February 10, 2024
Reposted! They probably have no desire to discuss this matter anyway.
February 2, 2022
The following is from the ongoing dialogue between Gyō Tsutsumi and Kōshi Kubo published in the currently available issue of the monthly magazine Hanada.
Coincidentally, Tsutsumi is a senior alumnus of my alma mater, while Kubo preceded me as a student part-time worker.
Emphasis within the text, apart from the headings, is mine.
The Problem Is Komeito: “It Acts as China’s Agent”
The “Achievements” of the Pro-China Trio
Kubo:
I did no walking at all over the year-end and New Year holidays, so my legs and lower back have become terribly weak.
I barely managed to get here. (Laughs.)
Tsutsumi:
When you watch footage of Biden walking, he lifts his knees higher than necessary.
My wife says he does it to compensate for the weakening of his legs and lower back.
At home, we call it the “Biden walk.”
Not Michael Jackson’s moonwalk, but the Biden walk. (Laughs.)
Fish rot from the head, but people rot from the feet.
I do not walk either, so I have started rotting quite a bit myself. (Laughs.)
Editors:
With the Beijing Winter Olympics approaching, the Japanese government has finally decided not to send cabinet ministers, senior government officials, or other government representatives.
However, it reportedly plans to send Seiko Hashimoto, president of the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic organizing committee; Yasuhiro Yamashita, president of the Japanese Olympic Committee; and Kazuyuki Mori, president of the Japanese Paralympic Committee.
Kubo:
The decision came late, and Hashimoto is, after all, a politician, so it cannot be called a complete political boycott.
It strikes me as a timid, cringing decision worthy of a fourth-rate country.
Tsutsumi:
Kishida finally decided not to send government representatives, but the hesitation, indecision, and constant looking over his shoulder that preceded it were painful to watch.
Britain’s Johnson, Australia’s Morrison, and Canada’s Trudeau promptly announced diplomatic boycotts.
Lithuania and New Zealand also joined the countries criticizing China’s human rights abuses.
Yet Kishida kept dragging his feet, saying things like, “We would like to make a decision at an appropriate time, comprehensively considering the various circumstances from the standpoint of the national interest.”
This is a matter of political reflexes.
Shinzo Abe would have announced a boycott immediately.
In fact, appearing on a BS Nippon TV program, Abe criticized Kishida’s indecisiveness, asking, “What benefit—what national interest—is served by buying time?”
Perhaps having lost patience, three Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers visited the prime minister’s office on December 14 and handed Kishida a joint statement calling for a diplomatic boycott.
They were Keiji Furuya, chairman of the Japan Uyghur Parliamentary League; Hakubun Shimomura, chairman of the parliamentary league for Tibet; and Sanae Takaichi, chair of the parliamentary league for Southern Mongolia.
Eventually, Kishida visited Abe, and Abe persuaded him to decide that “government representatives will not be sent.”
When a reporter asked whether that meant a diplomatic boycott, Kishida replied, “We will not use that expression.”
Evasive language intended to placate both the United States and China earns only the contempt of both and brings no benefit.
There is another issue: the adoption of a Diet resolution condemning human rights abuses, including genocide in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region under Xi Jinping’s government, was once again blocked, this time by the new LDP secretary-general, Toshimitsu Motegi.
Last June, the resolution condemning China was blocked by former secretary-general Toshihiro Nikai and acting secretary-general Motoo Hayashi.
This time, Motegi blocked it, saying, “The substance is fine, but it is a question of timing.”
Timing?
Surely now, when Europe and America are speaking out in condemnation together, is precisely the time to join our voices with theirs.
Yoshimasa Hayashi, who resigned as chairman of the Japan-China Friendship Parliamentarians’ Union to become foreign minister, is a well-known pro-China politician.
Recently, after receiving an invitation to visit China from Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, he announced it with undisguised delight.
How would Secretary of State Blinken, his counterpart in Japan’s ally, the United States, view that?
He would surely be displeased that Hayashi had his priorities backward.
Hayashi lacks consideration.
This series of responses has clearly revealed the Kishida administration’s stance toward China.
Abe’s greatest legacy is the vision of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific.
From that emerged arrangements to contain China, such as the QUAD and AUKUS.
The Kishida administration is gradually undermining that hard-won legacy.
