"Chairman Chen Ke's visit to Japan demonstrates the brand new friendly and goodwill relationship between Japan and China!"

"China and Japan join hands, moving towards the future together!"

...

Japanese newspapers conducted massive propaganda regarding Chen Ke's visit to Japan. One could discern quite a few tricks from the headlines and themes. Those who treated Chen Ke's visit as a return visit for the Japanese Emperor Hirohito's "visit" to China were undoubtedly Royalists. Those who mainly discussed the future of deepening Sino-Japanese economic cooperation were undoubtedly from the financial and business sectors. Those who were anti-colonial and anti-imperialist were undoubtedly the socialist faction. Of course, there was also a group advocating globalization; these were the ordinary modernists and those who wanted to grab more benefits faster. The common point was that Japanese interest groups all expressed expectations for a bright future.

Since the upper echelons held such an attitude, the Japanese populace was even more filled with an atmosphere of pro-China sentiment and a desire to return to Asia, which resided in the ranks of the world's most advanced nations. Everyone wanted to live a better life. Since war could not solve Japan's predicament, Japan was naturally willing to choose peace.

Kita Ikki was not someone who particularly loved war. One of the reasons he chose to declare war on Britain this time was to cut ties with the old Japan. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance was undoubtedly a symbol of the old Japan. Following colonialism, imperialism, and hegemonism—if Japan continued to treat the world with such an attitude, it would sooner or later fall out with China. Rather than that, it was better to directly set the direction of Japan's future politics.

Chen Ke delivered multiple speeches. His tall stature was very conspicuous among the accompanying Japanese officials. His vigorous movements alone made the Japanese feel a sense of awe. Amidst feelings of awe and expectation, Chen Ke's speeches regarding Sino-Japanese friendship received a response from the Japanese like mountains calling and seas roaring.

Some were happy while others were worried. Britain was suddenly accused by Japan of instigating the assassination of Chen Ke in Japan. The evidence for these accusations was clear and the content detailed. Assassinating the leader of a belligerent country was not something particularly strange. If successful, it could even become an action possessing immense deterrent power.

However, that kind of deterrence required success. Assassination warfare aimed at physical elimination; that could no longer speak of any so-called war bottom lines. Based on the principle of reciprocal retaliation currently generally recognized internationally, the British had to consider whether their own country's leaders would face assassination by the Chinese side. After all, China was a major power, and the assassination forces they could mobilize were also sufficiently powerful. Assassination operations would push the war to a new stage without mercy, escalating from war to a slaughter involving all personnel of the other side.

What was even more disadvantageous for Britain was that the assassination operation failed in a third country. Apart from declaring war on Britain, Japan seemingly had no other choice.

Of course, Britain immediately jumped out to deny it, claiming they would absolutely not use intelligence personnel to conduct assassinations as a means of war. This was also unavoidable. Currently, the core personnel Britain's colonies could rely on were few. If China implemented large-scale assassination operations against these people, the speed of the British colonies' collapse would be even faster.

The United States also jumped out to help Britain put out the fire. They clearly opposed political assassination operations, believing that "even war must have bottom lines," and such assassination behavior must be completely banned. Since the Chinese side had already occupied the anti-colonialist stance, the United States did not want to follow suit easily. So what the Americans wanted to do was to propose a "more humane" viewpoint, establishing a more civilized model for the world. And opposing assassination, or at least opposing the appearance of such assassination operations in the future, became a major selling point for the United States to flaunt itself. For this reason, the United States simply sent documents to various countries in the world, hoping to establish a clearer treaty on war actions.

Before this appeal received responses from China, the Soviet Union, Germany, and Britain, some newspapers in South America had already begun to ridicule Roosevelt's appeal wantonly. Americans had a tradition of engaging in coups and assassinations in South America, and South American countries had suffered deeply from it. Roosevelt's hands were not clean either; he himself had given quite a few orders to take down South American regimes. It seemed that such propaganda attempting to establish a positive image for the United States had not been able to shape a righteous image for America.

At this time, uprisings occurred in several states in India. The insurgents carried out assassination operations against local British officials. This made Britain feel as if they had found a treasure; they immediately began to accuse China of carrying out assassination operations against British officials in India. On one hand trying their best to declare they did not have an operation to assassinate Chen Ke, and on the other hand trying their best to muddy the waters—Britain could only adopt such a method.

After Chen Ke returned to China, the comrades were left speechless by the British attitude.

"This can't even be discussed as hypocrisy, right? This is simply shameless!" A comrade from the Politburo commented.

Chen Ke laughed, "Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue. No matter from which angle you look at it, the British attitude now proves that most forces in the world still pursue justice."

"Most forces in this world refers to China, right," Zhang Yu laughed. Although this sounded like a joke, Zhang Yu actually didn't mean it as a joke at all when he said it.

"It looks like the Americans have already decided to intervene in the war," Chen Ke also didn't want to dwell on whether it was hypocrisy or not. Justice was something that must be supported by power. No matter how unjust Britain's actions were during the Opium War, China didn't have power and was still beaten into ceding territory and paying indemnities. And in history, colonial liberation never relied on the benevolence of the suzerain state, but on the contrast of power. So the British attitude was not important; what was important were the actions of countries with power.

