This essay sharply criticizes China’s broken promises at the time of its WTO accession, the structure of the U.S.-China trade war, the damage to the Chinese economy, and the biased reporting of the Asahi Shimbun and NHK.
Through Akio Yaita’s analysis, it highlights the Trump administration’s stance toward China, the realities of the Chinese Communist Party, and the low standard of Japanese media coverage.

2019-06-17
When China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, it made almost the same promises to the international community.
It is said that China’s having broken those promises was also one of the causes of the present U.S.-China trade war.

This is a chapter I posted on 2018-04-11 under the title, “Such writing could never appear in the Asahi Shimbun, which can without exaggeration be called the Japanese bureau of the People’s Daily, or in NHK, which can without exaggeration be called the Japan branch of China Central Television, CCTV.”
The only newspaper raising objections to the Chinese government’s control of speech, that is, its suppression of speech, is the Sankei Shimbun.
As a result, the Sankei Shimbun has been subjected to harassment by the Chinese government, such as being blocked from attending press conferences, but it has not flinched in the slightest.
That is precisely why today Akio Yaita, deputy editor of the foreign news department, is able to write in his serialized column titled “China Sketches” a genuine essay built upon genuine analysis such as the one below.
Writing of this sort can never appear in the Asahi Shimbun, which can without exaggeration be called the Japanese bureau of the People’s Daily, or in NHK, which can without exaggeration be called the Japan branch of China Central Television, CCTV.
Far from it, Arima of NHK Watch 9, in response to Trump’s recent decision, can do nothing but report in a tone that makes it seem as though Trump is doing something bad, saying that a trade war between the world’s two great powers, the United States and China, is a matter of concern, and thereby impressing upon viewers that, because of Trump, something bad for the world is taking place.
In fact, though Tatsuru Uchida, who can without exaggeration be called a court scholar of the Asahi Shimbun, made patronizing remarks toward Asahi, saying that the Asahi Shimbun’s tone is on the level of kindergarteners compared with the quality newspapers of Europe and America…
if readers of the Asahi Shimbun and viewers of NHK read the essay by Akio Yaita below, they too should clearly understand that both the Asahi Shimbun and NHK are indeed at kindergarten level.
Retaliatory battle with the United States, with no chance of victory.
On the morning of April 2.
A “notice” bearing the signature of the company president was posted on a wall near the entrance of a major sporting goods manufacturer located in an industrial park in Xiamen, Fujian Province, China.
The notice, which began with the words “To all employees,” explained that “as the trade war between China and the United States develops on a full scale, the company’s operations are being greatly affected,” and went on to state that “in view of management conditions, we have decided to suspend all production beginning on the 5th.”
There was no mention of when operations would resume, and it concluded by saying that “the period of production suspension will be treated as leave.”
This manufacturer, which employed about 2,500 workers, focused mainly on products exported to Europe and the United States, and until several years ago was counted among the excellent local companies.
A person connected to the company told the Sankei Shimbun by telephone, “I have accumulated paid leave, so for now I am using it up, but I am anxious about the future.”
The “U.S.-China trade war,” which began in early March with the U.S. announcement of import restrictions on steel and aluminum, is showing signs of intensifying.
Thus far, while the United States has announced a sanctions list of 1,300 Chinese items including industrial robots, China has announced that it will impose additional tariffs totaling 50 billion dollars, about 5.35 trillion yen, on 106 categories of U.S. products including soybeans, matching the scale of the U.S. sanctions.
The United States is said to be considering a further 100 billion dollars in countermeasures.
Because of fears that the retaliatory clash between the United States and China will intensify, orders from European and American markets to factories in China have recently plunged sharply.
There is also information that more than 100 factories in Guangdong Province have suspended production from April under the name of “inspections.”
However, at present, such negative information for China is being suppressed by the Communist authorities, and even online postings by those who were laid off are being deleted from the internet.
Organs of the Chinese Communist Party such as the People’s Daily continue day after day to line up stirring slogans calling for national unity, such as “The United States must be made to pay the price for its irresponsible hegemonic behavior.”
A reform-minded intellectual living in Beijing flatly states about China’s response that “it is engaging in a war it cannot win.”
According to a study by the U.S. Department of Commerce, in 2017 China imported about 130 billion dollars’ worth of U.S. products, while exporting more than 500 billion dollars’ worth to the United States.
Assuming the same rate of additional tariffs were imposed, simple arithmetic means that China would suffer about four times the blow that the United States would.
Moreover, most of China’s exports to the United States are labor-intensive industrial products, and if they decline, large numbers of unemployed will be generated.
By contrast, the items on which China can impose countermeasures are largely products related to agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and livestock, such as soybeans, fruit, and pork, which account for only a small share of the U.S. labor force.
It is said that in a clash between the two countries, the damage to China’s economy will be far greater.
China’s leaders naturally seem to understand these circumstances.
On the 10th, President Xi Jinping gave a speech at an international economic conference in Hainan Province, declaring that “China’s door of opening-up will never close.”
He announced that China would in the future implement measures centered on market opening in the financial sector, acceleration of deregulation, and strengthening of intellectual property protection.
It can also be said that he showed a major willingness to accommodate the demands of U.S. President Trump.
He revealed his true wish to bring the trade war to an early close.
However, when China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, it had already made almost the same promises to the international community.
It is said that China’s having broken those promises was also one of the causes of the present U.S.-China trade war.
It seems necessary to determine whether the words about market opening and the like that came from Xi this time will be accompanied by “concrete action.”
The people controlling NHK’s news programs do not even know that Trump is by nature a businessman who does not pick fights he has no chance of winning.