Based on Yasunosuke Kudan’s column in the monthly magazine Hanada, this article examines the issue of LDP Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai and Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike sending protective suits to China.
As Tokyo’s medical front lines faced shortages of protective suits and masks amid the danger of medical collapse, the responsibility for giving away stockpiles purchased with Tokyo taxpayers’ money must be questioned.
This chapter criticizes pro-China politics, Tokyo metropolitan governance, the Wuhan virus crisis, and the painful voices of medical workers.

April 25, 2020
“We do not have enough protective suits or masks.
Are we supposed to fight a war like this?”
How do Nikai and Koike hear such voices from medical front lines?
Do they not at least regret that those 300,000 protective suits are no longer here?
The following is from Yasunosuke Kudan’s serialized column, published in the monthly magazine Hanada released yesterday, a must-read for all Japanese citizens, under the title, “The Medical Collapse Brought About by Tokyo Fool Governor Koike.”
As readers know, I suspect that he is a pen name of Masayuki Takayama.
In this column two issues ago, he wrote the following.
《Recently, Toshihiro Nikai, secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party, asked Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike to “send the masks and protective suits stocked by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to China.”
Koike sent a total of 120,000 protective suits to China.
The stockpile is the property of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, purchased with the blood tax of Tokyo residents.
If it was disposed of at the discretion of those two alone, then Koike committed breach of trust, and Nikai incited breach of trust.
More than anything else, Japan is now facing anxiety over the spread of infectious disease.
A situation may come in which large quantities of masks and protective suits will be needed.
And yet to release those stockpiles to China shows a clear lack of crisis awareness and is irresponsible in light of their duties.
Even if Japan suffers a mask shortage, is China what matters?》
Before this, Nikai proposed financial support for China at an LDP officers’ meeting on February 10.
The plan was to deduct a uniform 5,000 yen from the March salaries of all party lawmakers and send it to China.
The officers’ meeting decided to do this.
At a press conference, Nikai said:
“When something happens to a neighboring country with which we always have friendly relations, it is natural to provide support.”
Always have friendly relations?
Even amid this virus uproar, Chinese government ships and submarines are calmly violating the territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands.
As secretary-general of the ruling party, he cannot possibly be unaware of that.
As expected, some LDP lawmakers presented Nikai with a written opinion stating that whether to provide support money should be left to each lawmaker’s judgment, and that automatic deduction was outrageous.
Nikai’s absurd proposal was easily withdrawn.
In Japan as well, infections were already increasing day by day, and deaths had begun to occur.
SARS in 2003, MERS expanded by China in 2015, and now this new virus.
China truly spreads calamity throughout the world.
It is Japan that is suffering the nuisance.
And yet we are to send support money to China, the country causing the nuisance?
The lawmakers who opposed Nikai must surely have thought, “Don’t be ridiculous.”
For Nikai, it must have felt as if his face as a well-known pro-China figure had been crushed.
That is probably why.
Far from learning his lesson, his next move was the proposal to Governor Koike mentioned above.
With this, he could save face before China.
Meanwhile, Koike faces the Tokyo gubernatorial election in July.
Her concern is whether the Tokyo chapter of the LDP will put forward its own candidate, and the person she relies on is LDP Secretary-General Nikai.
Last autumn, while the Tokyo chapter was struggling over the selection of the next candidate, Nikai said:
“There is no one but Ms. Koike, is there?
Is there any candidate who can beat Ms. Koike?”
The Tokyo chapter fiercely opposed this remark, and Nikai eventually apologized.
Even so, for Koike, Nikai is a lifeline.
Whether she liked it or not, she followed Nikai’s intention and presented 120,000 protective suits to China.
According to Shukan Bunshun, which later investigated this matter, Nikai received a request from Alibaba founder Jack Ma and then asked Koike, and Koike donated 100,000 suits to Alibaba through the Medical Excellence Japan, whose honorary chairman is Nikai.
The offerings continued afterward, and a total of 300,000 suits were sent from Tokyo to China.
Among them, the only case that was not requested by the government or a public institution was the one in which Nikai asked Koike.
Stockpiles such as protective suits and masks are property of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government purchased with the blood tax of Tokyo residents.
Nikai and Koike disposed of them at the discretion of the two of them.
More than anything else, Japan too is exposed to anxiety over the spread of infectious disease.
A situation may eventually come in which large quantities of masks and protective suits are needed.
If they had even the slightest crisis awareness, they should not have lightly handed such stockpiles over to another country.
The feared situation is now actually occurring.
At present, Japan has 8,722 infected people and 178 deaths.
Of these, Tokyo has 2,595 infected people and 53 deaths, and the timing of the peak-out is still nowhere in sight, as of April 15.
Hospitals designated for infectious diseases in Tokyo are already in danger of medical collapse because of the rapid increase in patients and the shortage of medical materials.
From many doctors, painful voices can be heard:
“We do not have enough protective suits or masks.
Are we supposed to fight a war like this?”
Some hospital directors even show handmade face guards, saying:
“Look at this.
We made it with 3D printing.”
It is essential protective equipment to prevent the droplet-transmitted Wuhan virus.
How do Nikai and Koike hear such voices from medical front lines?
Do they not at least regret that those 300,000 protective suits are no longer here?
Ask them at a press conference.
And yet, Koike has now begun to get excited while indirectly criticizing Abe, saying things such as, “What is now required is a decision by the national government.”
A magazine title reportedly says, “Yuriko Koike Sees the Road to Prime Minister in the Coronavirus Crisis.
Shinzo Abe Confirmed Incompetent.”
A female Tenichibo who falsely claims the academic background of “graduating at the top of her class from Cairo University” as prime minister?
Good grief.