Volume 5 | Issue 8 | Article ID 2502 | Aug 01, 2007 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Focus

People's Diplomacy: The Japan- Friendship Association and Critical War Memory in the 1950s

Franziska Seraphim

People’s Diplomacy: The Japan-China diplomatic relations between the People’s Friendship Association and Critical War Republic of China and Japan plummeted over Memory in the 1950s prime minister Koizumi’s annual visits to Yasukuni Shrine, where Japan’s military dead Franziska Seraphim are enshrined along with some Class A war criminals. Koizumi’s handling of war memory issues also drew unprecedented criticism Summary across the political spectrum in Japan—and especially from the business community—as This article examines the place of Sino- detrimental to Japan’s foreign political and Japanese relations in Japan’s domestic economic interests. The place of “historical struggles over war memory in the early 1950s, matters” in Sino-Japanese relations changed when the door to an official reconciliation with again in April 2007, when Chinese premier China had just closed following the signing of Wen Jiabao visited Tokyo to “melt the ice,” the San Francisco Peace Treaty. It focuses on focusing squarely on economic cooperation the Japan-China Friendship Association as a while only briefly mentioning the “proper lens through which to understand the role of handling” of issues relating to the two civic organization in carving out a public space countries’ shared history as the “basis of good for memories of Japanese wartime aggression bilateral relations.”[1] Prime minister Abe and as part of special interest politics. his entire cabinet, for their part, decided not to visit Yasukuni Shrine the following August 15. Introduction The current imbrications of war memory and Since the end of the Cold War, the Chinese- Sino-Japanese economic ties seemingly contrast Japanese relationship has once again emerged with the first three Cold War decades, when as central to regional (and global) security and Japan and China had no official diplomatic economic vitality. China’s meteoric rise as an relations and Japanese struggles with war economic superpower, ’s threat to memory rarely made international headlines. In the stability of the region, and the changing fact, however, the desire for trade with politics of Japan’s U.S. alliance have sharpened mainland China played a significant role in the national rivalries at the same time as regional way that critical war memories of Japanese integration has become a desired goal. This aggression assumed public attention in the realignment of power relations elicited by now opening stages of the Cold War. The peace notorious “history wars” about Japan’s alleged treaty negotiations in the last years of the failure to appropriately address its aggressive occupation and Japan’s independence in April wartime past, from vague governmental1952 galvanized the progressive and radical apologies and ambiguous history textbooks to left in opposition to the conservative Yoshida outright denials of war crimes by somegovernment and its American supporters. They nationalist politicians. In the early 2000s, inspired mass protest movements of

1 5 | 8 | 0 APJ | JF unprecedented scale and focused interest woodcuts. These were originally presented as a politics on issues of the war and its aftermath slide show (kamishibai) at local storytelling that had not been adequately addressed under events. Prepared under the guidance of a local the Allied occupation. One such issue was artist, Nii Hiroharu, and published in 1951in Japan’s relationship with China after the book form asHanaoka Story (Hanaoka Communist Revolution and the establishment of monogatari), these woodcuts adapted a the People’s Republic of China (PRC) under Chinese tradition of political protest art that Mao Zedong in October 1949. The United had become very popular in China before and States’ deliberate exclusion of China and other communist countries from the peace treaty and during the war. The series depicted in graphic the growing enmity between the two during the detail the conditions of Chinese (and Korean) Korean War (1950–53) alarmed many Japanese forced laborers in the camp at Hanaoka, a intellectuals, businessmen, and socialist and copper mine run by the Kajima corporation even conservative politicians, some of whom (image 1), their brutal treatment at the hands had been so-called China hands before and of the mine supervisors, the laborers’ uprising during the war. (image 2), and the Japanese supervisors’ bloody crackdown in June 1945, which left 418 Just as Japan’s political options for Chinese dead (image 3). One of the last panels international rehabilitation became narrowly showed Kajima’s escape from responsibility for circumscribed by its alliance with the in the deepening Cold War, a whole new this crime as the big capitalists prevailed, range of discursive possibilities concerning undisturbed by the memory of the victims Japanese war memories opened up. The return (image 4). The book remains in print today of convicted war criminals to public life (and after more than 60 years and serves not only as even national politics), the belated disclosure of a record of the Hanaoka massacre but also as a the real horrors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki powerful reminder of Japanese brutality and atomic bombings, the stories of repatriates aggression against Chinese, Korean, and other from Japan’s former empire, and bestselling collections of war testaments brought a flood of Asian laborers.[2] memories to public prominence and provided fertile ground for liberal democrats, pacifists, and nationalists of different vintages to formulate their respective political agendas with great urgency. It was in this context that an eclectic group of people with personal and professional ties to China formed a movement to “set the grand stage of Japanese-Chinese friendship” by promoting cultural and economic exchanges “between the two peace-loving peoples” based on remembering and atoning for against Chinese people, especially Chinese forced laborers in Japan.

One of the first collaborative projects of atonement was the retelling of an uprising at the Hanaoka mine through a long series of Image 1

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Image 4

This sentiment of remorse and atonement for specific Japanese war crimes was central to the establishment of the Japan-China Friendship Association (Nitchu yuko kyokai) on 1 October 1950, the first anniversary of the Communist Revolution. The Friendship Association held that without a peace treaty and the normalization of official relations with the PRC, the state of war between the two countries continued to victimize both peoples—if not with Image 2 bullets, then by preventing the settlement of humanitarian issues and economic recovery through trade. In the group’s first statement, leaders blamed “American imperialism” for causing a revival of “Japanese militarism” by pressuring the government into a U.S.-Japan alliance that required remilitarization, thereby implicitly threatening Chinese national security. But it was the Japanese government, they held, that, against the will of its own people, refused to forge amicable relations with Communist China and furthermore failed to acknowledge its wartime crimes. In sharp contrast, China, which had suffered under Japanese militarism, was successfully building a people’s state on the principles of peace and national independence and extending a “hand of friendship” to its neighbor.[3]

