The writer Yang Yi, the first person from China to win the Akutagawa Prize, broke her silence on the Chinese Communist Party regime after the Tiananmen Square incident, the persecution of Liu Xiaobo, and her family’s history of upheaval during the Cultural Revolution.
This chapter presents the views on the novel coronavirus that she expressed in her book My Enemy, Xi Jinping, and her assertion that “for the sake of world peace, there is no choice but to bring down the Chinese Communist Party regime.”
2020-06-28
My Enemy, Xi Jinping—Why Yang Yi Calls for the Collapse of the Chinese Communist Party Regime
The following is from the February 26 “Sankeishō” column.
“Hello.”
It was the only Japanese she could understand when she came to Japan from China at the age of 22.
Twenty-one years later, in 2008, Yang Yi won the Akutagawa Prize.
Her win attracted considerable attention, as she was the first Chinese recipient—or, indeed, the first writer whose native language was not Japanese—to receive the prize.
Her prize-winning novel, A Morning When Time Blurs, takes the Tiananmen Square incident as its subject.
It portrays the dreams and setbacks of young people of Yang’s generation who threw themselves into the democratization movement.
“You cannot simply conclude that ‘the students were right’ or ‘the government was right.’”
In an interview with this newspaper at the time, her remarks kept politics at arm’s length.
Yang, who had refrained from criticizing the Chinese government, finally broke her silence.
What prompted her was the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the writer Liu Xiaobo.
He was also a democracy activist who fought on the students’ side during the Tiananmen Square incident.
The Chinese government did not allow Liu, who was in prison at the time, to attend the award ceremony.
As a writer, Yang could not overlook the issue of “freedom of expression.”
Yang’s family had been sent down to a remote rural village during the Cultural Revolution.
In the monthly magazine Bungeishunjū, she recounted her family’s history of being buffeted by politics and made an appeal.
She wanted her homeland to become a country where people could speak freely as soon as possible.
An advertisement for Yang’s new book appeared in this newspaper yesterday.
My Enemy, Xi Jinping (Asuka Shinsha).
What a bold title she has chosen.
The contents are even more radical.
Having analyzed various sources of information, Yang believes that the novel coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan is a biological weapon.
Yang, who has already become a naturalized Japanese citizen, passes final judgment on her former homeland.
For the sake of world peace, “there is no choice but to bring down the Chinese Communist Party regime.”
She poses this question to the Japanese people, whose strengths and weaknesses she knows inside out.
Can you push ahead with structural reforms that will end your economic dependence on a China like that?