Japan Institute for National Fundamentals

　　　　　On December 14, the Beijing Second Intermediate People’s Court (a district court) started a trial for civil rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, who has been detained since his participation in a private study meeting on the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre and indicted on charges of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” and “inciting ethnic hatred.”
　　　　　The U.S. State Department has indicated grave concerns on the crackdown and urged Beijing to immediately release the lawyer. In response, China’s Foreign Ministry said the United States should not intervene in China’s jurisdiction and internal affairs. Meanwhile, the Japanese government has kept silence on the matter.
　　　　　The crackdown on Pu has the same origin as the Xi Jinping government’s history war against Japan. Pu and Japan have been positioned as China’s enemies required for the Chinese Communist Party’s maintenance of its single-party dictatorship. The country that should protest the Chinese government’s crackdown on Pu is Japan rather than the United States.

Pu Zhiqiang has continued to struggle against authorities
　　　　　Pu, born in 1965, participated in hunger strikes for the freedom of the press and association as a graduate student at the China University of Political Science and Law at the time of the Tiananmen Square incident. Since then, many democracy movement leaders have fled overseas or pursued success in the business world while overlooking the incident. In contrast, Pu became a lawyer in China and has persistently continued a struggle over values.
　　　　　Pu has struggled against systems for the Communist Party’s dictatorship, including the “reeducation through labor” system and the Shuanggui internal disciplinary process. Under the former system of reeducating punished people through forced labor, security officials were able to detain anyone for two years without judicial decisions. Pu has contributed to repealing the system. In the Shuanggui process, the Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection designates the times and venues for interrogation of specific citizens. In the process, citizens have been taken away suddenly and forced occasionally to undergo severe torture.
　　　　　In 2013, Pu filed complaints on three deaths attributable to the Shuanggui process, including an engineer at a state-run company in Zhejiang Province who died after four months of torturous interrogation in which the engineer was pushed into icy water.

Japan is responsible for supporting democracy movements in China
　　　　　The Chinese Communist Party creates enemies for the purpose of its own survival. It leads people to become deeply suspicious about Japan and other foreign countries. The party provides no truth to people about history or international politics and does not allow people to have views or ideas other than those of the party. Pu has continued to expose the dark characteristics of the single-party dictatorship, becoming the greatest threat to the Communist Party. The civil rights lawyer might have angered the Xi Jinping administration.
　　　　　At this time, Japan should emphasize democratic values and offer support for people wishing to democratize China. The democratization age will surely come in China. Based on the values of freedom and rule by law, Japan must continue to make complaints against China. Such approach is the best means for Japan to protect itself from the Chinese Communist Party’s unreasonable history war against Japan.

Yoshiko Sakurai is President, Japan Institute for National Fundamentals.