Although the Japan-China Friendship Image 3 Association did not have a direct prewar or wartime organizational predecessor to salvage or reconnect with, the careers and personal lives of its leading members were deeply entwined with mainland China and the Japanese presence there in the first half of the twentieth century. The Friendship Association’s first president from 1950 to 1953 was Uchiyama Kanzo (1885–1959), who had spent half his life in , where he ran a Japanese bookstore from 1917 right through the end of the war. Uchiyama had learned to walk a thin line there, taking advantage of the

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Japanese army’s protection of Japanese(Suiheisha), an organization for the restoration civilians in Shanghai during the 1930s, while of the burakumin (outcast class) to full social offering his bookstore as a secret meeting place privileges. Matsumoto was arrested in 1942 but for Japanese and Chinese literary figures, some restarted his activism on behalf ofburaku of whom were clearly resisters to Japanese emancipation in 1946, developing it into a mass imperialism in China. Known in the early 1930s organization backed by many left-wing groups. as the Japanese-Chinese Culture Salon,Another prewar social activist and postwar Uchiyama’s bookstore was a refuge for the Socialist politician was Oyama Ikuo famous Chinese writer Lu Xun before his death (1880–1955), who had been a prominent in 1936 and one of several Shanghai liaison Marxist economist and spent the war years in centers for Japanese communists like Ozaki exile in the United States. Returning to Japan in Hotsumi, an Asahi shinbun reporter later 1947, he became a member of the Lower House involved in the Richard Sorge spy ring.of the Diet and a leading member of several Uchiyama returned to Japan in 1947 and peace organizations. Instrumental in the reopened his bookstore in the Kanda district of Friendship Association’s quest for the revival of Tokyo, this time specializing in Chinesetrade with mainland China was the active books.[4] participation of Hoashi Kei (1905–89), a postwar Socialist politician and Diet member Ito Takeo (1895–1984), another founding (of both Upper and Lower Houses), who was member of the Japan-China Friendshipreelected seven times from 1947 on. Hoashi Association, had an illustrious prewar and had been director of the Heavy Industry wartime career in the research section of the Council in the prewar period and a consultant South Manchurian Railway Company (SMR). As to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry the director of the company’s Shanghai office, under Tojo in the early 1940s. He concluded he was friends with China specialists in the agreements on Japanese-Chinese trade in the navy, while also maintaining close relationships 1950s and 1960s and was also on the board of with left-wing intellectuals critical of Japan’s directors for the Japan–Soviet Union Friendship war in China, including Ozaki Hotsumi. The Association and the Association for the Return discovery of the Richard Sorge spy ring in of Koreans Living in Japan.[6] Tokyo led to a series of arrests of scientists working for the SMR Research Department in At the time of the Association’s establishment, Shanghai in 1942–43 and the execution of one-third of its 78 founding members were Ozaki. Ito was sent to prisons in remote areas intellectuals and China specialists. Another of northern China in June 1943 but was third came from the business world, half of released the following year. A number of Ito’s them representatives of Chinese overseas Research Department colleagues remained in businesses, and the rest were JSP politicians, China after 1945 to oversee the dismantling of labor union representatives, and social the SMR. Others returned to Japan and devoted movement activists, including the mayors of themselves to building up the field of East Kyoto and Yokohama. The professional Asian Studies at Japanese universities.[5] eclecticism of this organization helped in creating a mass movement in the 1950s around The Japan-China friendship movement also the notion that Chinese-Japanese relations, relied heavily on politicians with prewar rather than the U.S.-Japanese alliance, should careers in social activism. Its second director serve as the basis of postwar peace. It is safe to was the Japan Socialist Party (JSP) politician say, however, that the core of the friendship Matsumoto Jiichiro (1887–1966), the founder in movement consisted 1922 and chairman of the Leveling Society of people like Ito Takeo and Uchiyama Kanzo,

4 5 | 8 | 0 APJ | JF who brought to this movement a wealth of rather than return to their war torn countries. personal experience living and working in China before and during the war, and a deep The reparations issue, however, was even more commitment to righting the wrongs of the directly bound up with Cold War politics and Japanese imperialist presence there. the interests of the United States in particular. Both the United States and the Chinese Responsibility Evaded: Reparations and an Nationalist government had drawn up separate “Incomplete” Peace plans demanding Japanese reparations payments well before the end of the war. In Japan’s defeat in 1945 did not immediately contrast to Chinese leaders, who demanded erase its deep, multilevel entanglement with that Japan transfer its assets and industrial developments on the Chinese mainland. As the infrastructure to rebuild the shattered Chinese examples above show, many Japanese had economy and compensate for the huge public made successful careers in China before as well and private losses it had inflicted in the course as during the war, and the line between of the war, the U.S. government approached participating in the government’s militarist Japan’s reparations as an issue of economic ventures and nurturing an anti-imperialist policy rather than of punishment and attitude deeply sympathetic to the Chinese restitution. The Communist Revolution and the people was sometimes blurred in real life. establishment of the PRC in October 1949 Some Japanese recognized, sympathized, and sealed the fate of U.S.-Chinese negotiations in a few cases actively supported Chinese over Japanese reparations.[7] The United resistance to Japanese imperialist ventures in States declared Communist China an enemy China. But most simply played their own small and brought Japan fully into its own orbit of parts in Japan’s vast and multifaceted presence strategic and economic interests in the region. there, which extended far beyond military The resulting mass protests in Japan against combat. The legacies of this complicated the exclusion of China and other Communist history, however, were largely buried in new countries from the peace treaty and the Cold War enmities as perceived by Washington demand of a “full peace agreement,” however, and implemented by the occupation forces in virtually ignored the abandonment of the Japan. Under MacArthur, GHQ dealt directly reparations program. Indeed, major leaders of with two main issues concerning Japanese- the protests, such as the Teachers’ Union, Chinese relations: the repatriation of Japanese explicitly stated their desire to have from the Chinese mainland, and reparations. reparations waived and instead to rebuild East Repatriation was an ongoing humanitarian Asian trade relations so that Japan would not problem that spilled over into the 1950s and remain dependent on the United States. required the engagement of private organizations such as the Red Cross and the In contrast, organizations specifically focusing Japan-China Friendship Association. The return on Japanese-Chinese relations were formed at of Chinese and Koreans living in Japan at the this time to demand the resurrection of trade end of the war, many of them forced laborers, between the two countries on the basis of was another matter. The loss of their status as atonement for Japan’s wartime aggression. The Japanese nationals after the war, as well as the Chinese Revolution demonstrated to them that contemporary conditions of civil war in both China had in fact thrown off the shackles of the China and Korea, made this reversepast and was building a peaceful society on repatriation difficult and in some casesnew principles, while the Japanese government impossible, complicated by the fact thathad failed to make a clean break with its significant numbers chose to stay in Japan imperialist past by showing remorse for its war

