This article presents Masayuki Takayama’s satirical essay, “Spread It to Everyone,” published in Shukan Shincho.
Through an imaginary scenario in which the reader awakens as Xi Jinping, the essay criticizes the Chinese government’s information control after the outbreak in Wuhan, the response of the WHO, the global spread of the virus, and the Asahi Shimbun’s reporting from Wuhan.
2020-07-16
The following is taken from an essay by Masayuki Takayama entitled “Spread It to Everyone,” published in today’s issue of Shukan Shincho.
Masayuki Takayama is a unique and unparalleled journalist in the postwar world.
This essay once again demonstrates that fact.
It is a satirical work in which the reader imagines awakening as Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Through this fictional setting, Takayama criticizes the Chinese government’s information control and initial response, the conduct of the World Health Organization, and the reporting of the Asahi Shimbun.
Claims concerning the origin of the novel coronavirus and the suggestion that the Chinese government intentionally allowed it to spread throughout the world must be read as Takayama’s speculation and satire at the time.
They are not presented here as scientifically or judicially established facts.
The following is the quoted essay.
【Spread It to Everyone】
One morning, you awaken in a luxurious bed inside Zhongnanhai.
You are also completely naked.
Beside you are two beautiful women, each of whom could rival the legendary beauty Xi Shi.
They, too, are sleeping without a stitch of clothing.
As you struggle to understand what is happening, the door opens and a bespectacled man rushes into the room.
Is that not Wang Huning, the brilliant scholar and member of the Politburo Standing Committee whom you once saw in the newspaper?
“Chairman, serious trouble.
Something like SARS has appeared in Wuhan.”
At this point, you realize that you have been transformed into Xi Jinping, the emperor of China.
For the moment, you order the naked women to leave.
You then ask, in a grave and dignified voice, what has happened.
Wang explains that a form of pneumonia resembling SARS is spreading in Wuhan and causing an enormous number of deaths.
He adds that it appears very similar to a biological weapon allegedly being synthesized at a research institute in Wuhan.
It spreads through the air.
Those who contract it may die of pneumonia.
Even those who recover may be left with severe brain damage.
If it were released at American military bases, Wang says, it could deprive military personnel of their combat ability for years to come.
Now it has leaked in Wuhan.
The Chinese speak with their mouths wide open, so the infection spreads rapidly.
In no time, the People’s Liberation Army could be transformed into a population of soldiers with brain damage.
There is another problem.
China has prospered as “the factory of the world.”
The Wuhan pneumonia would bring that system to a halt.
If that happened, the world would remove China from its supply chains without hesitation.
Chinese citizens would be prohibited from entering other countries, and China would wither in isolation.
Donald Trump, who denounced Xi Jinping as a thief of intellectual property and imposed high tariffs, would probably clap his hands and laugh.
That outcome must be avoided at all costs.
What, then, should be done?
Wang, who studied at Berkeley, is a man of common sense.
He advises that China should close itself off and at least avoid the disgrace of allowing an epidemic originating in China to create mountains of bodies throughout the world.
If China did so, he argues, the world would praise its efforts, cooperate in defeating the epidemic, and show understanding toward China’s eventual recovery.
A Japanese person would have agreed with Wang’s advice.
At that moment, however, you have become Chinese in your heart as well as in your body.
You have become Xi Jinping.
Xi says:
“Are you Japanese?
Why should China alone make the sacrifice?”
Xi continues.
Companies from all over the world operate in Wuhan, and large numbers of people travel in and out of the city.
If China remains silent, those foreigners will carry the virus back to their own countries, where it will spread.
If the whole world becomes Wuhan, China, which understands the true nature of the virus, will gain the advantage.
Chinese citizens will, of course, also become infected.
But the Chinese have grown up surrounded by filth and are accustomed to epidemics.
At most, perhaps 300,000 will die.
Compared with the fifty million people Mao Zedong allowed to die during the Great Leap Forward, that would qualify as benevolent government.
Beijing therefore remains silent.
In the meantime, evidence remaining at the biological-weapons research institute alleged to have been the source of the outbreak is destroyed.
Anyone who notices the Wuhan pneumonia is immediately silenced.
Li Wenliang, the ophthalmologist who posted on social media that a SARS-like disease had appeared at the Wuhan market, is detained and dies soon afterward.
Takayama describes WHO Director-General Tedros as a man China had brought to its side through money and influence.
Until the Wuhan pneumonia has spread sufficiently throughout the world, he continues to say that there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission.
Once the virus has spread across the world, Beijing announces the “lockdown of Wuhan” and finally informs the world of the epidemic.
Before long, approximately one thousand people a day begin to die in the United States.
Just as Xi intended, countries throughout the world draw the losing ticket, while China, whose rulers show little concern for the lives of ordinary people, gains a relative advantage.
Trump, however, is not a fool.
He recognizes Xi Jinping’s scheme.
Britain, Australia, and France join the circle of anger.
Xi tells Wang to do something.
Wang replies:
“Use the newspaper we used during the Tiananmen Square incident.”
At that moment, you awaken in your own bed at home.
Beside you lies someone who is most certainly not Xi Shi, sleeping with her arms and legs spread wide.
Next to your pillow is the Asahi Shimbun.
It carries, with great fanfare, a series of articles written by an Asahi reporter who had received special permission to enter Wuhan.
The series faithfully follows the timetable created by Xi to “delay discovery by three months.”
It mocks Trump’s suspicions and skillfully tells a story in which Xi Jinping bears no responsibility.
Incidentally, a British medical institution has now announced that COVID-19 can cause lasting neurological damage.
That announcement comes six months after China allegedly confirmed the same thing.
Did you know that the characters for “Asahi” should be read as “deception”?