Drawing on Yoshiko Sakurai’s weekly column, this article examines the major shift in U.S. policy toward China signaled by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Attorney General William Barr. It considers the South China Sea, the Senkaku Islands, 5G, Huawei, Hollywood, and the strategic opportunity this change presented to Japan.

2020-07-31
It is a declaration that China’s military actions will not be overlooked and that China will not be allowed to behave as it pleases.
It demonstrates how serious the United States is.
The following is from Yoshiko Sakurai’s regular column, titled “Japan’s Opportunity: America’s Comprehensive Confrontation with China,” which, together with Masayuki Takayama’s column, brought last week’s issue of Shukan Shincho to a powerful close.
Yoshiko Sakurai is a “national treasure” in the sense defined by Saicho.
“From the Himalayan mountain range to Vietnam’s exclusive waters, the Senkaku Islands, and beyond, Beijing is fomenting territorial and maritime disputes. The world will not accept China’s bullying of weaker countries, nor will it allow that bullying to continue.”
Those remarks by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on July 8 amounted to a declaration that, from the roof of the world to the southern seas, throughout the vast region encircling the Eurasian continent, the United States would no longer tolerate China’s high-handed conduct.
For many years, the United States had maintained a neutral position in territorial and maritime disputes.
Although it knew perfectly well that the Senkaku Islands are Japanese territory—the U.S. military conducted military training on the Senkakus during the approximately seven years of the occupation of Japan—the U.S. government focused only on which country, Japan or China, exercised administrative control over the islands and never explicitly declared them to be Japanese territory.
Now, however, it had dramatically reversed its longstanding policy.
It was only natural that Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi immediately welcomed the change.
With this major reversal in U.S. policy opening a new phase, both Japan and the world had to move quickly to formulate a new response.
Pompeo subsequently continued to make clear, on July 13 and July 15, that the United States was adopting a comprehensive confrontational stance toward China.
He summed it up in a single statement:
“The important thing is that the U.S.-China relationship has changed. China’s leadership understands that as well.” (July 15)
He said that it was no longer acceptable for Americans to be exposed to the risks posed by China; that for far too long the United States had tolerated unfair Chinese behavior without receiving an appropriate return; and that now was the time to reverse all of that.
“There is still much work to be done in practical terms. The past two and a half years of the Trump administration have been years of steadily building policies to reverse the longstanding direction of U.S.-China relations,” he said.
The U.S. government recognized that a counteroffensive would require many concrete actions.
Those actions were already unfolding before our eyes.
Beginning July 1, China deployed several warships centered on the aircraft carrier Liaoning and conducted large-scale military exercises in three areas: the South China Sea, East China Sea, and Yellow Sea.
Beginning July 4, in a manner that overlapped China’s exercises, the United States also conducted large-scale exercises involving two aircraft carriers and assault ships.
It was a declaration that China’s military actions would not be ignored and that China would not be permitted to act as it pleased.
It demonstrated how serious the United States was.
“Final Award”
We should recognize the extraordinary determination of the United States not only from Pompeo’s successive statements on July 8, 13, and 15, but also from the similar statements made by other senior officials.
National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien spoke on June 24, FBI Director Christopher Wray on July 7, and Attorney General William Barr on July 16, each delivering a similar message in rapid succession.
Their strong objections to China also reflected concern that the China problem could spread throughout the international community.
If the West were to accept China’s claim that Hong Kong and the Uyghur issue were purely domestic matters and therefore refrain from involvement, Western countries themselves could eventually be transformed by the worst characteristics of the Chinese system.
Pompeo and the others fully understood this danger.
Consider the South China Sea.
China invokes its “long history” and claims that the sea has belonged to China for 2,000 years.
Pompeo declared that the July 12, 2016 ruling of the international arbitral tribunal was precisely the “legally binding” and “final award” under international law.
He stressed that China’s claimed “nine-dash line” had no coherent legal basis.
He denounced China for replacing international law with the principle that “might makes right” and described such conduct as “completely unlawful.”
He then named specific features in the South China Sea and set out the U.S. position.
Scarborough Shoal, the Spratly Islands, Mischief Reef, and Second Thomas Shoal were described in connection with Philippine sovereignty and rights.
Vanguard Bank was identified with Vietnam, Luconia Shoals with Malaysia, the Natuna area with Indonesia, while Brunei also possesses an exclusive economic zone.
China claims James Shoal as territory, yet at high tide it lies some 20 meters below the surface.
Pompeo said it could therefore be neither Chinese territory nor an island, and stated that the United States would stand with its Southeast Asian allies and partners in defending their sovereign waters and marine resources in accordance with international law.
It was an extraordinarily forceful and refreshing statement.
What a change.
Japan must not overlook the significance of Pompeo’s statements or the enormously positive effect they could have on Japan.
Japan should seize this as a major opportunity and strengthen its defenses accordingly.
We should also understand the severity of Attorney General Barr’s assessment of China.
“China says it seeks a win-win relationship. At first, we took those words literally as meaning reciprocity. It turned out to mean that China wins twice.”
The observation was remarkably to the point.
Why does China “win twice”?
Because it extends its own methods into the United States and ultimately “takes over” America as well.
The Takeover of Hollywood
Barr cited Hollywood film companies among the corporations that “kowtow to China.”
Hollywood initially accepted Chinese capital and now accepts Chinese involvement across virtually every field, including its technical divisions.
Chinese participants have absorbed the full range of know-how from the film industry in which America has taken such pride and are applying it inside China.
Barr concluded that China’s objective was not to strengthen cooperation with Hollywood but to take Hollywood over.
Hollywood once prided itself on respecting every form of human freedom and boldly criticizing those in power.
Barr’s point was that its submissiveness toward Chinese domination was itself humiliating.
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson decided to remove all Huawei products from Britain’s 5G network by 2027.
China expressed strong dissatisfaction, and Chinese Ambassador to Britain Liu Xiaoming gave an interview to The Times on July 18.
As usual, he repeated the claim that China was a peaceful country and friendly toward every nation.
He said that Britain planned to expand 5G nationwide by 2025 but that doing so with British capabilities alone would be difficult, and therefore China wished to assist.
At the same time, he said that, now Britain had decided to exclude Huawei, Chinese investment in Britain could no longer be taken for granted and the situation had changed.
It amounted to asking whether Britain could really manage without Chinese investment.
Indeed, on July 19, ByteDance, the Chinese company behind the video-sharing app TikTok, quickly put its plan to establish a base in London on hold.
Japan now had to understand clearly where it stood and act strategically.
The British government was asking Japan to cooperate in building its 5G network.
NEC and Fujitsu were being mentioned as possible alternative suppliers to Huawei.
Japanese companies were behind their competitors, but Pompeo had praised NTT as one of the clean companies in the world possessing technologies related to 5G.
The Chinese threat confronting Japan was not limited to 5G or the Senkaku Islands.
China was also approaching Minamitorishima.
It was time for Japan to stand with the United States and advance cooperation backed by concrete action.
That would be the right path for protecting Japan’s national interests.