The Wuhan virus crisis exposed the danger of Japan’s and the world’s dependence on China. Although China once had nothing to do with ordinary business life, nations moved the production of medical supplies, masks, and essential goods to China merely for lower costs, only to face shortages when the crisis came. This article criticizes the Chinese Communist Party’s conduct, the seizure of Japanese manufacturers’ products, Japan’s mask shortage, and urges a decisive break from dependence on China.

April 23, 2020
When I was doing the greatest work of my business life, the existence of China had nothing whatsoever to do with anything.
The same must surely have been true for all people throughout the world.
There is a famous line in a Japanese manga:
“You are already dead.”
That is exactly what China, that is, the CCP, is today.
Taking China’s nominal population of 1.3 billion,
people who are nothing more than NHK employees, people who cannot even be compared with genuine journalists such as Masayuki Takayama, and newspapers such as the Asahi Shimbun,
have continued to make comments that China would be delighted to hear,
such as, “China is a great power, a great power alongside the United States. Between these two great powers, Japan must…”
They have continued to make China, that is, the CCP, ever more arrogant.
When I was doing the greatest work of my business life, the existence of China had nothing whatsoever to do with anything.
The same must surely have been true for all people throughout the world.
At the same time as China became arrogant, the gap between rich and poor in the United States, for example, expanded astronomically.
The wealth of the middle class and the thickness of that class should have been the very essence of America being America.
The time when a handful of the ultra-rich began to possess more than 90 percent of America’s wealth,
and the time when China’s arrogance began, followed the same trajectory.
Few would object to defining Kissinger as the originator of this.
In any case, China is no good at all.
The ruling class of China, a one-party communist dictatorship, obtains astronomical sums of money through bribes and the like,
and sends that money, together with their daughters and sons, overseas to countries such as the United States.
It is no exaggeration to say that divine punishment has fallen upon the way the world has followed the same trajectory as this most immoral country.
People in countries throughout the world, except for the foolish nations participating in the Belt and Road Initiative,
have realized to the marrow of their bones that the way things have been done up to now was completely wrong.
Even if a product costs not one yen more, but 100 yen more, or even 1,000 yen more,
safe products made in one’s own country,
and the production of medicines, medical goods, and other items that protect people’s lives,
should never have been made, merely one yen cheaper, by people with rural household registration in China,
people who can be called slaves without exaggeration.
In Japan, manufacturers such as Unicharm and Kowa have competed to make high-quality masks.
Yet they moved their manufacturing plants to China.
The reason was that manufacturing costs were low.
That was the only reason.
China caused the Wuhan virus to emerge.
Tokyo Governor Koike, who did not know the reality of the WHO,
LDP Secretary-General Nikai, the representative of the pro-China faction,
local governments, and major corporations such as Sumitomo Mitsui,
had no insight whatsoever that Japan would fall into the situation in which it now finds itself.
Still dancing to the tune of false Japan-China friendship,
they donated large quantities of masks, medical protective equipment, and other supplies to China.
China’s repayment for that favor was the seizure of all the products made by the manufacturers mentioned above.
Although they were products being made for Japan in factories of Japanese manufacturers,
not a single mask came into Japan.
Now that Japan is even beginning to lack medical protective equipment,
companies from other industries, such as Toyota, have begun production for the sake of Japan.
At 10 a.m. today, Sharp began selling the masks it had started manufacturing.
The products were sold online only, starting at 10 a.m. today,
one box of 50 masks, limited to one box per person.
People with the same name could not purchase again within three days.
Three thousand boxes would be sold each day.
This was reported by every television station and every newspaper company.
Because Sharp is producing them at its factory in Mie Prefecture,
it has made masks of a quality that anyone would find satisfactory.
I, too, set an alarm while working on this column and joined the battle.
Before that, however, I had a friend who cannot use a PC,
so I called to ask whether there might be any way to help him.
But calls were flooding in, and I could not get through.
Ah, just as I thought.
Even at 10 a.m., the internet did not move at all.
It was overloaded.
Even at 5 p.m. in the evening, Sharp announced that it had not been able to confirm anything properly.
Because of China’s unparalleled viciousness, the majority of the Japanese people had been enduring silently.
The following is the chapter I sent out to Prime Minister Abe on February 26, 2020.
Dear Mr. Shinzo Abe,
What you have accomplished during the second Abe administration is truly worthy of praise.
In this morning’s Sankei Shimbun, there was an article saying that, according to its public opinion poll, the approval rating of the administration had fallen sharply for the first time in one year and seven months, dropping below the disapproval rating.
I thought, “That is only natural.”
Even though those who bear the greatest responsibility for the domestic spread of this new virus from Wuhan
failed to do what they should have done in the Diet, namely to discuss, as a nation, how Japan should respond to it,
I have already pointed out that their conduct was such that it would not be an exaggeration to say they were acting as agents of China,
trying to prevent the anger of the Japanese people from being directed toward China.
