· The full text is 3800 words in total and is about 8 minutes long
· Source of this article: Liu Shengjun's overall view (produced by Liu Shengjun Micro Finance)
Text: Liu Shengjun
In order to safeguard its own interests and the interests of the United Nations, the United States completed the drafting of the constitution as a representative of Japan, with a strong will that "Japan cannot once again challenge the order centered on Europe and the United States." - Shinzo Abe (2006)
We are now at a turning point that will define the next stage in human history. Today's Ukraine could become tomorrow's East Asia. - Fumio Kishida
By the standards of modern civilization, Japan is still like a 12-year-old child compared to our 45-year-old maturity. —MacArthur
On April 9, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited the United States and delivered a speech to the U.S. Congress. This is an extremely dangerous speech: groveling to the United States, maliciously attacking China, and instigating and provoking Japan. Against the backdrop of an era in which major changes have not been accelerated in a century, this speech contains the evil intention of "fearing that the world will not be chaotic", which cannot but be vigilant.
1. Wagging its tail and flattering the United States
In 1990, at the peak of Japan's bubble economy, Akio Morita, chairman of Sony Corporation, and Shintaro Ishihara, a member of the Liberal Democratic Party, published "Japan Can Say No", calling for saying no to the United States, which ruled Japan after World War II, which caused a sensation. However, the reality is skinny. Japan then collapsed in a bubble and fell into the "lost 30 years", and Japan, which once clamored for "buying the United States", also fell as a proportion of US GDP.
Without its strong economic strength, Japan has also lost the capital to challenge the United States. Shinzo Abe's sitting posture in front of Trump is a vivid illustration.
Compared with Shinzo Abe, Fumio Kishida is even more upright in front of the United States. Fumio Kishida went to the United States at the age of 6 with his father, who was in politics, for three years, and spent three years in elementary school in Queens, New York. This experience only added to his nobility. In order to show respect for the United States, Kishida specially invited a person who had written speeches for the president of the United States. The writer made a recording of the speech, and Kishida listened to the recording and practiced it repeatedly.
Let's see how Fumio Kishida is slapping the sycophants in the US Congress?
• It is an immense honor for me to be able to address this bastion of democracy and the representatives of the American people.
• The United States has shaped the international order of the postwar world through economic, diplomatic, military, and technological prowess. It advocates freedom and democracy and encourages stability and prosperity in all countries, including Japan. When necessary, the United States has also made noble sacrifices to fulfill its commitment to a better world.
• The post-cold-war era has passed, and we are now at a turning point that will define the next stage in human history. The United States has worked for generations to build an international order, but now it faces new challenges from those whose values and principles are very different from ours.
• Yes, U.S. leadership is indispensable. Without U.S. support, how long will Ukraine's hopes collapse under Moscow's onslaught?
Thank you for inviting me, for your hospitality, and for the role you play in the world.
Second, spreading the "China threat theory" and adding fuel to the fire
At present, the United States is caught up in the obsession of the "China threat theory", which is the real source of global risks. However, Fumio Kishida did what he liked and added fuel to the fire:
• Returning to Japan's periphery, China's current foreign stance and military actions pose the greatest strategic challenge ever to Japan's peace and security, and to the peace and stability of the international community as a whole.
• Russia's unprovoked, unjust and brutal war of aggression against Ukraine is now in its third year. As I often say, today's Ukraine could become tomorrow's East Asia.
Nine years ago, in 2015, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe did not mention China by name or challenge China in a speech to the U.S. Congress.
Fumio Kishida is really a mouthful. China's thousands of years of history show that the Chinese Confucian civilization is an inward-looking civilization and a peace-loving civilization, and the Great Wall is the best imprint. In modern history, China has been humiliated by Western powers. In particular, the war of aggression against China by Japanese imperialism brought heavy disasters to the Chinese nation.
At present, the root cause of the turmoil in the world situation lies in the fact that the United States is unwilling to accept China's development and growth, "envy, jealousy and hatred" of China's development, and attempts to contain China by the barbaric means of "decoupling and breaking the chain". China is not a threat to world peace, the United States is. The Chinese leader made it clear that:
• The modernization of Western countries is full of bloody crimes such as war, slave trade, colonization, and plunder, which have brought great suffering to the vast number of developing countries.
The lessons of Ukraine must be learned. But Fumio Kishida is pretending to be confused. The root cause of the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict is that NATO's eastward expansion threatens Russia's national security.
In May 1998, George Kennan, the founder of the Cold War-era U.S. containment policy, called NATO's eastward expansion "a sad mistake and an action that has no justification at all." In 1997, 50 prominent U.S. foreign policy experts signed an open letter to Clinton, warning that the U.S.-driven expansion of NATO was a historic policy mistake that would lead to security instability in Europe. In a 2008 letter to then-U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, William J. Burns, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia and then the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, warned that Ukraine's accession to NATO was a red line not only for Putin, but also for the Russian elite.
As early as 1995, then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin warned that if NATO expanded eastward to Russia's borders, the war would burn all over Europe.
Therefore, the real lesson of the Russia-Ukraine conflict is that major powers must take into account the security concerns of other major powers and not push people too hard. As Mearsheimer points out in The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, there is a "security paradox" between great powers, and one country's pursuit of security can threaten the security of others. NATO's eastward expansion and the Cuban Missile Crisis are typical cases.