5 5 | 8 | 0 APJ | JF conduct. Whereas most on the liberal left saw specific example heavily publicized by the that break with the past embodied in the Friendship Association in its first years was the commitment to “democracy,” participants in Hanaoka massacre of 30 June 1945. Second, it the Japan-China friendship movement staked pointed out, neither the Japanese government their hopes on a fundamentally alterednor the people correctly understood the relationship with China, which required a full significance of the Communist Revolution. It acknowledgment of Japan’s unilateralwas in China, not in Japan, that people had responsibility for its aggressive war in Asia. succeeded in throwing off the shackles of the imperialist past and were building a free Critical to the unity of this eclectic movement society of “new men” based on the principles of was the belief that the breakdown in relations independence, equality, and peace. Third, by with China was due to Japan alone. This following the United States in recognizing the reflected not only a moral and intellectual Taiwan Nationalist regime as the legitimate standpoint but also a political stance toward representative of China, Japan once again used the contemporary situation, informed by a China’s internal affairs for its own self-serving particular view of the prewar and wartime past. political purposes instead of accepting reality. Essentially, the group held that Japan’s century-long practice of imperialistic and Specialists on contemporary China, including militaristic policies toward China, paired with a scholars and critics in the humanities and popular attitude of contempt for its “backward” social sciences, served as the Association’s neighbor, was now being revived through main resource in its endeavor to articulate a Japan’s support of American imperialism in responsible memory of Japan’s war in China. Asia. As early as January 1950, a statement of The Japan-China friendship movement goals for the proposed Friendship Association attracted intellectuals who had professional or hinted at this belief: personal ties to mainland China, enthusiasm for the Communist Revolution from an ideological The first step toward rebuilding a standpoint, and a progressive political democratic Japan is to dispose of our understanding of culture. Takeuchi Yoshimi, self-satisfied island-nation mentality and perhaps the best-known postwar scholar of to become an international people modern Chinese literature, held views that willing to preserve peace in allmirrored those of the Friendship Association directions. It is therefore necessary that but never actually joined the movement and not only the Pacific but also the Japan refused several invitations to visit China as a Sea and the East China Sea become member of a cultural delegation. Although “free waterways.” It is an old truth that Takeuchi became a political activist for a short “Japan will not prosper if China does time at the height of the 1960 movement not prosper.” We should recognize this, against the renewal of the U.S.-Japan Security but in a way that corrects the old view Treaty (Anpo), his understanding of revolution of China.[8] was theoretical rather than practical, and he steadfastly refused to get involved in politics. In the early 1950s, the Friendship Association accused the Japanese government of failing in Nevertheless, Takeuchi’s vision of Chinese at least three ways to “correct the old view of resistance to foreign and domestic exploitation China.” First, the government both covered up as a “model” for Japanese society had great and evaded practical responsibility forintellectual influence on those active in the Japanese war crimes committed againstJapanese-Chinese friendship movement. It Chinese people in both China and Japan. One resonated powerfully among those who

6 5 | 8 | 0 APJ | JF contrasted the success of China’s Communist the absence of domestic economic growth. The Revolution with the dearth of revolutionary people were losing their freedom with every promise in Japan in the early 1950s. Takeuchi’s day, while the capitalists increased their power. China, in Lawrence Olson’s words, “served a This is the path to invasion, and China is on the vitally affirming purpose as an object of opposite path now.” In fact, China represented aspiration and an abstract good.” Intellectuals an economic asset to Japan in as much as working in the friendship movement, however, relations could now be formed on the basis of devoted themselves to making China the independence and equality instead of subject of political discourse and popular colonialism.[10] knowledge in Japan. They accepted the PRC as a “qualitatively different kind of civilization These arguments lined up all too well with peopled by ‘new men.’”[9] As a first step toward sentiments expressed in Zhou Enlai’s speeches changing the Japanese people’s poorand in People’s Daily editorials. They also understanding of China, the Association printed overlapped with a wider anti-American, pro- an article denouncing the Japanese term Shina Asian nationalism espoused by many prominent as imperialist and promoting the use ofintellectuals on the liberal left, including Chugoku as the correct name for the People’s Maruyama Masao and Shimizu Ikutaro. Republic of China. Opposition to the San Francisco Peace Treaty and the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, which In fact, intellectuals writing inNihon to excluded the PRC and guaranteed the United Chugoku not only demanded atonement for States military bases in Japan, represented a Japanese wrong-doing in the past but clung to common starting point for action among the political and moral notion of a new reality. pacifists of different ideological convictions and If Japan had led Asia into war, China was now formed the core of the Friendship Association’s the leader in building peace and prosperity for campaign for the restoration of formal Sino- all in Asia. Indeed, a 1953 article entitled “The Japanese relations. The Asia-Pacific Peace New China and Japan” took issue with every Conference, held in Beijing in the fall of 1952 criticism of the new regime in China in the with participants from 40 countries, provided contemporary media and turned it around to an internationally visible opportunity for demonstrate the PRC’s competence and good “people’s diplomacy” through cultural intentions. Politically, China presented no exchange. Until the last minute, the Foreign threat to its neighbors because its strength Ministry withheld permission for the Japanese rested neither on dictatorship nor on monopoly delegation of fourteen peace activists capitalism. With the people taking the lead, (including representatives of the Friendship “why should a country that has reformed itself, Association) to travel to Beijing. Preparatory that knows the way to develop on its own . . . meetings in Tokyo as well as in Beijing be a threat to its neighbors?” Militarily, the attracted wide participation and media Korea conflict had shown that China sent the coverage. A resolution regarding the “Japan People’s Liberation Army abroad only to Question,” one of eleven official statements support, not to dominate. It had consulted with issued over the course of the twelve-day the Korean government before dispatching its conference, demanded a complete peace treaty troops and had been the first to withdraw. with Japan, expressed the Japanese people’s Economically, the Chinese Revolution had desire to “promote the establishment of an contributed to building peace because it rested independent, democratic, free and peaceful on the economic empowerment of the people. new Japan by stopping the revival of Japanese “Japan’s history has shown that Japanese militarism,” and called for the complete colonialism in China and Korea was based on withdrawal of foreign troops from Japanese

