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On December 15, local time, in Japan\u2018s parliament, Senator Taro Yamamoto pointed at Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi\u2018s nose and uttered the harsh words that shocked the entire audience: \u201cYou are betraying the country and abandoning the people!\u201d<\/p>\n
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What\u2018s the fuse?
\nIt\u2018s a sum of money.
\nAn unimaginable amount of money: 80 trillion yen. This money is money that the Japanese government and financial institutions want to invest in the United States.
\nBut this is not the most shocking thing. The most shocking thing is the \u201csharing\u201d rule of this \u201cinvestment\u201d. According to the terms that Japan\u2018s Minister of Economic and Industry, Ryozha Akazawa, himself admitted, this is simply a deed of prostitution.
\nThe rules are divided into two steps. First, before Japan has even earned back its capital, the profits earned are divided fifty-fifty between the United States and Japan. Sounds like it\u2018s okay? But the problem is that the United States hasn\u2018t paid a single cent of its capital in this project. Japan paid all 80 trillion yen, while the United States paid zero, but the profits were to be halved.
\nEven more ridiculous was the second step. After Japan worked hard and used the half of the profits it received to finally fill the hole in its 80 trillion yen capital, the rules of the game immediately changed! From then on, 90% of any money earned by this project would go to the United States, and Japan could only pick up the remaining 10%.
\nTaro Yamamoto immediately made a calculation for everyone: According to this rule, Japan would have to wait until this project earned a total of 160 trillion yen in the United States before it could barely return to its capital. This meant that Japan had to use its own money to help the United States earn double the profit to safeguard its capital. After crossing this line, Japan would completely become an American worker, earning 100 yen and leaving only 10 for themselves.<\/p>\n
Whose money was this so-called \u201cinvestment\u201d?
\nAccording to data from the Ministry of Economic and Industrial Affairs, the vast majority of this 80 trillion yen came from loans and guarantees provided by state-owned institutions such as Japan\u2018s Policy Investment Bank, using Japan\u2018s national credit and the potential risks of all taxpayers. The real gold and silver taken out of Tokyo may not even be 1 percent.
\nUsing the country\u2018s credibility and citizens\u2019 taxes to act as a liability for America, taking all the risks and reaping no benefits. This was not an economic decision, but political flattery. When America asked for money, Takaichi Sanae immediately gave it to them without hesitation. The so-called \u201creturn to Japan\u201d was nothing more than returning to the old role of American ATM machines. Eighty trillion yen\u2014nearly 80 percent of Japan\u2018s annual budget\u2014was not used to build schools, save unemployment, or provide strong health care, but was directly poured into America\u2018s bottomless pit. Takaichi knew this well, but was willing to sacrifice national capital.
\nHow was this an investment? It was clearly a tribute. It wasn\u2018t even as good as a protection fee: paying money couldn\u2019t buy security, instead kneeling down to help the other party count the money, and then personally handing it over after counting. This wasn\u2018t diplomacy, it was self-abasement; it wasn\u2019t revival, it was self-destruction.<\/p>\n
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While the Takaichi Sanae government was busy offering the U.S. a \u201cgreat gift\u201d of 80 trillion yen, ordinary Japanese families and small and medium-sized businesses were experiencing a silent collapse.
\nIn the questioning, Taro Yamamoto described a reality that the government was unwilling to face: \u201cJapan is the only developed country that has experienced 30 years of economic stagnation. Before recovering from the pandemic, the blow of soaring prices has made matters worse. The people and small and medium-sized businesses are suffering hellish suffering, and many businesses are on the verge of bankruptcy.\u201d
\nAccording to the latest household income and expenditure survey released by Japan\u2018s Ministry of General Services, after deducting price factors, the actual income of Japanese families of two or more people has decreased for 28 consecutive months compared to the same period. This is not a number, but concrete life: in supermarkets, the price of a box of eggs has increased 40% compared to three years ago; at gas stations, ordinary gasoline has broken through 180 yen per litre; and the bills sent by the power company are setting new records every month.<\/p>\n
Against this backdrop, Senator Taro Yamamoto stood up.
