First published on April 30, 2020, and republished on August 21, 2020. This essay argues that the COVID-19 crisis exposed the risks of Japan’s dependence on China under the CCP and the vulnerabilities of globalization. It criticizes the September school-year proposal, opposition politicians, the Asahi Shimbun, NHK, and prefectural governors, while calling for a long-term national strategy centered on supply-chain security, domestic manufacturing, energy policy, tourism, real estate, and economic security.

First published: April 30, 2020
Republished: August 21, 2020
I am republishing, with corrections to paragraphing and the like, the chapter I first published on April 30, 2020 under the title, “The truth of globalization up to this point was that we had entrusted the fate of our own nations to China (the CCP), a country whose reality is outrageous, and had allowed the CCP to hold the fate of our nations and peoples in its hands.”
The positions taken by opposition political hacks and by the Asahi Shimbun, NHK, and other television media outlets are strangely consistent with one another.
Their position is to prevent the Japanese government, for the sake of China, from formulating a hundred-year national strategy—and for that purpose they keep demanding compensation.
They say that the government is deficient and that its measures are too slow, inciting the foolish masses to attack the administration.
Suddenly, the idea emerged that the school year should begin in September.
At first glance it appears to be a reasonable proposal, and that is why many members of the National Governors’ Association supported it.
But there is something suspicious about the fact that it was apparently initiated by a housewife in Suginami Ward—the same sort of thing as when the Kanagawa Shimbun, a subsidiary of the Asahi Shimbun, had an ordinary housewife in Kanagawa launch the laughable campaign to award the Nobel Prize to Article 9 of the Constitution.
This time as well, the online edition of the Asahi Shimbun smugly wrote, “Why not September?” in a manner reminiscent of the tone of Renho and Tsujimoto, with a disturbing ulterior motive harmful to the nation.
This is a scheme of which every Japanese citizen must become aware.
This pattern is exactly the same as the movement launched by Masayoshi Son, Mizuho Fukushima, and others at the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake, calling for the immediate and total shutdown of nuclear power and a shift to solar power.
At that time as well, just as now, many local government leaders supported it.
Because the governor of Miyagi Prefecture was shown so prominently in the recent coverage, I feel all the more compelled to address the governors of the National Governors’ Association.
The hundred-year national strategy that Japan must formulate in response to the greatest catastrophe since the war, brought about by the Wuhan virus, has absolutely nothing to do with an issue such as September enrollment which, quite frankly, is of little importance.
What is strange and extraordinarily foolish about this discussion is that it diverts attention from the essence of the problem.
What this viral catastrophe has shown the world is that there were profound problems with the form of globalization we had pursued until now.
China is a one-party dictatorship ruled by the Communist Party.
One of the great figures who achieved some of the most important scholarly accomplishments in postwar Japan, Tadao Umesao, perceived a truth: concentrating factories producing medical supplies and those belonging to companies possessing cutting-edge technology in China—a country of bottomless evil and plausible lies—is profoundly connected to national security and is an act that places the lives of citizens in danger.
We had entrusted the fate of our own nations to China (the CCP), a country whose reality is outrageous, and had allowed the CCP to hold the fate of our nations and peoples in its hands.
The countries of the world’s G6—deliberately excluding Italy—have realized that this was the truth of globalization up to this point.
The ordinary housewife in Suginami who proposed September enrollment this time is undoubtedly either a subscriber to the Asahi Shimbun or someone connected with the opposition parties.
In other words, she must undoubtedly be someone under Chinese influence, a sympathizer with China.
I want the National Governors’ Association, and particularly the governor of Miyagi Prefecture—my home prefecture—and Osaka Governor Yoshimura, to understand that the lesson of this greatest catastrophe since the war is not to jump aboard the arguments of superficial globalists advocating such things as September enrollment.
What this catastrophe has taught us is that we must not allow the manufacturing plants of the excellent corporations that form the foundation of the nation to remain in China, a one-party dictatorship ruled by the Communist Party.
They must be brought back to regions throughout Japan, and the government must allocate the budget necessary to make that happen.
