Written on 2019-05-22.
This passage argues that the pro-China “panda hugger” forces once influential in the United States and Japan are now in retreat, while a broad anti-China front is forming across military, technology, diplomacy, and human rights.
Through Xi Jinping’s tightening dictatorship, broken promises over the South China Sea, and abuses in Xinjiang and Tibet, it sharply depicts signs of an eventual collapse of the Chinese regime.

2019-05-22

The chapter I posted on 2018-11-05 under the title, “Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs was probably half panda huggers too,” is now in the real-time top 10.
The following is a continuation of the piece titled “China Will Without Question Collapse as a Regime,” published in this month’s issue of the monthly magazine HANADA, featuring E. Luttwak, Senior Adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, with reporting and composition by Okuyama Masashi.

Xi Jinping’s “Worst Decision”

First, the military lobby, instead of chasing obscure terrorists with names like Abdullah and Mohammed in the mountains of Africa as it had until then, began to target China.
Then the technology lobby joined in, and after that the diplomatic lobby as well.
The lineup was complete.
As recently as 10 years ago, 70 to 80 percent of the diplomatic lobby consisted of pro-China figures called “panda huggers.”
Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs was probably half panda huggers too.
They believed that “if China achieves economic growth, it will democratize and begin to pursue international cooperation in its foreign policy.”
Therefore, as a matter of Japanese policy as well,
“there is no need to say harsh things to China; it is enough to support it as it moves in the right direction.”
That was how they thought.
But now, there is no one left who believes that.
In China, internal repression has grown stronger.
A typical sign of this can be seen in the Politburo Standing Committee.
In the past, all 9 members of the Politburo Standing Committee were, at least officially, equal.
Each of them was able to freely hear opinions from advisers such as professors at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, but under the present 7-man system of Xi Jinping’s dictatorship, the only one who can still do that is Wang Huning, the theorist who is close to Xi.
China’s conduct has also worsened on the diplomatic front, and a typical example is the South China Sea issue.
In 2015, Xi Jinping flatly told Susan Rice, the presidential adviser for national security and a representative figure among America’s panda huggers, that “China will not militarize the South China Sea,” but this turned out to be the worst possible decision.
Americans can tolerate being kicked or insulted to some degree, but they cannot forgive being lied to or having promises broken.
Recently, there was a case in which a Chinese intellectual close to the Beijing government, after visiting Washington, D.C., was stopped by FBI agents at the airport just before departure and told to declare all the people he had met and the dates of those meetings.
Such incidents show that the tightening of the U.S. government’s stance toward China has begun.
Furthermore, the human rights lobby joins this as well.
In reality, they have almost no influence on foreign policy, but even if incidents that alarm the military and technology lobbies did not occur every day, in China human rights problems continue day after day, including in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Tibet, and the detention of lawyers.
These are the matters they regard as serious problems.

To be continued.