China spread the coronavirus worldwide yet refused to accept responsibility, while buying up medical supplies, exporting defective products, intensifying pressure in the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, and around the Senkaku Islands, retaliating against Australia, and imposing a national security law on Hong Kong.
Seki Hei describes Xi Jinping’s regime as weak before the strong and ruthless toward the weak, calling it “the petty thug among gangsters” and warning that Japan cannot avoid developing a serious strategy for dealing with China.

June 30, 2020
Xi Jinping’s China has now become “the petty thug among gangsters.”
It may be enormous in size, but in heart and mind it is nothing more than a petty thug, making it an extremely troublesome presence.
The following is taken from Seki Hei’s regular column entitled “China, the World’s Foremost Rogue State,” published in the monthly magazine Hanada.
The monthly magazine Hanada is essential reading not only for the Japanese people but also for people throughout the world.
Anyone who has not yet subscribed should immediately head to the nearest bookstore.
That is because it is filled with genuine essays such as this one.
And yet, it costs only 950 yen, including consumption tax.
I have long believed that, whether speaking of an individual or a nation, it is precisely when disaster or crisis strikes that the true nature of that person or country is most clearly revealed.
During the present coronavirus calamity, the evil nature of a certain continental nation from which I originally came has unexpectedly been exposed in its entirety.
It was unquestionably China that created the coronavirus disaster.
After the coronavirus began spreading in Wuhan, the Chinese government concealed information from the international community and hid the truth.
As a result, the virus spread throughout the world, caused explosive outbreaks of infection, took an enormous number of lives, and inflicted immense damage on human society.
Yet, despite bringing such a great calamity upon the people of the world and causing trouble on such an enormous scale, the Chinese government has not offered a single word of apology to the international community even to this day.
It refuses entirely to acknowledge its own failings or responsibility.
On the contrary, it has attempted to shift responsibility onto another country by spreading the absurd claim that “the US military brought the virus to Wuhan.”
It has also tried to deceive the world with the sophistry that “although Wuhan was the first place where the disease appeared, it was not necessarily the source of the virus.”
During the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak, China bought up masks and other medical supplies around the world, creating shortages in numerous countries.
Once the coronavirus originating in China began raging around the world and causing widespread chaos, China then sent defective masks and testing kits with accuracy rates of less than 30 percent to countries suffering from shortages of medical supplies, while posing as the world’s “saviour.”
It was, so to speak, like a genuine arsonist disguising himself as a firefighter in order to commit further wrongdoing.
China’s malicious conduct did not stop there.
While the world, and particularly the United States, the so-called policeman of the world, was plunged into chaos by the coronavirus, the Chinese government exploited that confusion to accelerate its hegemonic expansion.
It established new “administrative districts” in the South China Sea, repeatedly sent warships into the Taiwan Strait to engage in intimidation, and entered Japanese territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands in an attempt to force through its illegitimate territorial claims.
It committed every form of wrongdoing imaginable.
Ordinarily, such behaviour would be described as the shameful conduct of a thief taking advantage of a fire.
In China’s case, however, it first sets the fire and then proceeds to steal amid the flames, making its behaviour even more vicious.
When countries around the world demanded an investigation into the cause of the coronavirus calamity, China, which had spread the virus throughout the world, began desperately attempting to escape responsibility.
For example, against Australia, which strongly demanded an investigation into the cause of the outbreak and responsibility for it, the Chinese government adopted utterly unreasonable retaliatory measures.
It imposed exorbitant additional tariffs on Australian barley and called on Chinese citizens to refrain from travelling to Australia.
Its arrogance was intolerable.
Yet, against the United States, which demanded that China be held responsible even more forcefully than Australia did, China never adopted comparable retaliatory measures.
Being weak toward the strong and strong toward the weak is a consistent characteristic of the Chinese government.
Taking advantage of the chaos caused by the coronavirus, the Chinese government then began intensifying its bullying of the weak.
At the National People’s Congress held in late May, the Xi Jinping administration committed the outrage of imposing the evil National Security Law on Hong Kong.
Once this wicked law was implemented, Hong Kong’s human rights and freedoms would be completely taken away, and more than seven million Hong Kong citizens would become helpless fish on the Chinese Communist regime’s chopping board.
The international community could never permit such a thing.
In this way, during the less than six months since the coronavirus began spreading, the Chinese government had already committed countless evil acts.
A single glance at these acts makes it clear that China is truly the greatest source of evil in the world.
Even when it is at fault, it never apologises.
Even when it commits an offence, it never admits it.
It always believes that other countries are to blame and that it has done nothing wrong.
It commits arson and theft amid a fire without the slightest hesitation, yet refuses to allow anyone to hold it responsible.
And wherever it goes, it seizes upon weaker countries and peoples and bullies them to its heart’s content.
One might wish to call such a country a “gangster state.”
On reflection, however, even Japanese gangsters are probably neither so cowardly nor so utterly depraved.
Xi Jinping’s China has now become “the petty thug among gangsters.”
It may be enormous in size, but in heart and mind it is nothing more than a petty thug, making it an extremely troublesome presence.
Unfortunately, it is Japan that has this troublesome “rogue state” as its neighbour.
How Japan should deal with such a country will always be a source of anxiety for us and an important challenge that cannot be avoided.
That is precisely why, beginning with this month’s issue, I intend to make analyses of China and Japan that may provide guidance for dealing with China one of the central pillars of this series.
“If you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”