This chapter introduces historian Junko Miyawaki’s sharp analysis of China’s unchanged essence over two millennia—its ethnic fragmentation, its coercive imperialism, and the limitations imposed by a Chinese-character–based communication system.
She argues that China’s surveillance regime, mass detention of Uyghurs, and cultural suppression stem from a civilization that worships power rather than nuance or dialogue.
Japan has long overestimated China, she warns, and must shed its complacency to protect its national interests.
Her message is clear: only a strong, vigilant Japan can resist China’s expanding influence.

It was Masayuki Takayama who first introduced me to the existence of Junko Miyawaki.
Graduates of Ise High School, Kyoto University, and Osaka University—where she specialized in Mongolian—should take great pride in the fact that Miyawaki’s scholarship is among the most distinguished in the world.
Below is the preface from a book I noticed in a newspaper advertisement and promptly purchased.
Emphasis in the text is mine.

New Edition – Preface
Junko Miyawaki

When the original edition of this book was published by Business-sha in December 2015, I was startled to see the pitch-black cover and the large title “China Necrosis.”
Was my discussion with Professor Miyazaki really so sinister?
I remember talking about China’s unchanging essence over two thousand years, and the fact that the Chinese are historically a collection of disparate peoples—not the ominous theme the title suggested.

However, the phrase on the book band—“The terror of historical falsification and Chinese character domination; the age has come when we must fight the Chinese whether we like it or not!”—was spot on.
Three years later, China has become an even greater threat to Japan.
There is not a single piece of good news coming from China.

The surveillance system using smartphones and IT is becoming ever more oppressive.
Minorities such as the Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Mongols suffer under genuine colonial rule.
It is becoming increasingly clear that China itself is the true imperialist power they so vehemently denounce.

In August 2018, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination reported that “numerous accounts indicate the existence of large-scale secret detention camps in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region,” expressing concern that “over one million Uyghurs and others are being detained.”
At first, the Chinese government denied this as “complete fabrication,” but when satellite images proved the camps existed, they brazenly admitted to forcing Muslims to undergo patriotic indoctrination.
Their logic is: This is China, Chinese alone is sufficient, using non-Chinese scripts is unacceptable, and refusing to abandon Islam makes you a terrorist.

One foreign journalist has even called the entire Xinjiang region a “blue-sky concentration camp.”

Why are the Chinese so coarse?
As I explained in this book, I believe it is due to the communication system of Chinese characters.
By the ninth century, the Japanese had already invented katakana and hiragana—scripts that allowed them to write as they spoke—while conveniently using Chinese characters as ideograms.
Thus, we Japanese have never truly understood the Chinese, who until the twentieth century had only Chinese characters with wildly varying pronunciations.

Subtle nuances do not register with the Chinese.
If something looks the same, that is good enough; a lie is acceptable if it gets through; and once the stronger party wins, they justify it by saying “Heaven’s Mandate has descended.”

The Japanese have long overestimated China, but it is merely a collective of people who worship power and force.
And yet, because they have had to survive in a harshly competitive society, they have accumulated their own form of cunning.
Nowadays, I am deeply worried about Japan’s complacency.

This is no time to vent frustrations by bad-mouthing China.
Read this book and consider seriously what Japan must do to build a strong nation capable of resisting China.
I will also think earnestly about this, and I hope readers will not tolerate Japanese who assist in Japan’s weakening, but will instead strive for the nation’s interests in their respective spheres.
Written in October, Heisei 30 (2018).