In a dialogue published in the monthly magazine WiLL, Hiroshi Furuta and Gemki Fujii identified the U.S.–China confrontation as the central axis of the contemporary world.
They examined Wall Street’s acceptance of opaque Chinese listings, intellectual-property theft cases connected to China, the Thousand Talents Plan’s recruitment of foreign researchers, Huawei and 5G, and the Made in China 2025 strategy, revealing what they described as China’s “invisible invasion” through finance, technology, corporations, and academic talent.

July 22, 2020
This chapter was originally published on July 22, 2020.
It introduced a special dialogue between University of Tsukuba Professor Emeritus Hiroshi Furuta and international political analyst Gemki Fujii, published in the previous day’s issue of the monthly magazine WiLL under the title “What the Japanese Media Will Not Report: Trump Will Win the U.S. Presidential Election by a Landslide.”
The title reflected a prediction concerning the 2020 United States presidential election that was being held at the time.
The portion reproduced here focuses not primarily on that election prediction, but on the nature of the U.S.–China confrontation and China’s penetration of American financial markets, corporations, universities, research institutions, intellectual property, and communications technology.
Fujii characterized President Donald Trump’s May 29, 2020 address in the White House Rose Garden as a de facto declaration of confrontation with China.
He also argued that Wall Street financial interests seeking profits from Chinese companies had enabled Chinese state-owned enterprises to raise money in the United States without providing the degree of accounting transparency normally required of listed companies.
The dialogue further examined the FBI’s counterintelligence investigations, China’s Thousand Talents Plan for recruiting overseas specialists, and the case involving Harvard University professor Charles Lieber.
It then turned to the technological struggle surrounding Huawei, 5G, and Made in China 2025, arguing that Xi Jinping’s public declaration of China’s ambitions alerted the United States to the scale of Beijing’s long-term strategy.
The following is a faithful English translation of the Japanese text published on July 22, 2020.
Faithful English Translation
July 22, 2020
Over approximately the past twenty years, however, the United States yielded to the power of Wall Street financial capital seeking profits from Chinese companies and tacitly permitted more than fifty Chinese companies to become listed.
The following is from a special dialogue between University of Tsukuba Professor Emeritus Hiroshi Furuta and international political analyst Gemki Fujii, published in yesterday’s issue of the monthly magazine WiLL under the title “What the Japanese Media Will Not Report: Trump Will Win the U.S. Presidential Election by a Landslide.”
Hiroshi Furuta is one of the world’s leading authorities on Korea and China, while Gemki Fujii is one of the world’s leading scholars, particularly on affairs in the United States.
This is essential reading not only for the people of Japan, but for people throughout the world.
The Japanese people must immediately go to their nearest bookstore and purchase the magazine.
That is because what these two men are saying is the truth.
It is a monthly magazine filled with truths that cannot be understood at all by merely subscribing to the Asahi Shimbun or watching NHK news programs and talk shows.
Liberal Americans are lamenting, “Is Biden really the only candidate available?”
The Invisible Invasion of a Premodern State
Furuta:
The Han coronavirus has turned the world upside down.
Amid these circumstances, Professor Terumasa Nakanishi contributed an article to the Sankei Shimbun on June 28 under a theme such as, “History is now approaching the greatest crisis of the twenty-first century.”
Fujii:
There is no doubt that we are standing at a major historical turning point.
The key expression is the “U.S.–China confrontation.”
The Wuhan coronavirus problem and the Minneapolis riots both have the U.S.–China confrontation at their core.
Unless this central axis is recognized, it will be difficult to understand the essential nature of the various problems appearing in contemporary society.
I examine these matters in The Final U.S.–China Showdown, published by Tokuma Shoten.
Furuta:
The United States is now seriously attempting to tighten the pressure on China.
Fujii:
There can be no doubt that President Trump’s May 29 speech in the White House Rose Garden was a declaration of confrontation with China issued by the president himself.
