The Search for Reconciliation: Sino-Japanese and German-Polish Relations since World War II

The Search for Reconciliation

Why have some former enemy countries established durable peace, whereas others remain mired in animosity? When and how does historical memory matter in postconflict interstate relations? Focusing on two case studies, Yinan He argues that the key to interstate reconciliation is the harmonization of national memories. Conversely, memory divergence resulting from national mythmaking harms long-term prospects for reconciliation. After World War II, Sino-Japanese and West German–Polish relations were both antagonized by the Cold War structure, and pernicious myths prevailed in national collective memory. In the 1970s, China and Japan brushed aside historical legacy for immediate diplomatic normalization. But the progress of reconciliation was soon impeded in the 1980s by elite mythmaking practices that stressed historical animosities. In contrast, from the 1970s West Germany and Poland began to demythify war history and narrow their memory gap through restitution measures and textbook cooperation, paving the way for significant progress toward reconciliation after the Cold War. Yinan He received her Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2004 and is currently Assistant Professor at the John C. Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University. She was a postdoctoral research associate of the Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program in 2007–2008, an An Wang Postdoctoral Fellow in Chinese Studies at Harvard University in 2004–2005, a John M. Olin Predoctoral Fellow in National Security at Harvard University in 2003–2004, and a research student at the University of Tokyo in 1999–2001, sponsored by the Japanese Government Mombusho¯ Scholarship. She holds a B.A. from Peking University and an M.A. from Fudan University in international politics.

The Search for Reconciliation Sino-Japanese and German-Polish Relations since World War II

YINAN HE

cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao ˜ Paulo, Delhi Cambridge University Press 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, ny 10013-2473, usa www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521514408 © Yinan He 2009 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2009 Printed in the United States of America A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data He, Yinan The search for reconciliation : Sino-Japanese and German-Polish relations since World War II / Yinan He. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-521-51440-8 (hardback) 1. Peaceful change (International relations) – Case studies. 2. Conflict management – Case studies. 3. Germany (West) – Foreign relations – Poland. 4. Poland – Foreign relations – Germany (West) 5. Japan – Foreign relations – China. 6. China – Foreign relations – Japan. 7. International security. 8. Reconciliation. 9. Nationalism – China – Japan – Germany – Poland. 10. Historical memory. I. Title. jz5597.h42 2009 327.51052 – dc22 2008046597 isbn 978-0-521-51440-8 hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Information regarding prices, travel timetables, and other factual information given in this work are correct at the time of first printing, but Cambridge University Press does not guarantee the accuracy of such information thereafter.

To my husband, Wang Pei, with love and gratitude

Contents

Tables and Illustrations Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations List of Postwar Japanese Prime Ministers and (West) German Chancellors Chronology Introduction

page ix xi xv xvii xix 1

1. Explaining Deep Interstate Reconciliation 2. When East Meets West: Postwar German-Polish Reconciliation 3. Initial Isolation: Pre-Normalization Sino-Japanese Relations

115

4. The “Honeymoon” Period: Sino-Japanese Relations, 1972–1981

174

5. An Old Feud Comes Back: Sino-Japanese Relations in the 1980s 6. Volatility and Downward Spiral: Sino-Japanese Relations from the 1990s to the Present Conclusion

12 46

206 234 289

Appendix Bibliography

313 315

Index

351

vii

Tables and Illustrations

tables 1.1. Measuring Interstate Reconciliation page 17 1.2. Competing Theoretical Predictions for Interstate Reconciliation 42 2.1. Poland’s Imports from Major Trade Partners, 1937–1970 55 2.2. Foreign Tourists to Poland, 1960–1970 57 3.1. The Composition of Japan’s Foreign Trade by Market, 1952–1970 157 3.2. Japanese Worry about War Entanglement in the 1960s 170 3.3. Visitors between Japan and China, 1964–1971 171 4.1. China’s Share in Japan’s Total Imports of Natural Resources, 1972–2000 198 4.2. Japan’s Societal Contacts with China, Taiwan, and South Korea, 1972–1980 203 7.1. Summary of Theory Tests 290

figures 1.1. National Mythmaking: The Impact of Emotion and Intention 2.1. German-Polish Trade Relations, 1953–2004 2.2. Polish Polls: The Possibility of German-Polish Reconciliation 3.1. Japanese Public Feeling about China and the USSR in the 1960s 4.1. Share of Sino-Japanese Trade in Each Other’s Total Trade, 1972–2004

34 71 109 166 198 ix

x

Tables and Illustrations

4.2. Japanese Public Feelings of Closeness toward China, 1978–2007 5.1. China-Japan Trade, 1981–1989 6.1. Chinese Strategic Studies of Japan that Made Superficial (prejudiced & simplistic) Historical Analogies, 1990–1997 6.2. China-Japan Mutual Contacts, 1981–1999

