An essay examining how major Japanese media outlets failed to investigate massive short-selling during the 2016 market collapse. By analyzing George Soros’s Davos remarks, China’s fierce backlash, and the dominance of foreign capital in Tokyo markets, it exposes media behavior that borders on serving foreign political interests rather than journalism.

February 12, 2016

The reality that can only be described in a certain way is being proven by Asahi Shimbun and TV Asahi themselves.

The strangeness—no, the suspiciousness—of media such as Asahi Shimbun, which make no attempt whatsoever to investigate who has been persistently engaging in massive short-selling.

Despite the fact that the abnormal appreciation of the yen and the crash of stock markets this time represent a grave situation—a true crisis—for capitalist nations, they somehow perform none of the actions that journalism is duty-bound to carry out.

Such rapid yen appreciation and the collapse of oil prices do not occur spontaneously.

It goes without saying that these phenomena occur because someone is aggressively short-selling on a massive scale.

Yet media outlets such as Asahi make no effort at all to investigate this—that is, to investigate the facts.

On the contrary, in a situation equivalent to a national crisis, they seize the opportunity to attack their own government and criticize the policies of the Bank of Japan.

This is utterly strange and deeply suspicious, and I suddenly realized this.

It is a fact that the Japanese people must also recognize.

At the same time, I recalled something else.

At the Davos Conference held in Switzerland from January 20 to 23, George Soros stated that China would experience a hard landing and that therefore he was selling the renminbi.

In response, the Chinese government reacted with intense fury.

From senior government officials to the People’s Daily, they mobilized everything at their disposal.

They continued to issue articles declaring that those who underestimated China would suffer painful consequences.

Eventually, they went so far as to denounce George Soros as a liar.

According to Sekihei, this is said to be the strongest possible form of insult directed at an opponent.

The hypothesis that the Chinese government, in retaliation for Soros’s remarks, decided to demonstrate the power of its foreign exchange reserves to the capitalist world to which he belongs—thinking, “Let us cause a massive collapse in capitalist economies,” and then carrying it out—fits naturally and without contradiction.

After all, roughly 70 percent of daily trading volume on the Tokyo Stock Exchange is accounted for by foreign capital.

Investigating who continued to carry out massive short-selling should be something even an elementary school student could do.

Yet Asahi Shimbun and similar outlets have never done this.

Instead, they argue editorially that the forces engaging in this short-selling are in the right, while attacking Japan’s economic policies as mistaken.

It would not be wrong to conclude that they have long been under the influence of the Chinese Communist Party.

Because in this state, they are effectively nothing more than spokespeople for the Chinese Communist Party or for South Korea.

Or rather, Asahi Shimbun and TV Asahi themselves are proving that they are media organizations in which individuals who are being manipulated wield power—
a reality that can only be described in that way.