The following is from the following book published on May 31, 2021.
Uyghur, Mongolia, Hong Kong, Senkaku
China's Tyranny, Genocide
It is a must-read not only for the people of Japan but for people all over the world.
Introduction by Yoshiko Sakurai
To publish this book, the three of us, Mr. Yang Haiying, Ms. Yang Yi, and I, spent a lot of time talking together.
Each time we met, we got to know each other a little better than before, and our sympathy deepened.
All three of us grew up in very different environments.
Yang Haiying was born in 1964, the year of the Tokyo Olympics, on the Ordos Plateau in Southern Mongolia. His father was a cavalryman in the Mongolian army.
His father and his friends always admonished him as a child, "You have to live honestly, fairly, and disciplined like the Japanese."
When he was a high school student, he began to learn Japanese from a former official of the Mongolian Autonomous Region, which was under the influence of Japan.
The joy of his family at that time is still unforgettable.
After graduating from the Department of Japanese Language at Beijing Second Foreign Language University, he came to Japan in the spring of 1989 and obtained Japanese citizenship in 2000.
He is currently a professor in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Shizuoka University.
He has compiled a 15,000-page "Basic Materials on the Mongolian Genocide" on the persecution experienced by the Mongolian people, but Yang Haiying's cultural anthropological fieldwork is unparalleled.
He visited each and every Mongolian family and documented the persecution they suffered for several generations, including grandparents, parents, himself, children, and grandchildren, all under their own names.
The experience of the Mongolians is no different from what the Uyghurs are experiencing now.
It is the suffering of ethnic cleansing and genocide by the Chinese Communist Party.
For his series of researches, the think-tank I preside over, the National Institute for Basic Research, presented Yang Haiying with the "Japan Research Prize" in 2016.
Ms. Yang Yi was born in Harbin.
She grew up during the dark days of the Cultural Revolution, which began in 1966 and lasted until 1976.
Her family was expelled to a farming village in January 1970, where they spent three and a half years.
Based on her childhood experience, Yang Yi later wrote, "If you don't criticize your enemies with dirty and abusive words at the top of your voice, even if you are a child, you will become an ideological problem.
However, amid these gray days, when she was in junior high school, she saw a color family photo sent to her by a relative living in Japan.
At that time, color photos were not ordinary in China.
The clothes worn by Ms. Yang Yi's cousins were colorful and stylish, and the family looked happy, which was a great shock to her.
Also, the appearance of Japanese towns is beautiful, deep green, and fresh. In the midst of all this, modern architecture is asserting itself. Modern Japan is alive and well in the old streets.
Having developed an interest in Japan through photographs, Ms. Yang Yi came to Japan in 1987. While working various part-time jobs, she attended a Japanese language school.
When the Tiananmen Square protests broke out in 1989, 25-year-old Ms. Yang Yi could not stand still and rushed to Tiananmen Square. At that time, the students' faces were full of hope.
As she spoke words of support to the students, Yang was surprised by the unexpected surge of emotions that came over her.
The memories of the dark experiences during the Cultural Revolution, the emotions pent up like stagnant water, overflowed.
A few days later, the students' hopes were violently shattered and turned into tragedy.
Nineteen years later, Ms. Yang Yi wrote about the Tiananmen Square incident in her book, The Morning That Time Blurred (Bunmaki Bunko). The book, which depicted the students' days of agony and frustration, won the Akutagawa Prize.
While writing novels, she teaches creative writing at the Nihon University College of Art.
I was born in a field hospital in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 1945, the year Japan was defeated in the war.
The situation around my birth was filled with great tragedy, as Japan experienced a terrible defeat and was occupied for the first time in history.
Later, however, I grew up in a peaceful Japan, symbolized by the current Constitution.
For me, hearing about the experiences of these two people and the ideas of the Chinese Communist Party and the Han Chinese people that they had drilled into their bones was heartbreaking.
There were many things that I thought I knew but didn't know. During the dialogue, Mr. Yang Haiying said something that would stay with me.
"Even if the Communist Party of China collapses and the ethnic groups under its control become independent, it is not a promise of a bright future. Even if the Chinese Communist Party falls and the ruled ethnic groups become independent, it does not promise a bright future. Even if we establish a Mongol State, Uyghur State, or Tibetan State, what will happen if we conduct democratic politics in those countries? What will happen if we hold a democratic government in those countries? They will be governed according to the wishes of the majority Han Chinese. In this situation, we, the different ethnic groups, will be oppressed and massacred in an even worse way than now.
After all this time, I felt as if I had been struck by lightning. That's right. The situation had reached that point.
This fact is already apparent, but many Japanese, including myself, cannot imagine it. And they say so innocently.
And they innocently say that it would be better if the dictatorship of the Chinese Communist Party collapsed and the people of Tibet, Mongolia, and Uyghur became independent.
But Mr. Yang Haiying clearly said that even if they become independent, tragedy awaits them. It's already too late. It's too late. We have to remember that deeply.
Many aspects of China and the different ethnic groups controlled by China remain unclear about what path they will take in the future.
But the only clear thing is the warning to Japan and the Japanese people. We must not accept the rule of the Han Chinese in any sense.
We, as Japanese, must protect our land and keep the excessive migration of Han Chinese to Japan within a moderate range with caution.
By doing so, the Japanese can continue to interact with the Han Chinese in a positive manner.
How exactly are each and every person living in China under the one-party rule of the Communist Party?
I hope this book will give you some idea of the reality.
I have learned a lot from both of you.
I want to express my deepest gratitude to both of them and sincerely wish for their future success.
I would be delighted if you, the readers, could share the experiences of the two Yang's.
May 11, 2021