201 225 256 266

Acknowledgments

In writing about the origins of interstate reconciliation in East Asia and Central Europe, I have had the support of many mentors, friends, and institutions. My greatest debt is to the committee at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that supervised my doctoral dissertation, of which this monograph is a revised version. Each committee member in his own way demonstrated to me what it means to be both a great scholar and superb teacher. Stephen Van Evera tirelessly guided me on all aspects of this project from its inception and advised me in every critical stage as I struggled to turn it into a book. Over the years, he has become my spiritual pillar and the role model for my academic life. This book originated from a research note I prepared for Richard Samuels as a graduate research assistant. It was with his encouragment and support that I undertook to pursue a specialization in Japan, a country that I had little prior knowledge of; learn the Japanese language from the basic alphabets; and conduct extended fieldwork in Japan. I am most fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with Thomas Christensen on the project from the initial research stage until its completion. From him I received extremely constructive, sharp, and comprehensive comments. Barry Posen always pushed me for deeper and more sophisticated thinking, yet he was also generous and kind, giving me enormous amounts of time and guidance to help me approach his high standards. I am especially thankful to John Dower, Alastair Iain Johnston, Melissa Nobles, and Roger Petersen for their tremendous inspiration and support throughout the project. John Dower, as well as Stephen Van Evera, taught me that a real scholar should have the courage and wisdom to critically evaluate the nationalist myths and biases in one’s own country. xi

xii

Acknowledgments

John Dower opened many doors for me in exploring source materials and building research connections and kindly read and commented on various parts of the manuscript. Alastair Iain Johnston has been both a mentor and friend ever since we met in Beijing fifteen years ago. I am greatly indebted to him for a strong interest in ideational forces in international relations and the desire to pursue social scientific rigorousness. Melissa Nobles and Roger Petersen significantly shaped my understanding of some key concepts employed in the book, including reconciliation, historical memory, identity, and emotions, and gave valuable criticisms for my writings even after I had graduated from MIT. I benefited greatly from the detailed comments made by Thomas Berger, William Callahan, Daniel Chirot, Taylor Fravel, Edward Friedman, Jacques Hymans, Gilbert Rozman, and Allen Whiting, who read, sometimes more than once, portions or the whole of the manuscript. Research advice and feedback from the following people at various stages of the project also had important influence: Amitav Acharya, Muthiah Alagappa, Verena Blechinger-Talcott, Paul Cohen, Peter Gries, Jan Gross, Wanda Jarzabek, Paul Midford, Peter Perdue, Dan Philpott, Robert Ross, Susan Shirk, Timothy Snyder, Shogo Suzuki, Peter Van Ness, Ezra Vogel, Xin Xu, Daqing Yang, Dingxing Zhao, Quansheng Zhao, and Suisheng Zhao. Two anonymous reviewers gave me numerous valuable suggestions that greatly helped me improve the manuscript. I am also grateful for the friendship and spiritual support of many colleagues as I worked on the project in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Tokyo; and Princeton. With Ariel David Adesnik, David Art, Mayling Birney, Ian Ja Chong, George Gavrilis, Michael Glosny, Ron Hassner, Eric Heginbotham, Llewelyn Hughes, Andrew Kennedy, Jennifer Lind, David Mendeloff, Paul Midford, Edward Miller, Manjari Miller, Conor O’Dwyer, James Reilly, Holger Schmidt, Shiqi Tang, Christopher Twomey, and Chikako Kawakatsu Ueki, I frequently bounced around research ideas and enjoyed their merciless but enormously helpful comments. Numerous Chinese and Japanese scholars, diplomats, journalists, and social activists graciously accepted my interviews for this project. I want to thank those who helped me set up key interviews in China and/or locate critical source materials. They include Zhu Mingquan and Shen Dingli, both my former advisers at Fudan University, Sun Ru from the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, Fan Shiming at Peking University, Li Dongyan and Wang Yizhou at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Chen Qi at Tsinghua University, Wang Xuejun and Wu Yaokun from the China Reform Forum, Zhang Qingmin from the

Acknowledgments

xiii

China Foreign Affairs University, Marzenna James from Princeton University, Lu Haiyan from the Chinese National Library, Wang Chengzhi at the Columbia University library, and Zhong Shaohua from the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences. Quan Yuhong from China Radio International and Jin Yong helped me locate the historic photo for the cover of this book. My field research in Japan would not have been possible had Shiroyama Hideaki at the Faculty of Law of the University of Tokyo not kindly sponsored my application for the Japanese Mombusho¯ Scholarship. Chen Zhao-bin, Fujiwara Kiichi, Inoguchi Takashi, Ishii Akira, ¯ Kimijima Kazuhiko, Liu Jie, Mizuno Takaaki, Okonogi Masao, Onuma Yasuaki, Soeya Yoshihide, Soma Masaru, Takasaki Soji, ¯ ¯ Tanaka Akihiko, Yoshida Yutaka, and Yui Daizaburo¯ let me attend their seminars and/or spent time with me discussing research. My Japanese tutor and colleague at the University of Tokyo, Machida Yuko, gave me immeasurable help regarding Japanese language, culture, and academic circles. Needless to say, the responsibility for any mistakes in this book lies solely with me. MIT, the United States Institute of Peace, the MacArthur Foundation, the John M. Olin Institute of Strategic Studies at Harvard University, and the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy supported the writing stage of the dissertation. Generous fellowships from the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research of Harvard University and the Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program funded the book manuscript revision and made possible its timely completion. This project also received financial support from the Faculty Development Grants of Seton Hall University and the American Association of University Women. I thank Harvey Sapolsky at the MIT Security Studies Program and Richard Samuels, Kenneth Oye, and Bill Keller at the MIT Center for International Studies; Stephen Rosen, Monica Toft, and Ann Townes at the Olin Institute; Wilt Idema, Ronald Suleski, and Wen-Hao Tien at the Fairbank Center; Lynn White and Rita Alpaugh at Princeton University; and Robert De Martino at Seton Hall University for facilitating my research. Many thanks to Eric Crahan at Cambridge University Press and Mary Paden at Aptara Inc., whose superb professionalism made a smooth production of this book possible. No words are sufficient to express gratitude to my family back in China – my father, He Changsong; mother, Kuai Liming; sister, He Yijiang; and brother-in-law, Wang Guojian – for their understanding of and unfailing support for my academic career. Special thanks go to