Instead, they kept obsessing over the truly absurd “cherry blossom-viewing party,” a fabricated issue designed to attack the administration.
In particular, with regard to questions about hotels and so on,
all opposition-party politicians must themselves be negotiating to have costs reduced as much as possible.
Nevertheless, the opposition parties that continued such behavior,
newspapers such as the Asahi Shimbun that followed them with appalling editorials,
NHK and television wide shows that went along with them,
and the broadcast geisha who appeared on those programs,
have been clearly revealed by the spread of the virus to be people equivalent to national traitors.
As I have repeatedly stated,
the greatest responsibility lies with the Constitutional Democratic Party, the Asahi Shimbun, NHK, and other media.
On this point, Komeito is also completely useless.
Instead of resolutely doing what must be done now,
it has done nothing but respond to the ugly opposition parties and complain about the conduct of certain politicians.
You, who have been the one continually attacked,
are now the most trusted politician in the world,
and also the politician most familiar with world affairs.
The situation inside Japan, the behavior of the opposition parties, the behavior of the Asahi Shimbun and others,
especially the vulgarity and stupidity of opposition-party politicians who repeatedly ask questions about the hotel’s response and so forth,
have clouded your rare quality of being a thorough realist.
The sharp fall in approval ratings is the result of that quality having been completely clouded.
Mr. Abe.
The truly urgent task that must now be done above all else
is to realize the supply of masks to all citizens as quickly as possible.
It is a very simple matter.
It is only natural that you are appalled and fed up with the persistent attacks by such foolish and low-grade opposition politicians and by the Asahi Shimbun and others.
But you must not allow even your greatest strength,
the gaze with which you think from the standpoint of each individual citizen,
to become clouded.
For example, I have only five masks left.
Right now, the plum blossoms are in full bloom in Kyoto.
Every year, I go to Jonangu and Kitano Tenmangu to see them.
In the past, I went there to photograph them.
Especially “plum blossoms and white-eyes.”
It is also the season when I should be going to see the Kawazu cherry blossoms near Yodo Station on the Keihan Line,
but this year I have gone nowhere.
For some reason, this year I had particularly wanted to go to Kitano Tenmangu, which is associated with Michizane.
But in the present situation, no one wants to go unprotected into a crowd.
As a result of Japan having been dominated by the Asahi Shimbun until August six years ago,
Japan may indeed be a foolish country that is defenseless in every respect.
Even so, the great majority of citizens,
apart from those who subscribe to the Asahi Shimbun and watch only NHK news programs,
are certainly not such foolish advocates of defenselessness.
The behavior of those people who are probably buying up masks every time they appear in stores,
and are now listing them for sale on the internet,
is ugly beyond description.
In other words, the Japanese people are now truly angry,
because they are facing real stupidity and ugliness.
Mask manufacturers, too, are among the companies of which Japan can be proud before the world.
Mr. Abe.
It is enough to gather only the ruling parties and the lawmakers who agree with them.
Summon to the Diet all companies that manufacture masks.
Make each company disclose before the people its current production system,
the production volume if it were to operate 24 hours a day,
and when masks can be supplied to the Japanese people in the normal manner.
If you do so, your approval rating will recover at once.
At the same time, among the companies capable of producing masks,
allow those willing to produce masks as a response to a national emergency to do so.
If the situation later comes to an end and those companies are left holding inventories,
then, taking this incident as a lesson,
make the decision that the state will purchase all of them as national stockpiles.
This is not the time to let fools cloud your vision.
I understand the nerve war with China,
that country of bottomless evil and plausible lies,
over who will be the first to say what,
while you remain bound to the decision to invite Xi Jinping,
the worst dictator in history,
as a state guest.
But leave that matter completely aside.
In the end, you may decide to postpone it through Machiavellianism in the proper sense of the word.
Almost all citizens will strongly support that.
Of course, while taking care not to let China seize upon any pretext.
In any case, what matters now is masks, Mr. Abe.
With your characteristic decisiveness, once you read this essay, there is only one thing to do: act.
That is all there is to it now.
Since February 26, the only masks I have been able to obtain
were one pack of three masks I bought after hearing, by chance, a conversation in the elevator on my way back from getting a haircut,
saying that they were being sold at a nearby pharmacy.
Every pharmacy still remains in a state of “masks sold out” and “disinfectants sold out.”
China has seized all the products of Japanese medical goods manufacturers,
and has forced this much patience upon us Japanese people.
The world must surely know the viciousness that China is now displaying.
There are countries that, though stained with evil just like China,
gratefully call this viciousness friendship:
Italy, which one can hardly believe is a G7 country,
the former Eastern European countries ruled by dictators,
and the countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative.