Published on September 20, 2019.
Based on an essay by Professor Emeritus Hirakawa Sukehiro of the University of Tokyo, published in the Sankei Shimbun, this chapter examines the merits and demerits of colonization through the Hong Kong protests.
It compares Western values, British-ruled Hong Kong, the despotic rule of People’s China, and Japan’s peaceful absorption of foreign civilization, arguing that the Xi Jinping regime and its puppet Hong Kong government are far inferior in freedom, human rights, and the rule of law.

September 20, 2019.
It made clear that, in the values and practice of freedom, human rights, and the rule of law, which can be equated with Western civilization, People’s China under the Xi Jinping regime and its puppet Hong Kong government are far inferior.
The following is from an essay by Professor Emeritus Hirakawa Sukehiro of the University of Tokyo, titled “Thinking About the Merits and Demerits of Colonization Through the Hong Kong Protests,” published in yesterday’s Sankei Shimbun.
In September 1988, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher gave a speech in Brussels to politicians from all over Europe and touched on the historical experience of Westerners.
“How Europeans explored, colonized — and I say this without any apology — and civilized so much of the world was an extraordinary tale of courage and skill.”
I was surprised by her statement that there was no need to apologize for colonialism.
Like the poet Kipling, it was as good as saying that they, the Westerners, had borne “the white man’s burden” and carried out the work of civilization in order to take care of savage peoples.
Indeed, the colonization of America since Columbus was a great enterprise in human history, and Russia’s development of Siberia may also have been civilization and enlightenment.
Such colonialism may have had positive aspects, but I was put off by the British prime minister’s overly blatant self-affirmation.
British colonial rule rather than Han Chinese despotism?
In Japan when I was a child, the following kind of criticism of Britain and America was common.
“The pillars of modern Western society in fact lie in the subjugation of Asia.
However much humanity, human rights, freedom, equality, and the rule of law may be proclaimed in Europe and America, these are slogans unrelated to colored races, and the nineteenth century, called the century of nationalism, was precisely nothing other than the century of the subjugation of Asia by Europe and America.
However much Europe and America enjoyed civilization and prosperity through their capitalist civilization or world free economy, we must not forget that behind it lay the subjugation of more than one billion colored people in Asia and Africa, who were forced into the status of monoculture slave colonies or semi-colonies as sources of raw materials and markets for products, and whose national consciousness was suppressed by policies to keep the people ignorant.”
In fact, are not the majority of Japanese people still in agreement with this view even today?
In 1941, when British Hong Kong fell under the attack of the Japanese army, people rejoiced, saying, “The hundred-year ambition of aggression against East Asia has now been smashed.”
But eighty years later, Hong Kong people are demonstrating because they do not want to be swallowed by People’s China.
Does this mean that British colonial rule was still preferable to the despotic rule of the Han Chinese?
If so, could Mrs. Thatcher have been more correct than the prison memoir of a former Japanese prime minister?
Such doubts may arise.
Therefore, let us reconsider from a broad perspective the influence of foreign culture and the merits and demerits of colonization.
Among the young people participating in the demonstrations, even those born after 1997, when Hong Kong was returned to China, speak Chinese and English.
Mainland Chinese probably detest such Hong Kong people.
But the reason Hong Kong maintains a high international position as a financial and trade center is precisely because it is a bilingual land of the rule of law.
Shenzhen, where English does not function as a working language, cannot take its place.
Japan peacefully absorbed foreign civilization.
Japan is not as much so as Hong Kong, but Eastern and Western cultures are mixed together, and it is freely open to the outside.
The Japanese archipelago is located somewhat apart on the periphery of the continent.
Things entered, but people did not enter as rulers, and Japan did not become a colony of another country.
For more than a thousand years since the Nara and Heian periods, Japan has learned from the continent.
Japan learned Chinese characters, but invented kana.
The mixture of kanji and kana is wonderful.
I have no intention of criticizing Japan’s past by saying that it was “contaminated by Chinese civilization.”
Likewise, I have no intention of arguing, “Expel Western civilization.”
In The Tale of Genji, Murasaki Shikibu wrote about Japanese spirit and Chinese learning, saying, “I believe that how one makes use of the Yamato spirit can be done only when there is a foundation in Chinese learning.”
After the end of the Tokugawa period and the Meiji Restoration, that became Japanese spirit and Western learning.
I have no intention of imagining a pure Japan in the past and advocating a restoration.
In the Hirakawa household, there is both a Buddhist altar and a Shinto household shrine.
I affirm the historical reality of Japan as a hybrid culture and seek what is good.
Regarding clothing, food, and housing, in my grandfather’s generation, the house was Japanese-style; in my father’s generation, it was a blend of Japanese and Western styles; and in my generation, there is only one Japanese-style room.
When my father returned home, he changed into Japanese clothing, but the only time I tie an obi is when I stay at a hot spring inn.
I do not say anything extravagant such as limiting myself to Japanese food.
Western food is fine.
Chinese food is fine.
I also drink wine.
In spiritual matters as well, I was influenced by foreign countries.
During the war, I was absorbed in translated works such as Nobody’s Boy and Two Years’ Vacation, and after the war in works such as Gone with the Wind.
My library is half Japanese books and half Western books.
Colonization means being forced to accept foreign culture whether one likes it or not.
Cultural influence is colonization in a broad sense, but when colonization is forced by military rule, dissatisfaction remains.
Japan has, for the most part, taken in foreign civilization peacefully.
But it is a problem when one cannot choose independently and foreign culture is forced upon one by power.
Values that can be equated with Western civilization.
The words criticizing Western imperialism, “The pillars of modern Western society in fact lie in the subjugation of Asia,” drew sympathy from the people of Greater East Asia more than seventy years ago.
But now Hong Kong is about to be forced by an external power.
The words, “The pillars of Chinese society in fact lie in the subjugation of the people,” feel more real.
The demonstrations by Hong Kong citizens against the extradition bill and the movement to defend their autonomy have made clear that, in the values and practice of freedom, human rights, and the rule of law, which can be equated with Western civilization, People’s China under the Xi Jinping regime and its puppet Hong Kong government are far inferior.
The demonstrations now under way in Hong Kong, a land where Chinese and British civilizations coexist, have become a comparative-cultural event showing the superiority and inferiority of Eastern and Western values.
Hirakawa Sukehiro.