xiv

Acknowledgments

my host parents, Joyce and Joe Baclawski, whose longtime love and care have stayed with me from the very first day I arrived in the United States as a graduate student. Dear friends Du Yanqing, Zhang Haiyan, Fu Guangyu, and Sharon Weiner assisted me in overcoming any hardships over the years and never let me miss a step. No one, however, contributed more to this project than my husband, Wang Pei. Pei has endured the ordeal of being the life partner of an academic, including years of living apart when I was off to the field and countless lonely holidays and weekends when I immersed myself in work. He also comes in handy as my research assistant, book-carrying laborer, computer troubleshooter, indexer, proofreader, and in many other roles. Since the years we were undergraduate classmates at Peking University, Pei has always been on my side, protecting me, cheering me up, and sharing with me all the ups and downs in my life. This book is for Pei, who is the source of my happiness and strength.

List of Abbreviations

CASS CCP CDU CHINCOM CoCom CSU EU FDP FRG GDR IJS JCP JSP KMT LDP MITI NGO PFT PLA PPR PRC PZPR ROC ROK SCAP

Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Chinese Communist Party Christian Democratic Union (Germany) China Committee Coordinating Committee Christian Social Union (Germany) European Union Free Democratic Party (Germany) Federal Republic of Germany German Democratic Republic Institute of Japanese Studies (CASS) Japan Communist Party Japan Socialist Party Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) Liberal Democratic Party (Japan) Ministry of International Trade and Industry (Japan) nongovernmental organization Peace and Friendship Treaty (China and Japan) People’s Liberation Army (China) Polish Workers’ Party People’s Republic of China Polish United Workers’ Party Republic of China Republic of Korea Supreme Command for the Allied Powers xv

List of Abbreviations

xvi

SDF SPD UNSC

Self-Defense Forces (Japan) Social Democratic Party (Germany) United Nations Security Council

Chinese and Japanese personal names in this book are given in the traditional order of family name followed by given name unless a Chinese or Japanese author has reversed his or her name in a publication in English. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from the Chinese and Japanese are by the author. The Pinyin system is used for romanization of Chinese words except for a few cases, such as Chiang Kai-shek, Sun Yat-sen, Yenan, and Kuomintang, in which the alternative romanizations are better known in the West.

List of Postwar Japanese Prime Ministers and (West) German Chancellors

1945. 1946. 1947. 1948. 1949. 1954. 1956. 1957. 1960. 1963. 1964. 1966. 1969. 1972. 1974. 1976. 1978. 1980. 1982. 1987. 1989.

August October May May March October September December December February July October November December October July May December December December July October November November June August

Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko Shidehara Kijur ¯ o¯ Yoshida Shigeru Katayama Tetsu Ashida Hitoshi Yoshida Shigeru Konrad Adenauer Hatoyama Ichiro¯ Ishibashi Tanzan Kishi Nobusuke Ikeda Hayato Ludwig Erhard Sato¯ Eisaku Kurt Georg Kiesinger Willy Brandt Tanaka Kakuei Helmut Schmidt Miki Takeo Fukuda Takeo ¯ Ohira Masayoshi Suzuki Zenko¯ Helmut Kohl Nakasone Yasuhiro Takeshita Noboru Uno Sosuke ¯ Kaifu Toshiki xvii

xviii

1991. 1993. 1994. 1996. 1998. 2000. 2001. 2005. 2006. 2007. 2008.

Postwar Japanese PMs and (West) German Chancellors November August April June January July October April April November September September September

Miyazawa Kiichi Hosokawa Morihiro Hata Tsutomu Murayama Tomiichi Hashimoto Ryutar ¯ o¯ Obuchi Keizo¯ Gerhard Fritz Kurt Schroder ¨ Mori Yoshiro¯ Koizumi Junichiro¯ Angela Merkel Abe Shinzo¯ Fukuda Yasuo Aso Taro¯

Chronology

1945 1949 1950 1951 1952 1955

1958 1962 1966 1969 1970 1972

1976

1977 1978

World War II ended The FRG and the GDR were established Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance was signed San Francisco Peace Treaty and U.S.-Japan Security Treaty were signed Japan-ROC Treaty of Peace was signed West Germany joined NATO The Warsaw Pact was established West Germany declared the Hallstein Doctrine The Nagasaki Flag Incident China-Japan LT Trade Agreement was signed China’s Cultural Revolution began (ended in 1976) U.S.-Japan Joint Statement following the Nixon-Sato¯ meeting Willy Brandt knelt down at the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial West Germany and Poland signed the Warsaw Treaty China and Japan issued the joint statement for diplomatic normalization German-Polish textbook cooperation began German-Polish Textbook Commission published the “Recommendations on History and Geography Textbooks in the Federal Republic of Germany and the People’s Republic of Poland” Schmidt spoke at Auschwitz-Birkenau China-Japan PFT was signed xix