7 5 | 8 | 0 APJ | JF soil.[11] defining a shared Asian identity and destiny, perceptions of cultural and racial commonality The belief among friendship movement activists retreated behind a belief in historical progress. that peace in Asia would originate in China For it was in Asia that a new system of once American imperialism was overcome international peace, independence, and appeared to have been powerfully reaffirmed in democracy promised to replace the old the Five Peace Principles of Peacefulcapitalist nationalism that had caused World Coexistence that Zhou Enlai and Jawaharlal War II and was still championed by the United Nehru announced at their summit in June 1954: States. mutual respect for territorial sovereignty; nonintervention; nonaggression; equality and Grassroots Diplomacy reciprocity; and peaceful coexistence despite rival ideologies. This held enormousWithin the contemporary political environment significance for the intellectual left as an and from the standpoint of resistance against attempt to apply democratic principles directly the state, the Japan-China Friendship to international relations rather than toAssociation adopted “people’s diplomacy” as its domestic affairs alone. Moreover, the left modus vivendi. This term, kokumin gaiko in regarded this extension of democracy as having Japanese, was adapted from the Chinese originated in Asia and not the West. It gave renmin waijiao, coined by the PRC’s first intellectuals involved in “cultural diplomacy” a premier, Zhou Enlai.However, the Chinese sense of triumph over America and Europe in term renmin (jinmin in Japanese) means “the the realm of political ethics. Shimizu Ikutaro people” in communist terminology, whereas expressed this sense when he wrote: kokumin, the Japanese appropriation, implies the people of a nation, rather than a If we think about the significance of proletariat. The Friendship Association did not these five principles, it must be seen as simply adopt communist terminology but only natural that these principles, adjusted it to reflect the political realities of differing from the great principles and Japan. Conceptually, “people’s diplomacy” theories to date, were created not in shifted the agency in foreign relations from Washington, Paris or Moscow, but in a states (which conducted wars) to “the people” corner of Asia. That is not in the (who created peace). Practically, the term was company of power, but rather in used to describe the informal relations between opposition to power. . . . The life of the Chinese “people’s” state and Japanese civic democracy is, through the hands of the organizations like the Friendship Association. peoples of Asia and Africa, being The Friendship Association thereby insisted on reborn.[12] the putative unity between the Chinese people and their (communist) state on the one hand, The movement to change the basis ofwhile simultaneously stressing the diametric international relations in Asia from the U.S.- opposition between the Japanese people and Japan security alliance to Sino-Japanesetheir government under the thumb of the friendship rested in part on a new ethnic United States on the other. nationalism centering on Asia. It was a reactionary nationalism in the sense that it was “People’s diplomacy” was not only born out of born out of resistance particularly against the the political realities of the day but in turn United States (and the Cold War system), and shaped the place of critical war memory in thus in some ways resembled the Greater public life. Far from simply an opposition Asianist thought of the Meiji period. But in movement, the Friendship Association’s work

8 5 | 8 | 0 APJ | JF supplemented official policy in ways that even 7 July 1937 that marked the beginning of the conservative politicians welcomed. Its success Sino-Japanese War. Between 1 July and 15 in managing Sino-Japanese relations in fact August 1951, the Association called on depended on the tacit consent of theindividuals and groups from political, government: the Friendship Associationeconomic, cultural, scholarly, labor, and persistently lobbied the same state institutions housewives’ circles to send greetings to it protested against, so as to ensure its position Chinese individuals and groups on the in brokering relations with the PRC. To be sure, mainland and on Taiwan. An article in Nihon to the Association deserved credit for creating Chugoku entitled “Considering August 15th: and maintaining important channels ofLet Us Send Greetings to China!” invited communication with the PRC from which people to write down their “heartfelt thoughts official relations, once they were normalized (in and wishes for the Chinese people” and send 1972) and formally restored (in 1978), could these letters to the Friendship Association to be easily be institutionalized. Nevertheless, until mailed to Chinese newspapers (and ultimately then its activities also helped to perpetuate the collected and published in a single volume). political arrangement by which relations with The letters urged readers to remember the China remained outside the politicalhuman misery set in motion by the Marco Polo mainstream, while official policy focused on Bridge incident, not only for the Chinese but relations with the United States. This political also for the Japanese, who “were driven into arrangement created the framework in which such an aggressive war [by the militarist the Friendship Association’s memory of the war state]” and for the whole world. Moreover, commanded public attention. Acknowledgment current circumstances threatened to revive the of and atonement for Japan’s wartimehorrors of that war: aggression had its legitimate place in postwar public life—namely, as part of special interest In the past two to three years, as the politics. But insofar as this interest remained crisis in Korea poisoned both the outside the political mainstream, it did not international climate and that in our effectively challenge official policy, which own country, our hopes for marginalized China and ignored war peace—acquired at the highest responsibility because it was politically sacrifice—are fading, and the sound of expedient to do so in a Cold War context in shells and smell of gun-powder have which the United States was the hegemonic returned. Given Japan’s precarious past, power. we have to establish friendly relations with our neighbor China. We cannot Although the Japan-China Friendship allow hostile relations to develop nor Association established itself within a few years can we tolerate them. Cooperation as a political interest group connected with the between the Chinese and the Japanese opposition Socialist Party (and indirectly with is our heart’s desire, . . . and we the Communist Party) and recognized on the commemorate this year’s anniversary of highest bureaucratic level, it styled itself as a 7 July as the most straightforward step “people’s movement.” One of the Association’s toward mutual understanding between efforts to bring together people from all walks our two peoples.[13] of life and establish relations with Chinese people involved a letter-writing campaign on The letters reprinted in subsequent issues of the occasion of the fourteenth anniversary of Nihon to Chugoku, typically written by the Marco Polo Bridge incident—the military presidents of labor unions and other clash between Chinese and Japanese troops on organizations, echoed the sentiments expressed

