Published on September 19, 2019.
Based on Masayuki Takayama’s essay in Shukan Shincho, this chapter discusses the history of the Flying Tigers, the destructive character seen in China, the destruction of coral reefs in the Spratly and Paracel Islands, the overharvesting of giant clams, and environmental devastation, while criticizing the silence of the Asahi Shimbun, which once harshly reported on damage to coral by Japanese people.

September 19, 2019.
The Chinese have “turned reefs that had grown over tens of thousands of years into graveyards.
The reefs they have destroyed amount to one million square kilometers,” according to the same news agency…Asahi, say something about this too.
The following is from an essay by Masayuki Takayama titled “Enemy of the Earth,” published in Shukan Shincho, which went on sale yesterday.
At the western edge of Hunan Province, in Zhijiang, there was once an air base of the Flying Tigers.
In the mid-1930s, when Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal policy had failed and the unemployment rate came to exceed even that of the Great Depression, he judged that the only way to revive the American economy was a war against Japan.
For that purpose, he first made the Chinese army and the Japanese army fight each other.
It was the same method as inciting the Cherokee against the Apache.
By doing so, he would sufficiently wear Japan down.
However, Japan had a superior air force.
Since the Chinese could not handle it, American air power was thrown in.
That, in other words, was the Flying Tigers.
In January 1936, William Pawley, a man of the American munitions industry, and Mao Bangchu, an officer of the Chinese Air Force invited to the United States, consulted and chose Chennault as its commander.
This clearly expresses FDR’s intention.
Thus, a large airfield from which even B-25 bombers could take off was built at Zhijiang.
At the time of Pearl Harbor, they considered bombing the Japanese mainland from there, but Chennault and his men were nothing but a collection of trash.
They accomplished nothing and it ended there.
Today, in Zhijiang, there is a Flying Tigers memorial museum decorated with episodes unrelated to fact, and a P-40 marked with the tiger emblem drawn by Walt Disney is on display.
After seeing such things and returning to the inn, the lobby was noisy.
A large male guest was shouting at the woman at the front desk.
According to what was later translated for me, the man had taken a shower in his room, and when he came out, the wallet he had placed on the bed was gone.
The door of the room was also open.
The man went to the front desk and demanded that they do something, while the woman at reception pointed out, “It is your fault for forgetting to lock the door.”
Then the enraged man grabbed a single-seat sofa beside him and lifted it above his head.
That was the moment I returned.
The sofa looked as if it must weigh at least 80 kilograms.
The man threw it at the woman.
The sofa fell onto the front desk, one leg broke off, it knocked away the telephone, and tumbled over to the other side.
The woman escaped and was unharmed.
In hotel rooms in China, there is a mysterious A4-sized table.
It lists things such as a rice bowl, 40 yuan; an ashtray, 5 yuan; a television, 2,000 yuan.
I thought it was a list of fines for when guests stole those things.
The table also includes “bathtub.”
They even steal such things.
I was strangely impressed, thinking that this was indeed the Chinese.
But after seeing this commotion, I finally understood that the table was not a fine for theft but a compensation charge for damage.
The list does not include the lobby sofa.
It will probably be added in the next revised edition, but even so, the Chinese destroy everything.
When it comes to destruction, no other people can probably follow them.
The other day, Bloomberg reported that a group of fishermen reminiscent of this large man had gone out to the Spratly Islands, which they call “Chinese property,” and were carrying out tremendous destruction.
Incidentally, the basis for claiming that the Spratly Islands are core Chinese territory is only that in a book from the Later Han period there is “a passage that can be read that way.”
The reason they insist on it while knowing it is a lie is that, just as with the Senkaku Islands, vast quantities of oil and natural gas lie there.
So what did they do?
They go out to the reefs in the Spratly and Paracel Islands and destroy coral reefs one after another.
Their purpose is the giant clams that live in the cracks of the coral reefs.
They are said to open their large purple mouths, and if your foot is caught, you cannot escape and will drown.
The Chinese like that shellfish as a symbol of wealth.
If it is a large one of one meter, it will fetch tens of thousands of dollars in the market.
They bring in heavy machinery and dig up the shallow sea.
In an instant, the coral reefs turn into a dead sea where even fish will no longer come.
The Asahi Shimbun once denounced Japanese people, saying that they had “damaged coral that had grown for one hundred years.”
The Chinese have “turned reefs that had grown over tens of thousands of years into graveyards.
The reefs they have destroyed amount to one million square kilometers,” according to the same news agency.
That is equivalent to twice the area of Setagaya Ward.
They are trying to devour not only coral reefs but also Pacific saury and eels.
They also hunt for ivory and rhinoceros horns, and because of that the black rhinoceros became extinct.
The destructive power of the Chinese is extremely harmful to the earth.
Asahi, say something about this too.