xx

1979 1980 1981 1982 1985

1986 1987 1989 1990

1991

1992 1994 1995

1996

1999 2001

2003

Chronology ¯ Ohira visited China, providing the first yen loan package to China Solidarity movement began in Poland The Polish government adopted martial law Japanese textbook controversy erupted The Twelfth Party Congress of the CCP The Bitburg Affair in West Germany Nakasone worshiped at the Yasukuni Shrine on August 15 in official capacity Anti-Japanese student demonstrations erupted in China The Historikerstreit in West Germany began CCP general secretary Hu Yaobang stepped down The Kokary o¯ controversy intensified ¯ The June Fourth Tiananmen Incident in China Germany and Poland signed the treaty on the confirmation of their existing border China-Japan disputes over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands Germany and Poland signed the Treaty on Good Neighborly Relations and Friendly Cooperation The Warsaw Pact was dissolved Emperor Akihito visited China Herzog attended the ceremony commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising Taiwan Strait Crisis began (ended in 1996) Japan froze grant aid to China in protest of Chinese nuclear tests The controversy over the Diet resolution on war history in Japan Kohl attended the ceremony commemorating the Nazi victims at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp Hashimoto worshiped at the Yasukuni Shrine China-Japan diplomatic crisis over the Diaoyu/Senkaku disputes Poland joined NATO Koizumi began annual worship at the Yasukuni Shrine (last one on August 15, 2006) Polish president apologized to Jews for the Jedwabne Massacre The controversy over the Center against Expulsions began in Germany

Chronology 2004

2005 2006 2007 2008

xxi

China-Japan disputes over East China Sea gas fields escalated Schroder attended the ceremony commemorating the sixtieth ¨ anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising Anti-Japanese mass demonstrations erupted in China Schroder spoke at Auschwitz ¨ Abe visited China China-Japan joint history project was launched Fukuda visited China Hu Jintao visited Japan China and Japan agreed on joint development of East China Sea gas fields

Introduction

In the aftermath of traumatic conflicts, why have some former enemy countries managed to establish durable peace whereas others remain mired in animosity? Does historical memory play an important role in shaping postconflict interstate relationships? This book has two main goals: to explore the origins of interstate reconciliation and to generalize causal links between historical ideas and international relations. Both are understudied but extremely important subjects in the field of international relations. I argue that the key to realizing deep reconciliation is the harmonization of national memories between the parties involved. The memory divergence that comes about as a result of national mythmaking tends to harm the long-term prospects of reconciliation. As H. Richard Niebuhr says in The Meaning of Revelation, “Where common memory is lacking, where [people] do not share in the same past, there can be no real community, and where community is to be formed common memory must be created. . . . [T]he measure of our unity is the extent of our common memory.”1 This line of argument directly challenges the standard realist explanation of international relations. For a hard-nosed realist concerned primarily about power, reconciliation is equated with political and military cooperation that should occur when states have common strategic interests, and the remembering and forgetting of traumatic history are irrelevant to reconciliation. This book, on the other hand, proposes the concept of deep interstate reconciliation, which is posited on the assumption that 1

Quoted in Shriver, “Long Road to Reconciliation,” 210.

1

2

The Search for Reconciliation

countries share the understanding that war is unthinkable and hold generally amicable feelings toward each other. Deep reconciliation is a kind of relationship that has to be cemented not only by shared short-run security needs but also by sustainable mutual understanding and trust. Because the enduring memory of past trauma can fuel mutual grievances and mistrust, nations cannot avoid addressing historical memory when searching for a path to reconciliation. Deep reconciliation matters. It is almost a truism that peace means the absence of war, so ending war should bring about peace. Social scientists have long emphasized the importance of conflict resolution measures, such as negotiation, good offices, arbitration, conciliation, and mediation, as the main pathway from conflict to peace.2 Viewing the end of conflict as the result of settling clashing interests, however, the conflict resolution perspective rarely addresses “how peace, once obtained, can be stabilized and maintained.”3 A world without armed conflicts is not inherently peaceful. Beyond bringing war to an end, much more work is needed to dispel the psychological and emotional shadows of past trauma that could again cause the use of force. Studies on “enduring rivalries” show that a great proportion of international militarized conflicts are concentrated in a small number of dyadic relationships.4 A rivalry becomes enduring not necessarily because the same conflict of interest does not get resolved, but often because the psychological wounds suffered in the last traumatic conflict were never treated in a timely and satisfactory manner, begetting new conflicts time and again. Deep reconciliation, aiming at the removal of this historical burden, offers a solution to such a vicious cycle. As Nadler and Saguy remind us, sustainable peace is realized through both resolving the actual problems between enemies and “addressing the emotional barriers that separate them through processes of reconciliation.”5 The importance of deep reconciliation is illuminated by post–Cold War international relations. When the East-West ideological and strategic

2

3 4 5

For some recent peace study works emphasizing the conflict resolution approach, see Deutsch and Coleman, Handbook of Conflict Resolution; Greig, “Moments of Opportunity”; Jeong, Peace and Conflict Studies; and Kriesberg and Thorson, Timing the Deescalation. Kacowicz and Bar-Siman-Tov, “Stable Peace,” 13. Diehl and Goertz, War and Peace. Nadler and Saguy, “Reconciliation between Nations,” 30. Other recent works devoting attention to reconciliation, not just conflict resolution, include Bar-Tal, “From Intractable Conflict”; Keogh and Haltzel, Northern Ireland; and Krepon and Sevak, Crisis Prevention.

