Yoshiko Sakurai points out that masks, protective clothing, and other medical supplies for China were loaded onto charter planes sent to bring Japanese citizens home from Wuhan, and argues that China is using medical and pharmaceutical products as diplomatic weapons.

May 21, 2020
The charter plane carried on board medical supplies such as masks and protective clothing to be handed over to China.
It is said that there had been a request from the Chinese side.
Were the Japanese citizens returning home, so to speak, hostages?
The following is a continuation of the opening chapter of Yoshiko Sakurai’s book, The Lies of the Pro-China Faction, published on May 12.
She is a “national treasure” as defined by Saicho, and one of Japan’s treasures.
The charter planes to Wuhan make clear how the Asahi Shimbun and others, as well as NHK, are media that do not convey the truth.
Rare earths and medicines alike
Yang Jiechi, a member of the Chinese Communist Party Politburo who visited Japan on February 28, also said, “In the fight against the virus, the Chinese government will continue to support and assist the Japanese government.”
On the website of the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo, information was introduced saying that China was providing Japan with support such as masks.
The charter plane that headed to China in order to bring home Japanese citizens stationed in Wuhan carried on board medical supplies such as masks and protective clothing to be handed over to China.
It is said that there had been a request from the Chinese side.
Were the Japanese citizens returning home, so to speak, hostages?
In any case, the Japanese government donated everything.
Japan helped China, but now “Japan helping China” has been inverted into “Japan being helped by China.”
This too can only be called China’s way, which excels at distorting and fabricating facts.
At present, not only masks but also medical care and pharmaceuticals are being used as powerful weapons by China.
On March 4, Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency, threatened in an editorial, “China is also capable of imposing export controls on pharmaceuticals.
In that case, the United States would sink into a sea of coronavirus.”
This reminds one of rare earths.
When a Chinese vessel rammed a Japan Coast Guard vessel in the waters around the Senkaku Islands, and Japan detained the Chinese captain and others, China moved to restrict exports of rare earths to Japan.
For Japan, which depended on China’s rare earths, this was a measure equivalent to having the neck of its industry tightened.
This time, China is telling us that instead of rare earths, it is pharmaceuticals.
Statements by China’s state-run media are without doubt expressions of the Chinese government’s will.
Their hardline attitude derives from the reality that China has long since risen to become a main force in the world’s pharmaceutical production.
In pharmaceutical research and development, the United States maintains the world’s top level, but the power that bears the main body of the pharmaceutical industry has already shifted to China.
China’s pharmaceutical market was worth 123 billion dollars, about 13.5 trillion yen, in 2017, but it is expected to grow to 175 billion dollars, about 19.2 trillion yen, by 2022.
On the other hand, drug manufacturing in the United States has continued to decline.
Penicillin, which saved the lives of many people, became the last major pharmaceutical product manufactured by the United States.
Since then, the United States has depended on China for 80 to 90 percent of its antibiotics, 70 percent of its analgesics and antipyretics, and 40 percent of heparin, a drug used to prevent thrombosis.
There are also statistics indicating that more than 80 percent of the main ingredients in consumer pharmaceuticals in the United States are imported mainly from China.
Under such circumstances, China can inflict enormous damage on another country by stopping the export of certain pharmaceuticals, or conversely by accelerating it.
Because it concerns human life, its impact is even more urgent than that of rare earths.
That is why China can develop every struggle to its advantage.
This article will continue.