The following is from a feature article titled "Sanae Takaichi: A Whirlwind" in WiLL, a monthly magazine released on September 27.
Which features a conversation between critic Shi Ping and political scientist Atsushi Iwata titled "Taro Kono, who can't deny the Kono Statement, is a dupe for China."
A politician who China criticizes is a sign of a good politician for Japan.
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The Academic World's Sycophantic Adulation for China
Shi Ping
What are why the political, business, and bureaucratic circles, including the bureaucracy, have continued to err in their perceptions of China?
Iwata
In a word, it is a sense of atonement.
China is cleverly taking advantage of this sense. On top of that, there is the economic benefit. Japan has continued to associate with China out of self-interest rather than national interest.
That is why it is easy for us to misjudge our policy toward China because we have lost our sense of nation and history.
The issue of atonement may not be a problem only for Japan.
Even in the West, there is a problem of atonement for colonialism, imperialism, and Nazism.
As a Japanese, I think it is natural to have a sense of atonement for the atrocities we have committed, but Douglas Murray points out in "Suicide in the West" that this has reached a ridiculous level.
Andrew Hawkins learns that his ancestors were slave traders and goes to the Gambia to apologize.
In the streets of Banjul, the capital of Gambia, he wore chains on his hands and a yoke around his neck and wore a T-shirt that said "I'm so sorry" and knelt down in tears to apologize.
It is reminiscent of Yukio Hatoyama, but it is essential to remember that this is mental euphoria.
"It's a strange kind of euphoria that says, "How wonderful it is that I am apologizing! It is a peculiar kind of euphoria.
The sense of redemption for one's country is transformed into a strange euphoria for the individual.
This strange narcissism seems to be rampant in the academic world in Japan.
Shi Ping
The Japanese people should once again be deeply aware of what a terrible party the Chinese Communist Party is.
All those who underestimated or believed in it have disappeared from the world.
However, Xi Jinping is not as clever as Deng Xiaoping.
If he had continued Deng's tactics for another ten years, China would have dominated the world.
However, Xi Jinping has bared his ambition and is conducting war-wolf diplomacy. With this, the world has finally come to recognize the threat of China.
It is not too late. Japan and other free and democratic countries should unite to tighten their policies toward China.
Iwata
You are right.
It is true that thanks to Xi Jinping, the general public is gradually becoming aware of the threat posed by China.
"They are no longer swayed by the words "Japan-China friendship.
However, the media and academia have either not noticed this change or are ignoring it.
The academic world is terrible.
A professor at Keio University says that the massacre of Uyghurs is mostly fake.
And he is not the only one. Many other scholars claim that it is a propaganda campaign by the West to humiliate the Chinese people.
Shi Ping
They are usually calling for the protection of human rights.
Is there any reason for them to be pro-China?
Iwata
One possibility is that they may have been subjected to various propaganda efforts and traps when they went to China.
Another possibility is that his position in the academic world is because of the concessions he can obtain.
For example, he may have been given the privilege of seeing particular documents when he visited China. They may have been promised a degree from China, or he may have been allowed to present at an international symposium. An increasing number of scholars say things that are so pro-China that it is easy to see them as such.
Shi Ping
I would have to say that this is deep darkness in the academic world.
Are they feeling an affinity for China, or are they sympathizing with communism because they are leftists?
Iwata.
Satoshi Shirai (a full-time lecturer at Kyoto Seika University) confessed to being a Leninist, but that is an exception (laughs).
There are very few scholars who have declared themselves as communists or Maoists.
However, the atmosphere in the academic world is strongly leftist and liberal.
If you are not seen as a "Japan-China friendship theorist," you will be prejudiced and marginalized as a right-wing figure. It's not prejudice or anything like that.
In any case, the academic world is an apprentice system, and one has no choice but to listen and obey what the master says. This narrow world is one of the main reasons why the academic world deviates from the world's common sense.
Shi Ping
It's inconvenient.
Iwata
One academic society once stated the theme of the Okinawa base issue. That academic society has absolutely nothing to do with Okinawa.
One of the students noticed this and asked the Professor who made the statement, an outsider, "Professor, isn't Okinawa your specialty?" The Professor replied, "If I don't put my name on it, I'll be left out among the scholars." In short, a strange kind of peer pressure prevails in the academic world.
In my own experience, I once suggested to a conservative professor, "Why don't you contribute to a conservative journal such as WILL?
But he refused. The Professor's wife was also in the academic world, and she told him that she would divorce him if he contributed to a conservative journal (laughs).
Shi Ping
That's a severe problem (laughs).
Iwata
By the way, his wife said, "I'll forgive you if you only write for 'Chuokoron'" (all laugh).
Shi Ping
Well, that's a terrible story (laughs).
It's like a symbol of postwar ideology.
