2024/03/14

There are still regions where peoples who should be independent remain oppressed.
February 24, 2019
The editorials and the essays by Hideo Tamura and Nobuhiko Sakai demonstrated that the Sankei Shimbun is now Japan’s highest-quality newspaper.
First, I will introduce Nobuhiko Sakai’s essay to those who do not subscribe to the Sankei Shimbun.
The Centenary of the Paris Peace Conference: Why Is It Not Being Reported?
Nobuhiko Sakai, Former Professor at the Historiographical Institute, the University of Tokyo
What day was January 18 this year?
It marked exactly one hundred years since the opening of the Paris Peace Conference, held after the end of the First World War.
Despite being a historic anniversary, no newspaper reported it.
Based on the principles of national self-determination and national independence advocated by U.S. President Wilson, the most important outcome decided at the Paris Peace Conference was the simultaneous emergence of independent countries stretching from Finland in the north to Yugoslavia in the south.
At the same time, four empires collapsed: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Turkey.
In other words, a major advance in history was achieved as peoples who had been oppressed under imperial rule gained independence.
However, the countries that became independent at that time were European countries alone.
Later, independent countries also emerged in the Middle East from the territories of the former Turkish Empire.
In Asia and Africa, however, the “principles of national self-determination and national independence” were not applied, and colonies continued to exist across vast areas.
Furthermore, Japan’s proposal concerning racial discrimination at the Paris Peace Conference was rejected by President Wilson’s ruling, even though supporters outnumbered opponents.
The United States faced serious problems of racial discrimination, and Japanese immigration was subsequently prohibited.
After the Second World War, however, the system of colonial rule that had continued for hundreds of years collapsed, and many independent countries were born in Asia and Africa.
Furthermore, African independence also helped bring improvements in the problem of racial discrimination in the United States.
The movement toward national independence, however, continued thereafter.
About fifteen years ago, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fifteen republics that had constituted the federation became independent.
The Czech Republic and Slovakia separated, and Yugoslavia split into seven countries following civil war.
Even so, there are still regions where peoples who should be independent remain oppressed.
It is none other than the People’s Republic of China, which lies before our own country.
China was established seventy years ago through the military annexation of the territories of the Mongols, Uyghurs, and Tibetans.
The regions of these three peoples extend over five million square kilometers, accounting for more than half of China’s total land area of 9.6 million square kilometers.
Why were the newspapers indifferent to the anniversary of the opening of the Paris Peace Conference, an event of immense importance in world history?
One cannot help concluding that this clearly demonstrates how utterly the newspapers fail to understand the course, progress, and development of world history.
〈Nobuhiko Sakai〉
Born in Kawasaki in 1945.
Completed the master’s program at the Graduate School of Humanities, the University of Tokyo.
Worked on the compilation of Dai Nihon Shiryo at the Historiographical Institute, the University of Tokyo.