The so-called “textbook issue” between Japan and China was not merely a clash over historical perception, but a diplomatic weapon used against the background of an internal Chinese Communist power struggle, especially the conflict between Deng Xiaoping and the military.
Drawing on a dialogue between Junko Miyawaki and Masahiro Miyazaki, this article sheds light on the essence of Chinese politics and on the structure of Japanese concessions brought about by a lack of understanding on the Japanese side.
It also exposes both China’s strategy toward Japan and the shallowness of Japan’s media and intellectual class.

2019-03-07
That was a classic case of what is called “zhisang makuai,” attacking somewhere that is not the real target, and the textbook issue was used for exactly that purpose.

I am republishing a chapter I posted on 2018-12-11 under the title.
“This is a chapter that splendidly proves that Junko Miyawaki is one of the world’s foremost scholars of Oriental history and a person who understands the true essence of China.”

What follows is a chapter from pages 139 to 140 of the book introduced in the previous chapter.
It is a chapter that splendidly proves that Junko Miyawaki is one of the world’s foremost scholars of Oriental history and a person who understands the true essence of China.
At the same time, it also reveals the crudeness and intellectual poverty of the people who speak as journalists in outlets such as The Asahi Shimbun, Mainichi, Tokyo Shimbun, and NHK, as well as so-called scholars, so-called lawyers, and so-called cultural figures.
In NHK’s case, the miserable reality is that mere high-salaried company employees put on the face of journalists and host news programs.
There are very few essays that have made it this brilliantly clear how, since the war, they have continued to damage Japan’s national interests to an unbelievable degree.
And how they have continued to side with China and the Korean Peninsula.

The hidden struggle between Deng Xiaoping and the military behind the “textbook issue.”

Miyawaki.
By the way, what about control of the military.
Is it not one of those things that are easy to say and hard to do.
Even Deng Xiaoping did not manage it so well.
Within China, the military is after all the greatest real power, is it not.

Miyazaki.
In Deng Xiaoping’s case, he moved the military by fighting the Sino-Vietnamese War.
The method of sending the units of political rivals to the very front line of battle and burying them there was something he learned from Mao Zedong’s know-how in the Korean War, when Mao sent the units of his political rivals to the front line.
Or rather, this is the same in all times and places.
Even in the Boshin War, the domains that defected to the imperial side were made to stand at the very front.
Another point is the ability actually to move the military.

Miyawaki.
But in order to restrain the military’s political influence, Deng Xiaoping failed when he tried to separate the Central Military Commission from the Party and transform it into the state’s Central Military Commission.
It was just when the textbook issue arose and the beating of Japan began, but in fact there were such domestic political problems in China behind the Japan-China textbook issue.

That is, because Hu Yaobang, Deng Xiaoping’s successor, had no military career, it did not seem likely that after Deng Xiaoping’s death he could keep control of the Party’s Military Commission and thereby command the People’s Liberation Army.
So Deng Xiaoping tried to transfer the Central Military Commission to the state and reorganize it into the State Central Military Commission.
If that had happened, the military would have obeyed the orders of the Premier of the State Council.

But of course the military resisted fiercely, and in order to drive the Deng Xiaoping-Hu Yaobang-Zhao Ziyang system, which was trying to reduce the power of senior military men, into a corner, elders of the People’s Liberation Army secretly manipulated outlets such as the People’s Daily and incited the matter into a diplomatic issue by claiming that Japanese textbooks had changed the word “invasion” to “advance.”
Collected Works of Okada Hidehiro 5: Perspectives on Contemporary China, 2014, Fujiwara Shoten.

It is probably no mere coincidence that Kiyomi Tsujimoto, then a student at Waseda, began at this very time the anti-Japan activities she continues to this day, namely operations to divide Japan by splitting public opinion.

Deng Xiaoping, who until then had maintained good relations with Japan, was driven further and further into a corner, and in the end had no choice but to abandon reform of the military and accept the preservation of the Central Military Commission as the Party’s highest institution.
The very moment that happened, the textbook issue disappeared from the Chinese media and came to an abrupt end.

And yet, because foolish Japanese who knew nothing of Communist Party power struggles made concessions to China in the form of textbook censorship and the so-called neighboring countries clause, China gained benefits in its relations with Japan as well, making it a clumsy story of killing two or even three birds with one stone.
That was a classic example of what is called “zhisang makuai,” attacking somewhere that is not the real target, and the textbook issue was used for exactly that purpose.

The rest is omitted.