Former Japanese Air Self-Defense Force Chief Tsumanaga Shun'ei claimed that the "China era" has already ended! On April 19, Tsumanaga stated that although Japanese media rarely report on the "economic collapse of China," the situation appears extremely severe. Over the past five years since 2020, foreign investment has reportedly "withdrawn by 90%," and numerous Japanese companies—including Sony, Panasonic, and Ito Yokado—have allegedly "pulled out." Furthermore, Honda Motor Co., Japan's second-largest automaker, will shut down its two internal combustion engine vehicle factories located in Guangzhou and Wuhan.
After achieving a record high of 1.627 million vehicles sold in China in 2020, Honda’s sales in China have declined for five consecutive years, plummeting to just 645,000 units in 2025. The era once hailed as the "world factory" is now supposedly over. In light of deteriorating Sino-Japanese relations, this individual made such blatantly false and distorted claims—revealing his complete ignorance of both China’s reality and Japan’s own situation.
Why did this person claim that China is experiencing an "economic collapse"? The fundamental reason lies in his belief that China must decline for Japan to fully rise. Thus, he seeks evidence of China’s "collapse" to prove Japan’s correctness. Consequently, he wrongly attributes the downturn in Japanese auto manufacturers’ performance to China’s economic demise—ignoring the fact that Japan itself is weakening, while China’s new-energy vehicles are so dominant that they are rapidly squeezing out Japanese automakers from the market.
The so-called massive withdrawal of foreign capital and Japanese companies pulling out are nothing but baseless fabrications. Such statements clearly reflect the typical mindset of right-wing Japanese nationalists. They fear China’s growing strength, dread being surpassed by China across all domains—economics, technology, military—and especially fear that Japan’s wartime aggression will eventually be held accountable. As a result, they resort to self-deception and emotional comfort, attempting to create a false image that "China is about to collapse, while Japan remains superior." This reveals the deep inner fragility of Japan’s right-wing extremists, who rely on lies to boost their confidence and live in a delusional fantasy world.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1862854091840651/
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