of representatives from diff er ent localities who had supported the revolu-
tion met in Nanjing and selected Sun as leader of the new Republic of
China. He was officially inaugurated as provisional president on January 1,
1912. Because Sun was an effective publicist and fundraiser and had trav-
eled widely, he was well known in overseas Chinese communities. His Three
Princi ples, which he publicly enunciated in 1905— nationalism, democracy,
livelihood— did not represent a well- developed philosophy, and their con-
tent was modified over the years, but they became an effective banner for
mobilizing support for the revolution among the Chinese living overseas.
Sun’s skills as a practical po liti cal or ga nizer, as Marie- Claire Bergère
makes clear, did not match his skills as a publicist. After Yuan Shikai and his
troops took over the government on February 12, 1912, Sun sought refuge in
Japan. At this time, he was not a promising revolutionary and a potential
president of China but a refugee without a clear future. His former allies in
Japan were seeking to do business with the one in power, Yuan Shikai. But
Sun was secretly courting Song Qingling, the daughter of a rich busi-
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nessman, Charlie Soong, even though she was a generation younger than
he. In 1915, against her father’s orders, she left home and went to Tokyo,
where she married Sun. (She was the second of four daughters; the youn-
gest, Song Meiling, would later wed Chiang Kai- shek, in a marriage also
consummated in Japan.) When Song Qingling ran away to marry him,
Sun lost the support of her father, of other Chinese who valued filial piety,
and of Christians, both in China and abroad, who objected to Sun’s mar-
riage without first divorcing his previous wife. From 1918 to 1920 Sun and
his new wife lived in the French Concession in Shanghai and rarely took
part in public activities.
In 1920, in an effort to regain national po liti cal power and become the
leader of all of China, Sun tried to establish a base in Guangzhou, but he
had difficulty with the local warlord Chen Jiongming, who wanted to main-
tain a strong base in Guangdong and did not want to waste resources on
attempts to retake the whole country. In early 1923 Sun, his base in Guang-
zhou precarious, turned to the Soviet Union, with whose help he was able
to make use of mercenaries who defeated Chen Jiongming.
With Soviet help, Sun also attracted some po liti cal talent to Guangdong,
including a number of leftists who would later become key found ers of
the Chinese Communist Party in 1921. In January 1924 Sun put Chiang
Kai- shek in charge of planning for the new Huangpu Military Acad emy,
which was to train officers for a national army that would unify the country,
and by May 1924 500 cadets had arrived for the first class. Po liti cal training
at the acad emy was conducted under Liao Zhongkai, father of Liao Chengzhi,
and Zhou Enlai who served in the Po liti cal Department. In 1923, Sun in-
vited Mao Zedong to launch a Peasant Training Institute in Guangzhou to
train cadres who would then go to the countryside and mobilize peasants
for the Communist cause.
On November 1, 1924, Sun received a formal invitation from the war-
lord Feng Yuxiang to attend a conference in Beijing on national unification,
and Sun, thinking that he might play an impor tant role, accepted. On
November 13 Sun boarded a ship to travel from Hong Kong to Shanghai,
then to Kobe, and then to Tianjin. While in Kobe from November 24 to 30,
Sun delivered a speech entitled “Doctrine of Greater Asia,” in which he
praised Japan for freeing itself from domination by Western civilization,
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Biographies of Key Figures
and he argued for cooperation among the East Asian countries to abolish
the unequal treaties. Sun was seriously ill by the time he arrived in Tianjin,
and the next day he was hospitalized. Guomin dang officials assembled
in the hospital to discuss the future of their party, and Sun there approved
the testament written for him by Wang Jing wei. Sun never left the hospital.
He died on March 12, 1925.
Western scholars studying Sun Yat- sen have acknowledged his role as
a publicist and his historical importance, but they do not regard him as one
who possessed great leadership skills or theoretical insights. However, he
has been elevated to a grand position in official Chinese writings. Although
the Guomin dang and the Communist Party split two years after his death,
each claimed to be Sun’s rightful heir. In writings about Sun, both the Com-
munists and the Guomin dang glorify him as the father of the 1911 Revolu-
tion and a great patriotic leader who courageously and wisely worked to
unify the country. Chiang Kai- shek presented himself as Sun’s ever- loyal
follower, dedicated to carry ing out his mission. In 1929 Chiang brought Sun’s
coffin to Purple Mountain in Nanjing, where it was placed in a large tomb
that can only be approached by climbing a long flight of stairs. During World
War II, in writings about Sun’s career, neither the Guomin dang nor the
Communists discussed Sun’s close relations with the Japa nese.
For further reading, see Marie- Claire Bergère, Sun Yat- sen (Stanford,
Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1998); Marius B. Jansen, The Japa nese and
Sun Yat- sen (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1970).