Introduction

3

confrontation receded, ancient bitterness about historical trauma reemerged as a major threat to international peace. East Asia saw a resurgence of vivid memories of Japanese aggression in the early twentieth century.6 The lack of deep reconciliation between Japan and its neighbors has cast a dismal shadow over the prospect of regional security cooperation in Asia.7 Likewise, long-standing rivals in other regions, such as the Israelis and Palestinians and the people of India and Pakistan, have not overcome their hereditary feuds to attain true peace. But history also provides reasons to be optimistic. Deep reconciliation has come to the postwar Franco-German relationship. After the end of World War II, the two countries formed a security alliance, engaged in European integration, and even jointly wrote history textbooks. Similarly, despite brutal fighting that was ended by the use of nuclear weapons, the United States and Japan put the past behind them and established the most solid alliance in the postwar Asian-Pacific region.8 Profound changes signaling reconciliation have also emerged between Germany and its Central and Eastern European neighbors, including Poland and the Czech Republic.9 In some other cases where deep reconciliation has yet to materialize, such as that of Greece and Turkey, various governmental and civilian efforts toward this goal are gaining momentum.10 To study the path to deep reconciliation, this book considers mainly two competing theories. The first is a realist theory that focuses on external material threats as the driving forces in international relations. Proponents of this theory assume that states exist in an anarchic world in which the self-help principle prompts competitive security policies and in which cooperation is a rare phenomenon. Only states with the shared goal of balancing against a common external threat would develop solid cooperation. This logic of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” has wide 6

7

8

9

10

Fujiwara, “Senso¯ no Kioku”; “Japan’s Murky Past Catches Up,” Economist, July 8, 2000; “Not Bought Off: Former Sex Slaves Want Compensation, Not Charity,” Far East Economic Review 159, No. 30 (1996); and Tanaka, “Asia Demanding Postwar Compensation.” Christensen, “Chinese Realpolitik”; Kristof, “Problem of Memory”; Whiting, China Eyes Japan. To understand the enormous hatred and contempt of the United States and Japan for one another during the Pacific War and the terror of American atomic bombing that left an irremovable scar on the Japanese national psyche, see Dower, War without Mercy and “The Bombed,” as well as Orr, Victim as Hero, ch. 3. Handl, “Czech-German Declaration”; Phillips, “Politics of Reconciliation” and Power and Influence, chs. 3 and 4. On the Greek-Turkish peace process, see Demirel, “Need for Dialogue”; “Let’s Be Friends; Turkey and Greece,” Economist, April 13, 2002.

4

The Search for Reconciliation

currency in international relations academic and policy circles. As long as the common enemy, defined by its threatening capabilities, remains strong, states should maintain durable political and economic cooperation, and their popular relations should also be friendly, because realists believe that states are unitary actors and that public feeling has no separate dynamics from government policy. Thus, deep reconciliation materializes, but it is conditioned on the continuity of international systemic patterns.11 Conversely, states should be less likely to reach reconciliation if they face no common threat or if they pose a mutual threat to one another, either directly or by their external alignment. This realist theory treats historical ideas as a reflection or justification of structurally defined national interest. That is, memories and myths are epiphenomenal, changing in accordance with the external environment: If posing a mutual threat, states will demonize one another and grow mutual hatred; if a common threat arises, they will forget the past, discard hatred, and develop cooperation. National mythmaking theory, the second theory considered in this book, disagrees. It contends that not only international constraints, but also domestic political needs and societal context can shape the ways in which a nation remembers its past; once formed, historical memory can take on a life of its own, exerting a significant impact on interstate relations. Mythmaking is a common practice in political and social life. I formulate national mythmaking theory to address a two-part question: first, why and how are myths of traumatic history made? And second, how does mythmaking affect interstate reconciliation outcomes? According to the theory, the ruling elites, harboring special political-ideological goals, tend to construct historical myths that glorify or whitewash the actions of its own nation during a past conflict while blaming others for causing the tragedy. The prevalence of such myths in national consciousness causes a sharp disagreement between two former enemy states on the interpretation of their past conflict. By embracing divergent historical narratives, both the elite and the general public will engender strong mistrust against each other’s country, and emotions of grievances and frustration will prevail in both societies, often degenerating into a spiral of finger-pointing and negative stereotyping. In addition, intergovernmental disputes over issues other than history become harder to resolve 11

As Magnus Ericson points out, the concept of stable peace has no necessary relation to duration. See “Birds of a Feather,” 132.

Introduction

5

because the prevailing public resentments tend to increase the political cost for the government to make any conciliatory policies. Conversely, if former combatant states by and large agree on the basic interpretation of their past conflict and take substantial measures to redress the trauma, they are more likely to remove the historical roots of popular grievances and intergovernmental friction, significantly promoting deep reconciliation. Comparative case study is the primary methodology used in this book to evaluate realist theory and national mythmaking theory. I examine two post-WWII cases: Sino-Japanese and (West) German–Polish relations. (For the sake of convenience, I refer at times to “German-Polish relations,” with the understanding that prior to reunification one must speak of either West German–Polish relations or East German–Polish relations.) The two dyads are similar in their geographic proximity, traditional economic and cultural ties, and recent history of traumatic conflict; they also share the Cold War structural environment that immediately followed the conflict.12 Yet the outcomes of their reconciliation processes are quite different: Today, the united Germany and Poland have approached deep reconciliation, whereas the Sino-Japanese relationship is still marred by serious mistrust and simmering animosity. Thus, comparing the two cases is ideal for investigating when interstate reconciliation occurs and why its degree varies across cases. Another significant implication of studying these cases is that doing so addresses several outstanding puzzles in contemporary East Asian and European international relations. One is ascertaining the underlying causes of the so-called history problem in Sino-Japanese relations. Why did China and Japan quarrel over history not immediately after the war but only from the early 1980s, when the majority of their populations had no direct experience of the war and the two countries had normalized diplomatic relations and developed close bilateral economic and social ties? Second, during WWII, Germany and Japan both committed horrendous atrocities against neighboring countries. Why are the Germans far more forthright regarding their responsibility for these war crimes than are the Japanese? Existing studies of the Germany-Japan 12

Granted, China has an aspiration for great power status that Poland lacks, but China and Poland faced similar structural constraints during the Cold War era. China’s power ambition directly affected Japan only after the Cold War, when the superpower-dominated structure gave way to a more multipolar setting in East Asia. This change, however, will be captured by my measurement of the post–Cold War structural environment for Sino-Japanese relations.

