Based on Yoshiko Sakurai’s essay, this article examines the roots of the Chinese Communist Party’s hard-line posture: “Never forget national humiliation,” chosen-people consciousness, patriotism, and faith in power.
Through the Wuhan virus, retaliation against Australia, the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, and intrusions into the Senkaku Islands, it considers China’s global strategy and Japan’s path to survival.
2020-06-19
The fact that four de facto warships belonging to the “Coast Guard” are constantly intruding into the Senkaku Islands is also because they believe in power.
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
The chosen people are proud.
As Mr. Xi said in his speech on October 18, 2017, at the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, they believe that China should build up its economic power, strengthen its military power, and stand tall among the peoples of the world.
Because China is to teach values to the peoples of the world and guide them, they have no doubt that China is an existence that should be respected and praised.
Therefore, they cannot tolerate even the slightest slander or criticism.
One example would be the extraordinary anger over the headline “China Is the Real Sick Man of Asia” attached to an article in The Wall Street Journal by the American political scientist Walter Mead, who discussed the Chinese government’s initially poor handling of the Wuhan virus and its impact on the economy.
As if unable to control its emotions, the Chinese government, on February 19, expelled three Beijing-based correspondents of the newspaper who had nothing whatsoever to do with Mead’s article.
Death Sentence for an Australian National
They sealed off Wuhan, a city of 11 million people, overnight, allowed no reporting of the real situation whatsoever, and yet boast that they at least suppressed the Wuhan virus ahead of other countries.
They hold up that “achievement” and show the international community China’s norms.
They see the present as a golden opportunity for expanding their power, and they use every means at their disposal.
On April 23, when Australian Prime Minister Morrison made the entirely natural argument, from our side’s logic, that the international community should conduct an independent investigation into the origin of the Wuhan virus, China retaliated on May 12 with import restrictions on Australian agricultural products.
On June 5, claiming that discriminatory words and actions against Chinese people were increasing in Australia, it urged its citizens to refrain from traveling to Australia.
On the 10th, the Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court sentenced an Australian national, who had been charged with drug smuggling, to death.
They freely use not only economic power but also the power of the judiciary.
Because the Chinese Communist Party is an extralegal existence that reigns above the three branches of government, it can do anything.
＊Opposition parties such as the Constitutional Democratic Party, newspapers such as the Asahi Shimbun, and television stations such as NHK should be investigating the abnormality of the Chinese Communist Party instead of spending their time attacking the government with gangster-like accusations that extending the retirement age of prosecutors under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice violates the separation of powers.＊
Needless to say, it is clear from the actions of the Chinese military at sea and in the air in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait that China is also making maximum use of the effectiveness of military power.
The fact that four de facto warships belonging to the “Coast Guard” are constantly intruding into the Senkaku Islands is also because they believe in power.
Wang’s warning is that the international community should think deeply about the fact that the force driving China is born from the word “national humiliation.”
Chinese children are taught from early childhood the phrase “勿忘国恥,” meaning “never forget national humiliation.”
They are taught the hatred and indignation of the nation, and how terribly they were treated by the great powers, especially Japan.
The gnashing of teeth over national humiliation leads to the force that produces the longing that the Chinese nation must achieve its revival.
The errors of Maoism became clear through the Cultural Revolution, and in the East-West Cold War, the communist Soviet Union collapsed.
The Chinese Communist Party had to fill the ideological vacuum that emerged there.
Unless it found an idea to replace the realization of communist society, the reason for the Communist Party’s existence would disappear.
The new idea that filled the vacuum was patriotism, the great revival of the Chinese nation.
“Never forget national humiliation,” which leads to patriotism, is precisely the phrase that sustained the survival of the Chinese Communist Party.
Strengthening, through multilateral cooperation, the power to restrain China’s hard-line posture will probably be the path by which Japan survives.