A discussion between Yoshiko Sakurai and Yoshiyuki Kasai examining the Chinese Communist Party’s expansionism, the Belt and Road Initiative, Made in China 2025, and pressure on Taiwan and the Senkaku Islands, while arguing that Japan must abandon ambiguous diplomacy and strengthen its alliance with the United States.

July 9, 2020
【Background】
The following is taken from a special dialogue between Yoshiko Sakurai and Yoshiyuki Kasai published in the monthly magazine WiLL under the title “Japan’s Choice: Turn Decisively toward the United States.”
In 2020, when this dialogue appeared, the coronavirus outbreak originating in Wuhan had spread across the world.
The Chinese Communist Party government’s suppression of information, its tightening control over Hong Kong, its military pressure on Taiwan, and the activities of Chinese government vessels around the Senkaku Islands had become serious international concerns.
The two speakers compared the international situation with the interwar period between the end of the First World War and the outbreak of the Second World War.
They drew a historical analogy between the ideology, territorial ambitions and military expansion of the Chinese Communist Party government and the rise of Nazi Germany.
This comparison does not equate the Chinese people with the German people.
It concerns similarities in political structures, including one-party dictatorship, uncompromising state ideology, military expansion, territorial ambition and the suppression of dissent.
The dialogue also expresses concern about the transfer of information and technology through some Chinese nationals, international students and researchers living abroad.
It would, however, be completely unacceptable to treat every person of Chinese origin as a suspect.
The relevant questions concern specific instructions from the Chinese Communist Party government, financial support, organizational relationships, and concrete evidence of illegal information gathering or technology transfer.
The subject of this article is not hostility toward individual Chinese people.
It is the national strategy Japan must adopt toward a Chinese Communist Party government that rejects freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law, and seeks to alter the international order through coercive power.
【Ambiguous Diplomacy That Attempts to Please Both the United States and China Is No Longer Acceptable】
【History Repeats Itself】
Sakurai:
The coronavirus crisis has revealed the essential character of China.
Not only Japan but countries throughout the world are being forced to reconsider their strategies toward China in the post-coronavirus era.
Kasai:
The present international situation resembles the interwar period between the end of the First World War and the outbreak of the Second World War, in the sense that a country possessing a self-righteous ideology is rising at a turning point in history.
China, with its Sinocentric ideology, overlaps in certain respects with the former Nazi Germany.
Sakurai:
A severe compound term combining China and Nazism has come into use.
Foreign publications such as Foreign Affairs have also carried essays comparing the Chinese Communist Party with Nazi Germany.
Several similarities immediately come to mind.
Both are one-party dictatorships that refuse to compromise the ideology on which their regimes are founded.
Nazi Germany also sought to secure a Lebensraum, or living space, large enough to sustain itself economically.
The intention to secure a comparable sphere of economic and strategic control can also be perceived in President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative and Made in China 2025.
Kasai:
Nazi Germany pursued military expansion and territorial enlargement, ultimately bringing about the Second World War.
China’s ambitions are not confined to inland regions such as Xinjiang and Tibet.
It is directing its pressure toward Southeast Asia, Taiwan, the Senkaku Islands and even Okinawa, while seeking to bring the western Pacific under its control.
Sakurai:
The Senkaku issue is also becoming increasingly serious.
In May, two Chinese Coast Guard vessels pursued a Japanese fishing boat operating in Japanese territorial waters surrounding the Senkaku Islands.
China’s offensive had clearly advanced to a higher level.
Japan had entered a stage in which it needed to strengthen its vigilance against the possibility that the Senkaku Islands might be targeted after Hong Kong and Taiwan.
【The Blood and Territory of the Chinese Nation】
Kasai:
Hitler consolidated domestic support by promoting the doctrine that Aryans were a chosen people.
The Holocaust was underpinned by a racist ideology.