9 5 | 8 | 0 APJ | JF in this passage. They emphasized the unity of the opposition on the left. A public between the Chinese and Japanese peoples by controversy unfolded when it became known stressing their common victimization at the that Prime Minister Yoshida had secretly hands of Japanese militarists in the past and written to John Foster Dulles on 10 February the conservative Japanese government in the 1952 agreeing to conclude a peace treaty with present. the Nationalist regime on Taiwan without having formally brought this matter before the This characterization of Japanese attitudes Diet. An article inNihon to Chugoku toward China closely matched the Chinese denounced the “Yoshida letter” in moral terms, Communist Party’s official criticism of Japan as a continuation of the utter disrespect for and exposed the Japan-China Friendship China that had caused the war in the first Association to accusations of acting as the place—and a denial of responsibility for the war CCP’s mouthpiece. TheMainichi shinbun against the Chinese people: “If Prime Minister carried an article on 17 July 1950, even before Yoshida felt even an inch of remorse for the Association’s official establishment,Japanese militarist undertakings in China, why branding the movement’s leaders “a group of would he refuse to recognize the government spies” who carried out subversive activities which represents all of China at the present against the U.S. military without the knowledge time and instead conclude a “peace treaty” of the majority of its would-be members. At the with a government exiled to Taiwan?”[14] height of the Red Purge, this amounted to no small threat for the movement, and theTo highlight Japan’s past and present practice Association would have to defend itself against of construing the political reality in China in its such accusations for years to come. Throughout own interest, the statement quoted wartime the months leading up to the signing of the prime minister Konoe Fumimaro. Konoe had peace treaty in September 1951, moreover, the insisted, in 1938, that “we will not deal with PRC mobilized youth groups, studentChiang Kai-shek” at a time when Chiang did in organizations, and the councils of every major fact represent China while Japan supported a city in China to send messages to “the Japanese puppet regime in Nanjing. Now that Chiang people” encouraging them to protest the treaty. was exiled, the argument continued, the Statements opposing a “partial peace” by the Japanese government insisted on recognizing Chinese National Association of Socialhim, this time in order to bolster its alliance Scientists and the Association of Natural with the United States. The authors of the Scientists dovetailed neatly with the peace statement also pointed to the February 1947 appeals issued earlier by Japanese scientists massacre in Taipei of Taiwanese resisting the and the Peace Problems Discussion Group Chiang regime. They stressed that by around Maruyama Masao and Nanbararecognizing Taipei instead of Beijing, Japan had Shigeru. Friendship movement activists in again allied itself with an aggressor rather than Japan translated and distributed all these with the communist liberator. Indeed, it was messages. the Association’s view that establishment politics in Japan had not fundamentally Conversely, the Friendship Association accused changed since the war. the Japanese government of using anticommunist ideology to avoid facing the new Building a people’s movement, however, political realities in Asia and escapeentailed specific organizational strategies in responsibility for Japan’s wartime aggression. addition to community work. By 1953 the During the peace treaty negotiations, this was Friendship Association had secured a wide net an especially heated argument voiced by much of political affiliates. Six smaller organizations

10 5 | 8 | 0 APJ | JF had joined as members, all offering specialized immediately contacted some of the Japanese services in one or another aspect of Chinese living in China through their newspaper culture. In addition, two Japan-China trade Minshu shinbun (People’s Newspaper) as well organizations, two academic researchas their families in Japan. The first ship of institutes, and two organizations facilitating Japanese returnees arrived in Japan on 23 repatriation of Japanese from China became March 1953, and the number of repatriates close affiliates. The largest, if least structured, reached 26,051 by the end of the year. The reservoir of recognition came from so-called Japanese government had provided the ships mass organizations across the politicalbut offered few services to help the newcomers spectrum, including seventeen labor unions and relocate in Japan. eighteen peace groups. In addition, all six main political parties and five powerful bureaucratic The successful repatriation efforts clearly agencies (the cabinet, the Foreign Ministry, the endorsed the Association’s “people’s Health and Welfare Ministry, the Labordiplomacy” and offered an opportunity to Ministry, and the Agency for Assistance to convince the public that the Japanese Returnees) recognized the Japan-Chinagovernment not only took little responsibility Friendship Association as a major political for its militarist past, but in fact continued it. In pressure group. The Association in turn sharp contrast, the Chinese government facilitated the establishment of other China- appeared willing both to lay the past to rest related organizations such as the Committee to and build an amicable relationship with Japan Commemorate Chinese Prisoner of Warand also to share its peaceful progress with Martyrs in 1953, the Japan-China Association Japanese individuals who could now transmit for Cultural Exchange in 1956, and the Liaison their positive experiences to their compatriots Society for Returnees from China, also in 1956. at home. Even before their return, the Japanese left in China had become one of the Friendship People’s diplomacy enjoyed almost immediate Association’s constituencies. The Association public visibility and success in relation to the gave them a voice in Japan by printing their issue of restarting efforts to repatriateletters in its periodicals and provided mediation Japanese nationals left in China at war’s end. services for their return, but also clearly used After the initial wave of 1,492,397 returnees them to support the Association’s political from China through 1946, the numbersgoals. plummeted to 3,758 in 1947 and to 92 in 1951. On 1 December 1952 the Beijing government When the first ship arrived, the Friendship announced that about 30,000 Japanese still Association’s vice-president, Hirano Yoshitaro, residing in China enjoyed the protection of the personally welcomed the one thousand Chinese government, lived happy lives, and returnees as “victims of Japan’s aggressive war even sent money back to their families in Japan. who return not defeated but with important It asserted that those who chose to return to gains from the new China.” He expressed their homeland would receive assistance from regret at the lack of government measures to the Chinese government, but since China could help relocate them, which demonstrated the not provide enough ships, it asked for the help state’s unwillingness to assume responsibility of Japanese citizens’ groups under thefor its own citizens as well as for the Chinese leadership of the Chinese Red Cross Society. killed by Japan during the war. Most of all, The Japanese Red Cross, the Japan-China Hirano urged the returnees to become Friendship Association, and the Peace Liaison of China through their personal Society became the liaison partners on the lives and experiences there: “We believe that Japanese side. The Friendship Association you are the people who can connect our two

