The following is from Masayuki Takayama's serialized column that marked the end of the Weekly Shincho New Year's extra-large issue released on December 27, 2022.
A long time ago, an elderly female professor of the Royal Ballet School of Monaco, who prima ballerinas around the world highly respect, visited Japan.
She spoke at that time about the significance of an artist's existence.
She said, "Artists are important because they are the only ones who can shed light on hidden, concealed truths and express them."
No one would dispute her words.
It is no exaggeration to say that Masayuki Takayama is not only the one and only journalist in the postwar world but also the one and only artist in the postwar world.
On the other hand, many of those who call themselves artists, such as Oe, Murakami, and Hirano, do not even deserve the artist's name.
They have only expressed the lies created by the Asahi Shimbun and others rather than shedding light on hidden truths and telling them.
Their existence is not limited to Japan but is the same in other countries worldwide.
In other words, only a minimal number of actual artists exist.
This article also keenly proves that I am right when I say that no one in the world today deserves the Nobel Prize in Literature more than Masayuki Takayama.
The Ministry of Finance Plots
The Chinese battleships Jingyuan and Zhenyuan made an emergency entry into Nagasaki harbor, purportedly due to a sudden breakdown while on patrol.
It was eight years before the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War.
Soon after, 500 sailors willfully landed and attempted to go up to the Maruyama-cho brothel.
However, Japanese red-light districts have always been "no gaijin allowed."
The sailors went berserk, the police were dispatched, and four Chinese and two policemen were killed in the end.
The British minister interceded, but Shina was still treated as a great power.
Shina's arrogance prevailed, and Japan was made to pay three times the amount of Shina's compensation.
Shina's fleet came to Uraga twice after that, imitating Perry's fleet.
Japan was left underestimated.
The situation was similar to the current situation.
The government consulted on naval reinforcement, but the Diet kept giving a zero answer, saying, "First, the welfare of the people."
Here is what Emperor Meiji had to say. "I will give 10% of the court's budget for the next six years for the building of ships, and I hope the civil and military bureaucracy will follow suit."
The subjects obeyed, and the people agreed to bear the burden in the form of income tax.
The oath in the Five Articles of Incorporation, "We must unite our minds above and below and prosperously manage our affairs," took shape, and the Japanese won the Sino-Japanese War.
The Treaty of Shimonoseki, which forced the Qing to recognize Korea's independence, backfired.
Joseon, who had no sense of internationalism, soon offered bases to Russia and the West, and the Russo-Japanese War became a reality.
The government continued the taxes established during the Sino-Japanese War to prepare for an enemy with the strongest army and three naval fleets. It imposed a new corporate tax, sugar tax, textile consumption tax, and toll tax.
In the war against Russia, Japan won an overwhelming victory, destroying the Russian navy, partly thanks to the invention of Shimose gunpowder.
However, the United States, across the Pacific Ocean, did not want the emerging yellow nation to become stronger.
Under the guise of kindly brokering peace between Japan and Russia, Theodore Roosevelt made sure that Japan did not receive a single ruble of money.
Having won the war, Japan could not redeem its wartime debt and was forced into a new loan from France.
The new tax established during the war was kept in place for a while.
Furthermore, the U.S. interfered with the South Manchurian Railway, the only interest Japan had gained from the Russo-Japanese War.
Finally, the U.S. declared that "Manchuria is the territory of China" (Stimson Doctrine) and turned Japan into an aggressor nation.
Since ancient times, Shina's territory has been inside the Great Wall.
The fact that Manchuria was a nation of Manchu people was also ignored.
The U.S. then had Chiang Kai-shek's army as mercenaries to attack the Japanese concession.
Japan and China entered a state of war.
The government created a new withholding tax to cover the costs of the war and the impending battle with the U.S., as well as new admission taxes, entertainment and food taxes, and excise taxes. Also, it restored the toll tax that had been abolished after the Russo-Japanese War.
As a result, at the outbreak of war between Japan and the U.S., Japan had an army of 385 battlecruisers, including the battleship Yamato, 3,260 aircraft, and 55 divisions.
However, there was no way they could win a war against the powerful white nations, their mercenaries, and China.
After the war, the army and navy disappeared, but the various taxes remained intact, and the Ministry of Finance, a third-rate government agency, took charge of them.
The personnel here are also third-rate, and their hobby is shabu-shabu with no pants on.
They were not very bright, and one who knows little often repeats it, and they disliked the "deficit."
Military spending, which accounted for 25% of the national budget in peacetime, disappeared.
They could have cut taxes to pay for it, but they didn't want to "reduce tax revenues" either.
For example, when tax revenues overflow, the surplus is transferred to foreign currency reserves.
Foreign currency reserves account for less than 5% of the GDP in some countries, but in Japan, they account for 25% of the GDP (Yoichi Takahashi).
It is the so-called "surplus" or "reserve" in the Japanese government's particular account.
What is unusual about the Ministry of Finance is that it still wants to create new taxes.
When the Great East Japan Earthquake hit, the reserves were left untouched, and a new tax for reconstruction was created.
The Ministry of Finance has realized that it can manipulate other government agencies as it pleases as long as it has the money, and now it has begun to pretend to be Japan's Deep State.
When the military buildup is mentioned, the Ministry of Finance proudly orders Kishida to "raise taxes on military spending as well," and the prime minister parrots the order in the Diet.
In fact, former Prime Minister Abe saw through the superficiality of this bureaucracy.
So he tried to crush it.
Neither China nor the United States, nor Russia assassinated former Prime Minister Abe.
It may be true that the Ministry of Finance did it.
9/25/2022, at Arashiyama
