August 7, 2020.
In 1924, Gotō Shinpei addressed students at Tohoku Imperial University in a lecture later published as Kokunan Kitaru (“National Crisis Approaches”).
His warnings spoke of “external threats wearing the mask of peace” and of a people who fail to recognize a national crisis as a national crisis.
This dialogue applies those words to Japan in 2020 amid the spread of COVID-19, examining the courage required to face a national crisis, the dangers of naïve assumptions in international relations, the role of the media and academia, and the need for national unity.

The following is a continuation of the preceding chapter.
The preceding discussion examined the Chinese Communist Party’s information warfare, U.S.-China rivalry, the U.S.-Japan alliance, and Japan’s position as a nation.
This chapter goes further and asks a more fundamental question: What constitutes a true national crisis?
At its center is Kokunan Kitaru, based on a 1924 address delivered by Gotō Shinpei to students at Tohoku Imperial University after the Great Kantō Earthquake.
By placing Gotō’s warnings from nearly a century earlier alongside Japan’s situation during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the discussion argues that the gravest danger may lie not merely in the visible crisis itself, but in a society that refuses or fails to recognize that crisis for what it is.

A National Crisis Approaches

Sasaki:
The spread of this epidemic is truly a national crisis for Japan.
Nearly a century ago, in 1924, Gotō Shinpei (1857–1929) addressed students at Tohoku Imperial University.
When we read the record of that lecture, Kokunan Kitaru (“National Crisis Approaches”), published by Fujiwara Shoten, the circumstances seem remarkably similar to those of our own time.
Iwata:
Gotō Shinpei was the man who devoted himself to the modernization of Taiwan and later served as the first president of the South Manchuria Railway Company and as Mayor of Tokyo.
Sasaki:
Following the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923, Japan faced a grave crisis centered on Tokyo.
It was during that period that Gotō said:
“External threats wearing the mask of peace and creeping steadily closer, and internal troubles concealed behind the fair appearance of institutions and organizations, exploiting the weaknesses of human nature and gradually corroding the body and spirit of the people, go unprepared for because the people fail to recognize them.”
“Or, even when people recognize them, because they lack the courage to look reality directly in the face, they instead deceive their own hearts, intoxicate themselves with temporary, easy pleasures, and ultimately plunge both the nation and its people into the depths of destruction.”
What, then, should truly be feared?
Gotō answered:
“The most fearful national crisis is the national nervous debility of a people who fail to recognize a national crisis as a national crisis and idly sing songs of peace and ease.”
Iwata:
Those are truly profound words.
Sasaki:
The reason people fall into such a state of nervous debility is that they become blinded by immediate profit.
They meet individual Chinese people in business whom they personally like, universalize those individual experiences, and convince themselves that China itself is wonderful.
That itself is the nervous debility that blinds them to national danger.
Iwata:
Unfortunately, the Japanese tendency to assume that others are fundamentally well-intentioned is not merely mistaken in international relations; it is dangerous.
Despite such a critical situation, there are people in the Japanese media who make statements that are almost impossible to believe.
Chihiro Kotaki, an editorial writer at the Asahi Shimbun, tweeted on March 13:
“In no time at all, it has swept across the entire world, and although it is not a war, even the president of a superpower trembles in fear. In a certain sense, the new coronavirus may be an exhilarating presence.”
[Quoted as originally written.]
The remark brought an outpouring of criticism.
Does this not reveal the true face of the Asahi Shimbun?
One has to say that this attitude is far removed from the sensibilities of ordinary people.
Sasaki:
It is a tendency seen among some people who call themselves liberals.
They hate the society to which they themselves belong and laugh at its misfortunes.
Iwata:
Even the Asahi Shimbun eventually issued an apology.
The academic world, too, has been completely permeated by the Left.
To give one example, a friend of mine attended a meeting and used the expression “our country.”
People around him criticized him, saying, “You say ‘our country’? Are you a right-winger?”
Apparently, they wanted him to say “this country” instead.
Sasaki:
Then perhaps Natsume Sōseki, who had his narrator say, “I am a cat,” was also a right-winger.
Gotō said:
“I believe that what will save us from this national crisis lies not in a hundred fields of learning or a thousand experiences, but in a single pure and sincere heart.”
It was a message addressed to young people, but it remains entirely relevant today.
I hope that through the unity at which Japanese people excel, government, officials, business, and citizens will all join forces and overcome this national crisis.