2024-02-27
Dear Mr. Shinzo Abe: The truly urgent task, above all else, is to ensure that masks are supplied to every citizen as soon as possible.
February 26, 2020

Dear Mr. Shinzo Abe,

What you have accomplished during your second administration is truly worthy of praise.
This morning, the Sankei Shimbun reported that, according to its opinion poll, support for your administration had fallen sharply and dropped below the disapproval rate for the first time in a year and seven months.
I thought that was only to be expected.
Even though those chiefly responsible for the domestic spread of the novel virus originating in Wuhan failed to hold the discussions in the Diet that they should have held about how the nation ought to respond—I have said that their conduct was such that it would be no exaggeration to describe them as acting as China’s agents, preventing the Japanese people’s anger from turning toward China—they took up only such utterly absurd, manufactured issues as the “cherry blossom viewing party” in order to attack your administration.

In particular, when it comes to the allegations concerning the hotel, every one of those opposition politicians must surely negotiate to get the lowest price they can.
Nevertheless, the spread of the virus has plainly shown that the opposition politicians who have repeatedly behaved in that manner, newspapers such as the Asahi Shimbun that have supported them with one appalling editorial after another, and NHK, television talk shows, and their on-air entertainers who have gone along with them are people tantamount to traitors to the nation.

As I have said, the Constitutional Democratic Party, the Asahi Shimbun, NHK, and other media bear the greatest responsibility.
On this point, Komeito has been no good either.
Rather than resolutely doing what needs to be done now, they have confined themselves to responding to the reprehensible opposition and voicing complaints about the conduct of certain politicians.

You, who have been subjected to these attacks, are now the most trusted politician in the world and also the politician most knowledgeable about world affairs.
You have had to deal with conditions in Japan, the conduct of the opposition and the Asahi Shimbun, and, in particular, the vulgarity and stupidity of opposition politicians who repeatedly ask questions about the hotel’s handling of the matter.

The sharp fall in your approval rating is the result of your exceptional quality—your thoroughgoing realism—having been completely clouded.

Mr. Abe.
The truly urgent task, above all else, is to ensure that masks are supplied to every citizen as soon as possible.
It really is that simple.

It is only natural that you are appalled and weary of the relentless attacks by those foolish, contemptible opposition politicians and the Asahi Shimbun.
But you must not allow them to cloud your ability to see things from the perspective of each individual citizen, which is one of your strengths.
For example, I have only five masks left.
The plum blossoms are now in full bloom in Kyoto.
Every year, I go to Jonangu Shrine and Kitano Tenmangu Shrine to see the plum blossoms—and, in the past, to photograph them.
Especially the “white-eyes among the plum blossoms.”
This is the season when I would normally be going to see the Kawazu cherry blossoms near Yodo Station on the Keihan Railway, but this year I have gone nowhere.
For some reason, I had felt an especially strong desire to visit Kitano Tenmangu Shrine, which is associated with Michizane, this year.

In the present circumstances, no one wants to enter a crowd without protection.
As a result of Japan having been under the sway of the Asahi Shimbun until August six years ago, it has become a foolish country, defenseless in every respect.

Apart from those who subscribe to newspapers such as the Asahi Shimbun and watch only NHK news programs, the great majority of citizens are certainly not such foolish advocates of going unprotected.
The sight of people who are presumably buying up masks whenever they appear in stores and now listing them for sale online is utterly ugly.
It later became clear that most of these people were Chinese.
In other words, the Japanese people are now confronting real stupidity and ugliness, and they are truly angry.

Japan’s mask manufacturers, too, are among the companies of which the country can be proud before the world.
Mr. Abe.
Members of the governing parties and lawmakers who agree with you will suffice.
Summon every company that manufactures masks to the Diet. Make public each company’s current production arrangements, how many masks it could produce if it operated around the clock, and when masks can once again be supplied to the Japanese people as normal.
If you do that, your approval rating will recover at once.

At the same time, have other companies with the capacity to manufacture masks, and the willingness to do so in response to the national emergency, begin production.
If the situation subsides and those companies are left holding unsold stock, decide to purchase all of it for the national reserve, taking this experience as a lesson.
This is no time to let fools cloud your judgment.
I understand the contest of nerves with China—a country of “bottomless evil” and “plausible lies”—over which side will first raise the matter of postponing the decision to invite Xi Jinping, the worst dictator in history, as a state guest. But leave that entirely aside. In the end, decide to postpone the visit through Machiavellianism in its proper sense. Almost every citizen will wholeheartedly support that decision.
Of course, take care not to give China an opportunity to turn your words against you.
At any rate, what matters now is masks, Mr. Abe.
With the decisiveness that is your strength, act as soon as you read this. For now, that is all.