6

The Search for Reconciliation

comparison have not presented a convincing answer in a systematic, scholarly fashion.13 Another puzzle is the different ways in which Poland and China have treated history. Both were victim countries in WWII, but both had an inglorious aspect in their national histories: Poland had an anti-Semitic culture, and quite a few Poles collaborated with the Nazis against the Jews, whereas the Communist regimes in both Poland and China were oppressive, and at times violent, against their own people. So both nations would be disgraced by critically examining their past. But why has Poland carried out deep soul-searching regarding national history in recent decades, whereas the Chinese historiography has remained highly mythologized? Case studies in this book follow mainly the congruence procedure and process-tracing methods. My congruence tests rely on both cross-case and within-case comparisons. That German-Polish and Sino-Japanese relations have large within-case variance in both independent and dependent variables over time allows the causal argument to be tested repeatedly with just two cases. Specifically, I divide the two cases into four phases: the 1950s–1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s–present. When testing the two competing theories against each subcase, I make paired observations of values on the independent and dependent variables and then assess whether these values covary in a manner consistent with the predictions of the theories. To confirm that the observed correlation is causal and not spurious, I also process trace the chain of events “by which initial case conditions are translated into case outcomes.”14 Yet my investigation of the two cases is far from mechanistic. When examining postwar Sino-Japanese relations, I draw widely on primary sources in the Japanese and Chinese languages, including government documents, interviews, memoirs, elite statements, media data, and 13

14

Ian Buruma’s Wages of Guilt, which compares how Germany and Japan have dealt with war guilt, is written more in a journalistic than an academic style, and the materials in the book need to be updated. Thomas Berger’s Cultures of Antimilitarism also compares Germany and Japan, but does not directly address the war guilt issue. Okabe Tatsumi ascribes the difference in German and Japanese war memories to two “objective” factors in “Historical Remembering and Forgetting”: the difficulty of blaming a few individual leaders in Japan for the war as in Germany and the lack of a regional community in Asia similar to the European Union. This explanation overlooks the domestic power dynamics and different political choices made by elites in Germany and Japan that significantly shaped national memories. On theory testing using qualitative case study methods, see George, “Case Studies and Theories”; King, Designing Social Inquiry; and Van Evera, Guide to Methods, 55–67.

Introduction

7

schoolbook texts. In this book, I define “elites” as national leaders and high-ranking government officials directly involved in policy making as well as foreign policy specialists (including military analysts) who play an advisory role. The case study of German-Polish relations relies mainly on English-language sources. Next, I briefly introduce the case study results. Realist theory fully explains the total lack of Sino-Japanese reconciliation in the 1950s–60s. China and Japan posed a mutual threat because of their antagonistic positions in the bipolar world system. This determined their mutual expectation of immediate war, Tokyo’s policy of nonrecognition of Beijing, and restrictions on bilateral trade and societal contacts. As for war memory, ruling elites in both countries created and perpetuated pernicious national myths. But, surprisingly, the war narratives of the perpetrator state, Japan, and the victim state, China, converged on a mythical distinction between a small handful of Japanese militarists and the vast majority of innocent Japanese people. Chinese official propaganda actually downplayed areas of disagreement with Japanese historiography. Instead, China tried to win the hearts and minds of the Japanese people through “People’s Diplomacy,” to obtain Japanese official recognition of the Communist regime. So mythmaking theory better explains the policy preferences of the two governments, which wished to develop a certain degree of cooperation, than it does their actual policies. This is the case because their preferences were trumped by the negative international structure. During the 1970s, Sino-Japanese bilateral relations progressed to a “honeymoon” phase, largely propelled by the appearance of a common Soviet threat. But this positive structural environment never produced deep reconciliation between the two countries, as realists would predict, because Chinese and Japanese elites did not try to settle their memory disagreement but simply set it aside to clear the way for their immediate strategic cooperation. Political gestures substituted for sincere, concrete restitution, and the propaganda of national myths prevented rigorous investigation of historical facts and clarification of war responsibility. National mythmaking theory correctly predicts the limitations of bilateral official cooperation and the superficiality of popular friendship because of the still-deep-seated Chinese antipathy toward Japan stemming from bitter war memories. The period after the early 1980s again presents a puzzle to realists because the Sino-Japanese honeymoon came to an end despite the continuation of the Soviet threat. Chinese leaders felt severe power insecurity domestically because of growing societal discontent with the Communist

