Growing tensions between Japan and the United States were derived
from an under lying economic change, the spread of industrial skills from
the United States to Japan, and the increase in industrial exports from Japan,
where labor costs were lower, to the United States— a prob lem that would
affect the relationship between the United States and China three de cades
later. From 1945 to the 1970s the United States was the world’s greatest in-
dustrial power, but by the early 1970s, as other countries were gaining in
industrial technology and paying low wages to their workers, U.S. indus-
trial goods began to lose out, even in the United States, to foreign prod-
ucts. The rapidly declining costs of global shipping and the openness of U.S.
markets contributed to this pro cess. In the 1960s no country had expanded
its industrial exports to the United States more rapidly than Japan. U.S. in-
dustrial workers were losing jobs and the trade imbalance was growing,
creating a drain on the U.S. Trea sury.
MITI was in charge of managing the Japa nese side in trade negotiations
with the United States. On July 5, 1971, Prime Minister Sato Eisaku had
appointed Tanaka Kakuei minister of trade and industry to resolve the trade
dispute with the United States. Tanaka, a rustic politician known for his
ingenuity and his use of bundles of money to resolve prob lems, publicly crit-
icized the United States to maintain popu lar support while laying the
groundwork for yielding to U.S. demands. He carried on detailed discus-
sions with key leaders on all sides, including U.S. officials, to learn what had
to be done to reach an agreement. He resolved the surcharge prob lem by
arranging payments to Japa nese textile companies and textile workers to
compensate them for limiting exports to meet the minimum the United
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States required. Prime Minister Sato’s failure to maintain good relations
with the United States and his inability to normalize relations with China
helped propel Tanaka, the popu lar problem solver, into position to succeed
him as prime minister.
Tanaka took up office as the new prime minister on July 7, 1972, with
the highest level of public support ever given to any incoming prime min-
ister. It was widely expected that he would make rapid pro gress in improving
relations with China. By September 29, scarcely two months after taking
office, Prime Minister Tanaka was in Beijing.
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chapter ten
Working Together, 1972–1992
On September 27, 1972, Tanaka Kakuei and Zhou Enlai met in Beijing.
They were a strange pair. Tanaka, who came from a poor rural family and
became a petit bourgeois entrepreneur and then a po liti cal deal maker, had
little foreign experience. Zhou Enlai, by contrast, was one of the world’s most
sophisticated foreign- policy strategists, with unrivaled diplomatic experi-
ence. Yet they worked well together, for they were both bright, imaginative
prob lem solvers who wanted to find a way to establish formal relations and
who knew how to get the necessary po liti cal support in their own country.
Zhou Enlai had stipulated some general princi ples that had to be met be-
fore the two countries could expand their relations, and on the basis of those
princi ples, Zhou and Tanaka were able, with the support of other officials
who helped prepare for their meeting, to resolve the related po liti cal issues
in their own countries.
The preparations for the meeting had moved quickly after July 7, 1972,
when Tanaka became prime minister. Tanaka Kakuei’s announcement of
his intention to normalize relations with China had helped him win the
election for party president over Fukuda Takeo, and even before becoming
prime minister he began to explore how he might achieve that goal. The
day he took office, Tanaka announced that he would move ahead with nor-
malization. Two days later Zhou Enlai announced that China welcomed
Tanaka’s speech and expressed a desire to work for early normalization of
Sino- Japanese relations. Immediately, the Japan Socialist Party and Ko-
meito, the po liti cal party affiliated with Soka Gakkai, said that they would
cooperate in this effort.
The groundwork for normalization had begun by April 1972, when
Okita Saburo, a cosmopolitan economic planner who grew up in Manchuria,
was dispatched to Beijing, where he met with Zhou Enlai to explore the
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possibilities for normalization. In the course of their wide- ranging conver-
sation Zhou Enlai said that he had heard that Tokyo was seriously pol-
luted because there were so many automobiles in the Japa nese capital. He
told Okita that Beijing had been able to avoid air pollution because its
main mode of transportation was the city’s 1.5 million bicycles. Forty years
later, when Tokyo had overcome its air pollution prob lem and Beijing, where
cars had basically replaced bicycles, was one of the world’s most polluted
cities, Japan was giving assistance to China to resolve its pol ution prob lems.