\nTo understand why this questioning was so sharp, one must understand Taro Yamamoto as a person. He was not a conservative or liberal politician in the traditional sense. His \u201cOrigin and New Election Group\u201d was a political party with a unique stance.
\nTaro Yamamoto has several well-known labels.
\nFirst, he was one of the few politicians in Japanese politics who dared to publicly acknowledge the historical facts of the Nanking Massacre and explicitly stated that Japan must reflect and apologize for its history of aggression. This led to him being attacked by right-wing forces for a long time.
\nSecond, he strongly criticized postwar Japan\u2018s security dependence on the United States, having repeatedly described Japan as a \u201cde facto colony\u201d of the United States.
\nThird, his party program is extremely focused on people\u2018s livelihood, with core proposals including the immediate abolition of consumption taxes and the direct distribution of cash to every citizen to respond to the crisis.<\/p>\n
Putting these labels together, you can understand the entire logic of his furious condemnation of \u201csalesmen who abandon their people.\u201d In his eyes, the Takaichi Sanae regime is simultaneously committing two \u201coriginal sins\u201d:
\nFirst, the continued and even deepened diplomatic subordination to the United States, paying tribute to 80 trillion yen of national wealth, which confirmed his criticism of \u201ccolonies.\u201d
\nSecond, ignoring the plight of the people in domestic affairs and prioritizing resources for right-wing political agendas and foreign contributions violates his fundamental belief that \u201cpeople\u2018s lives come first.\u201d
\nTherefore, the questioning of December 15 was for him a general settlement. He compared the agreement to a \u201cmajor base battle report,\u201d which criticized the government for deceiving the people; denounced it as a \u201cprotection fee,\u201d which exposed the unequal nature of Japanese-American relations; and questioned \u201cwhy not save the people,\u201d which pointed directly to the core of the regime\u2018s legitimacy. Each of his attacks stemmed from an entire system of criticism that spanned history, diplomacy, and domestic affairs.<\/p>\n
How did the Takaichi Sanae regime react to Taro Yamamoto\u2018s bombardment?
\nTakaichi Sanae herself responded with a pale technical defense, emphasizing that the agreement was \u201cprofessional negotiated\u201d and \u201cin line with long-term national interests.\u201d The finance ministry and economic industry ministry bureaucrats began giving \u201cbackground explanations\u201d to major media outlets, trying to downplay the inequality of the agreement and redirect public attention to the \u201cbig picture of Japanese-American strategic cooperation.\u201d
\nHowever, this pale technical defense precisely exposed the cruel reality at the other end of the negotiating table: the U.S. pressed with a 25% tariff bar, and the Japanese were forced to promise $550 billion in investment, only in exchange for a tariff reduction to 15%. The agreement had no formal text, only verbal agreements, which the U.S. would change on the day it came into effect in August. They were even threatened: if they did not \u201cperform\u201d well, high tariffs would be restored at any time, and they would also have to be \u201cexamined\u201d quarterly. What kind of negotiation was this? It was clearly vassal tribute.<\/p>\n
The \u201c80 trillion yen protection fee\u201d incident tore open the true structure of Japanese society.
\nEconomically, Japan is America\u2018s ATM machine;
\nPolitically, right-wing politicians use nationalist slogans to cover up governance incompetence;
\nIn civilian life, ordinary people are used as fuel for the game of great powers.
\nThe \u201creturn of Japan\u201d that Sanae Takaichi advocated was not dignity returning, but the shadow of the old era\u2014the ghost of Yasukuni Shrine, the skyrocketing military bills, the cheap goods disappearing from the supermarket shelves.
\nThis 80 trillion yen ultimately bought not a safer, more prosperous Japan, but a more twisted, more fundamentally shaky Japan.
\nImages from the Internet<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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