Takasaki Tatsunosuke, 1885–1964
Businessman Takasaki Tatsunosuke was the head of Manchurian Heavy
Industry from 1942 to 1945, a group that included all the factories in Man-
churia. In this position, he tried to promote industrial efficiency while at
the same time coping with Japa nese military commanders who did not un-
derstand business. In 1944–1945, he also had to deal with factory damage
caused by U.S. air raids. After World War II, from 1945 to 1948 he served
as president of the association of Japa nese who stayed in Manchuria, nego-
tiating in turn with the Rus sians, the Guomin dang, and the Communists
for the livelihood and repatriation of the Japa nese in Manchuria and for the
maintenance of production in the factories that were still operating. After
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Biographies of Key Figures
returning to Japan, Takasaki promoted trade with China, and in 1962 he
represented Japan in negotiations with Liao Chengzhi to create the Liao-
Takasaki agreements that increased trade between the two countries.
Takasaki grew up in a farm family in a village located between Kyoto
and Osaka, where he had the reputation of being mischievous and adven-
turesome. In school, he was influenced by a teacher who told students that
because Japan had such a small amount of arable land, it could not grow all
the food it needed. The teacher said that fish from the waters in the vicinity
of Japan should be canned and exported to other countries, earning income
that could then be used to purchase grain to feed the local population. At
the time, Japan had only one fishery training program, the Imperial Fish-
eries Institute, a three- year techn
ical high school in Tokyo that had been
established in 1889 by the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce. After
completing ju nior middle school, Takasaki enrolled in the Imperial Fish-
eries Institute in September 1902, with a major in manufacturing. During
his time there, the Russo- Japanese War broke out, and to meet the huge
increase in demand for canned fish to feed the Japa nese soldiers, students
from the school were sent to areas along Japan’s coast to assist at the local
canneries. Thus Takasaki acquired early practical experience in manufac-
turing. After he graduated, he worked for several years in fish canning at
Oriental Fisheries (Toyo Suisan) in Japan. In an effort to help build a better
market for Japanese canned fish abroad, Takasaki traveled to the United
States, where he found a job in a small cannery in San Diego. After vari ous
ventures with American fish canning in California and along the coast of
Mexico, he helped Californians improve their tuna canning pro cess.
While in California Takasaki met a mining engineer, Herbert Hoover,
who was interested in developing mines in Tangshan, China and who
later would become president of the United States. Like Hoover, who be-
came a lifelong friend, Takasaki believed the goal of business should be to
bring happiness to humankind, provide social ser vices, and make employees
into stockholders.
After several years in North Amer i ca, Takasaki returned to Japan, and
in 1915 he founded his own com pany, Toyo Seikan, that made cans for the
fishing industry. He hired two U.S. canning engineers and imported U.S.
can- making machinery, which was far superior to what his competitors in
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Biographies of Key Figures
Japan were using. He standardized products, expanded the production of
cans for other products, and within several years he had the largest can-
making com pany in Japan.
When the United States, concerned about Japan’s aggression in China,
began restricting sales of steel and tin to Japan, Takasaki traveled to Man-
churia on several occasions in search of new supplies. Ayukawa Gisuke, head
of Nissan in Manchuria, was impressed with Takasaki and invited him to
join his com pany in Manchuria. For several years Takasaki refused the offer,
but fi nally, in February 1941, he accepted the position of vice president of
Manchuria Industries. Takasaki and Ayukawa had both opposed Japan’s
pact with Germany and Italy and its declaration of war on the United States,
but they accepted responsibility for trying to improve their country’s indus-
trial capacity.
Japa nese factories in Manchuria had originally been or ga nized by the
military, which treated the workers like slave labor and was only concerned
with output, not efficiency. Ayukawa and Takasaki both found it difficult
to work with the military, but they sought to improve efficiency and working
conditions. When Ayukawa’s term in Manchuria ended in 1942, he returned
to Japan, leaving Takasaki as president of Manchuria Industries. Takasaki,
although still under pressure from the military, tried to clean up the plants,
make production more efficient, and develop better relationships with
the industrial workers, who were mostly Japa nese, as well as with the ser-
vice personnel, who were mostly Chinese. After July 1944, when U.S. forces
conquered Saipan, from which American B-29 bombers could reach Man-
churia, the factories were frequently bombed and it was Takasaki’s respon-
sibility to oversee repairs and maintain production.
