This passage argues that Japan made a grave historical mistake when, after the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, it was the first to break with the Western effort to maintain economic sanctions against China and instead moved toward renewed engagement.
From the perspective that this helped pave the way for China’s economic expansion and growing international influence, it calls on Japan not to repeat the same mistake and to withdraw its cooperation from the Belt and Road Initiative.
It is a forceful warning that a one-party dictatorship that suppresses free expression must never be allowed to dominate the world.

2019-05-25
Japan must never repeat the mistake it made then.
Even now, it is not too late.
Japan should withdraw its cooperation from the Belt and Road Initiative.
A one-party dictatorship that suppresses freedom of expression must never be allowed to dominate the world.

The newly released issues of the monthly magazines Hanada and WiLL are filled with essays and dialogues packed with facts that all Japanese citizens living in the twenty-first century, as well as people throughout the world, ought to know.
What follows is from the end of an essay by Homare Endo published in Hanada.
Preface omitted.
In the wake of the Tiananmen Square incident of June 4, 1989, the Western countries, led by the United States, united in an effort to impose economic sanctions on China, but the first country to break that unity was Japan.
In 1992, Japan went so far as to carry out the Emperor’s visit to China, and in the end brought about the lifting of the economic blockade against China.
As a result, countries around the world began competing to invest in China, and China’s GDP surpassed Japan’s in 2010; now it boasts a GDP nearly three times the size of Japan’s.
Japan must never repeat the mistake it made then.
Even now, it is not too late.
Japan should withdraw its cooperation from the Belt and Road Initiative.
A one-party dictatorship that suppresses freedom of expression must never be allowed to dominate the world.