Chapter 224
New Year’s Greetings for 2026Happy New Year. Even at the very start of this year, something unbelievable has happened in Venezuela. I feel I now understand why, since last year, U.S. President Trump has been presenting President Zelensky with a peace proposal on the Ukraine conflict that appears to lean toward Russia. Could there have been prior negotiations—doing President Putin a favor in exchange for having him stay out of the Venezuela issue?
It also seems likely that some kind of deal has been floated to China, but I pray it is not one in which the United States agrees not to get involved should China invade Taiwan. The Chinese government’s reaction—one that can seem excessive—to the new Prime Minister Takaichi’s comments on a Taiwan contingency can also be taken as words and actions reflecting an awareness that such a situation may arise in the near future.
I would like to believe it won’t come to that, but the Moon Jae-in administration in South Korea has shown a pro-China posture, so China may be uneasy about how Japan would respond if the worst were to happen. As I have pointed out before, the military budgets of the United States (US$916.0 billion), China (US$296.4 billion), and Russia (US$109.4 billion) together account for roughly 60% of the world total of US$2.3866 trillion. (World Bank data, 2023.) This state of affairs—where such budgets are spent every year ostensibly for the purpose of maintaining peace—has continued for more than 80 years since the end of the Pacific War in 1945. Under these circumstances, it may not be surprising if rulers emerge who think, “Since we have armies, they’re only worth having if we fight.”
Another factor is that the leaders of the three major countries are all elderly—President Trump is 79, President Xi Jinping is 72, and President Putin is 73—which makes me feel as though the conditions are in place for them to descend into madness, wanting to carve their names into history while they are still alive. It is not something I want to imagine, but if these three had formed a secret pact not to interfere with one another so that each could realize his own ambitions, then no one would be able to stop them.
What happened in Venezuela is on a different level from Ukraine, Israel, and other conflicts, because one of the parties involved is the United States—the world’s leader. With the United Nations effectively becoming a hollow shell, it is a grave situation that the United States—whose overwhelming military power means it should be expected to act rationally as the world’s police—has seemingly gone mad.
María Corina Machado, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, has made positive remarks, but there is an entirely different meaning between a government being toppled by internal forces in a coup and another country intervening militarily.
The Pacific War that Japan launched was a war, and therefore should not be justified for any reason; however, it did have a proclaimed cause—liberation from the colonial rule of the Western powers (the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”). America, too, was a colony of the British Empire prior to its War of Independence in 1776, and countries such as Canada, Australia, India, and Egypt have also become independent and arrived at where they are today. Even if, in reality, there were countries or forces pulling strings behind the scenes, forcing change through military power—rather than an ostensibly voluntary change of government—should not be allowed.
As a country that committed the grave mistake of the Pacific War, I believe Japan should clearly state its opposition to such acts of war.
At the very start of the new year, I would like to turn to a pleasant topic, but I feel this is no time to be so carefree. I sincerely pray that this year will bring you many good things.
January 6, 2026 (Reiwa 8)
Thoughts at the New Year