Furuta:
He cited China’s exploitation of the American economy and its abandonment of its guarantee of autonomy for Hong Kong.
Fujii:
Trump then stated, “The United States desires an open and constructive relationship with China, but achieving that relationship requires us to vigorously defend our national interests.”
The Trump administration has in fact been advancing measures against China with bipartisan support.
For example, Congress passed legislation strengthening the monitoring of foreign companies listed in the United States.
The legislation was clearly aimed at Chinese companies.
Chinese state-owned enterprises are required under Chinese domestic law not to disclose their accounting reports—or balance sheets, hereafter referred to as BS.
Furuta:
A country that has adopted a socialist economy is simply incapable of double-entry bookkeeping.
Fujii:
Moreover, Communist Party committees are installed inside large companies, and those committees are required to report to the Party Central Committee.
Listing shares in the United States traditionally required the disclosure of highly transparent balance sheets.
Over approximately the past twenty years, however, the United States yielded to the power of Wall Street financial capital seeking profits from Chinese companies and tacitly permitted more than fifty Chinese companies to become listed.
The new legislation created an obligation to inspect their balance sheets in detail.
As a result, China would no longer be able to raise funds within the United States.
Many Chinese companies would probably be delisted.
The company I am watching most closely is Alibaba.
If Alibaba were delisted, SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son would not emerge unharmed.
His largest asset was his holding of Alibaba shares.
Furuta:
The United States will also intensify its pursuit of intellectual-property violations.
Fujii:
On July 7, FBI Director Wray delivered a speech at the Hudson Institute, presenting specific examples of intellectual theft and warning the American people.
Of the five thousand espionage cases then being handled by the FBI, approximately fifty percent were reportedly connected to China.
China has even been absorbing human talent into its own system.
It began the “Thousand Talents Plan” in 2008.
More specifically, it is a program intended to invite leading foreign researchers to China as part of the goal of making China the world’s number-one country in science and technology by around 2050.
Furuta:
Is that not a respectable-looking form of slavery achieved through the power of money?
Fujii:
It is.
It is a hunt for brains, a hunt for intellectual slaves, and it would not be an exaggeration to describe it as the abduction of first-rate researchers.
American researchers are particular targets.
China offers extraordinary salaries, research funding, facilities, and research environments, so the researchers themselves do not realize that they are being taken.
Arrests have in fact occurred.
One example is Professor Charles Lieber, chairman of Harvard University’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and a world authority on nanotechnology.
Although he was receiving research funding from the United States Department of Defense, he was simultaneously participating in the Thousand Talents Plan and did not report that fact to the federal government.
That was illegal.
Furuta:
Was he also receiving money?
Fujii:
Yes.
He received a monthly research allowance of fifty thousand dollars, approximately 5.4 million yen; annual living expenses of 158,000 dollars; and 1.5 million dollars as compensation for establishing in China a laboratory equivalent to his Harvard laboratory.
Professor Lieber was eventually arrested, but his case was probably only the tip of the iceberg.
An American investigative report had already disclosed that China had recruited seven thousand researchers.
It was also known that at least three Japanese researchers were participating in the Thousand Talents Plan.
Furuta:
Many university professors are Marxist believers and friendly toward China, so they quickly cooperate with it.
Their numbers are likely to continue increasing.
Fujii:
China’s methods are certainly cunning in the extreme, but Xi Jinping makes it easy to see the tail of what China is doing, and for that we should be grateful.
Had China been led by a strategist such as Deng Xiaoping, the United States might have been completely swallowed by China through the strategy of “hide one’s capabilities and bide one’s time.”
Xi Jinping, however, very honestly reveals all of China’s secrets to us.
Furuta:
Had 5G been left alone, Huawei would have controlled everything.
Fujii:
Exactly.
Xi Jinping, however, announced Made in China 2025 and declared that China would become the leader in a range of high-technology fields by 2025.
The United States saw this, recognized the danger, and began moving to crush Huawei.
Xi Jinping really is a fool.
To be continued.