backs by the Chinese Communist Party to Japanese politicians one of these days, I got this DM in seconds. I wonder which country&#8217;s public servants they are. That country that has an embassy on TV Asahi Street?
 I received this DM in a second. There, he wrote
 I am a part-time national public servant and a public security official. Please be careful with the announcement. They are not afraid to put pressure on us, or to silence us in the name of suicide.
 The DMs, which could be taken as threats, were sent by an unidentified and suspicious person.
 Recently, Mr. Ikawa has been a frequent topic of conversation on social networking sites. Just the other day, he joined Mr. Garcy in the battle between Mr. Hiroyuki and Mr. Garcy and argued with Mr. Hiroyuki.
 He once borrowed a total of 10.6 billion yen from a subsidiary and was sentenced to four years in prison for a special breach of trust, but he is a dynamic individual who melted most of that money in casinos. The secret of his popularity may be that he is not at all shy of the Chinese and Japanese governments.
 Of course, the truth of the matter is yet to be revealed. Although a &#8220;rebuttal&#8221; from Mr. Hayashi is quite possible in the future, Mr. Ikawa is a strong man who once increased his casino gambling from 1.5 million yen to 2.3 billion yen in one fell swoop. He may have been playing some kind of &#8220;game. In any case, there is no doubt that his sudden tweet cast a shadow over the Kishida administration.

 Aflo

 Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi suddenly came under "honey-trap" allegations following accusations by former Daio Paper Corporation Chairman Yotaka Ikawa. The cabinet reshuffle has decided to retain him in his post, but the impact on the administration...

Foreign Minister Hayashi’s “#honeytrading” is trending, and an unpleasant wind blows to Kishida’s cabinet.

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