This column by Masayuki Takayama exposes how China has used global-warming narratives and UN environmental politics—spearheaded by Maurice Strong—to divert criticism and extract vast economic benefits from Western nations.
Germany, driven by a mistaken belief that embracing “green energy” atones for the Holocaust, dismantled nuclear power and became dependent on Chinese solar panels, wind turbines, and EVs.
The piece highlights the dangers of Chinese EVs, frequent lithium-battery fires, and the silence of Japanese media, concluding that Western environmental idealism has made them prime targets for China’s strategic deception.

Burning Cars

Lin Yutang, said to be the only intellectual in China, defined “we Chinese” as people who “obey authority,” “stand quietly and stay back,” and “possess cleverness,” with a touch of self-deprecation.
Thus, whenever they had free time, they became lovable people who “drink tea, smoke opium, love Peking opera, and abuse the Japanese.”
However, this is a rather embellished depiction.

The Chinese have spent most of their five-thousand-year history as slaves under foreign dynasties.
The qualities Lin spoke of can all be summed up in a single phrase: “the mentality of slaves.”
Moreover, he left out the most essential trait of the Chinese: “lying and deceiving people.”
Perhaps due to the weight of the times, even the lies they tell have become increasingly grandiose.

One such example is global warming and the supposed greenhouse-gas crisis.
They claim that if humanity continues burning fossil fuels, CO₂ will melt the Arctic ice, abnormal weather will destroy the planet, and we will perish.
But those who are leading the destruction of the environment are the Chinese themselves.

They emit one-third of the world’s CO₂ on their own and pollute rivers and seas without restraint.
Recently, ten thousand pig carcasses were dumped into Shanghai’s Huangpu River.
That pollution flowed out to sea, and simplified-character Chinese marine waste now dirties coastlines around the world.
People believed the Earth would be cleaner if the Chinese weren’t around.

But China is a nation of swindlers.
When committing environmental fraud, they prepared measures to prevent criticism from targeting China alone.
The person who denounced environmental pollution on China’s behalf was Maurice Strong, known as the “Godfather of the Environment.”

His aunt was Anna Louise Strong, an American journalist infatuated with communism, beloved by Stalin, and after his death, adored by Mao Zedong in Beijing.
Leveraging that connection, Maurice Strong rose to the top of the United Nations environmental apparatus.

He first classified China as a “developing country.”
Then he enlisted Al Gore, who spread tales of the Arctic turning into a flower meadow, and built a system through which developed nations would buy CO₂ emissions credits from China.
Next, he targeted thermal power plants and promoted the sale of Chinese solar panels around the world.

The advanced Western nations—and especially Germany—were foolish.
Believing that protecting the environment would atone for the Holocaust, they became easy prey for China.

Although nuclear power posed no real problem, Chancellor Merkel shut it down and replaced it with Chinese solar panels and wind turbines.
The landscape was ruined, electricity prices tripled, and yet the Germans still have not noticed China’s fraud.

China’s next target was automobile exhaust.
Strong proclaimed that “Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) are the savior.”
Despite having Volkswagen, Germany believed that “EVs will save the environment” and let Chinese EVs run freely across the land.
The Chinese, seeing this, laughed uproariously, calling them wangbadan (“idiots”).

EVs are, essentially, toys created by backward nations that cannot make internal combustion engines; they are merely enlarged versions of electric playthings.
They are not vehicles fit to carry people along major avenues.
Moreover, their safety has not been properly tested.

Volkswagen tried making EVs, but lithium-battery fires would not stop.
Two car-carrier ships have burned down, turning seven thousand vehicles into ashes.
When lithium batteries catch fire, they go into “thermal runaway,” reaching temperatures of eight hundred degrees.
Water cannot extinguish them.

Even in China—the supposed home of EVs—such vehicle fires are numerous.
If the car is parked, the surroundings may burn; if it is moving, the occupants burn with it.
Recently, a Huawei EV crashed, and all three passengers burned to death before they could get out.

BYD, which has entered the Japanese market, saw four EV showrooms burn down in the past year.
Authorities say that in China, seven EVs catch fire every single day.
Some burn while driving, others ignite during charging, and many catch fire while parked.
“Park EVs at least fifteen meters away from your home” has become common sense among Chinese people today.

But Japanese newspapers and television never report such stories.
Perhaps they believe that one must not speak ill of things that “serve the environment.”
Or perhaps they simply do not want to write anything that might harm China.