11 5 | 8 | 0 APJ | JF countries because you have first-handinternational relations framework, which was knowledge of the new China. The Japanese guided by the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty. The people are thrilled to have you home, so please JSP, however, sought to use the China trade to use this opportunity and teach them about the attack and eventually alter Japan’s new China and deepen their interest and international position as a principal ally of the commitment to friendship with China.”[15] United States. In a speech to the Japan-China Friendship Committee on 13 July 1950, Japanese war criminals tried and convicted at Katsumata Seiichi, head of the Socialist Party’s Chinese war crimes tribunals received special Policy Research Committee, highlighted the attention upon their return to Japan in 1956. connections between economics and foreign They had received comparatively lightpolicy. He argued that American economic aid sentences so as not to harm Sino-Japanese artificially propped up the Japanese economy friendship, as a Chinese official statement instead of allowing it to develop the self- explained, and had undergone significant sufficiency that was vital for true national reeducation during their eleven-year residence independence. Even though MacArthur insisted in China. Once in Japan, some of them spoke on the purely economic nature of American aid, publicly at town meetings and various local the advent of the Korean War had exposed committees about their experiences in China underlying political considerations. and served as cultural ambassadors of the “new China.” Most importantly, they brought the But as long as the focus remained on mutual issue of war responsibility into sharp focus by economic benefits, the restoration of trade strongly criticizing their own wartime actions relations was marked by successful cooperation and forming their own groups built upon the because it was desired by all sides, if for notion of atonement. The Friendship different reasons and in different forms. No Association reminded its readers that the conservative cabinet—from that of Yoshida punishment of these war criminals did not Shigeru’s to Kishi Nobusuke’s and absolve the rest of the Japanese of their beyond—wanted to sacrifice the China market, responsibility for the war. In a sense, the war even if the Friendship Association accused criminals were also victims of Japan’s them of deliberately hindering the people’s militaristic policies. But unlike the majority of “natural” aspirations to trade with the Chinese. Japanese living in Japan after the war, they had The conservatives in turn regarded communism deeply reflected on their crimes during their in China as “unnatural” and probably short- stay in China. lived, and were prepared to wait until the While the repatriation issue struck areestablishment of diplomatic relations with the humanitarian chord and thus received public PRC would no longer demand Japan’s attention, the trade issue played a significant abrogation of the San Francisco Peace and role in the confrontation between the Japanese Security Treaty. Yoshida had argued in government and the PRC-backed opposition. 1951—in defense of his decision to conclude a Trade with China enjoyed support across peace treaty with Taiwan—that formal relations political lines. Insofar as the particular political with the nationalist regime on Taiwan did not arrangement in which the revival of trade with preclude informal trade relations with the PRC. China took place in the 1950s revealedPicking up on this quote, Democratic Party competing goals, the China trade was an vice-president Mamoru Shigemitsu opined that obviously charged issue in both foreign policy Yoshida Shigeru had hoped to speed up this and domestic politics. The ruling LDP did its process by “Europeanizing” China through the best to keep the China trade outside Japan’s promotion of trade relations.

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In fact, Yoshida’s “separation of politics and relations. In this way, pro-China organizations economics” (seikei bunri) and Zhou Enlai’s in Japan not only benefited from the increased “people’s diplomacy” dovetailed rather nicely power vested in them because of the on the issue of trade. The Chinese insistence government’s seikei bunri policy, but in turn until the mid-1950s on dealing with the used their success in promoting trade relations Japanese people but not their government only to advance a broader agenda vis-à-vis the reinforced Japan’s policy of treating trade and conservative establishment. There were official diplomacy as separate matters,nonetheless significant setbacks, for example informally consenting to the former while the Kishi cabinet’s refusal to sign the fourth officially refusing the latter. The work of the trade agreement in 1958, after the PRC had Japan-China Friendship Association was clearly openly demanded that Japan commit itself to welcomed by some LDP politicians andChina’s three political principles—“no businessmen who recognized China’s crucial hostilities against the PRC, no involvement in role in Japan’s economy. Murata Shozo,the two-China conspiracy, no hindering the president of the Japan International Trade normalization of Sino-Japanese relations.” Promotion and a member of elite financial Despite this temporary failure of people’s circles, worked closely with the Association and diplomacy, informal mechanisms remained in traveled to Beijing numerous times to negotiate place for the quick revival and expansion of and sign trade agreements with the Chinese. economic relations with China in the early He considered diplomatic relations with the 1960s, eventually leading up to Sino-Japanese PRC to be premature, given the international rapprochement in 1972.[16] situation in the 1950s, and insisted that the establishment of economic relations precede Clearly, the Friendship Association aimed to the restoration of diplomatic relations. Murata shelter a wide range of affiliations and thus supported the government’s position while constituencies under the umbrella term taking the lead in ensuring the success of “people’s movement.” Its commitment to people’s diplomacy. further its aims through people’s diplomacy thus acquired different forms and meanings in And yet, people’s diplomacy was also able to different settings. Socialist and Communist challenge, and even undermine, the official Party politicians representing the Association’s separation of politics and economics byinterests in the Diet presented themselves as working toward closing the perceived gap the “voices of the people” vis-à-vis the between “the people” and “government.” M. Y. conservative establishment. Business people Cho observed a gradual politicization ofwho depended on trade with China and their successive informal trade agreements with political representatives drew on the China, originating from pro-Chinacontemporary flow of private trade on a organizations and even extending to the regional and business-centered basis, as well as cabinet itself. Whereas the first tradeon the desire in financial circles to reestablish agreement of 1 June 1952 was decidedly China as a principal market for Japanese goods. apolitical, the third agreement of 4 May 1955 Japanese repatriates from China as well as clearly outlined the establishment of mutual Chinese residents in Japan could act as the and permanent trade representation missions most direct ambassadors for Sino-Japanese in each country, with personnel to be granted friendship, precisely because they personally the same status as official diplomats. Moreover, bore the marks of Japanese hostility against their responsibilities were to include political China. Perhaps most importantly, intellectuals lobbying within their respective governments and scholars, for whom intellectual freedom for normalization of official diplomaticwas a concern, practiced a more direct form of

