The following is from an article by E. Lutwak in today's Sankei Shimbun titled "China's growing dictatorship threatens the world again this year.
It is a must-read not only for the people of Japan but also for people around the world.
The emphasis in the text is mine, except for the headline.
What will the world be like in 2022?
What is certain is that China will continue to occupy the center of the international community's attention this year.
Against this backdrop, the signing in early January of a facilitation agreement between Japan and Australia on mutual visits by the Self-Defense Forces and the Australian Armed Forces is a crucial step.
Australia has a good training ground that is easy to use.
Singapore's Air Force, a small land area, has been training its fighter squadrons in Australia for many years.
The Self-Defense Forces will fly their aircraft there with just a prescribed notice and train without worrying about noise, day and night, or airspace issues.
In addition, considering that the SDF has been training in places such as Texas in the southern United States, it will only have to travel about half the distance.
With this arrangement, the level of military cooperation between Australia and Japan will improve.
Australia has played an important role in countering China.
In the past, when the Obama administration took no action against China's military buildup in the South China Sea, the U.S. government had been trying to stop China's military buildup, in his 2009 defense white paper, Australian Prime Minister Rudd, who is considered to be "pro-China," sounded an intense alarm over the rapid and insufficiently transparent expansion of the Chinese military.
When his successor, Prime Minister Gillard, visited Japan the month after the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011, she sent a clear message that Australia would not sell its diplomacy to China, even if it exported natural gas and coal to China.
This attitude greatly encouraged the forces fighting the "pander hugger" foreign affairs bureaucracy in Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was instrumental in changing the ministry.
The problem is that there is a rift between the U.S. and Europe regarding policy toward China.
In Europe, there is an ardent pro-China faction causing severe problems.
At the end of 2008, the European Commission announced that the European Union and China had agreed on a comprehensive investment agreement.
However, this agreement was made to understand that the EU would accept untruths, such as the non-existence of forced labor in China.
The bureaucracy of the European Commission has been corruptly manipulated by and under the influence of China.
In response, the European Parliament, the legislature of the EU, opposed the agreement from the standpoint of emphasizing human rights issues.
In March last year, the EU sanctioned Chinese officials for human rights violations against the Uyghur minority, and China imposed retaliatory sanctions against European lawmakers, so the agreement's ratification was shelved.
However, this year, the European Commission is likely to take advantage of the time that European countries are busy dealing with the new coronavirus to move again to implement the agreement.
We need to be vigilant.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., the Democratic Party, led by President Biden, is likely to lose its majority in the House and Senate in the mid-term elections in November, pushed by the opposition Republican Party. At the very least, the Democrats are sure to lose their majority in the Senate.
However, Mr. Biden has entirely inherited the policy toward China of the previous Trump administration, and in fact, he has advanced it.
There has been no softening or retreat.
Even if the Democrats lose the midterm elections, their policy toward China should not change at all.
As for Japan, it is unfortunate that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's visit to the United States has not materialized.
A direct meeting between Japan and the U.S. leaders is essential as a symbolic event to strengthen the alliance.
However, Mr. Biden is too busy managing crises at home and abroad to give much thought to promoting Japan-U.S. cooperation.
It is unlikely that a direct meeting between the two countries will occur soon.
However, Prime Minister Kishida has made a good start by agreeing on Japan and Australia.
We hope that he will continue to work proactively to strengthen ties with China, especially in the Indo-Pacific region.
China's global crisis can be resolved if President Xi Jinping becomes more moderate, but there are no signs of that happening.
As a result, talented people, including top financial executives, leave China one after another.
Except for Mr. Xi, no one can express their own opinions, and the dictatorship that has been in place since the days of Mao Zedong is rapidly advancing.
Mr. Xi's foreign policy is as hard-line as ever.
However, the Chinese people themselves are "civilized" and do not have a strong fighting spirit.
In an attempt to change people's consciousness, Mr. Xi banned hip-hop music in the name of fostering patriotism and repeated speeches to inspire the morale of the Chinese army, but the sheep cannot be a wolf.
In this sense, Mr. Xi is like Mussolini, a dictator born in Italy, a country with a weakness for war.
He is not Hitler, the Nazi Führer who led the Germans who loved to fight.
Italy lost World War II, and his people executed Mussolini.
What fate awaits Mr. Xi in China, I would like to keep an eye on this year.
(Interviewer: Etsunari Kurose)
New beginning - Luke Faulkner