Someone put it this way: Yoshimasa “Ni hao”—hello—Hayashi, Toshimitsu “Xiexie”—thank you—Motegi, and Fumio “Wansui”—long live—Kishida.
It mocks the spectacle of the three pro-China figures all lined up together.
Kōchikai, the faction to which Kishida belongs, has always been full of pro-China politicians, with Kiichi Miyazawa the foremost example.
When China faced sanctions and international isolation after the Tiananmen Square crackdown, Japan took the lead in lifting sanctions.
Moreover, the Miyazawa cabinet went so far as to arrange the emperor’s visit to China, helping China return to the international fold.
And what did China do in return?
Thoroughgoing anti-Japanese education and claims of sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands.
Miyazawa really was the height of foolishness.
I cannot help thinking that Kishida and Yoshimasa Hayashi have inherited that Kōchikai DNA in full measure.
Behind the Plans for the Emperor’s Visit to China
Kubo:
The plan for Emperor Akihito’s visit to China in October 1992 actually began during the Kaifu administration, so it was not simply Miyazawa’s doing.
Foreign Minister Michio Watanabe was said to have first proposed it.
The Foreign Ministry, consistently enthusiastic at the time, and Miyazawa, who brought the visit about, were, so to speak, merely racing along tracks already laid for them.
Then who set them in motion?
The apparently strongest theory points to Noboru Takeshita and Shin Kanemaru, who were maneuvering behind the scenes.
From the end of the previous year, rumors had circulated that people claiming to be Deng Xiaoping’s sons, daughters, or close associates were repeatedly visiting them.
During a visit to China as prime minister, Takeshita generously pledged a third package of yen loans totaling 810 billion yen.
When those loans were frozen after the Tiananmen Square crackdown, he then pressed Kaifu to lift the freeze and succeeded.
It was said that his bargaining chip was cooperation over appointments in the second Kaifu cabinet reshuffle.
The same method was used repeatedly under the Miyazawa administration as well.
In short, the emperor’s visit was the “trump card” devised by the LDP and the business community.
Having been left behind by the sudden rapprochement between the United States and China under Nixon and Kissinger, Japan had learned its lesson and was determined not to miss the bus in the competition with Europe and America for a foothold in the vast Chinese market opened up by Deng Xiaoping’s “reform and opening.”
Western countries are adept at distinguishing between their public positions and their actual intentions.
They publicly condemn the Tiananmen Square crackdown while taking every precaution to secure economic access to China.
Japan, by contrast, has been unable to make that distinction, right down to the present controversy over boycotting the Beijing Winter Olympics, and consequently finds itself bearing the brunt of international criticism.
Tsutsumi:
From the 1970s onward, the Asahi Shimbun sounded the great rallying cry for Japan-China friendship, and the whole country became swept up in enthusiasm for restoring diplomatic relations.
Kakuei Tanaka rode that wave to power, defeating Nobusuke Kishi, Takeo Fukuda, and those who would later form the Seiwakai faction and who argued that Taiwan must be valued.
When the Asahi was issuing its great call for Japan-China friendship and sympathetic lawmakers were joining in, I was a reporter at Bungeishunjū.
I wrote articles sharply criticizing them, and lawmakers including Seiichi Tagawa, formerly of the Asahi, and Yoshimi Furui sued me, leading to litigation.
The case ultimately ended inconclusively, but most Japanese politicians who have fawned on China, starting with Kakuei, have fallen from power.
Kishida and the other two members of that trio would do well to be careful.
To be continued.
Gyō Tsutsumi
Graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Tokyo in 1961 and joined Bungeishunjū that same year.
He served as editor-in-chief of Bungeishunjū, director of the First Editorial Bureau, and head of the publishing division, among other positions, and left the company after serving as a managing director.
His books include The Three Great Figures of Shōwa: Article 9 of the Constitution Was a “Trick to Save the Nation.”
He is familiar to readers of this magazine through his series “An Editor’s Odyssey.”
Kōshi Kubo
Born in 1940.
After graduating from Chuo University, he joined the Sankei Shimbun.
He worked in the political news department and served as a special editorial and commentary committee member.
He wrote the newspaper column “Observations on Contemporary Life in the Heisei Era.”
He left the company in 2004.
His books include Kakuei Tanaka and His Disciples (Bungeishunjū) and Turbulence under Heaven (Fusosha).