This essay, originally written in November 2014 and later annotated, analyzes international sports, figure skating, state-driven athlete systems, and coordinated anti-Japan movements involving South Korea, China, and Russia. It exposes the deep hypocrisy of global pseudo-moralism and the moral responsibility of media elites.

2016-04-01
What follows is a paper I wrote and published in November 2014, to which I have added a few annotations tonight.
As readers already know, I have been watching figure skating for a long time, and they also know the reasons why.
Naturally, I have been watching this season’s Grand Prix series from the opening event.
What came to my mind when I woke up this morning was something the whole world ought to know.
What occurred to me upon waking was prompted by something that had surprised me in last night’s sports news.
In the women’s curling world championship currently underway, South Korea was undefeated and ranked first.
I thought, “Since when was South Korea that strong?”
Then I realized—it was because the country had mobilized national resources for athlete development ahead of the 2018 Winter Olympics.
I have written before that the strength and sheer number of South Korean female professional golfers are the reverse side of discrimination against women in South Korea.
With a population of 50 million—less than half of Japan’s 126 million—why does South Korea win more Olympic gold medals than Japan?
It is because in South Korea, athletes who win Olympic gold medals are effectively state amateurs, much like those in former communist countries.
Gold medalists are guaranteed lifelong pensions and enormous rewards from the state.
In a country as difficult to live in as South Korea, this treatment is exceptional.
That is why athletes stake their entire lives and futures on competition.
Japanese athletes, in contrast—living in a country that stands alongside the United States as possessing the world’s highest level of intelligence and freedom—receive no such treatment, even if they win gold medals.
What I discovered from this is a truth that people living in the 21st century around the world should know.