3. Japan is gearing up and eager to try
Japan became a defeated country in World War II, but Japan refused to accept because it was forced to surrender in 1945 under the shock of two atomic bombs. After the war, the United States not only stationed troops in Japan for a long time, but also forced Japan to adopt the "Peace Constitution" in 1946, Article 9 of which prohibits Japan from having an army, and stipulates that Japan renounces the declaration of war and the right to retain the force of war with pacifism, and becomes a non-war country. However, the ghost of Japanese militarism has not gone away, and Japanese politicians have long visited the Yasukuni Shrine, where Class-A war criminals are enshrined, and this has caused "the anger of people and gods" in Asia. In 2006, before becoming prime minister, Shinzo Abe published a book entitled "Towards a Beautiful Country," in which he openly rejected the outcome of the Tokyo trial, arguing that "the United States has completed the draft constitution of Japan as a representative of the United States in order to safeguard its own interests and the interests of the United Nations, with a strong will that 'Japan cannot once again challenge the order centered on Europe and the United States.'" ”
Fumio Kishida tried to provide a pretext for "rearmament" by spreading the "China threat theory" and made it clear that the United States needed Japan's "assistance":
• Russia's continued threat to use nuclear weapons has raised global concerns that another catastrophe of nuclear weapons could be real. In this reality, close coordination between Japan and the United States is more necessary than ever to ensure that the deterrent provided by our alliance remains credible and resilient.
• I want to convey a few words to Americans who are feeling lonely and tired. As a country that has maintained the international order almost alone, you carry heavy hopes on your shoulders, and I understand that this is a heavy burden. Despite the fact that the world is pinning its hopes on the leadership of the United States, the United States should not be expected to take on everything alone, without assistance and acting alone.
• As America's closest friends and "friends" of the Japanese, we stand shoulder to shoulder with you in the guarantee of the survival of freedom. I am not saying these words because of my strong attachment to the United States. I am both an idealist and a realist.
• Now, Japanese and American servicemen are working side by side to contain aggression and ensure peace.
• On board the spaceship called "Freedom and Democracy," Japan proudly stands shoulder to shoulder with you. We're on the post, we're on the task. We are ready to do what is necessary. I would like to say here that Japan has stood shoulder to shoulder with the United States.
• Japan has changed over the years. We have recovered from the rundown of World War II as a silent ally to a confident ally, looking outward to the world.
• Japan has shifted its national security strategy. The uncertainty of the future stability of the Indo-Pacific has prompted us to change our policies and mindsets. In 2022, we announced a significant increase in the defense budget to 2% of GDP by fiscal year 2027, with a counterattack capability and improved cybersecurity. Today, the deterrent power provided by our alliance is stronger than ever, supported by the United States for extended containment of Japan.
• As the geopolitical landscape shifts and Japan's confidence grows, we look beyond being America's closest ally. We became a regional partner of the United States first, and now we are your global partner. Our relationship has never been closer, and our vision and approach are so aligned. For example, trilateral and quadrilateral cooperation between the United States, Japan, South Korea, Australia, India and the Philippines, as well as through the G7 and ASEAN. Last summer, the leaders of the United States, South Korea, and Japan met at Camp David to usher in a new era of our cooperation.
• I want you to know how seriously Japan takes its role as America's closest ally.
Japan's military ambitions are clearly exposed, and Kishida is really murderous and sharpening his knives. During Kishida's visit, the United States and Japan carried out "the largest upgrade in more than 60 years" to the Japan-US Security Treaty, which Biden called "the most important improvement since the establishment of the U.S.-Japan alliance." At present, the authority of the US Forces Command in Japan is limited to directing US-Japan joint exercises and training and coordinating the application of the "Japan-US Status of Forces Agreement." On the one hand, the U.S. side will give more authority to the U.S. Forces Command in Japan, and on the other hand, Japan plans to establish an "Integrated Command" to unify the command of the Army, Navy and Air Self-Defense Forces by the end of 2024. The U.S. Forces Japan Command will coordinate directly with the Integrated Command and share information.
The Chinese leader pointed out: "History is fair, and history must be recorded in the deeds of a politician, whether they are meritorious or wrong."
It's not just Fumio Kishida who lacks reverence for history. The same goes for his predecessor. Shinzo Abe once said, "If there is something wrong with Taiwan, there is something wrong with Japan." Abe and Kishida's attitude towards history is very different from that of Germany.
On December 7, 1970, Chancellor Brandt of the Federal Republic of Germany, who was visiting Poland, suddenly fell to his knees and prayed after laying a wreath at the memorial to the victims of the Warsaw Jews. In this move, Brandt reverently confessed and atoned for the sins of Nazi-era Germany. Afterwards he said, "...... After laying the wreath, I suddenly felt the need to kneel, is this subconscious?" Brandt's kneeling shook the world and was called "the strongest expression of apology in Europe in about a thousand years."
General MacArthur, who ruled Japan for many years after World War II, had an incisive assessment of Japan:
• Germans are a mature people. The Japanese are still in a state of instruction, except for the antiquity of time. By the standards of modern civilization, Japan is still like a 12-year-old child compared to our 45-year-old maturity.
Calling on the Japanese prime minister to come to Nanjing to kneel down and repent, this is the correct posture to bravely face history.
A country that does not respect history and commits heinous crimes without thinking about it has absolutely no future.
Liu Shengjun @ Songzanlin Temple
Economists who insist on telling the truth
Political Economy + Big Historical View
In 2014, he participated in the Prime Minister's Economic Symposium
Liu Shengjun is the founder of Micro Finance
Member of the Shanghai Economic Committee of the Zhi Gong Party
Chief expert of Shandong Provincial Human Resources Development Promotion Association
Author of "The Next Decade"
Shandong Heze Dingtao people