Published on August 5, 2019.
Continuing from the previous chapter, this article introduces a dialogue among Sekihei, Yang Haiying, and Yaita Akio.
This chapter argues that the U.S.-Japan security system and Japan’s Constitution are, in a sense, two sides of the same coin, and that postwar Japan, having been deprived of the ability to defend itself, now faces severe limits in diplomacy toward China, Russia, and North Korea.
It also discusses the tanker attack in the Strait of Hormuz, the Northern Territories issue, the abduction issue, the repression of Uyghurs, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Okinawa, while stressing the true nature of the Chinese Communist Party and the necessity of constitutional revision in Japan.

August 5, 2019.
The Constitution and the security system are, in a sense, two sides of the same coin, and in short, as a result of America creating that kind of Constitution and imposing it on Japan, Japan became unable to defend the country by itself.
The following is the continuation of the previous chapter.
There Is No Choice but to Revise the Constitution and Fight Together.
Yaita:
I have long held Prime Minister Abe’s diplomacy in high regard.
Japan under him has done many things that no previous administration could do.
It has also spoken up to China.
However, every time Japan says something, China simply lets it pass.
I think it is a major step that Japan has become able to say things it could not say until now, but it must move on to the next step, from the introductory stage to the applied stage.
Sekihei:
When it comes not only to speaking up to China but also to taking action, present-day Japan still cannot do anything.
In the end, this problem comes down to the constitutional system.
The Constitution and the security system are, in a sense, two sides of the same coin, and in short, as a result of America creating that kind of Constitution and imposing it on Japan, Japan became unable to defend the country by itself.
Having been deprived of the ability to defend the country and left with no choice but to have America protect it, postwar Japan has settled comfortably into peace.
Yang:
Thanks to that, Japan was also able to achieve high economic growth.
Sekihei:
But that era is already over.
At the end of June, President Trump said in an interview, “If Japan is attacked, we will fight World War III, and we will protect Japan even at every cost.
But if the United States is attacked, Japan does not have to help us at all.
They can watch that attack on a Sony television,” and in a sense, somewhat carelessly, he raised the greatest problem Japan has carried since the war.
There is only one answer for the Japanese people.
Japan must change the security treaty and, when the time comes, stand shoulder to shoulder with America and fight the yakuza together.
In return, the Constitution must be revised.
It is a simple and clear matter.
Mr. Trump may be giving support to Prime Minister Abe’s movement toward constitutional revision.
Yang:
President Trump will probably be reelected next year.
During that reelected term, Prime Minister Abe, or the next prime minister, will be required to put the security system in order and remake the Constitution as well.
Otherwise, Japan will be swallowed up more and more by China.
If that happens, then Middle Eastern countries will mock Japan, saying, “We will sell you oil; please carry it yourself.”
Mr. Trump is saying, “Protect your own ships by yourselves.”
Incidentally, China is already protecting its own ships.
Sekihei:
The incident in which a Japanese tanker was attacked in the Strait of Hormuz is also sounding an alarm bell for Japan.
Yang:
Unless Japan sees that as an opportunity, it will be placed in a permanently disadvantageous position.
Sekihei:
Prime Minister Abe has strategic thinking, and I think his diplomatic ability is incomparably higher than that of previous administrations.
Even so, however, for example, in diplomacy toward Russia, he has not yet obtained results.
In diplomacy toward North Korea as well, the abduction issue has made no progress at all.
In the end, under Japan’s constitutional system, nothing can be done.
North Korea and Russia are both taking Japan lightly.
What House of Representatives member Maruyama Hodaka blurted out—that “unless there is war, the Northern Territories cannot be recovered”—is true.
In short, Abe diplomacy has run into the limits of Japanese diplomacy.
If that is the case, what the Abe administration must do from now on is simple and clear.
There is no choice left but to break straight through the center and revise the Constitution.
To be honest, unless that is done, I do not think either the Northern Territories issue or the abduction issue will make progress.
Let Xi Jinping Run Wild a Little More.
Yang:
I love Mr. Xi Jinping, and I think he is doing a good job, so I want him to keep working hard (laughs).
If he runs wild a little more, the essence of the yakuza and the intellectual ability of the captain of the pirates will all become visible.
Then even good citizens should stop criticizing the police and get serious about dealing with the yakuza.
Sekihei:
Whether this will be printed in the magazine after I say this far is for the editorial department to decide, but Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao were, so to speak, intellectual yakuza.
By contrast, Xi Jinping is yakuza itself, so he is easy to understand.
Yaita:
Now, under the Xi Jinping administration, is precisely the great chance for Japan to revise the Constitution.
The fact that the top leader of China, the boss of the yakuza, is extremely unintelligent is the greatest advantage.
If the opponent were Mao Zedong or Deng Xiaoping, things would not go so easily.
Yang:
This July marks ten years since the “Urumqi unrest” in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, in which, even according to the Chinese Communist Party’s announcement, about two hundred people are said to have died.
At the recent G20 in Osaka, Uyghur leader Rebiya Kadeer visited Japan.
The fact that Japan issued her a visa was something that should be highly praised, but against the Uyghurs, things like confining people by the million in “re-education facilities,” things once done by Hitler, are being carried out openly in broad daylight in the modern age.
Against this, Japan, as a healthy democratic nation, must properly speak out.
Sekihei:
What the Chinese Communist Party is doing to the Uyghurs goes beyond the realm of yakuza and may be called complete fascism.
Yang:
In 2015, I went as far as Kashgar in the Uyghur Autonomous Region, and looking back over the ten years since the Urumqi unrest, the situation has steadily worsened.
I do not see in the Xi Jinping regime any will to “solve the ethnic issue.”
The same is true of the Hong Kong issue and the Taiwan issue.
Nor do I sense any will to resolve relations with the United States.
Rather, it seems to me that it is trying to use every internal and external difficulty to strengthen the Communist Party’s rule of power.
Unlike Tibetans and Mongolians, Uyghurs are people who are satisfied if they can do business freely.
China has turned them into enemies by saying Islam this and that.
And I see that China has neither the ability nor the will to solve this problem.
Yaita:
I think Xi Jinping wants to solve the problem, but because he is unintelligent, he does not know how to solve it, and everything he does backfires.
For example, he thinks simplistically, “If we just give them money, they will be satisfied,” and allocates a large budget.
When I was stationed in China, I went many times to the Uyghur Autonomous Region, and everywhere I went there was a construction rush.
But all the construction companies there were Han Chinese companies, and in reality the Uyghurs received no benefit at all.
Although the Chinese authorities think they are doing something very good, in fact it has the opposite effect, and the confrontation with ethnic minorities becomes more and more serious.
Sekihei:
In the end, when you think about it, disaster comes to every place where the Chinese Communist Party reaches its hand.
It is already a law.
With the unification of mainland China, the Han Chinese first suffered terribly, and then the surrounding ethnic minorities suffered even more terrible harm.
Once Hong Kong was returned to China, it became ruined.
Yang:
If Taiwan is swallowed up by China, it will follow the same fate.
Sekihei:
Even so, in Okinawa there are still people who expect to get along well with China.
They are fools.
Yaita:
Among some people in Okinawa, there are those who say they “want to become independent from Japan.”
When I asked what they would do about the economy after independence, one person answered, “We will borrow money from the AIIB, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.”
If they received pocket money from such a “devil,” it would become a terrible thing.
Yang:
I would very much like such people to read Naniwa Kin’yūdō.
Sekihei:
If they read that, I think they would understand very well how much Taiwan and Okinawa would be preyed upon, but…
(Interviewer and composition: Mizokami Takeyoshi)