8

The Search for Reconciliation

regime and an elite split on the reform agenda. By “othering” Japan in diplomatic friction over history issues and through domestic patriotic education, they tried to divert public resentment and consolidate the reform coalition. Moreover, the memory contestation between Japanese progressives and conservatives was publicized internationally during this period. The polarization of Japanese historical memory, especially when involving blatant denials and whitewashing of past aggression, frequently incited the Chinese public; it actually made elite mythmaking about an evil and dangerous Japan self-fulfilling and widely accepted among the Chinese people. Consequently, war narratives of the two countries directly clashed, starting from their first textbook controversy in 1982. Since then, the “history problem” has seriously strained bilateral official and popular relations. Historical grievances about Chinese wartime suffering and the lack of Japanese contrition became a major source of Chinese popular animosity toward Japan. Reacting to Chinese criticism, feelings of disgust and frustration with China spread widely in Japan. Besides these emotions, a clear tendency existed among the Chinese public and strategic elites to associate Japan’s historical memory with its intention to act aggressively again. In the 1990s, realist factors, including post–Cold War structural uncertainty as well as China’s and Japan’s pursuit of military buildup and assertive international strategy, contributed to the heightened tension in bilateral relations. But the five-year time lag between the end of the Cold War and the sharp increase in these countries’ mutual threat perception, as well as the absence of a major shift in their power balance, suggest that the troubled bilateral relations between China and Japan were shaped not just by power distribution but also by the impact of the history problem. On one hand, Chinese suspicion of Japanese intentions and anti-Japanese popular sentiment were exacerbated because of frequent history disputes. On the other hand, more and more Japanese people rejected China’s suspicion of and demands on Japan based on history, believing that China was simply using the “history card” to bully Japan. Such negative mutual emotions and perceptions of intentions also hardened elite and popular attitudes during bilateral disputes, preventing the governments from reaching a compromise on economic friction and settling various sovereignty controversies, despite the lack of vital strategic interest in these disputes. Since 2006, official relations have considerably improved, thanks to the willingness of the two governments to downplay the history issue and emphasize practical cooperation. But whether China and Japan can forge a truly deep reconciliation rather than repeat

Introduction

9

the short-lived “honeymoon” in the 1970s still hinges on the efforts to bridge the wide gap between their historical memories. In contrast to Sino-Japanese relations, German-Polish relations are a case of reconciliation success. As in the Asian case, the Cold War structure initially locked West Germany and Poland into mutual hostility. By the mid-1960s, ruling elites in both countries had created historical myths that demonized the other nation and clashed head on regarding the eastern frontier and the postwar expulsion of Germans from the eastern territories. Such intense historiographic conflict aggravated the structural barriers to bilateral reconciliation. Since the late 1960s, however, East-West d´etente in Europe has allowed West German–Polish cooperation to emerge under more favorable structural conditions. National mythmaking theory also applies: From this period, bilateral memory divergence began to shrink because of Germany’s actions of contrition as part of its Ostpolitik and the program of bilateral historians’ dialogues. It is also noteworthy that liberal intellectuals in Poland attacked Soviet-style history education from the 1970s. In the 1980s, they even began to critically reflect on the sensitive parts of their own national history, such as the Communist rule of Poland and the troubled relationship between Poles and Jews. This historiographic liberalization resulted from both the domestic political upheavals in Poland during this period and Germany’s frank apologies for its war guilt to Poland, which considerably mitigated the Poles’ obsession with their victimhood and freed up their national soul to ponder their own victimization of other peoples. In the next two phases of German-Polish relations, national mythmaking theory performs better than realist theory. In the 1980s, the trend of historical settlement through restitution and joint history writing persisted, cushioning the negative impact of the decline of d´etente on bilateral relations. Since the end of the Cold War, both countries have committed to fostering mutual understanding and trust through comprehensive exchange programs and efforts to construct a shared history about their past traumatic conflicts. So even in the absence of a pressing common security threat, greater memory convergence contributed to institutionalized security and economic cooperation between Germany and Poland and their amicable popular relations, indicative of deep reconciliation. Overall, the case studies show that deep reconciliation will be absent if national mythmaking prevails because it generates considerable memory divergence between nations and causes mistrust and mutual antipathy. Even if governments agree on a mythical interpretation of history for the

10

The Search for Reconciliation

sake of expediency, a truly friendly popular tie is unattainable because the intergovernmental agreement on historical lies is fragile, shattering easily as the political context changes. To emphasize the importance of historical memory is not to reject the explanatory power of realist theory entirely. Realist theory correctly points out that cooperation is unlikely for strategic adversaries locked in mutual balancing. Although positive systemic conditions alone cannot bring about deep reconciliation, this book shows that at least some degree of compatibility between two states’ security interests is helpful for the reconciliation process to burgeon in the first place. But it also finds that a critical step toward deep interstate reconciliation is to stop national mythmaking and construct shared memory, which can begin to take root even when two sides are still strategic adversaries (as in West German– Polish relations in the 1970s) and, if greatly encouraged by governments, will flourish when their strategic conflict lessens. Neither does this book argue that historical ideas are the only force shaping foreign policy and interstate relations between former enemy countries. Even in those subcases when national mythmaking theory proves a powerful explanation, numerous contingent factors also play a role in bringing about certain policy outcomes. My main goal is to demonstrate that historical ideas can have an independent influence over foreign policy as well as to consider when and how this influence actually matters. The structure of the book is as follows: Chapter 1 defines interstate reconciliation and lays out realist and national mythmaking explanations for reconciliation. Chapter 2 studies German-Polish relations since the end of WWII to show how interstate reconciliation might be accomplished in a real case. Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6 examine Sino-Japanese relations in the 1950s–60s, the 1970s, the 1980s, and from the 1990s to the present, respectively. In each case study, I first illustrate the international structural conditions and war memories of the relevant countries and infer two sets of predictions from realist and national mythmaking theories regarding interstate reconciliation development. Then I examine the evolution of bilateral relations during each period to compare the relative validity of the predictions. The conclusion summarizes the case-study findings and compares the domestic and external contexts of Germany versus Japan and China versus Poland that caused their different attitudes toward historical legacies. I argue that the different institutional legacies in postwar West Germany and Japan had a path-dependent impact on their memory construction.

