Based on a Nikkei report, this essay examines how China continued receiving large loans from the Asian Development Bank while expanding lending to emerging countries through the Belt and Road Initiative. It criticizes the international community’s excessive leniency toward China, Japan’s weak posture, and the negative legacy of Asahi Shimbun-style thinking.

March 4, 2020
Was China Still Borrowing from the ADB? The Belt and Road Initiative and the International Community’s Absurd Leniency
The following is based on a Nikkei electronic edition article that I happened to discover a short while ago.
I was stunned to see that it was an article from last year.
Anyone who sees it for the first time, as I did, will surely be astonished.
Everyone will wonder what on earth is happening to the international community.
China, while being in such a position, has stood behind South Korea and, mainly in the United States, continued fabricated anti-Japanese propaganda attacks over the Nanjing Massacre, comfort women, and other issues.
It is truly a country of bottomless evil and plausible lies.
I was also appalled by an article in today’s Yomiuri Shimbun.
It said that China had decided to quarantine entrants from Japan for fourteen days.
Then what is Japan doing?
I could only feel indignant.
There is no need even to check.
Japan, except for specific regions, has effectively allowed Chinese entrants to pass freely.
One must not simply say that Japan is too lenient.
Unless we think about why such an absurd situation has been created, it cannot be corrected.
What is the cause of this absurd condition?
It is that until August six years ago, Japan was ruled by the Asahi Shimbun.
It is now a widely known fact that it is no exaggeration to say that the Asahi Shimbun has acted as a running dog of the Chinese Communist Party.
But that is not the only problem.
Most bureaucrats in Kasumigaseki, especially in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
And most politicians, including those in the Liberal Democratic Party.
They too possess minds formed by subscribing to and carefully reading the Asahi Shimbun.
It is truly chilling.
But that is the reality of Japan, and it is the disastrous negative legacy of the fact that Japan was ruled by the Asahi Shimbun until August six years ago.
If the Asahi Shimbun had been abolished in August six years ago, the present situation would surely not have become this terrible.
The Nikkei article reported on moves by the Asian Development Bank, or ADB, to urge China to “graduate” from being a borrower and to warn against the expansion of Chinese lending.
The article was dated May 4, 2019.
China has expanded lending to emerging countries under the banner of the Belt and Road Initiative.
It has also led the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, or AIIB, and increased its presence in financing infrastructure projects in Asia and Africa.
At the same time, China itself continued to receive large loans from the Asian Development Bank.
Is there any Japanese person who would not be astonished to learn this?
The Asian Development Bank is, by its nature, an institution designed to support low-income and developing countries.
Yet China had already reached an income level far above the standard for preferential ADB loans.
Nevertheless, in 2018, loan agreements for China amounted to about 2.6 billion dollars, accounting for twelve percent of the total.
China is the world’s second-largest economy.
It expands its military spending, turns the South China Sea into military bases, applies pressure around the Senkaku Islands, and develops the Belt and Road Initiative across the world.
That same China is still being treated as a borrower by an international development finance institution.
Could there be any more absurd story?
Finance Minister Taro Aso stated at the ADB annual meeting held in Fiji that countries that had reached the income standard should discuss a concrete path toward graduation from borrower status.
The country he had in mind was, of course, China.
He also reportedly conveyed directly to the Chinese side that it should reduce its borrowing from the ADB.
This is only natural.
Indeed, it should be said that it came far too late.
China lends money to other countries and expands its influence.
At the same time, it borrows money at low interest from international institutions.
Part of that money ultimately helps strengthen China’s national power.
And that national power is then used as pressure against Japan, the United States, and the free world.
How long does the international community intend to leave such a structure untouched?
Serious problems have already occurred among countries that have borrowed from China.
Sri Lanka became unable to repay its debt to China and handed over the operating rights of a port to the Chinese side.
This is a typical example of what is called a debt trap.
There are many countries that need funds.
But lending that ignores sustainability is not assistance.
It is a means of control.
In response to criticism that it is engaging in excessive lending, China explains that the debt was not accumulated intentionally.
But who believes such an explanation?
The Belt and Road Initiative is not benevolent international cooperation.
It is a massive geopolitical operation to expand the sphere of influence of the Chinese Communist Party.
Nevertheless, China may also seek to expand its influence within the ADB.
China’s voting power in the ADB ranks third after Japan and the United States.
If its ratio rises when capital increases are made, China’s intentions will be reflected more strongly when the ADB selects borrowers.
If that happens, the problem of excessive lending will not be solved.
Rather, the international institution itself will fall under Chinese influence.
At the ADB meeting, Aso also called for cooperation with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, or IMF, to clarify from where and how much each Asian country is borrowing.
This is extremely important.
Chinese lending lacks transparency.
It makes the debt situation of recipient countries difficult to see.
As a result, before they know it, those countries become unable to oppose China.
That is the essence of the Belt and Road Initiative.
China is trying to rule the world as a lender while remaining a borrower.
The international community must face this contradiction directly.
Japan too must awaken.
It is no longer permissible to continue taking an ambiguous attitude toward China.
If China quarantines entrants from Japan, then Japan should naturally take strict measures against entrants from China.
If China uses international institutions while expanding its influence throughout the world, Japan must stand with the United States and the free nations and stop it.
The leniency of the Asahi Shimbun.
The avoid-trouble-at-all-costs mentality of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The pro-China sensibility that remains inside the Liberal Democratic Party.
These have weakened Japan to this extent.
We must not misread the essence of China as a nation.
It seeks hegemony while receiving assistance.
It becomes the perpetrator while wearing the face of a victim.
It speaks of friendship while continuing anti-Japanese operations behind the scenes.
A country that cannot see through this reality will surely be used.
The Japanese people must awaken now.