Through an article by Yoshiko Sakurai, this essay examines the shortcomings of the CSIS report “China’s Influence in Japan,” which concluded that Chinese influence in Japan was limited compared with other countries. It discusses the Belt and Road Initiative, Okinawan independence, the Japan-U.S. alliance, Chinese students at Japanese universities, Confucius Institutes, and funding allegedly connected to the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Propaganda Department, warning against underestimating China’s influence operations toward Japan.

August 20, 2020
The following is from an article by Yoshiko Sakurai published in yesterday’s issue of Shukan Shincho under the title, “China’s Influence Operations Against Japan: Underestimation Is Dangerous.”
Ms. Sakurai, as a national treasure in the sense defined by Saicho, has continued single-mindedly to write invaluable articles for the sake of Japan.
Many decent Japanese citizens are sincerely grateful to her and respect her.
Seventy-five years after the war, amid dramatically changing global circumstances, what kind of country should Japan become over the next ten or twenty years, and beyond that, and what values do we want to place at the foundation of our families, society, and nation?
Now is the time to think carefully and determine our direction.
The battle of values between the United States and China will probably go as far as it can go.
Secretary of State Pompeo delivered four major speeches concerning China in July, and in them he pressed countries around the world to make clear which side they would take, the United States or China, and which set of values they would choose.
Not only Japan, but Britain and Germany as well, have no small influence on the international community.
Now that American influence is relatively weakening, the influence of countries such as Japan is, rather, increasing.
Whether economically or militarily, countries with power have responsibilities commensurate with that power.
In order to fulfill its responsibilities to the world, Japan must consider how it should confront China together with the United States, Britain, and others.
At such a time, I read the research report “China’s Influence in Japan,” released in late July by the influential American think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Unfortunately, this 47-page report, which reached the conclusion that “China’s influence on Japan is limited compared with other countries,” is conspicuously weak in both its outlook and analysis.
The report states that China has made full use of both hard and soft methods to expand its influence over Japan, but has failed to achieve even one of its strategic objectives toward Japan.
As concrete examples, it cites Japan’s participation in the Belt and Road Initiative, Okinawan independence, the cultivation of pro-China forces within the Japanese government, and the weakening of the Japan-U.S. alliance, saying that none of these has been realized.
What would Japan look like if the examples just cited had actually been realized?
Take Okinawan independence, for example.
Its realization would be tantamount to the outbreak of a revolution.
For Japan, it would constitute an upheaval that turned heaven and earth upside down.
A weakening of the Japan-U.S. alliance would fundamentally alter both Japan’s postwar course and its security strategy for the near future.
The Purpose of the Report
One of the challenges Japan has faced since the Trump administration, and even since the Obama administration, has been the necessity of a qualitative transformation of the Japan-U.S. alliance.
The United States has continued to demand a higher degree of autonomy from Japan.
Japan itself is aware that it must do so.
But whatever form that takes, it is intended to achieve stronger Japan-U.S. solidarity, not to weaken the alliance.
Both Okinawan independence and the weakening of the Japan-U.S. alliance are strategies China has pursued for many years.
To that end, they have sought to inflame Japanese public opinion and drive Japan and the United States apart.
Until August six years ago, the Asahi Shimbun, Shukan Asahi, and AERA, to which I subscribed regularly, sometimes published tendentious articles such as those advocating “Okinawan independence.”
Japan’s failure to shut down the Asahi Shimbun in August six years ago was an extremely grave mistake.
Is it not wrong to conclude that China’s information operations against Japan and its influence are weaker or more limited than in other countries simply because those objectives have not been realized?
The report states that its purpose is “to analyze policies that, in addition to circumstances unique to Japan, can also be shared by other democracies, and to explain the reasons for the failure of China’s influence operations toward Japan.”
Was there not, from the outset, a view that “China has not been able to exert major influence over Japan,” with evidence then being gathered merely to arrive at that conclusion?
