A record dated July 17, 2020, examining the courage of Xu Zhangrun, a Tsinghua University law professor who risked his position and personal freedom by criticizing Xi Jinping’s leadership.
It contrasts intellectuals who accept grave personal consequences for speaking truth in authoritarian China with influential figures in democratic Japan who, in the author’s view, support China and South Korea while facing no comparable danger.

July 17, 2020
They face absolutely no danger of losing their positions, their peaceful lives, or even their lives.
Yet, while receiving some of the highest salaries in Japan, they engage in rhetoric hostile to their own country and continue to side with China and South Korea.
The following is taken from an article written by Sankei Shimbun correspondent Yoshiaki Nishimi and published in the previous day’s edition under the title, “Those Who Devote Themselves to Righteousness.”
Xu Zhangrun, a professor at Tsinghua University’s School of Law who had sharply criticized the Xi Jinping leadership, was temporarily detained by the public security authorities.
A Beijing university professor who had been acquainted with Xu said:
“He is a very restrained, gentle and cultivated intellectual. That impression may not appear consistent with the forcefulness of his public statements.”
Xu had been an elite figure within the Chinese establishment.
At Tsinghua University, one of China’s two leading universities alongside Peking University, he had served as director of the Centre for the Rule of Law and Human Rights.
In a document published in July 2018, however, he severely condemned the constitutional amendment that abolished the presidential term limit and opened the way for Xi to remain in power for a third term.
He warned that it would “return China to the terrifying era of Mao Zedong.”
This provoked the anger of the authorities.
“Scholars should be able to publish their own views, even when everything they say is not necessarily correct. His criticism of the government is an expression of his love for this country and of his desire to see it improve and progress.”
The professor quietly spoke those words in a café on the outskirts of Beijing.
According to Hong Kong media reports, Tsinghua University dismissed Xu on the grounds of “moral corruption,” and Xu was said to be prepared to accept the decision.
In authoritarian China, where the state possesses overwhelming power, individuals who criticize the authorities are crushed as though they were insects.
Nevertheless, many of them deliberately devote themselves to their own sense of righteousness while fully accepting the danger that they may lose their positions, their peaceful lives, or even their lives.
In Japan, by contrast, the people to whom I have repeatedly referred face absolutely no danger of losing their positions, their peaceful lives, or their lives.
On the contrary, while receiving some of the highest salaries available in Japan, they engage in rhetoric hostile to their own country and continue to side with China and South Korea――countries which, in my view, are characterized by unfathomable wrongdoing and plausible falsehoods.
With regard to China in particular, figures such as Uichiro Niwa have praised it as a “great China” and were reportedly said to have declared that Japan should eventually accept becoming a subordinate state of China.