While the world focuses on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, this essay warns that the true long-term threat to Japan is China. As the United States exhausts its resources in Europe, Beijing accelerates its military buildup and missile capabilities, positioning itself to strike Japan and Taiwan multiple times. At the same time, Chinese capital is quietly infiltrating Japan’s critical infrastructure through offshore wind power projects and land purchases, gaining long-term access to strategic sea areas, seabed data, and energy supply. Sakurai Yoshiko argues that Japan cannot rely on U.S. protection alone; it must urgently strengthen its own defense posture and, above all, enact robust legal safeguards so that neither its territory nor its surrounding seas can be seized or controlled by China.

Japan, Wake Up — The Real Villain Is China.
Grasp the Problem and Devote All Your Wisdom and Strength to Creating Laws That Prevent Our Land and Seas from Being Taken by China.
May 14, 2024

The following is from a chapter that a reader “liked,” which ranked seventh in “It was a top 50 searcher for the past week, 2022/5/14.”
Toyama Prefecture was one of the regions I wanted to visit also for photography.
By coincidence, I am now writing this column while watching the Giants vs. Yokohama DeNA game being played in a ballpark where you can see the Tateyama Mountain Range—the very mountains I want to shoot as seen from Toyama Bay.
Those who read this chapter through to the final section will, like me, feel a chill of horror and a deep anger from the bottom of their hearts at how far Japan has already been invaded by China.

Grasp the problem and devote all your wisdom and strength to creating laws that prevent our land and seas from being taken by China.
May 12, 2022

The following is from Sakurai Yoshiko’s serialized column that concludes the latest issue of Shukan Shincho, released today.
This essay also proves that she herself is the “national treasure, the supreme national treasure” as defined by Saichō.
It is essential reading not only for the Japanese people but for people all over the world.

The fact that the Liberal Democratic Party has continued to hand the post of Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism over to Kōmeitō—how much harm has that done to Japan as a nation?
This is not merely about the astonishingly lax inspection regime for the Hokkaidō sightseeing boat operator.
It is far beyond that.
Kōmeitō has come to occupy the MLIT minister’s slot to such an extent that it is no exaggeration to say they are now agents of the Chinese Communist Party.
For China, this was a cause for boundless rejoicing.
Emphasis within the text other than the headline is mine.

Japan, wake up, the real villain is China.
Over the past few weeks, there is a map that my eyes keep drifting toward.
It is a map of the Pacific Ocean with the North and South American continents on the right, the Eurasian continent on the left, and nuclear-armed states colored in red.
Centered on Russia, China, and North Korea, the Eurasian landmass is dyed red, and in North America, the United States is colored red.
Right in the middle, at the left edge of the Pacific, our Japanese archipelago floats there all by itself, looking forlorn.
I truly feel that the most dangerous region in the world today is not the Atlantic and Europe, but the Pacific and Asia, namely the area that surrounds our country.
Because of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, we are absorbed in daily reports of the fighting and find it difficult to notice just how dangerous a position Japan is in as the power balance in the world undergoes tremendous change.
Our country, which sits idly by, has neither a firm determination for national defense nor the necessary preparations.
Our thinking is naïve and our systems are lax.
Now is the time to work with the United States to draw up concrete strategies toward China on which the fate of our nation depends, and to prepare for them—including constitutional revision—yet I do not see any awareness that severe.
In this condition it is only natural that China should set its sights on us.
On April 25, U.S. Defense Secretary Austin declared that, in order to ensure that Russia can never again do what it has done in its war of aggression against Ukraine, the United States will “weaken Russia.”
True to those words, the U.S. is becoming more deeply committed to supporting Ukraine, with the intention of bringing about Russia’s decline.
Economic aid to replenish and strengthen Ukraine’s weapons and equipment totaled 3.05 billion dollars (about 398.2 billion yen) between February 24, when Russia began its full-scale invasion, and April 21.
Then on April 28, President Biden requested an additional 33 billion dollars (about 4.3087 trillion yen) in new aid from Congress.
Combined with the actual aid since February, the total comes to roughly 470 billion yen, exceeding half of Russia’s 2021 military budget of 65.9 billion dollars (about 8.6 trillion yen).
In this war of aggression, it is natural for us to stand on Ukraine’s side and to hate Mr. Putin, and thus it is understandable that the United States would throw its weight behind Ukraine.
At the same time, from Japan’s standpoint, we cannot help but worry about what kind of situation the war in Ukraine is creating in Asia.
What symbolizes this is precisely that map described at the beginning, which shows Japan’s crisis.