When Tanaka became prime minister, he made Foreign Minister Ohira
Masayoshi responsible for working out the details of the normalization
agreement. Ohira, from a small town on the island of Shikoku, was a shy
person of modest background, completely sincere and impeccably honest,
who wanted to improve relations with China. Like many of Japan’s first gen-
eration of top postwar po liti cal leaders, Ohira had risen in the ranks by
passing exams and becoming an elite- track bureaucrat in the Ministry of
Finance before being recruited into politics by Yoshida Shigeru. Because of
his personal philosophical convictions, he believed deeply in a vision of a
peaceful world in which nations cooperated. Edwin O. Reischauer, the son
of American missionaries and the U.S. ambassador to Japan at the time,
developed im mense re spect for Ohira and later said that Ohira’s premature
death in 1980 was a tremendous loss to Japan and the world. Beneath his
rumpled, comfortable exterior, Ohira was a thoughtful statesman ready to
exert enormous effort to reach a po liti cal consensus for normalizing rela-
tions with China. Chinese po liti cal leaders regarded him as a special friend,
the Japa nese leader whom they most trusted at the time.
On July 10, three days after Tanaka became prime minister, Sun
Ping hua, who had studied at Tokyo Engineering College and had been
secretary- general of the China- Japan Friendship Association, arrived in
Tokyo as an official envoy. He brought a message from Zhou Enlai stating
that it was the right time to act. Foreign Minister Ohira, rather than leaving
things to his Foreign Ministry officials, sought a personal meeting with
Zhou. Several days later, on July 16, Ohira was in Beijing meeting with Zhou
Enlai, who told him China would welcome a visit by Prime Minister Tanaka.
When Ohira met with Sun Pinghua on July 22, he told him that Prime Min-
ister Tanaka supported the normalization of diplomatic relations. How-
ever, Ohira explained, Japan wanted to be sure that it could reta
in the
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Working Together, 1972–1992
U.S.- Japan Security Alliance and that it could maintain economic and
cultural relations with Taiwan, a formula that would be used by the United
States when it normalized relations with China six years later. Tanaka
immediately set up a fifteen- member China Policy Council within the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs to consider the details necessary for achieving
normalization.
China had made it clear that three basic princi ples had to be met for
normalization: Japan had to recognize that there is only one China, that
the People’s Republic is the sole government of China, and that Japan had
to abrogate its treaty with the Nationalists.
Many Japa nese business and government officials had hoped for a two-
state solution that would allow Japan to have formal relations with both
China and Taiwan, but mainland China was in a strong enough position
to insist that it would not accept such a solution. Japa nese businessmen ur-
gently wanted to normalize relations with China for fear that the United
States and the Eu ro pean countries would enter the China market first and
leave Japan far behind. With this pressure, those who wanted to normalize
relations with China had enough support to break diplomatic relations with
Taiwan. Still, Japan wanted to find a way to continue economic and cultural
relations with Taiwan.
On July 25, Takeiri Yoshikatsu, chairman of the Komeito Party, returned
from Beijing, where he had held ten hours of talks with Zhou Enlai. Zhou
had told Takeiri that maintaining the U.S.- Japan Security Alliance and the
status of the Senkaku / Diaoyu Islands would not be obstacles to normal-
ization and that China intended to abandon its claim for war reparations,
but he repeated that Japan had to abrogate its treaty with the Nationalists.
Takeiri assured Zhou that Japan would agree. On August 10, the Liberal
Demo cratic Party approved a visit to China by Prime Minister Tanaka. The
next day, this was conveyed to Sun Pinghua, and on August 15, Sun reported
to Tanaka that China would welcome him to Beijing.
Tanaka requested a meeting with Nixon to discuss his plans for nor-
malizing relations with China. At a meeting held in Hawaii from August 31
to September 1, President Nixon accepted Tanaka’s effort to resolve the trade
dispute with the United States. Tanaka offered approximately $710 million
in special purchases from the United States and agreed to reduce textile ex-
ports. Nixon, in return for Tanaka’s assistance in helping him firm up his
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southern po liti cal base, where the U.S. textile industry was located, raised
no objection to Japan’s move to normalize relations with China before the
United States did.
In mid- September, scarcely a week before Tanaka visited Beijing, Diet
member Kosaka Zentaro led a del e ga tion of Diet members to Beijing, where
they held talks with Zhou Enlai. The participation of the other Diet mem-
bers helped consolidate support among Japa nese po liti cal leaders for taking
the required steps to normalize relations.
On September 18 and 19, former foreign minister Shiina Etsusaburo,
one of Japan’s po liti cal leaders with the closest relations to Taiwan, was sent
to Taiwan with the unpleasant task of telling its leaders of Japan’s plans to
normalize relations with Beijing, and he was also to discuss plans for con-
tinuing trade and cultural relations. The leaders on Taiwan were so angry
about the news that Chiang Kai- shek refused to meet with him, but Shiina
did meet Chiang Ching- kuo, Chiang Kai- shek’s son, to discuss how to con-
tinue unofficial relations without formal diplomatic relations.
Prime Minister Tanaka and Foreign Minister Ohira were in Beijing
from September 25 to 30 to negotiate normalization of relations between
the two countries. Ohira and Tanaka had made careful preparations for
their visit by winning the support of Diet members, receiving approval from
the United States, arranging to continue to work with Taiwan, and reaching
a basic agreement with Zhou Enlai on the major issues.
