When the novel coronavirus emerged, the Chinese Communist Party punished doctors and scientists who attempted to warn the public and provide information, while desperately trying to deceive the entire international community.
Professor Clive Hamilton exposes the Chinese Communist Party’s “invisible invasion,” including its influence operations targeting Australian politicians and media, its manipulation of public opinion over the South China Sea, and its reach into Japanese television reporting.

June 26, 2020
Beijing was desperately trying to deceive the entire international community, and as a result, it brought great suffering to the world.
The following is from an essay by Clive Hamilton, professor at Charles Sturt University, titled “Xi Jinping’s ‘Invisible Invasion’ Is Advancing in Japan as Well,” published in today’s issue of the monthly magazine WiLL.
Like this essay, the monthly magazine WiLL is filled with articles that are essential reading not only for the Japanese people, but for people throughout the world.
All emphasis within the text, apart from the headings, and all passages enclosed by asterisks are mine.
Interview and composition by Masashi Okuyama
Great Suffering for the World
Through the present novel coronavirus crisis, the international community has once again been made painfully aware of the opacity of the Chinese Communist Party.
What Beijing’s response to the outbreak revealed was that the Chinese Communist Party was extremely afraid of losing its control over information.
This was also clearly demonstrated by the highly punitive approach adopted by the Chinese government during the initial stage toward doctors and scientists who attempted to warn the public and provide information.
Beijing was desperately trying to deceive the entire international community, and as a result, it brought great suffering to the world.
＊From the very beginning until today, those who control NHK’s news division have concealed this fact by maintaining that China was not responsible. They had singers regularly favored by NHK say such things as, “Perhaps the virus came from outer space,” and more recently, they placed a Kyoto University professor under the influence of the Chinese government on a program hosted primarily by Professor Yamanaka and had him declare, “This coronavirus came from the natural world.” They also devoted a lengthy segment on News Watch 9 to Ken Loach, an elderly man almost entirely unknown to the overwhelming majority of the Japanese people, carrying out information manipulation intended to prevent public anger over this catastrophe from being directed toward China.
Regarding the statement by the Kyoto University professor, he must surely have visited China many times for academic conferences and other purposes.
If he is a scholar of such standing that NHK would invite him onto a program hosted by Professor Yamanaka, it is all the more unnatural to believe that China had taken no action toward him.
As for the anger I feel from the depths of my heart toward this Kyoto University professor:
In a publishing advertisement printed on page two of yesterday’s Sankei Shimbun, Yang Yi, the first Chinese-born writer to receive the Akutagawa Prize, described it as blazing anger, anger rising from the very depths of the soul.
I will append the advertisement below as a photograph.＊
I became interested in China-related issues only recently.
From around 2016, I began to be concerned about intervention by the Chinese Communist Party in Australia, so I first spoke with China experts in Australia, particularly those familiar with the Chinese Communist Party’s influence operations.
They were surprisingly cooperative, and through my interviews they introduced me to a wide range of literature.
As the overall picture gradually began to take shape, I traveled to mainland China, Hong Kong, the United States, and other places to conduct further interviews.
Eventually, after reading an enormous quantity of material, I was finally able to see the completed form of the project.
I then began writing Silent Invasion, published by this company.
That was in October 2016.
Beginning around the summer of that year, several articles had started appearing in Australian newspapers about attempts by the Chinese Communist Party to influence Australian politics.
I therefore approached an editor I had known for many years at a publishing company that had previously published several of my books.
The editor replied, “That is a wonderful idea. Let us begin immediately,” and so I started writing.
I devoted the whole of 2017 to research and writing.
After completing the draft, I asked three or four experts to read it.
Because this was a new field for me, I had the experts check the manuscript and tell me whether there were mistakes or omissions and which areas required further investigation.
There was another scandal that prompted me to write this book.
It was the case in which it was discovered that Sam Dastyari, a senator from the Australian Labor Party, had received large political donations from a Chinese businessman, causing a major uproar.
Although this businessman lived in Australia, he had close connections with the Chinese Communist Party.
After being drawn into its network of influence operations, Dastyari began behaving in extremely strange ways.
For example, he gathered representatives of Chinese-language media in Australia for a press conference and declared, “Australia should not involve itself in the South China Sea issue.”
That was exactly what Beijing wanted us to say.
＊As soon as I read this passage, I remembered something……it happened when I was watching TV Asahi’s Hodo Station, hosted by Furutachi, without knowing anything about their true nature.
When China began its invasion of the South China Sea, a scholar named Takeshi Nakajima, who was regularly favored by TV Asahi and the Asahi Shimbun, appeared as a commentator and made an astonishing remark.
“If you turn the map of the South China Sea upside down, it looks like China’s inland sea, does it not……?”
I will say this deliberately: I had already harbored suspicions about this young man, but this statement made my judgment conclusive.
Ever since that remark, I have felt unforgivable anger toward this young man, toward TV Asahi’s Hodo Station, and toward Furutachi, who hosted the program……especially because of the many years during which I continued to be deceived by that man.
Perhaps because they are members of the same gang as those who control NHK’s news division, NHK pays this shameless man a high fee to produce a program during prime time.
It goes without saying that I have never watched it even once.
The moment this program begins, I immediately change the channel.
Considering the many years during which I was deceived by Furutachi, and the unforgivable anger I feel toward him, that is only natural.＊
To be continued.
Clive Hamilton’s essay is also essential reading for the Japanese people.
It goes on sale today.
I must go to my nearest bookstore and buy it.