The weakening of the United States.
No one is more pleased than China that the United States is deeply entangled in the Ukraine issue and continues to pour economic and military resources into it.
Their great objective is to win the competition with the United States and become the hegemon of the earth; their enemy is the United States.
For that reason, China has always sought the weakening of the United States.
During President George H. W. Bush’s Gulf War and President George W. Bush’s Afghan War, the Chinese were strongly interested in how much power the U.S. would expend in the Middle East, and how much America’s national strength and international standing would be eroded as a result.
They must have fervently wished for the U.S. to be worn down, and for the wars to be prolonged—if possible, to become quagmires.
The same is surely true this time.
They want the war between Ukraine and Russia to drag on, for the U.S. military to become even more deeply committed, and for the U.S. to be exhausted by massive aid.
If only America can be weakened, then China can dominate the Asia-Pacific.
Such a development would be extremely dangerous for both Japan and the United States, and it also runs contrary to President Biden’s own strategy.
Last year, the U.S. decided to withdraw from the war in Afghanistan.
President Biden clearly stated that the withdrawal was so that the U.S. could focus on China, the true threat.
However, if the U.S. becomes too deeply involved in Ukraine, it will no longer be able to concentrate its efforts on China.
This is a grave crisis for Japan.
That is precisely why Japan must think as if this were its own problem: how to bring about Russia’s defeat in the war in Ukraine as quickly as possible.
Geopolitically, what Japan and the United States must most fear is that China and Russia will join hands and that the Eurasian continent will effectively fall under Chinese control, yet what is actually happening now is exactly a China–Russia alignment.
The Biden administration is losing the ability to focus on dealing with China, its greatest threat, and it is failing to prevent China and Russia from joining forces; is it not losing its strategic sense of direction?
From China’s perspective, the present, when the U.S. and Europe are absorbed in Ukraine, is a strategic opportunity.
They are pushing forward single-mindedly with building up their military power, the basic foundation of national strength.
As Murano Masashi, a researcher at the Hudson Institute in the U.S., points out, “By 2030, the PLA’s missile forces and bombers will be capable of attacking twice 850 targets within 3,200 kilometers of the Chinese mainland, and attacking twice more than 4,500 targets within 1,400 kilometers.”
China’s nuclear and non-nuclear strategic missiles can already reach both Japan and Taiwan, and within a few years they will have the capacity to strike them multiple times with ease.
The area around Japan at the western edge of the Pacific is already the region with the highest density of nuclear weapons and missiles, and that density and danger will only continue to increase.

The buying up of our land.
As the Biden administration has declared, the real threat, the more formidable enemy, is China.
And it is Japan that China is most keenly targeting; many Japanese must already sense this.
In that sense, the strengthening of our national defense policy is urgent, but defense spending equivalent to 2 percent of GDP will be nowhere near enough.
In what ways is China extending its hands of invasion toward Japan?
They will not follow in Mr. Putin’s footsteps.
Just as in the security agreement with the Solomon Islands revealed in April, China effectively took over the core of the Solomon Islands government in an instant—before even that country’s own parliament realized what was happening, and without giving Australia or the U.S. any time to stop it.
Whether with bribes or threats, their repertoire of tricks for ensnaring carefully chosen targets is inexhaustible.
Japan has no right to laugh at the Solomon Islands.
In the May 7 issue of the Sankei Shimbun, editorial writer Miyamoto Masashi’s article “The Day the Borders Disappear: ‘China’s Tentacles in Offshore Wind Power Strip Japan Bare’” warns that China is moving to secure control of Japan’s power supply by winning contracts for offshore wind power projects.
Even if only a portion is involved, it is dangerous for another country—especially China—to hold the sources of our electric power.
But that is not all, Miyamoto says.
“For example, a Chinese company is set to participate in the offshore wind power project in Nyuzen Town, Toyama Prefecture. Power generation companies are allowed to survey wind conditions, ocean currents, seabed topography, and geological features in the sea area where turbines will be installed. The company that wins the contract can, for up to thirty years, occupy and survey that sea area.”
Having covered land purchases by Chinese capital in Japan for over twenty years and having learned the reality of the evil hand of invasion reaching toward Japan, Miyamoto goes on to say:
“Not only our territory—our forests, water sources, and farmland—but also the seas and seabeds of Japan, a maritime nation, could fall into the hands of Chinese capital.”
Is that not a terrifying prospect?
To confront China’s threat, strengthening our national defense alone is nowhere near enough.
Politicians must raise antennas of crisis awareness like the spines of a hedgehog all around themselves, and impress upon the United States as well the severity of China’s threat.
Grasp the problem, and devote all your wisdom and strength to creating laws that will prevent our land and seas from being taken by China.