After the author’s hypothesis proved accurate, Nikkei’s front-page coverage attempted to deflect rather than investigate. By treating Japan and China’s market declines as equivalent and ignoring the actors behind currency and futures manipulation, the article exemplified a failure of journalism and a vulnerability to strategic influence.

February 14, 2016

As discerning readers already know, my blog is read by people at the core of Japan and at the core of the world. As I have mentioned many times, this is only natural, since many of those at the heart of Japan are my classmates, seniors, and juniors.

Now then, today’s Nikkei front page proved that the hypothesis I transmitted to the world yesterday was entirely correct.

However, their article was, it would not be an exaggeration to say, a malicious excuse in response to having been struck squarely at the mark by me.

The main headline read, “Stock declines stand out in Japan and China.”

Anyone with discerning eyes who looked at the Dow Jones table I cited yesterday would have immediately noticed that the decline rates of China and Japan were almost identical.

What makes me think, “Nikkei, you too?” is that they not only failed to find this suspicious, but wrote about it as if it were perfectly natural.

The fact that China’s economic indicators are utterly unreliable is common knowledge around the world, and at the same time, this very fact is one of the major causes of the current, China-originated distortion of the global economy.

On the other hand, Japan—this is a matter of politics, for example—is a country that prides itself on fairness and transparency. As Chinese users wrote on Weibo, “Resigning over just one million yen?” and “The Japanese have skin that is far too thin.”

Yet I felt that Nikkei, though perhaps not to the same extent as the Asahi group, is a newspaper with remarkably thick skin, much like Asahi and the Chinese. I even felt it was malicious.

The way they write an article without the slightest suspicion about China and Japan having the same rate of decline makes me feel that they, too, are already being completely manipulated by China—this would not be an exaggeration.

There is no recognition whatsoever that this massive collapse of the Tokyo Stock Exchange is a national crisis.

That is why they fail to do what journalists naturally should: investigate who, exactly, executed such a rapid yen appreciation through currency futures, and who simultaneously carried out relentless short-selling in Nikkei futures. How can media that do not even attempt this be called Japanese media?

When Shanghai collapsed—at which time the Chinese government, whom I identified in my hypothesis as the culprit this time, acted immediately—they investigated who had engaged in short-selling and even arrested and detained them.

Though an authoritarian state, they always place national interest first.

Japan, by contrast, does not even try to identify the instigator, instead attempting to shape public opinion by saying that Japan’s decline rate was the same as China’s.

This is precisely what the Chinese government wants—exactly what plays into their hands.

I suspect that among those in key positions at Nikkei, there are quite a few who possess channels to China that the Japanese government itself does not currently have.

As serious scholars have pointed out, China’s current strategy toward Japan is not to launch an actual war. But if Japan lets its guard down even slightly and shows the smallest opening, they will land on the Senkaku Islands.

Since the war, China has repeatedly engaged in small-scale conflicts with neighboring countries. Unlike us, they think nothing of waging limited wars.

The only people who do not even know this simple fact—that such people are ruling under a dictatorship—are those at Asahi, those who wrote today’s Nikkei front page, and the so-called cultural figures who have gone along with them.

I say this to Nikkei reporters: the very first thing you should investigate is who kept selling short throughout this massive collapse of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Who was it that, through currency markets—perfectly timed to coincide with the Lunar New Year—continued to drive the yen into such a rapid appreciation? Investigating that is what a real reporter does.

If you truly love Japan and are a genuine Japanese, you would do that first.

Even a one-party authoritarian state investigated immediately. By failing to investigate at all, you are only proving that you are beneath them.

And it is precisely because of that that you are so easily manipulated by them. It is time you realized this.

This essay continues.