The United States was attempting to establish a new order internationally this time. The ridicule of the United States by South American newspapers was completely unimportant. South American countries simply did not have the power to change the world situation. If the changing process of the world situation required strong US intervention, other countries would fundamentally not value the stance of South American countries. This was one of the true faces of justice.

"Now the United States can only take action in the European direction, right?" Wu Xiangyu asked. Deeper US intervention in Europe was what China most hoped would happen. At this time, the strategic situation in the Western Pacific had become increasingly obvious; all China needed was time.

Li Runshi replied, "The United States' war preparations are still insufficient. What's important is that the United States has discovered that if they don't intervene in the world situation now, they will be unable to effectively intervene in world affairs in the future. Roosevelt's performance can only be seen as an attempt at pre-war mobilization; there is no need to over-interpret it."

Do not over-interpret—this was a viewpoint the People's Party had used relatively often in recent years. In these years, there were more and more interpretations of Chen Ke's words and deeds, especially among the new literati class and young cadres. The practice of attempting to interpret more "implied content" from Chen Ke's words and deeds and "digging deep" into concepts was becoming increasingly prevalent. Chen Ke had specifically carried out severe criticism regarding this. It was with great difficulty that this trend was temporarily suppressed.

Regarding this matter, Chen Ke's evaluation was, "I also did this when I was young! My feeling about this now is that it is a pure waste of time, and it also spoils one's disposition."

The comrades of the Politburo were relatively in agreement with this. Most of them were high EQ elements with rich practical experience. What needed to be interpreted were the various demands people expressed in their words and deeds. As for the profound meaning of the words and deeds themselves... everyone felt that sometimes speaking was actually quite superfluous.

As China and the United States understood each other more and more, everyone's misjudgments of the United States also became fewer and fewer. Fighting a war relied on those realistic weapons, realistic command systems, and the bloody battles of soldiers. Even people who were best at interpreting others' thoughts would die if they took a bullet to the head on the battlefield. This was the essential manifestation of matter determining everything.

"Then should we consider formulating a military plan to attack the United States?" Pu Guanshui asked. Now the military's worry about the United States was getting smaller and smaller. The United States had clearly lost the best opportunity to participate in the World War, or at least to participate in the Western Pacific war. China had now taken down the islands of Britain and France in the Pacific, especially the islands in the Central Pacific. With China's military construction on these islands, China's odds of winning an attack on Hawaii were constantly expanding. As a soldier, making such war plans could also be considered an occupational disease.

"The preparations that should be done still need to be done. What we need now is to vigorously aid the anti-colonial movement figures in India. Ship all our captured and obsolete weapons to them; give them as much as they want." Chen Ke cared even more about this. Even the United States was attempting to occupy the moral high ground; China had even less reason to give up the advantage it already possessed in the future wave of colonial independence.

"Now many Indian revolutionaries have already come to China, requesting Chinese weapon support. There are also some local independent forces hoping to receive comprehensive training from China," Li Runshi replied.

"Support must be given to all these revolutionaries. I think there are two matters at the present stage. One is to restore comprehensive oil trade with Iran. The second is to see if the Soviet comrades will have any moves recently," Chen Ke replied. "The Soviet comrades are still silent up to now. I think this is abnormal."

The Soviet comrades' actions were indeed somewhat abnormal. Chen Ke had formally issued a declaration to the whole world in the United States that China wanted to overthrow the world colonial system. Britain would definitely oppose it with all its power, and the United States also had the colony of the Philippines, so they definitely wouldn't withdraw willingly. However, the Soviet Union had not given a clear reaction up to now. Chen Ke thought this was abnormal.

In a certain sense, Sino-Soviet relations were very subtle. Both countries were major powers and shared a long border. Attempting to maintain peace on such a long border was itself a very difficult matter. The historical timing was really too good; only with great difficulty did Chen Ke maintain a peaceful border with the Soviet Union.

China and the Soviet Union also needed each other's support. This was something any leader with sufficient IQ understood. But this did not equal the two countries being able to have consistent views on other matters.

Chen Ke was a very pragmatic person. There were too many lessons from the same socialist camp in history. As long as the state, this highest contradiction body born in human society, still existed, one could not have too many fantasies in the current world.

In high-end fields like ideology, maintaining opposition was very easy. For example, China and Germany—both sides viewed the other as an enemy to some extent, and at most it would just be the outbreak of war. This actually made frank communication easier.

But for countries like China and the Soviet Union with basically the same banner, maintaining consistency in ideology required too many conditions. Rather than eventually ending up in an unmanageable mess, it was better not to get so close from the start.

Since such a concept was used to handle Sino-Soviet relations, it was inevitable to have some feelings of estrangement. The two countries didn't look like brothers in the same trench, but rather like neighbors attempting to maintain non-conflict.

But the Soviet Union and China had also once had exchanges regarding anti-colonialism. China had also once explicitly informed the Soviet side of the banner China would raise during the liberation war in Asia. Now that China had made the banner public to the whole world, the Soviet Union had not given a clear answer up to now.

There were two possibilities for this. The first possibility was that the Soviet Union had its own plans. The second possibility was that the Soviet Union had no interest in destroying the colonial system. No matter which choice it was, Chen Ke felt that the Soviet Union's current attitude appeared abnormal.