This article criticizes the Yomiuri Shimbun’s April 10, 2020 editorial on the lifting of Wuhan’s lockdown, arguing that it uncritically echoed Chinese Communist Party claims. It questions China’s official infection and death figures, examines the reality of the Wuhan lockdown, and warns against Japan’s lax border controls.

2020-04-13
The following is from an article I found online a short while ago.
I recently stopped subscribing to the Yomiuri Shimbun, and this made me think: just as I expected.
Yesterday’s Yomiuri editorial says, “Learn from Wuhan.”
Is the writer of this editorial out of his mind?
Is he an agent for China?
How can the Yomiuri Shimbun publish such an editorial?
Have they no shame?
Where has the pride of journalism gone?
Or did it never exist in the first place?
They simply take the announcements of the Chinese Communist Party government at face value.
Whether they truly believe them or not, they eagerly carry water for China and pour useless information over the Japanese people for the sake of their beloved China.
I do not know who wrote this editorial, but “The lifting of Wuhan’s lockdown: Lessons remain from the city closure” dated April 10, 2020, is an appalling editorial, rare even in recent times.
It is every bit as dreadful as the Asahi Shimbun editorial board member’s tweet saying that the new coronavirus “may, in a sense, be a delightful existence.”
The man who wrote this editorial, or perhaps it was a woman, is not looking at reality at all.
He seems to feel none of the terror of the Wuhan-Tedros virus.
And because he neither tries to investigate reality nor tries to look at reality, there is not even a shred of critical spirit in him.
He is merely swallowing the announcements of the Chinese Communist Party whole.
It reminds me of the intellectuals and media figures who, in the heyday of the Soviet Communist Party, promoted the Soviet Union as though it were a dream country, an ideal state.
At the very beginning, he brazenly writes, “In Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, the lockdown measures were lifted for the first time in two and a half months. We would like to make use of the lessons from the city lockdown that was implemented ahead of the rest of the world.”
I am astonished by the sheer insensitivity.
First of all, he raises no question whatsoever about the lifting of the Wuhan lockdown.
Because he begins there, everything that follows becomes Chinese Communist Party propaganda.
He writes, “Infections in mainland China exceed 80,000, but new infections have sharply decreased in recent weeks. The head of the expert team of China’s health authorities points out that if the lockdown had been delayed by five days, infections would have tripled. It is certain that the Wuhan lockdown achieved a certain effect.”
I want to curse him as a fool.
No one in the world believes that “new infections have sharply decreased in recent weeks.”
The only person who believes it is this editorial writer.
Toward the end, he offers a token excuse, writing that “U.S. media have reported that U.S. intelligence agencies compiled an analysis stating that China has underreported infections and deaths.”
But this is nothing more than an alibi.
This editorial writer knows that if he does not say, “new infections have sharply decreased in recent weeks,” his beloved China will be angry with him.
There is no other way to describe such a person than outrageous.
In the newsletter of China commentator Masahiro Miyazaki, the following point was made.
According to a special report by the influential American think tank AEI, dated April 7, 2020, by researcher Derek Scissors, it is estimated that China already had 2.9 million infections.
By early April, global infections had exceeded one million, yet China continued to refuse entry to international inspection teams and continued to conceal the truth.
Few people can easily accept the claim that Italy, Spain, France, and Britain had more deaths than China.
The estimate of 2.9 million infections is based on Hubei Province as a whole, centered on Wuhan, where information was not disclosed and people were free to travel to other provinces.
When the infection rate is calculated by applying the global average, this estimate holds.
In other words, even by the most conservative estimate, 1.2 million people left Wuhan.
Of these, 2,700 would be infected when converted by applying ratios based on international comparisons.
Next, if the longest incubation period is taken as three weeks and the same ratio is applied using Italy’s case, the number of infections across China becomes 2.9 million.
The fatality rate is 4.7 percent.
From this, the estimated number of deaths across China becomes 136,000.
Has this editorial writer ever investigated information of this kind?
If you are a journalist, make at least some effort to pursue the truth.
Does your heart not ache when you simply pour out the announcements of the Chinese Communist Party as they are?
He casually says, “It is certain that the Wuhan lockdown achieved a certain effect.”
He also says, “Japan does not envision compulsory measures such as city lockdowns or bans on going outside, but the Wuhan case is worth referring to.”
But what outrageous things were done inside that lockdown?
They have not yet been fully revealed, but surely one can imagine them.
Since the death toll was not merely 8,000, cruel Chinese methods must have been used to conceal the reality.
Wuhan must have been one coercive measure after another.
If you say, “The Wuhan case is worth referring to,” then say it clearly.
Say that what you mean is the Wuhan lockdown of concealment, unauthorized cremations, and forced disposal.
This editorial writer is saying that Japan should learn from such a Wuhan lockdown.
He can only be called an incompetent fool.
And then, at the end, he writes something utterly worthless to muddy the waters.
“The Chinese government should not boast of its success in suppressing infections, but should actively disclose scientific data showing the effects of the city lockdown and information concerning its social impact.”
As if it would ever do so.
Has the Chinese Communist Party regime, built out of lies, ever once told the truth?
He ends with such irresponsible words, knowing full well that the Chinese Communist Party will never do this.
He is truly an utter fool.
Is this person really a journalist?
Is he not an agent for China?
I can almost see the Japanese operatives connected to the Chinese Communist Party throwing their heads back and laughing because such a splendid editorial was written for them.
It was a truly nauseating editorial.
Finally, I learned online that even in April, Chinese nationals were still coming to Japan in large numbers.
I had thought that travel by Chinese nationals had been banned, but that was not the case.
Since China claims that infections have ended, perhaps during the May holidays Chinese tourists will once again fill Japan’s tourist destinations, carrying plenty of virus with them.
That is because the travel restrictions on Chinese nationals are full of holes.
According to the Immigration Services Agency, in the first week of April, 1,650 Chinese nationals were permitted to land in Japan because special circumstances were recognized.
There were 249 people who were not permitted to land.
The “special circumstances” are described as including cases in which a person holding a Chinese passport issued in Hubei Province or Zhejiang Province can clearly show that he or she had no history of staying in Hubei Province or Zhejiang Province within the 14 days before applying for landing.
In other words, in just one week, 1,899 Chinese nationals tried to land in Japan, and 87 percent of them, as many as 1,650 Chinese nationals, entered Japan.
Is this not terrifying?
China’s infections have not ended at all.
However, the Immigration Services Agency, or rather Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, can only be called truly foolish.
Even now, if a person has “no history of staying in Hubei Province or Zhejiang Province within the 14 days before applying for landing,” they simply pass through.
Even if someone had stayed in Hubei Province or Zhejiang Province, they could simply declare that they had not been there.
If they wanted to evade the rule more carefully, they could merely move from Hubei Province to another province and then come to Japan.
What on earth is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs doing?
At this rate, the spread of the Wuhan-Tedros virus will never be prevented.
In other words, Chinese nationals who were unable to come during the Lunar New Year can come to Japan in large numbers as tourists toward the spring Golden Week.
To tourism businesses across the country, here is good news.
Soon you will be filled with Chinese tourists again.
And then, the destruction of Japan.