Despite all the careful preparations, the atmosphere in Beijing during
the first two days of Tanaka’s visit to Beijing was tense, and the Japa nese
were uncertain that they would be successful in achieving normalization
during the trip. The “Gang of Four,” the radical faction led by Mao’s wife,
was still strong, and Chinese officials expressed dissatisfaction with Japan’s
lingering ties to Taiwan and its refusal to specify a date when it would cut
off those relations. Chinese officials also expressed dis plea sure with Prime
Minister Tanaka’s formal remarks at the banquet on the first eve ning. Tanaka
said that Japan wished to express its profound regret for the “ great trou ble”
( tadai no gomeiwaku) it had caused during its military aggression. The phrase
tadai no gomeiwaku, however, was translated into Chinese as mafan, which
can be used in an apology for a minor incon ve nience and was thus seen as
downgrading the suffering Japan had caused and undercutting the serious-
ness of Tanaka’s apology. Zhou Enlai criticized the apology, saying that it
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Working Together, 1972–1992
belittled the enormous suffering Japan had caused. Beginning on the second
eve ning of the meeting, Ji Pengfei replaced Zhou Enlai as the Chinese ne-
gotiator, but Ohira remained the negotiator on the Japa nese side. In his
meeting with Ohira, Ji Pengfei wrote out messages that were taken to an-
other room, and written answers would then come back. The Japa nese as-
sumed that Ji was communicating with Zhou Enlai, who was sending back
the Chinese responses.
On the third eve ning, the Chinese surprised the Japa nese by announcing
that Chairman Mao would meet Prime Minister Tanaka and Foreign Min-
ister Ohira. Mao told Tanaka that the expression “incon ve nience” ( mafan)
had been too casual, that it was to be used when, for example, one spilled
water on a woman’s skirt. However, the hour- long meeting with Chairman
Mao took the negotiations over the hump, for Mao basically approved the
conclusions reached thus far. On the third day, Tanaka asked Zhou his views
on the Senkaku / Diaoyu Islands. Zhou replied that it was better not to dis-
cuss the issue at that point. In fact, the islands became a prob lem only later,
after oil was discovered in the area. Although Zhou had originally insisted
that Japan announce a date when it would break off relations with Taiwan,
Ohira told Zhou that he was not able to set a specific date; however, he did
promise that Japan would end diplomatic relations and Zhou accepted his
promise. On September 29, as flags from both countries were flying amid
flashing cameras, Prime Minister Tanaka, Premier Zhou Enlai, Foreign
Minister Ohira, and Foreign Minister Ji Pengfei signed the normalization
agreement. The next day, September 30, Zhou and Ji accompanied the Japa-
nese del e ga tion to Shanghai as planned, and on the following day Zhou
Enlai, Liao Cheng
zhi, and a crowd of other Chinese officials saw off the
Japa nese del e ga tion at the Shanghai airport.
In a joint communiqué released on September 29, 1972, Japan agreed to
issue a clear and strong statement about the damages it had caused: “The
Japa nese side is keenly conscious of the responsibility for the serious damage
that Japan caused in the past to the Chinese people through war and deeply
reproaches itself.” China had initially demanded that Japan recognize that
Taiwan was part of China, but in the end the two sides accepted a formula
whereby Japan understood China’s point of view but stopped short of saying
it accepted it. The document reads: “The government of the People’s Republic
of China reiterates that Taiwan is an inalienable part of the territory of the
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china and japan
People’s Republic of China. The government of Japan fully understands
and re spects this stand of the People’s Republic of China.”
Within Japan, the new friends of China, mainstream politicians and
business hopefuls, replaced the old friends of China, the leftists, including
the Socialists and Communists who had previously objected to Japa nese
mainstream opinion that did not recognize China. Some in Japan who had
been friends of China before 1972 even felt betrayed by China, which was
now dealing with their domestic enemies, the mainstream politicians and
businessmen. As Robert Hoppens notes, the old friends of China had often
been leery of patriotism, for it was tied too closely to Japan’s aggressive past.
After 1972 some new “friends of China” hoped that by improving relations
with China, the primary victim of Japa nese aggression, Japan could regain
a positive view of patriotism and end the negative self- criticism that had
been so prominent in the country during the early years after the war.
To many in Japan, wherever they stood on the po liti cal spectrum, nor-
malization gave rise to the hope that the people of China and Japan could
become friends, bound together by their common culture. Many thoughtful
Japa nese who had reached maturity after World War II, too young to feel
responsible for Japan’s actions during the war, believed that to show their
sincerity they should focus not on apologizing for events that took place
before they reached adulthood but on finding ways to help China modernize
China and Japan Page 51
