Since the postwar era, Japan’s Ministry of Finance and the legacy media—centered on Asahi Shimbun—have weakened the nation through a manufactured self-deprecating worldview and misguided economic policies. This chapter analyzes the structural flaws from 2012 to today’s LDP leadership race, revealing how these same forces continue to undermine Japan’s standing amid the growing threat of a Taiwan contingency. Restoring Japan’s rightful global position begins with exposing and overturning this entrenched system of deception.

As I organized and reread this chapter, I immediately realized that it must be disseminated to the world once again.
I reached that conclusion because this chapter proves—almost to the point of exhaustion—how foolish and incompetent Japan’s Ministry of Finance and the Japanese mass media truly are.
Even twelve years later, they are attempting to repeat the same mistakes: the policies that weaken Japan’s national strength.

Watching the media coverage of the current Liberal Democratic Party presidential election, I became convinced.
It is the mass media that has been trying to diminish Japan’s national power and lower Japan’s standing in the international community.
Japan is now facing difficulties of unprecedented severity.
Xi Jinping, driven by the need to divert public frustration caused by his catastrophic economic failures, is increasingly likely to launch an invasion of Taiwan—a development that any kindergarten-level mind can understand as raising the sense of crisis even further.

During the previous LDP presidential election, held under the constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic, no nationwide public debates or open discussions were held in the normal fashion.
Had the election been conducted in its usual form, there is no doubt—except perhaps among the intellectually feeble—that Takaichi Sanae would have won.
Such was the clarity and courage she demonstrated, standing far above the rest.
The vast majority of the Japanese people were astonished to discover how remarkably sharp and resolute she truly is.

She alone can succeed former Prime Minister Abe.
She alone possesses the insight worthy of being Abe’s successor.
The Japanese people realized this with fresh amazement.
And she is a woman.
There is no one other than her who can inscribe the historic first page of “Japan’s first female prime minister.”
She revealed to the public that she possesses that level of clarity and determination.
For the first time, the Japanese people came to recognize that she is the politician most suited to lead the nation as prime minister.
This, too, is an issue simple enough for a kindergarten-level child to understand.

And yet, as of today, not a single mass media outlet is reporting that she is the one who ought to become the leader of Japan—a nation that must stand alongside the United States, the country upon whose axis the Turntable of Civilization revolves, and lead the world.
This chapter continues.

On September 1, 2012, Nikkei Shimbun’s column “Daiki Shoki” on page 15 discussed Japan’s “fourfold hardship” under the title “Japan’s Challenge Amid Quadruple Burdens,” concluding that Japan, which continues to strive upward despite severe challenges, deserves to hold more pride.
I believe the author, Mr. Bangawa, reads my “Turntable of Civilization,” and if he does not, I strongly recommend he start.
My “Turntable of Civilization” has—whether intended or not—become a book that perfectly embodies the very conclusion he set forth in his essay.
It is perhaps the greatest book of the postwar era in terms of inspiring the Japanese people.
It is a book that expresses the ultimate heights of the Japanese spirit, the heights of Japanese thought, and the heights of Japanese pride.
I am certain that no postwar book has written about the nobility of the Japanese heart, or its intellectual and moral elevation, more fully than mine.

Just think about it.
Has anyone else written that Japan, standing alongside the United States with the world’s highest intellect and freedom, will lead the world for the next 170 years?
When I said that my book is “Nobel Prize–class,” it was no exaggeration.

Yet during this period of hardship, there were scholars and politicians who said we should “learn from South Korea” or “learn from Samsung.”
Truly disgraceful.
Especially that media-friendly fellow—who should have been my junior—whose thinking is so shallow.
Had he truly been my junior, he would have quietly read my book and carried out its principles, and he would have become the greatest statesman of the 21st century.
Instead, when he heard that the Incheon airport and port facilities were impressive, he went off on inspection visits—with that level of intelligence, disappointment is inevitable.

He fails to realize that South Korea is a society built on impossibility—a society in which most people find it difficult to live, a society that continues its anti-Japanese education, producing masses of people whose mental age remains at twelve, ultimately strangling itself.
That is what fascism is.
Without understanding this, he simply looks at the surface and rushes abroad.
You, more than anyone, should immediately read my “Turntable of Civilization.”

…Omitted…
Even as Japan faces the “triple burden,” what strikes its core industries—manufacturing among them—is the yen’s weight as an international currency, specifically the yen’s appreciation.
The decline in confidence in Western currencies has caused a relative rise in the yen’s value, dealing a severe blow to the Japanese economy.
This is truly the “fourfold hardship.”
While a weak won favors the South Korean economy, Japan is forced to compete with great disadvantages.

The excerpt from Nikkei’s “Daiki Shoki,” cited above, always leaves me with the same question.
If the decline in trust in Western currencies is causing the yen’s relative appreciation—which is indeed the truth of the market—then what does it mean for the nation that currently enjoys the highest level of trust in the global market?
Why should such a country be succumbing to arguments that it is on the verge of bankruptcy due to fiscal deficits, that consumption taxes must be raised, and that the Japanese people should look downward?

Japan is the strongest nation in the world—this is what the market is saying, what the world is recognizing.
Therefore, to become truly invincible and lead the world, Japan should immediately adopt the principles of my “Turntable of Civilization.”
And immediately set the exchange rate to 111 yen per dollar.
The world will then understand everything.
They will know that Japan has declared the capitalism of the 21st century.

When policymakers and citizens alike carry out my “Solution,” the world will recognize Japan’s rightful position—standing beside the United States, as one of the world’s champions.
This is why my book is Nobel Prize–class.
Unless my “Solution” is adopted, the pathetic image of Japan’s prime ministers at international conferences will never change.
Every time an international meeting is held, I want to ask: Where exactly are you standing?
That is not where Japan belongs.
Only Nakasone, perhaps because he had genuine philosophy or simply because he had the audacity, seemed to stand beside the United States.