Based on a column by Yasunonosuke Kudan in the monthly magazine Hanada, this article examines Toshihiro Nikai’s attempt to deduct funds from LDP lawmakers’ salaries for aid to China, Yuriko Koike’s donation of 120,000 protective suits owned by Tokyo to China, and the dangers surrounding Xi Jinping’s planned state visit to Japan.

February 28, 2020
Koike sent a total of 120,000 protective suits to China.
The stockpile is property of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, paid for with the blood tax of Tokyo residents.
If it was disposed of at the sole discretion of the two of them, Koike is guilty of breach of trust, and Nikai is guilty of instigating breach of trust.
The following is from a serial column by Yasunonosuke Kudan, published in the monthly magazine Hanada released on the 26th under the title The Irresponsibility of Secretary-General Nikai and Governor Koike.
As I have mentioned before, I surmise that Yasunonosuke Kudan is a pen name of Masayuki Takayama.
Every Japanese citizen who can read print must take 920 yen times two and go to the nearest bookstore to buy WiLL and Hanada.
I want to deliver this to as many people around the world as possible based on my English translation.
The explosive spread of the new virus that originated in Wuhan cannot be stopped.
China already counts 68,500 infected people and 1,665 deaths, as of February 15.
In Japan as well, the number of infected people is increasing day by day, and deaths have begun to occur.
Until then, the main response had been to stop the virus at the water’s edge, but from this point on, Japan is required to do everything possible to suppress the spread of the virus that has entered the country.
Whether it was SARS in 2003, MERS, which spread in China in 2015, or this new virus, China is truly a troublesome country that scatters disasters.
The disasters China scatters are not limited to viruses.
Under the banner of “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” it in fact scatters the germ of one-party dictatorship to neighboring Tibet, Uyghur, Inner Mongolia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and elsewhere.
To such a China, the Liberal Democratic Party’s board meeting on February 10 decided on a policy of sending support money to help prevent the spread of the new virus.
It would uniformly deduct 5,000 yen from the March salaries of all affiliated lawmakers and send it to China.
The proposer was the well-known leading pro-China figure, Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai.
I want to say to him: are you in your right mind?
How much anxiety do the Japanese people feel over the new virus brought in from China?
It is the Japanese people who are suffering harm from China.
And Nikai is the secretary-general of the ruling party responsible for Japan’s national politics, is he not?
If I remember correctly, Nikai’s electoral district is Wakayama, and infections have already appeared even in that Wakayama.
The one suffering trouble is Japan.
And yet he sends support money to China, the country causing the trouble?
It can only be called a strange circuit of thought.
Or is it senility?
At a press conference, Nikai said:
“When something happens to a neighboring country with which we are always in friendly relations, it is natural to support it.”
Always in friendly relations?
Even in the midst of this virus uproar, Chinese government vessels and submarines are calmly violating the territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands.
As expected, some LDP lawmakers who felt, “This is strange; it will send the wrong message to China,” presented Nikai with a written opinion saying,
“Whether or not to provide support money should be decided by each lawmaker.
Automatic deduction is outrageous,” and negotiated with him directly.
In response, Nikai said,
“Those who actively wish to support it may cooperate.
Those who do not cooperate need not do so.
I had thought that from the beginning.”
If he had been thinking of voluntary support from the beginning, he would never have proposed automatic deduction of 5,000 yen uniformly from all lawmakers.
In short, it was an excuse after retreating weakly in the face of protests from lawmakers.
Thus Nikai’s foolish proposal was withdrawn on the fourth day.
Even if it is only 5,000 yen, lawmakers’ salaries are money entrusted to them by the people.
If money uniformly deducted from salaries is sent to China, that money cannot be called lawmakers’ pocket money.
Among the people, there must be many who criticize it by saying, “If you are going to do it, do it with your own pocket money.”
That is what the protests by some lawmakers meant.
Recently, Nikai asked Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike to “send the masks and protective suits stockpiled by Tokyo to China.”
Koike sent a total of 120,000 protective suits to China.
The stockpile is property of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, paid for with the blood tax of Tokyo residents.
If it was disposed of at the sole discretion of the two of them, Koike is guilty of breach of trust, and Nikai is guilty of instigating breach of trust.
Even if the support had gone through a resolution of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly, many Tokyo residents would surely look coldly at it and say that the two who started it should have done it at their own expense.
This Tokyo-resident columnist is one of them.
More than anything else, Japan now faces anxiety over the spread of infectious disease.
A situation may come in which large quantities of masks and protective suits are needed.
And yet to release those stockpiles to China shows a complete lack of crisis awareness and is irresponsible in light of their duties.
Even if Japan falls into a shortage of masks, is China what matters most?
The two of them once both belonged to the New Frontier Party led by Ichiro Ozawa.
Nikai said, “My hobby is Ichiro Ozawa,” and Koike served as Ozawa’s advertising tower.
Later, Ozawa intimidated officials of the Imperial Household Agency and, in violation of the rules, had Xi Jinping meet the Emperor.
This April, Xi Jinping’s state visit to Japan is scheduled.
There is no doubt that Nikai was the one who conceived and promoted it.
Once, after the Tiananmen incident, China was isolated in the world.
What brought that China back to “international society” was the Emperor’s visit to China under the cabinet of Kiichi Miyazawa.
What was China’s return favor?
Anti-Japan education and incursions into the territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands.
China does not regard favors as favors.
At present, because of the new virus uproar, Xi Jinping is being looked at coldly both inside and outside China.
A state-guest visit to Japan may save him from his predicament.
Even if it does save him, there is no guarantee that Abe will not repeat Miyazawa’s mistake.