The lack of consistency in Japanese journalism

In ancient times, we Japanese had no written language. Now, we use Chinese characters and particular letters
known as Kana. Kana are kinds of phonetic symbols.
The Koreans use Chinese characters and their own particular letters, known as Hangul, too. Of course, Japanese,
Korean and Chinese languages are very different from each other. Also, our pronunciation of Chinese characters
is different from each other. As a matter of course, we Japanese pronounce foreigners’ names written in Chinese
characters with Japanese pronunciation. For example, we call Mao Zedong(マオ・ズアドン:毛沢東) Mo Takuto, Jiang
Jieshi(ジアン・ジエシー:蒋介石) Sho Kaiseki, Zhou Enlai(ジョウ・エンライ:周恩来) Shu Onrai, Deng Xiaoping(ダン・シャ
オピン:小平) To Shohei.
About ten years ago, Korea made a strong protest that we Japanese pronounced their names with the wrong pronunciation.
After that, the Japanese media, such as TV announcers suddenly began saying Koreans’ names with strange
pronunciation. I thought Japanese journalists had to write Koreans’ names in Kana when they wanted to have
Korean pronunciation. Besides, they still pronounce Chinese names with Japanese pronunciation. Additionally, Chinese
pronunciation differs very much between the several regions of China.
If the Chinese should
make the same protest, how would Japanese journalists pronounce Chinese names? I think we’d have to keep
Japanese pronunciation of Chinese letters. ( August ’04. Malandro )