A chapter first published on December 10, 2018, under the title “Why are Chinese people so coarse? As I explained in this book, I believe it is because of the communicative function of Chinese characters,” entered goo’s top 10 search rankings this morning.
This passage introduces the preface to a book by Atsuko Miyawaki and discusses what it describes as the true nature of China, its rule over ethnic minorities, its surveillance society, and the dangerous naivete of the Japanese view toward China.
It further argues that rather than merely venting anger at China, Japanese readers must think seriously about how to build a strong Japan that will not lose to China, and must act in their respective positions for the sake of Japan’s national interest.

2019-03-04
I will think about this with full seriousness myself, but I also hope that all of you readers, without leaving unchecked those Japanese who lend a hand to the weakening of Japan, will do your best in your respective places for the sake of Japan’s national interest.

A chapter I published on 2018-12-10 under the title, “Why are Chinese people so coarse? As I explained in this book, I think it is because of Chinese characters as a means of communication,” entered goo’s top 10 search rankings this morning.
I believe it was Masayuki Takayama who first made me aware of Atsuko Miyawaki.
Those who studied alongside her at Ise High School, Kyoto University, and the graduate school of Osaka University should be deeply proud that Atsuko Miyawaki, who specialized in Mongolian, possesses learning of world-class stature.
What follows is the preface to a book that I learned of the other day from an advertisement at the bottom of a newspaper page and immediately began reading.
The emphasis in the text is mine.

Preface to the New Edition.
Atsuko Miyawaki.

When the original edition of this book was published by Business-sha in December 2015, I was startled when I saw the pitch-black cover and the large title, China Necrosis.
Was what I had discussed with Professor Miyazaki really something so ghastly?
When I saw the subtitle, “The End of a Corruption Unchanged for a Hundred Years,” I thought to myself that what I had talked about was rather the essence of China unchanged for two thousand years, and the fact that the Chinese have historically been a people without unity.
However, the words on the obi, “The terror of historical fabrication and rule through Chinese characters. Like it or not, the age has arrived in which we must fight the Chinese,” were exactly right, and now, three years later, China has become an even greater threat to Japan.

Not a single good piece of news comes from China.
The surveillance system over the people using IT such as smartphones has only become harsher, and ethnic minorities such as the Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Mongols are suffering under what is, in the true sense, colonial rule.
It has become ever clearer that China itself is exactly the imperialist power that they denounce with venom.

In August 2018, the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination reported that “there are many reports indicating the existence of large-scale secret camps in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region,” and expressed concern that “more than one million Uyghurs and others are being detained.”
At first the Chinese government denied it as “a complete fabrication,” but once satellite photographs and other evidence made the existence of the camps clear, it brazenly reversed itself and admitted that it was forcing Muslims to undergo patriotic education.
This is China, so Chinese alone is enough, it says.
The very fact of using strange letters that are not Chinese characters is outrageous, and if they refuse to stop being Muslims, they will be regarded as terrorists.
Some foreign journalists even call the entire Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region an “open-air camp.”
Yet I hear absolutely nothing about the Asahi Shimbun, Kenzaburo Oe, Haruki Murakami, or officers of the International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism, IMADR, powerfully denouncing discrimination against this China at the United Nations.

Why are Chinese people so coarse?
As I explained in this book, I think it is because of Chinese characters as a means of communication.
By as early as the ninth century, the Japanese had already invented katakana and hiragana, and while possessing writing systems that allowed them to write as they speak, they also made convenient use of Chinese characters as ideograms.
That is why they do not truly understand the Chinese, who until the twentieth century possessed only Chinese characters with mutually divergent pronunciations.

Fine nuances do not work on Chinese people.
If it looks the same, that is enough.
If a lie passes, that is enough.
They think that after the strong have won, it is enough to explain it by saying that Heaven’s mandate descended upon them.
The Japanese have overestimated China, but it is simply a group of people who worship power.

Even so, because the Chinese have accumulated the wisdom necessary to survive in a society of fierce competition, lately I cannot help worrying about Japanese complacency.
This is not the time to vent our frustration merely by speaking ill of China.
After reading this book, the real question is what should be done in order to build a strong Japan that will not lose to such a China.
I will think about this with full seriousness myself, but I also hope that all of you readers, without leaving unchecked those Japanese who lend a hand to the weakening of Japan, will do your best in your respective places for the sake of Japan’s national interest.

Written in October, Heisei 30.