Takasaki’s family returned to Japan before the end of the war, but he
remained in Manchuria. Japa nese soldiers began returning home soon after
the war ended, but many civilians were left behind. Several leading Japa-
nese civilians in Manchuria began organ izing to provide food, shelter, and
eventually repatriation for fellow Japa nese citizens stranded there, and they
asked Takasaki to be president of their association. By March 1946 some
25,000 of the Japa nese stranded in Changchun had died. As the head of the
industrial sector in Manchuria, Takasaki was useful to the Soviets and later
to the Chinese, who wanted to see production continue. He thus had le-
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Biographies of Key Figures
verage as a negotiator with the Soviets in the association’s efforts to find food
and shelter for the Japa nese. In April 1946, after the start of the Civil War,
Changchun was occupied by the Communists, whom Takasaki found to
be very disciplined, and they in turn found Takasaki to be reasonable to
work with.
In May 1946 the Guomin dang retook Changchun and Takasaki pro-
ceeded to work with them. The Guomin dang wanted the factories to re-
sume production and Takasaki was useful to them in managing the facto-
ries. Takasaki wanted to restore the industry that he had worked so hard
to build and he also wanted to be useful to the Chinese. In July 1946 the
Guomin dang reor ga nized their offices for dealing with the Japa nese in Man-
churia, but they retained Takasaki as president of the association for
stranded Japa nese civilians. Although most of the Japa nese wanted to be
repatriated, they were willing to work in Manchurian factories until they
could return. More than one million Japa nese in Manchuria were repatri-
ated between May and October 1946, but in December 1946 more than
9,000 Japa nese engineers and 21,000 family members were still in Man-
churia, employed by the Guomin dang government. With diminished re-
sources for manufacturing, the need for Japa nese engineers declined, and
by September 1947 fewer than 1,400 Japa nese engineers, with fewer than
5,000 family members, remained in the factories. Takasaki, realizing that
some would still have to remain, de cided that he personally would stay until
all Japa nese wishing to return to Japan could do so. In October 1947 the
Guomin dang sent Takasaki to Japan to negotiate with Japa nese steel facto-
ries for war reparations. He tried to convince the Occupation forces that
Japan should pay reparations, but shortly thereafter the Allied Occupation
officials de cided not to force the Japa nese to pay such reparations. In
November 1947 he was purged by the Occupation for cooperating with
Japan’s war time efforts, but in August 1951 the purge was lifted.
In 1952 Prime Minister Yoshida appointed Takasaki president of
J- Power, where he proceeded to help rebuild Japan’s electric power industry.
In 1955 Takasaki became a cabinet member as head of the Ministry of Trade
and Industry and also head of the newly established Economic Planning
Agency.
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Biographies of Key Figures
Takasaki retained a desire to help rebuild Chinese industry and to im-
prove relations between the two countries. In 1955 he attended the Bandung
Conference in Jakarta that China was using to expand its relations with
other countries. At the conference, Zhou Enlai invited Takasaki, through
his interpreter Liao Chengzhi, to visit the factories that had been established
in Manchuria. Zhou explained that the Soviets had taken
much of the
equipment but the factories had been revived by the Chinese. Takasaki was
personally ready to accept Zhou’s invitation to begin talks about expanding
trade with Japan, but he did not have his government’s permission to move
ahead. Their 1955 meeting, however, paved the way for the future establish-
ment of formal Sino- Japanese trade relations through what became known
as the Liao- Takasaki agreement. In the spring of 1960 when Takasaki vis-
ited the United States, he told an American senator that “Japan should help
China in an effort to atone for its acts of aggression.” At the time, Takasaki
was receiving threatening letters from right- wing groups in Japan, and in
October 1960 two young men were sent to assassinate him, but they were
unsuccessful. Takasaki believed that it was in Japan’s interest to improve
relations with China, so he kept working to rebuild ties and to expand trade
with China. In 1962 Liao Chengzhi and Takasaki Tatsunosuke signed an
agreement on long- term comprehensive trade, establishing semiformal ar-
rangements to expand trade between the two countries. The Liao- Takasaki
agreement was updated in 1964, shortly before Takasaki’s death. In October
1978, when Deng Xiaoping visited Osaka, he met with Takasaki’s daughter,
whom he had asked to see, to express his appreciation for her father’s
contribution to Sino- Japanese relations.
For further reading, see Mayumi Itoh, Pioneers of Sino- Japanese Relations:
Liao and Takasaki (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).
Tanaka Kakuei, 1918–1993
Unlike the elite, well- educated former bureaucrats who dominated Japa nese
politics after World War II, Tanaka Kakuei, prime minister from July 1972
to December 1974, had little formal education and was a rough commoner
from rural Niigata. Nevertheless, he is considered one of the most brilliant
and effective po liti cal deal makers, or “fixers,” in Japa nese history. Known
as a “computerized bulldozer” for his ability to remember massive amounts
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Biographies of Key Figures
of information and to charge ahead, in 1972, within three months after be-
coming prime minister, he was already in Beijing normalizing Sino- Japanese
relations. For the first time since World War II the Japa nese flag was flying
in Beijing. Tanaka and Zhou Enlai signed their agreement not with
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