Yoshiko Sakurai argues that the novel coronavirus crisis has exposed the essential nature of the Chinese Communist Party. China’s information is fundamentally suspect, and its decision to send workers back to cities despite infection risks amounts to an abandonment of its own people. Japan must not remain trapped in domestic criticism of the government, but unite as a nation to stop the virus, counter Chinese propaganda, and stand with the United States in defense of freedom and democratic values.

March 2, 2020
Yoshiko Sakurai Exposes the Essence of the Wuhan Virus Crisis: The Chinese Communist Party’s Concealment and Japan’s Resolve
The following is from Yoshiko Sakurai’s column, published on the front page of today’s Sankei Shimbun under the title “Suspicious Information from the Xi Regime.”
Among decent Japanese people, there is not a single person who doubts that Yoshiko Sakurai is a “national treasure” as defined by Saicho.
The emphasis in the text is mine.
“To be frank, the government alone cannot win this battle.”
“The cooperation of the Japanese people is necessary.”
On February 29, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appealed to the people, seeing the next one to two weeks as the crucial period for avoiding the spread of infection by the novel coronavirus that causes pneumonia.
Rather than criticizing the government’s response as imperfect, now is the time for the entire Japanese people, the central government, and local governments to unite and cooperate in order to defeat the virus.
For that very reason, it is indispensable to recognize the characteristics of the Chinese Communist Party that have been revealed by the problem of the “Wuhan virus,” which originated in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China.
The first characteristic is that information from the Chinese government is fundamentally false.
While information has been spread claiming that China is bringing the “Wuhan virus” under control, infections have exploded in South Korea and European countries, and on February 25 the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC, warned of the danger of a global pandemic.
Under such circumstances, how could China, where the majority of the people cannot enjoy the benefits of medical care, have overcome the “Wuhan virus”?
It is truly mysterious.
Across all of China except Hubei Province, newly confirmed infections have drawn a beautiful downward curve since February 17.
Guangdong Province is said to have the second-largest number of infections after Hubei, yet in Shenzhen and Shanghai, the number of new infections reportedly became zero on the 18th.
In Guangdong Province, with a population of about 110 million and including Shenzhen and Guangzhou, where the spread of infection is said to have been suppressed, migrant workers have been returned to production sites since mid-February on free trains arranged by the Chinese government.
Human-to-human transmission should have caused an explosion of infections, yet the only information being promoted is that new infections are zero and the like.
The reason workers are being forced back to major cities despite the danger of infection is that, unless production is restarted, small and medium-sized enterprises will begin to go bankrupt and hundreds of millions of people will lose their jobs.
China’s National Bureau of Statistics announced that the manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index, or PMI, for February was 35.7, far below market expectations.
The situation is more serious than the Lehman shock.
An economic slowdown can topple a regime.
To maintain the regime, the economy must be revived at all costs.
It is probably the Xi Jinping regime that justifies even the spread of the virus before this supreme imperative.
Akio Yaita, deputy foreign news editor of the Sankei Shimbun and a man who knows the values of the Chinese Communist Party thoroughly, described Xi’s decision as the ultimate policy of abandoning the people.
The five to ten million migrant workers who have returned to work will labor collectively under the danger of infection by the “Wuhan virus.”
The fatality rate of the virus is estimated to be, at most, two percent.
If all of them were infected, the death toll would reach one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand.
But the Chinese government will never conduct virus testing on them.
Even if victims appear, they will not be connected to the “Wuhan virus.”
Because foreign media cannot investigate, the sacrifices of migrant workers can be concealed.
And concealing them is the characteristic of the Chinese Communist Party.
Yaita’s observation is probably correct.
China is not only claiming that it has succeeded in controlling the virus by the method of calling black white.
It has now also begun creating the image that Japan is the real problem.
It is now obvious that the politicians of the Constitutional Democratic Party, beginning with Tetsuro Fukuyama, and media organizations such as the Asahi Shimbun and NHK, are moving in line with this strategy of the Chinese Communist Party.