13 5 | 8 | 0 APJ | JF people’s diplomacy. As authorities on Chinese that manifested itself through cultural affairs, they were able to give the Japanese exchange. public an alternative view of contemporary China through lectures and the collection and From the early 1950s on, the Friendship distribution of documents that were otherwise Association collected Chinese printed and unavailable. These four constituencies thus visual materials, including newspapers, highlight the diverse means by which the magazines, research documents, photographs, Friendship Association’s interest politicsart, and movies, and distributed them to contributed to the dynamics of war memory in publishing companies, schools, and its own the postwar political arena. members. Until its closure in March 2005, copies of these materials were collected in the Remembering Japanese Aggression Japan-China Friendship library, located in the Nitchu yuko kaikan in Tokyo. Unlike the The Japan-China Friendship Association never Association’s political work, which was handled failed to emphasize the centrality of cultural mainly by the central office in Tokyo, cultural exchange in the process of building good activities were carried out predominantly on relations between the two countries. These the prefectural and local levels. Local chapters cultural activities nevertheless had clear were heavily involved in community work, political implications, not only because of the creating public awareness about the PRC Association’s favorable treatment of Chinese through lectures, movies, photo and art communism, but because of the prominence of cultural policy generally in diplomatic relations exhibitions, publications of war memoirs, and among countries all over the world. As Akira the distribution of Chinese-language books and Iriye has shown, cultural internationalism magazines. became an urgent matter in the aftermath of Much of this cultural activity took place under World War II, reflected, for example, in the the rubric of the “movement never again to establishment of the allow war between Japan and China” Nitchu( Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), whose 1945fusaisen undo) and focused on the constitution declared that “since wars begin in commemoration of Japanese wartime the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that aggression against Chinese people. This the defenses of peace must be constructed.” So included observance of the anniversaries of the widespread was the belief in the importance of main war events on the Chinese mainland, in cultural contact for the preservation ofparticular the Manchurian incident (1931) and peace—perhaps especially among countries the Marco Polo Bridge incident (1937), which that had suffered defeat in war—that a West were studiously ignored in the national press German Press and Information Bureau release until decades later. Most of the war crimes could express perfectly the general aspirations commemorated by local Friendship Association of the Japan-China Friendship Association: chapters had taken place in Japan proper, “Through alliance policies, you win allies, however, and involved Chinese forced laborers through trade policies, business partners, and prisoners of war. These local organizations through cultural policies, friends.” This could coordinated research into wartime incidents at equally well have been the motto of the Japan- mines, factories, or farms in 135 locations all China friendship movement. The preface to a over Japan, with the heaviest concentration in joint statement of 51 intellectuals in support of Hokkaido, and compiled exact data on the friendly cooperation with China in March 1952 Chinese laborers who had worked and died defined friendship as a matter of “civilization” there.

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Map showing all 135 locations of wartime incidents involving the death of Chinese forced laborers [17]

They began by collecting the remains of the Chinese dead and conducting Buddhist ceremonies to honor them before returning them to China in white boxes. The Japanese government apparently did not involve itself in such basic humanitarian work and left the bodies of these Chinese dead scattered in the fields near their workplaces. A gruesome photo of piles of skulls and bones near the Hanaoka mine in taken in November In addition to many small, local ceremonies, 1945 attests to this.[18] large commemorations were held in bigger cities. The first of these took place in April 1953 at the Honganji temple in Asakusa, Tokyo. In February of that year, the Chinese Victims Commemoration Committee had been set up to coordinate these activities. These were Buddhist ceremonies, whose rites were shared by Japanese and Chinese alike, at least in

principle. As such, they formed an important contrast to the Shinto ceremonies usually employed for the commemoration of the Japanese war dead. Later ceremonies, such as a commemoration held in Fukuoka in March 1971, included Korean and Japanese victims of wartime mining incidents as well.

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[19]

Throughout the postwar decades, but especially from the 1960s through the 1980s, local Friendship Association chapters erected stone monuments all over Japan to commemorate Chinese victims of Japanese wartime aggression, to reflect on Japan’s war responsibility, and to remind subsequent Fusaisenhi generations of the lessons of that war and the abuse of human rights in the name of imperialism and militarism. Many of these monuments seem to blend harmoniously into their park environs, bearing the characters for “Never again war between Japan and China” (Nitchu fusaisen) in front and a more detailed inscription in the back or on the sides. Some of these monuments stand out for their abstract designs. A five-meter-tall stone pillar comemorating the Hanaoka massacre was erected near the mine in 1966 and bears the characters for “growing tradition of friendship” (hatten dento yugi) on one side and “against aggressive war” (hantai shinryaku senso) on the other, using Chinese, rather than Japanese, word order.

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of their fatherland rose up as a group to at last oppose Japanese imperialism heroically. Here lie the remains of 418 people who gave their lives patriotically to this cause. We will forever remember this incident, our prayers never again to allow war between Japan and China chiseled into stone for the grandchildren of both countries.[20]

Although this inscription clearly places the responsibility for this human rights abuse on Japan and “Japanese militarism,” it avoided an opposition between the Japanese and the Chinese people by including Japanese resisters to militarism among the “patriotic” victims murdered here.