If one looks at it that way, does it not also explain why the first Japanese scholar to appear in the report is Koichi Nakano, a professor at Sophia University and a member of the pro-China camp?
As one piece of evidence for its conclusion that China’s influence over Japan is limited, the report notes that although the Japanese government’s initial response to the Wuhan virus was lenient, it later prepared funding to encourage companies to move away from China.
The Japanese government prepared 243.5 billion yen.
The United States provided 55 trillion yen, and Germany 72 trillion yen.
This is such a small amount that it could raise doubts about Japan’s resolve regarding “decoupling.”
To treat this as evidence that Chinese influence has not extended very far into Japan would appear objectively inappropriate.
The report also contains a section on “Confucius Institutes,” but frankly speaking, its contents are extremely thin and of little use.
When China seeks to suppress other countries or exert influence over them, its most effective weapon is the use of economic power.
Both trade and tourism can, at the discretion of the Chinese government, inflict serious damage on another country.
When the Australian government proposed an international scientific investigation into the origin of the Wuhan virus, China imposed an 80.5 percent tariff on Australian barley imports.
When South Korea indicated the possibility of deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD) at the request of the United States, China stopped Chinese tourists from traveling there and squeezed the South Korean economy.
We keep such examples firmly in mind, but our blind spot may be the field of education.
Large numbers of Chinese students are being sent to universities in various countries.
In most cases, tuition fees are paid in advance in a lump sum, which is financially extremely welcome for the universities receiving them.
As a result, entire universities become spaces in which criticism of China becomes difficult, almost as if they were subordinate to China.
Meanwhile, Chinese students acquire and steal cutting-edge technological research and knowledge in individual laboratories and take it back to China.
Enormous Profits for Universities
Another pillar of China’s expansion of influence in the field of education is the Confucius Institute.
Confucius Institutes were launched by a subordinate organization of the Ministry of Education, commonly abbreviated as Hanban, which corresponds to Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and their purpose is to expand the Chinese cultural sphere throughout the world through Chinese-language education and the dissemination of Chinese culture.
To put it more bluntly, their purpose is to increase the influence of the Chinese Communist Party throughout the world.
Clive Hamilton, who described China’s extraordinary penetration of Australia in Silent Invasion (Asukashinsha), points out that Li Changchun, who headed China’s propaganda apparatus, stated that “Confucius Institutes are an important organization for China to conduct propaganda overseas.”
Since establishing the first Confucius Institute in South Korea in 2004, they have established 550 Confucius Institutes in 162 countries around the world.
The first in Japan was at Ritsumeikan University.
Perhaps there are considerable advantages to doing so, because Ritsumeikan has also already established Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Oita Prefecture.
Many of the students at that university are Chinese international students.
A Confucius Institute was also established at Waseda University, which is regarded as a prestigious university.
Confucius Institutes also exist at twelve other universities.
They are J. F. Oberlin University, Hokuriku University, Aichi University, Sapporo University, Hyogo College of Medicine, Okayama Shoka University, Osaka Sangyo University, Fukuyama University, Kogakuin University, Kansai Gaidai University, Musashino University, and Yamanashi Gakuin University.
The acceptance of large numbers of international students and the establishment of Confucius Institutes create a synergistic effect while bringing enormous profits to the universities that receive them.
These profits consist of the aforementioned lump-sum advance tuition payments by international students, as well as various research funds provided by the Chinese side.
Officially, that money is supposed to come from China’s Ministry of Education, but is it really clean money?
The prominent China scholar David Shambaugh has pointed out that in reality it is money from the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Propaganda Department, according to the aforementioned book.
In other words, there is a possibility that the money accepted by many Japanese universities and researchers is funding from the Communist Party’s Central Propaganda Department and is nothing more than money laundered by being disbursed through the Ministry of Education.
Among advanced nations, Japan is the most insensitive to such matters.
I want to issue a strong warning.