On February 25, Weihai City in Shandong Province announced measures to quarantine all entrants from Japan and South Korea for fourteen days.
Yang Jiechi, a member of the Chinese Communist Party Politburo who visited Japan on the 28th, said, “In the fight against the virus, the Chinese government will continue to support and assist the Japanese government.”
On the website of the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo, information was introduced saying that China was supporting Japan with masks and other supplies.
Has “Japan helping China” not been turned into “Japan being helped by China”?
In contrast to Chinese propaganda operations that seem to emerge from the darkness, Japan’s response is naive.
One example is that Japan continues to allow entry by travelers from China, except those from Hubei and Zhejiang Provinces.
The Foreign Ministry explains that Chinese people are, in effect, not currently coming to Japan, and that there is no need to impose entry restrictions on all of China.
But that is not true.
At the House of Representatives Budget Committee on February 27, the Ministry of Justice reported that the number of entrants from mainland China had fallen below one thousand per day over the most recent week.
Even though the number has decreased, about one thousand people a day are still visiting Japan.
The Chinese side checks Japanese entrants for infection and imposes periods of confinement, while the Japanese side admits Chinese entrants under loose standards.
From the standpoint of medical hygiene, this is utterly irrational.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe asked all citizens to cooperate in overcoming the “Wuhan virus.”
But in order to gain the sympathy and understanding of the people, he should announce, even now, a ban on entry from all of China.
Japan must also send out its own information and clearly reject China’s attempt to create the impression that Japan itself is the source of the “Wuhan virus.”
Valuing friendship with a neighboring country and allowing lies and fabrications are entirely different things.
The “Wuhan virus” goes beyond bilateral relations between Japan and China and exposes the fate of China as a nation.
The Ming dynasty, established in the fourteenth century, and the Qing dynasty, which succeeded it and acquired the largest territory in Chinese history, both collapsed in the wake of great epidemics such as smallpox and plague.
Is there any guarantee that Xi will safely survive the power struggle that is certain to occur?
Xi must also fight the United States.
The United States has its own problems, but its power is immense.
Tadae Takubo, professor emeritus at Kyorin University, emphasizes the extraordinary strength of the United States in two respects: population and energy.
The Chinese economy is already near rock bottom.
In addition, China suffers from a declining birthrate and an aging population, and is far from energy self-sufficiency.
In contrast, the United States possesses blessed fundamental strength.
The importance of China as a neighboring country and Japan’s largest trading partner cannot be taken lightly, and its power must not be underestimated.
Even so, Japan can only stand on the side of the United States.
The Abe administration should not give China any opening to drive a wedge between Japan and the United States.
It should make clear its position of rejecting Chinese values together with the United States, with which Japan shares fundamental values.
In order to become a country that walks such a path with determination, the prime minister must accomplish constitutional revision at all costs.
This essay by Yoshiko Sakurai is one that every Japanese citizen should read today.
The problem of the novel coronavirus is not merely a matter of infectious disease control.
It is a problem that has brought into broad daylight how the dictatorial system of the Chinese Communist Party handles information, how it treats its people, how it uses neighboring countries, and what kind of propaganda operations it conducts against the world.
The Japanese people are not now in a position to spend their time criticizing the government response as imperfect.
Of course, if there are deficiencies in the government’s response, they should be corrected.
But what is necessary now is for the central government, local governments, medical professionals, companies, schools, and each individual citizen to unite and cooperate in preventing the spread of infection.
At such a time, if media organizations such as the Asahi Shimbun and NHK continue, as always, to use this issue as material for attacking the administration, that is not reporting that protects the lives of the people.
It is reporting that complements the propaganda operations of the Chinese Communist Party.
Japan must awaken.
It must not allow lies and fabrications created by China under the name of friendship.
Japan must stand with the United States on the side of fundamental values: freedom, democracy, and the rule of law.
And in order to walk that path, Japan must first become a nation capable of defending itself.
That is precisely why constitutional revision cannot be avoided.