Based on Yoshiko Sakurai’s column, this article discusses Japan’s response to Wuhan pneumonia, the nationwide school closure measure, and the need for national cooperation.
It focuses on Hitoshi Tanaka’s criticism of the Abe administration, the missing records in Japan-North Korea negotiations, and the Constitutional Democratic Party’s obsession with the cherry blossom viewing party, arguing that a national crisis requires constructive proposals, not sterile complaints.

March 13, 2020
Was an important agreement recorded in those two missing records, stating that Japan would provide economic cooperation funds on the scale of one trillion yen when normalizing diplomatic relations with North Korea?
The following is from Yoshiko Sakurai’s regular column, which, together with Masayuki Takayama’s column, brings up the rear of the Weekly Shincho issue released yesterday.
Yoshiko Sakurai is a “national treasure” as defined by Saicho.
Let us devote still more strength to suppressing Wuhan pneumonia.
When can emergency measures such as closing all elementary, junior high, and high schools be lifted?
Regarding the nationwide fight against the Wuhan virus, on March 9 the government’s expert meeting called for infection prevention measures, such as voluntary restraint on large-scale events, to continue for about ten more days, until around March 19.
Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Katsunobu Kato is also expected to announce a policy showing the next stage around the 15th, based on the views of the expert meeting.
Up to now, Japan and the Japanese people have been doing well.
It cannot be denied that countermeasures were delayed in the initial stage.
However, excluding the cruise ship, as of March 10, Japan had 9 deaths and 530 infected people.
On the other hand, Italy and France had 463 and 30 deaths respectively, and their infected numbers were in the four digits.
The influential American newspaper The New York Times criticized Japan’s response as poor.
But the 22 deaths and 754 infected people in the United States also exceed Japan’s figures.
Seen in numbers, Japan’s response deserves a certain degree of evaluation, does it not?
However, the problem lies ahead.
Can we prevent the spread of the Wuhan virus?
There has been no change in the fact that we are standing at the brink.
The period just ahead is the time when we must truly persevere.
The most important task is for all citizens to cooperate with one another and, above all, to protect the elderly and those with underlying illnesses, for whom infection carries great danger.
Our strength is truly being tested.
That is why I want to emphasize this.
At a time like this, let us use all our energy and time constructively.
Let us turn complaints and dissatisfaction into constructive proposals.
Complaints and dissatisfaction often produce only barren results.
People who only complain do not move people’s hearts, and therefore cannot encourage others to act constructively.
Is not one example of this Hitoshi Tanaka, former deputy minister for foreign affairs?
Harsh criticism of the administration.
On March 9, on BS Fuji’s Prime News, he criticized the government’s measure to close all schools.
He said that what is important is not measures for children, but measures for the elderly.
As mentioned above, the risk for the elderly is high.
Therefore, his point is correct.
However, if one looks around, various facilities and hospitals that care for the elderly have already taken measures.
In the overwhelming majority of cases, they refused visits from outside as early as February, and even family members became unable to meet them.
Mr. Tanaka repeatedly criticized Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s series of measures as inappropriate and said he had not fulfilled his responsibility to explain.
But I listened to this with an unconvinced feeling.
He could simply make a constructive proposal to Prime Minister Abe, urging him to introduce measures for the elderly.
Many steps have already been taken, and whatever is insufficient will surely be supplemented.
From Mr. Tanaka’s complaint-filled posture, I do not think the power to move things forward will be born.
And I cannot help recalling the past.
During the Junichiro Koizumi administration, as director-general of the Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Tanaka held nearly thirty informal negotiations with “Mr. X” and others, who were agents of North Korea.
Around 2006, Mr. Abe tried to read all the records of the Japan-North Korea negotiations.
But records for two meetings were missing.
When questioned about the missing parts, Mr. Tanaka answered, “I do not know.”
However, there is suspicion that in those two missing records, an important agreement was recorded stating that Japan would provide economic cooperation funds on the scale of one trillion yen when normalizing diplomatic relations with North Korea.
This is not a matter that can be dismissed with “I do not know.”
Yet even now, Mr. Tanaka has not fulfilled his responsibility to explain.
Given such a person, it is only natural that Prime Minister Abe distrusted him and did not make much use of him.
One cannot help wondering whether such a background is also influencing the especially harsh criticism of the administration that Mr. Tanaka is now developing over the Wuhan virus.
At the very least, from his one-sided tone of denunciation, I do not feel the constructive strength that Japan now needs, namely the strength to join forces and fight the Wuhan virus disaster.
The same is true of Yukio Edano and Renho of the Constitutional Democratic Party.
Both of them arrogantly condemn the prime minister’s measures.
However, when one looks at the Diet analysis by “Dappi-san” on the Internet, it seems that they themselves are the ones who need to reflect.
Dappi-san made pie charts showing what questions each party spent how much time on.
According to them, from January 27 to January 30, in both houses of the Diet, the Constitutional Democratic Party devoted 58 percent, about 60 percent, of its Diet questioning time to questions about the “cherry blossom viewing party.”
Together with the Communist Party, this stands out.
Furthermore, at the Budget Committee of the House of Representatives on February 17, it spent all 3 hours and 1 minute of its questioning time on the “cherry blossoms.”
February 17 was a hectic day when the government’s fifth chartered plane arrived.
But did the Constitutional Democratic Party not care about that at all?
It did nothing but pursue the “cherry blossom viewing party.”
Did it have any sense of crisis toward the Wuhan virus, which threatens the lives of the people?
That is doubtful.
This essay continues.