The Two Axes Nightmare – Folha de S. Paulo, October 1, 1972
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
The essential result of Nixon’s trip to Moscow was only realized through recent negotiations by presidential adviser Kissinger in the Soviet capital. It concerns the formation of a Washington-Moscow axis around which all Western nations are to revolve.
As for the East, it lies outside the orbit of the new axis. The liquidation of the British Empire and the retreat of Yankee naval power have turned Asia into a no-man’s land. Russia would be eager to fill this vacuum. However, China is a formidable obstacle. Under these conditions, Asia has indeed been left without an owner.
Could China aspire to control Asia? It has no shortage of territory, a superabundant population, or an appetite for conquest. But for such a great undertaking, it will still need considerable industrial and military power. And the communist regime has given it neither.
Thus, we return to the same conclusion: Asia has no owner.
Happy Asia!
* * *
As with Soviet Russia, communist China can develop and rise to the status of an imperialist superpower only with the help of a major capitalist nation.
Indeed, without Washington’s support, what would the Kremlin’s rulers be today but the captains of a ship clearly on the brink of sinking?
Now, the only way for China to receive such support from a capitalist nation would be a complete overhaul of its relations with Japan.
According to the natural order of things, nothing could be more impractical. The violent rivalries between the two yellow peoples, exacerbated by the establishment of communism in China, made the political distance between the two countries insurmountable. Japan has long been wary of contracting the contagious disease of Red leprosy. Thus, with US support, it rebuilt its industrial power and became the cornerstone of Washington’s anticommunist policy in the Pacific.
All this was natural, logical, and clear. A Japanese-Chinese rapprochement was completely out of the question for the Empire of the Rising Sun, which is firmly loyal to the Mikado and led by a clearly conservative majority government.
Of course, if Japan’s domestic policy shifted to the left, there would be a risk of a change in the situation and a rapprochement with Beijing. But there were no signs of such a shift.
Nixon, who was elected and is now going to be reelected as an anticommunist leader, reversed this magnificent situation, favoring communism with a flick of his wrist. Through his machinations, the blue sky over the Far East turned into a horizon of catastrophe.
During his stay in Beijing, he resolutely handed over the island of Taiwan to the Chinese tiger, making clear that the US was no longer interested in maintaining its power in the Far East. This caused enormous trauma in Japan. If the two great Pacific powers were reconciling over him, what was left for Japan to do? Surrender American resources to avoid the wrath of a poor but threateningly close China? Or lean on China, resolutely renouncing its lucrative preference for Washington? This cruel alternative was posed in both commercial and military terms. I say military because, with American defection and the support of a sizeable leftist minority in Japan, China would be in a position to attempt a revolutionary guerrilla war in the Japanese archipelago capable of gradually transforming Japan into a Vietnam… without the Americans.
In this cruel alternative, the balance might still have tipped in Washington’s favor. But Nixon—determined to dismantle the anticommunist system in the Far East—still favored the Chinese game this time around. In direct talks with Tokyo, he made clear that Japan would not lose US support on the commercial front if it moved resolutely closer to China.
Naturally, in Japan, the shift to the left began…
As everyone knows, the conservative cabinet was replaced by a leftist one. The new government immediately sought to move closer to China, which led to the visit of Japanese Prime Minister Tanaka to Beijing.
According to this week’s newspapers, Tanaka’s itinerary, compared with Nixon’s, includes several details that, in a subtle yet insolent way, reveal that China attached far more importance to Tanaka than to Nixon. Tanaka, for his part, has repeatedly expressed his humility before his Chinese hosts. During his visit to Mao, he acknowledged Japan’s “guilt” for its aggression against China, lavishly praised Chu, Chinese hospitality, and even Chinese food. He even composed a poem about the resumption of relations with Beijing.
Everything suggests that the visit will result in the formation of yet another axis: the Beijing-Tokyo axis.
In this axis, which is the soft pole and which is the hard one? There is no doubt that China and Japan need each other, which is why they could fight long and hard for supremacy.
However, there is one factor that will inevitably influence the outcome of this dispute. Tanaka is a leftist. And history has yet to see a single leftist government that, left to its own devices, had the deliberation, insight, and firmness to resist communism.
Everything suggests that Japan will be the weak link, at least in the long run. In that case, Japan will be compelled to industrialize China, and once that is done, it will become an auxiliary arm of the Chinese system.
* * *
The Mainichi newspaper—a conservative one, it should be noted—saw this coming when, in connection with Tanaka’s visit, it predicted the formation of a cohesive yellow colossus capable of claiming hegemony in Asia under the slogan “Asia for Asians.” Neo-Monroeism is likely to benefit the Beijing-Tokyo axis, just as the Monroe Doctrine primarily benefited the US in its time.
* * *
At this point in the commentary, the horizons are expanding.
Will India and the Muslim bloc allow themselves to be dominated by the yellow bloc? To what extent can the Tokyo-Beijing axis exploit Israel’s support to squeeze the Arabs between two fires?
This question is fraught with uncertainty of every kind. Let us establish one point, however: there is no guarantee that China will not make it extremely difficult for Muslims to resist its imperialist designs if it plays its cards right. As for isolated India, it will be of little value.
It would not be surprising if the Washington-Moscow axis, tasked with absorbing the West, left the Beijing-Tokyo axis free to act in the East.
* * *
This is world politics, conceived in terms of “axes.” After World War II, the world groans under the threat of two axes rather than one. Doesn’t that sound like a nightmare?
What are the interests of Christian civilization in this nightmare? What are those of the family of Ibero-American peoples, in which Providence has placed Brazil?