The Friendship Association attracted the sometimes violent attention of those who interpreted their activities as politically motivated and in fact dictated by the PRC. Indeed, the American occupation forces themselves lashed out at the group in 1951 (in the so-called People’s Daily Distribution Suppression incident), when it arrested several members for distributing “communist Hanaoka Memorial propaganda.” In the Nagasaki incident in May Photos are courtesy of Japan-China Friendship 1958, right-wingers burned the Chinese flag Association that had been displayed at a local conference to promote Japanese-Chinese trade and cultural

exchange. Monument inscriptions that referred The inscription on the back of the Hanaoka to Japan’s war in Asia as unambiguously Memorial reads: “aggressive” also invited vandalism. After a wave of popular protests against Japan swept With the support of caring people from China (and to a lesser extent Korea) in the both Japan and China, we have erected spring of 2005, the Japan-China Friendship this monument to friendship and never Association received threats from right-wing again to allow war between Japan and groups in Japan that made it cancel the annual China. In 1944–1945, 993 Chinese, who meeting scheduled for late May in Awara, had been brought here illegally under Fukui Prefecture, and switch to a new venue in Japanese militarism, lived here in the Tokyo in November. According to the China Chusan Dormitory at the foot of this Daily, managing director Yazaki Mitsuharu said mud-filled dam, abused and forbidden in an official announcement that the to speak their native language. On 30 Association could not guarantee the June 1945, these laborers as well as participants’ and local residents’ safety in the those who wanted to protect the honor face of these threats.[15] This did not keep the

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Association from issuing a formal letter on 2 activities—lecturing in schools, maintaining August urging Prime Minister Koizumi not to archives open to the public, or erecting visit Yasukuni Shrine on the occasion of the memorials to Chinese victims of Japanese sixtieth anniversary of the war’s end out of aggression. Rather, the Friendship respect for Chinese suffering at the hands of Association’s attempt to shift the parameters of Japanese militarism during the war. public discourse from a national or trans- Pacific understanding of the war and the Throughout the postwar decades, the Japan- postwar to one centering on Northeast Asia did China Friendship Association stood committed not muster the kind of political expediency to the acknowledgment of Japanese war crimes necessary to challenge official policy under the against Asia in general and China in particular. Cold War system. Because so much of the Above all, its shift in focus from the national to Association’s work appeared to be an the international level and its belief in Chinese- advertising campaign for the PRC at a time Japanese cooperation as the only way to a when the majority of Japanese held deep peaceful future set it apart from othersuspicions of communism, the Friendship organizations concerned with war memory. Association’s work (and its rendition of war This bilateral focus was supported from various memory) had limited appeal. When the Cold angles, including geographic proximity,War context gradually dissolved in the 1980s, economic necessity, cultural affinity, and Chinese-Japanese relations “naturally” took ideological commitment. The Friendshipcenter stage, and the acknowledgment of Association regarded the Cold War split of Asia Japanese war crimes in Asia found increasing as reproducing the deeper and longer split public support. separating Japan and China throughout modern history. At the same time, it recognized the displacement of this historically problematic relationship by the Cold War system and Franziska Seraphim is Associate Professor of protested it as Japan’s “second guilt,” to History at Boston College and the author of borrow a phrase Ralph Giordano coined for War Memory and Social Politics in postwar (the first guilt being Japan’s Japan, 1945-2005 (Harvard East Asian condescending attitude and military conduct Monographs. This is a revised version of toward China during the war). chapter four of that book. Posted at Japan Focus on August 18, 2007. For at least three decades, Cold War divisions continued to define both Japanese and world politics, effectively marginalizing voices such as that of the Friendship Association. And yet Notes the Friendship Association’s view of Japan’s war and postwar enjoyed an informal, unofficial 1. Japan Times, 12 April 2007. public visibility that paralleled its political 2. From Nozoe Kenji, ed., Hanaoka monogatari. position in managing informal Japanese- Mumyosha shuppan, 1995. Reprinted with Chinese relations. War memory that the publisher’s permission. Franziska acknowledged and probed into Japan’s war Seraphim, War Memory and Social Politics responsibility toward Asia was neither absent in Japan, 1945-2005. Harvard University from Japanese public life nor actively silenced Asia Center Press, 2006. by a dominant, official narrative. If silencing 3. “Tomen no mokuhyo nitsuite.” Nihon to mechanisms were in place, they did not appear Chugoku, 20 February 1950. This journal, to hinder the Association’s extensive public Japan and China, was inaugurated in

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February 1950 under the auspices of the 11. Nihon Chugoku yuko kyokai zenkoku Japan-China Friendship Association honbu, Nithchu yuko undo shi. Shonen Preparatory Committee and grew into the shuppansha, 1980, p. 58. Friendship Association’s main organ after 12. Quoted in Rikki Kersten,Democracy in its formal establishment in October 1950. Postwar Japan. Routledge, 1996, pp. 4. See Joshua Fogel, “The Other Japanese 173-74. Community,” in Wen-hsin Yeh, ed. Wartime 13. “8.15 o mezashite: Chugoku ni aisatsu o Shanghai. Routledge, 1998. okuro!” Nihon to Chugoku, 10 July 1951. 5. For more on Ito Takeo, see Joshua Fogel, ed., 14. “Yoshida shokan nit suite no seimei,” Nihon Life along the Manchurian Railway. M.E. to Chugoku, 15 February 1952. Sharpe, 1988. 15. Hirano Yoshitaro, “Kikokusha no minasan 6. Shakai undo chosakai. Sayoku dantai jiten, e,” Nihon to Chugoku, 1 April 1953. Kyokuto shuppansha, 1966. 16. A detailed analysis of this process can be 7. See Okamoto Koichi, “Imaginary Settings: found in M.Y. Cho, Die Volksdiplomatie in Sino-Japanese-U.S. Relations during the Ostasien (Otto Harrassowitz, 1971). Occupation Years.” Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 2000. 17. In Nitchu yuko kyokai, Shogen: Chugokujin 8. “Tomen no mokuhyo ni tsuite,”Nihon to kyosei renko, pp. 82-83, a booklet Chugoku, 11 December 1953. accompanying a three-part documentary 9. See Lawrence Olson, “Takeuchi Yoshimi and video made by the Japan-China Friendship the Vision of a Protest Society in Japan” in Association between 1991 and 2001. Ambivalent Moderns. Roman & Littlefield, 18. In Nihon Chugoku yuko kyokai, ed., Nitchu 1992, pp. 58 and 45. yuko undo no hanseiki, pp. 27-28. 10. “Shinchugoku to Nihon,”Nihon to 19. Ibid., p. 27. Chugoku, 11 December 1953. 20. China Daily, 19 May 2005.

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