If that alone is not sufficient, the factories of Japan’s world-class major corporations should be relocated to countries other than the CCP state, or to countries unlike the CCP state—
in other words, to countries other than China and South Korea.
The basic form of our tourism policy must also be fundamentally changed.
Even if Japan continues to pursue the goal of becoming a tourism-oriented nation,
I am convinced that merely relocating the factories of Japan’s world-class corporations throughout Japan
would eliminate the need to recklessly keep calling for a tourism-oriented nation.
That is because an enormous number of stable jobs would be created throughout the country.
In tourism as well, a voice from heaven has sounded, telling us to abandon a system dependent on China and South Korea, which are dangerous in many respects.
It has sounded against the tendency of Hokkaido and other regions to become casually dependent on investment from China,
and against the system that has allowed Chinese and South Korean buyers to acquire Japanese real estate without restriction.
A voice from heaven has sounded against all of these things.
Japan, for what purpose do you continue allowing China to take vast sums of money from you while subjecting you to intimidation, symbolized by the Senkaku Islands?
We must understand that this is the voice from heaven and that it represents Japan’s hundred-year strategy.
Governors of the National Governors’ Association,
at the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake, you forgot the nation’s hundred-year strategy, rushed to participate in the scheme of Masayoshi Son and Mizuho Fukushima, and carried out the immediate and total shutdown of nuclear power.
That action brought about the severe stagnation of Japan’s nuclear industry and technology and caused electricity prices, the foundation of industry, to soar.
It was a nightmarishly foolish policy implemented by Naoto Kan—a policy that even Ban Ki-moon, the South Korean who was then Secretary-General of the United Nations, said was wrong.
While Japan pursued that course, China rapidly built new nuclear power plants and emerged as one of the world’s great nuclear-power nations.
That is an undeniable fact.
South Korea similarly continued constructing new nuclear power plants.
As a result, the gap in electricity prices between Japan and South Korea widened further.
Masayoshi Son, who had been the ringleader, then maliciously relocated electricity-hungry data centers to South Korea.
Governors of the National Governors’ Association,
never again take part in a scheme that causes the nation to make a mistake in its hundred-year strategy.
The hundred-year strategy that Japan must formulate as a nation in response to the greatest Wuhan-virus catastrophe to strike the world since the war cannot possibly be an issue such as September enrollment which, quite frankly, is of little importance.
Surely people incapable of understanding something at the level of an elementary-school child could not be serving as governors.
We must also recognize that the fundamental reason why highly intelligent people can become uniformly so foolish lies in the attempt to prevent people from calling the Wuhan virus the Wuhan virus.
In 2011 as well, local government leaders fell all too easily into the trap of false moralism.
This time it is even uglier.
All of the leaders of the G6 declared that this was a war and stated that they were wartime presidents and prime ministers.
The Wuhan virus this time is, so to speak, a war launched by the CCP.
The person responsible is Shi Zhengli, a member of the Communist Party, and the ultimate source is the CCP.
That is why they stubbornly conceal the information.
This too is an elementary-school-level matter.
Despite the fact that this is a war, the Asahi Shimbun and television media such as NHK are giving massive coverage to the foolish claim that Japanese education has been damaged in only two months and that the academic ability of Japanese students has declined and become hopeless.
It is the minds of the governors of the National Governors’ Association, who do not regard this as abnormal, that are abnormal.
A sensible person would see this as an opportunity for children who normally spend their time absorbed in smartphones and games to enjoy the greatest period of reading in their lives and to discover the pleasure of studying.
Do you not notice how strange and suspicious it is to see the Asahi Shimbun, NHK, and others joining in chorus with the remarks of a number of low-level mothers?
Can you not understand that a country sustained by propaganda would regard this moment as its greatest opportunity to attack and to weaken its enemy?
How could anyone conclude that the policy Japan should adopt, or the lesson Japan should learn, from the greatest incident since the war—a catastrophe that the leaders of the G6 unanimously defined as a war—is September enrollment?
Tokyo Governor Koike may be expected to behave this way, shamelessly repeating imitations of English phrases and engaging solely in brazen performances for the sake of her own political survival, but Governor of Osaka, Governor of Miyagi, you should not be people of the same kind as Koike.
To be continued.