Words uttered by the Chinese do not always match reality.　
2023/2/7
The following is from Yoshiko Sakurai's regular column in yesterday's Sankei Shimbun.
This article also proves that she is a national treasure, a supreme national treasure as defined by Saicho.
The emphasis in the text other than the headline and the text below * are mine.
Japan-China relations are mutualistic.
Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who was known as the "War Wolf Diplomat," was demoted in early January this year.
On the 29th of the same month, the Chinese Embassy quietly announced the resumption of issuing general Chinese visas to Japanese citizens.
The suspension of visa issuance to Japanese citizens was a countermeasure to Japan's stricter measures against Chinese travelers, including introducing a new type of coronavirus infection test.　
In February, China announced it would begin discussing removing import restrictions on Australian wine and barley.
In January, imports of Australian coal also resumed.
China's ban on imports of Australian wine and coal was in retaliation for Australia's insistence on an investigation into the location of the new corona outbreak.
On January 17, at the annual meeting (Davos) of the World Economic Forum (wEF), a Swiss think tank, Vice Premier Liu He, strongly supported a free economy, saying, "China will never return to a planned economy.
A series of signs have led the international community to believe that China has changed its course from "war-wolf diplomacy" to "smile diplomacy.
Is this really the case?　
The main reason China has begun to improve relations with other countries is not that they reflect on the aberrations of the CCP's values but because of the run-out-of-options economy.　
Liu said the economy would grow by 3% in 2022, but only some experts believe this, and some analyses suggest that the growth rate would be negative.
Some statistics put the youth unemployment rate at 17%, but some believe it is 30-40%.
China's total population began to decline last year, while the working-age population began to decline ten years ago.
The possibility of China overtaking the U.S. in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) has already been ruled out, and the CCP's raison d'etre of enriching the lives of its citizens has been questioned from the very beginning.　
The international community's impression of China, with its Russian support, atypical military expansion, and human rights violations, is extremely poor.
(Pew Research Center, June 2022).
What country or company would willingly follow a strategy to create a Chinese world by fostering world-class manufacturing and making other countries dependent on a China-led supply chain?　
It is not only foreign capital that shuns China.
There has also been a significant outflow of capital by Chinese nationals.
Since April 2022, China's foreign exchange reserves have declined by $100 billion (about 13 trillion yen) from last year's period.
The economic recession also threatens to derail President Xi Jinping's grand plans.
The government was supposed to allocate up to 1 trillion yuan (about 19 trillion yen) in subsidies to build a China-led semiconductor supply network without relying on Japan, the U.S., and Europe. Still, the government reportedly decided to suspend the project due to a lack of financial resources.　
China's smiling face is a makeshift charm to attract investment from Japan, the U.S., and Europe.
It is no wonder China's ambition to conquer Taiwan, its invasion of the Senkaku Islands (Ishigaki City, Okinawa Prefecture), and its blind military expansion policy remain unchanged.
In fact, China's true intentions can be seen from the U.S.-China summit meeting in November of last year.　
At a press conference on November 14 following the U.S.-China summit, then State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi announced that the meeting had lasted more than three hours (via simultaneous interpretation) and that "both countries agreed to establish guiding principles together.
The guiding principles, as the press conference read, were "that the U.S. and China take responsibility for history, the whole world, and humanity, and that they stay on the right path, not going in the wrong direction, not slowing down, reducing conflicts, and taking the right way.　
Is this not a rehash of the "new great power relationship" that China once proposed to the Obama administration in the United States?
China's strategy is to first govern the world jointly with the U.S. and then surpass the U.S. in the future.
Beyond that, there is President Xi Jinping's "Community of the Destiny of Mankind.
The "Global Development Plan" and the "Global Security Concept" are also included in this strategy to dye the world in Chinese supremacy.
＊It is no mere coincidence that the "Community of the Destiny of Mankind," the "Global Development Vision," and the "Global Security Proposal" coincide as they do with Klaus Schwab's Davos Forum*.
Chinese Vice Premier Liu He said at the Davos meeting on January 1 that he would boost the private sector, but under Xi, state-run enterprises are gaining even more power.
Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Group, China's largest e-commerce (EC) company, has relinquished control of Ant Group, which operates the Alipay electronic payment service, and is living quietly in Japan and other foreign countries.
Words uttered by the Chinese do not always match reality.　
However, there must be many among China's 1.4 billion people who disagree with Mr. Xi's unusual desire for control.
There must be many Chinese who believe in the image of a decent nation that complies with international law, upholds human rights and humanity, and respects the uniqueness of each ethnic group.
However, they are now breathing heavily.
That is why Japan should speak out.
Instead of hiding behind the shadow of the U.S., Japan should clearly define its existence and philosophy and wage a battle of values against the Chinese Communist Party.　
The more China calculates its interests, the more it will not be able to ignore Japan.
Japan need not waver even if China disagrees.
The best way to fight is to stick to our principles.
What we should say to China is, first, that our country will not accept China's absurdity.
Second, all bilateral relations should be based on reciprocity.　
Current Japan-China relations are filled with absurdities that allow China's claims to prevail unilaterally.
For example, the Chinese are acquiring Japanese land one after another, but the Japanese cannot buy any land in China.
Selling land to China is literally selling the country to China.
The government needs to take this seriously and establish reciprocity.　
Then there is the "spy case.
Whenever a problem arises between Japan and China, China detains innocent Japanese nationals under the guise of espionage and sends them to jail.
Conversely, Chinese students, although not all of them, study at Japanese government-funded graduate schools and steal intellectual property through espionage.
Many Chinese spies are active behind the scenes in Japan.
There is no law in Japan to protect Japanese nationals wrongfully detained in China, nor is there a law against spies being active behind the scenes in Japan.
We need to have laws in place to take strong measures like those in other democracies.
The unfair reality in other areas is unpardonable.
It is essential to build fair relations through reciprocity.　
When China pushes the U.S. to establish common guiding principles, Japan must present its philosophy and national outlook to the U.S. and China.
Japan should not be submerged in China's gimmicks.