The self-righteousness derived from the Sinocentric worldview that influences China’s conduct resembles the sense of ethnic superiority promoted by Nazi Germany.
Sakurai:
Yes.
Since assuming office, President Xi Jinping has consistently proclaimed the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” as his central slogan.
The emphasis is always placed on the “Chinese nation.”
The objective appears to be to make the Chinese nation stand above the other peoples of the international community.
The aim is to build a “community with a shared future for mankind” under the values of the Chinese Communist Party and to suppress thoroughly anyone who resists.
Establishing hegemony through power is the essence of the so-called Chinese Dream.
It represents an anachronistic doctrine of national superiority.
Kasai:
There is also a condescending sense of mission that China, as the center of civilization, must educate the supposedly uncivilized peoples surrounding it.
According to that logic, those peoples must first be subdued and governed before they can be enlightened.
Expansionism is promoted through this reasoning.
Another distinctive feature of Sinocentrism is that it expands geographically.
China, viewed as the center of civilization, extends its control over neighboring territories and seeks to assimilate the peoples living there.
In this respect, it differs from ideologies such as communism, or religions such as Christianity and Islam, which can spread without direct territorial continuity.
For this reason, it possesses a deeply rooted expansionist character.
Sakurai:
People of Chinese ancestry, whether or not they hold Chinese nationality, are reportedly urged to work for the Chinese government.
Large overseas Chinese communities exist not only in Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia and Singapore but also in Australia and Canada.
Among foreign residents in Japan, people from China form the largest national group.
There have been cases in which some individuals entered companies or universities and were alleged to have transferred or removed information and technology for the benefit of China, although the precise methods have not always been clear.
It has also been argued that younger generations sometimes display stronger loyalty toward the Communist Party government.
Since the 1990s under the Jiang Zemin administration, China has promoted anti-Japanese historical education under the name of patriotic education.
From childhood, students have been taught that China endured a history of humiliation and that Japan was responsible for degrading China.
It is argued that this education has contributed to support for China’s increasingly assertive foreign policy as its military and economic power has grown, while encouraging intense hostility toward Japan.
To be continued.
【Editorial Note on Republication】
The central question raised by this dialogue is whether Japan can continue a foreign policy that attempts to please both the United States and China while postponing an unavoidable strategic decision.
The United States has its own serious problems.
Japan does not need to support every American policy unconditionally.
Japan and the United States, however, choose their governments through elections, recognize freedom of expression, and regard judicial independence and the rule of law as fundamental national principles.
The Chinese Communist Party government maintains a one-party dictatorship, controls speech and journalism, refuses to tolerate criticism of the regime, and uses military and economic power to pressure neighboring countries.
Japan’s choice cannot be determined solely by economic advantage or trade volume.
It concerns the political system, values and international order under which the Japanese people wish to live.
Maintaining economic relations with China is not inconsistent with opposing the Chinese Communist Party government’s hegemonic policies.
Valuing friendship with the Chinese people is not inconsistent with criticizing human-rights repression and military intimidation by the Communist Party government.
Japan must distinguish clearly among China as a country, the Chinese Communist Party government, the Chinese people and people of Chinese ancestry living abroad.
Japan’s adversary is not the Chinese people as an ethnic group.
It is the policy of the Chinese Communist Party government that seeks to change borders and the international order through coercive power.
Japan must clearly establish the Japan-United States alliance as the foundation of its national security.
At the same time, it must strengthen cooperation with Australia, India, Europe, Taiwan and the countries of Southeast Asia that value freedom, the rule of law and freedom of navigation.
A foreign policy that ignores security dangers for the sake of economic profit is neither realistic nor neutral.
It is a policy that postpones decisions and thereby invites a greater future crisis.
At a turning point in history, attempting to please both sides does not mean that either side will trust Japan.
Unless Japan clearly states its own values and national position, it will become a country compelled to follow decisions made by others.
Japan must decisively proceed on the basis of its alliance with the United States, with which it shares the principles of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.