Introduction

11

Since the 1970s German politics of reconciliation was aided by three positive factors that were absent in Japan – pursuit of national unification, the victory of the leftist party in elections, and a prospering civil society. After the Cold War, European regional integration and Poland’s democratization further contributed to the decline of national mythmaking, whereas in Asia, settling historical accounts remained difficult in light of the fragmented regional cooperation and continuation of China’s authoritarianism. In addition to these domestic and regional factors, bilateral dynamics also mattered. German politics of reconciliation since the 1970s made it much easier for the aggrieved Poles to forgive Germans and recognize their own responsibility for mistreating other ethnic groups like Jews; whereas Japan’s evasive attitude to its disgraceful past simply aggravated the Chinese obsession with its victimhood and bias against Japan. It also diminished Chinese willingness to engage in fundamental rethinking of its national history. The conclusion then probes the scope of applicability of national mythmaking theory by reviewing a few other historical cases, including Japan–South Korea, Israel-Palestine, the United States–Philippines, Britain–India, and the United States–Vietnam, following their respective traumatic conflicts. Although Japanese-South Korean and IsraeliPalestinian relations largely bear out the inimical effect of national mythmaking on reconciliation, in the remaining three cases, ruling elites did not find the “othering” of the former enemy country to be a particularly profitable political strategy. This actually validates an important presumption of national mythmaking theory, which is that elites will not employ mythmaking if it cannot win wide public resonance, or if doing so would hinder other more pressing domestic or international goals. The conclusion ends with a discussion of the policy implications, urging policymakers to take historical memory seriously when striving for postconflict peace, and in particular stressing the need for China and Japan to stop politicizing the history issue and prevent nationalist biases from obscuring a long-term vision about reconciliation.

1 Explaining Deep Interstate Reconciliation

This chapter first introduces the conceptual components of deep interstate reconciliation and uses this conceptual framework to develop an operational definition of the term. It then lays out the basic assumptions and causal mechanisms of realist theory and national mythmaking theory and infers testable predictions from these two theories for postconflict international relations. The chapter concludes with responses to challenges from alternative theoretical perspectives, including the democratic peace theory, commercial and sociological liberalism, and regionalism and security community theory.

conceptualizing deep interstate reconciliation The concept of reconciliation can be understood simply as “restoring friendship, harmony, or communion” between two parties, of which either one or both experienced trauma in the past.1 In international relations, the traumatic experiences of a state usually originate in protracted, destructive conflicts with external actors. Such conflicts not only cause massive combat casualties but also often involve gross violations of human rights and even national annexation, territorial loss, or pillaging of important national resources. Besides, states suffer the psychological wounds of humiliation while enduring horrendous physical damage. These historical injustices generate deep-rooted collective sorrow and grief that become national trauma,2 predisposing former enemy states 1 2

Phillips, Power and Influence, 52. Barkan, Guilt of Nations, 345.

12

Explaining Deep Interstate Reconciliation

13

to mutual enmity. To attain reconciliation is to overcome such enmity stemming from the traumatic past. A conceptual framework for understanding deep interstate reconciliation should contain two key components – stable peace and an amicable atmosphere – that cover both intergovernmental and people-to-people relationships. Stable Peace Deep interstate reconciliation embodies a high degree of peacefulness between former adversaries. Modern history suggests that even in the absence of intensely armed conflicts, international relations can still be precarious and may easily deteriorate into war. The fragile peace between the United States and Great Britain and its colonies following the Revolutionary War, for example, eventually collapsed with the War of 1812.3 Likewise, the so-called long peace during the Cold War was fraught with subsystem conflicts, proxy wars, and international crises.4 Even superpower stability was a retrospective conclusion, not the perception at the time, when war between the United States and the USSR was constantly feared. As Thomas Hobbes indicates, “The nature of war consists not in actual fighting but in the known disposition thereto during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is peace.”5 Hence, one must go beyond the “no war” definition of peace to characterize deep reconciliation. This book applies the notion of stable peace. In Kenneth Boulding’s interpretation, “stable peace is a situation in which the probability of war is so small that it does not really enter into the calculations of any of the people involved.”6 Stable peace is not totally devoid of conflicts. If conflict means any “redistributional situation where there is gain for some and loss for others,”7 it is almost inevitable in international relations. Peace proves itself not by the absence of conflict but by how conflict is handled. When stable peace is established, “neither side considers employing force, or even making a threat of force, in any dispute, even serious disputes, between them.”8 In other words, in stable peace, war becomes unthinkable as a means to resolve international conflict. 3 4 5 6 7 8

Boulding, Stable Peace, 44. Brecher and Wilkenfeld, “International Crises.” Quoted in Rock, Why Peace Breaks Out, 2. Boulding, Stable Peace, 13. Ibid., 10. George, foreword to Stable Peace among Nations, xiii.

14

The Search for Reconciliation

Amicable Atmosphere Reestablishing harmony between former adversaries is “a mutual, consensual process” that cannot be simply “legislated or imposed” by political institutions but needs to be supported by emotions and actions that spring voluntarily from the societies involved.9 As Willy Brandt says, “Understanding and reconciliation cannot be decreed by politicians but must mature in the hearts of people on both sides.”10 So, in addition to stable peace, which largely pertains to official relationships, deep reconciliation is also characterized by an amicable people-to-people relationship. Official cooperation and popular goodwill are the two indispensable components of deep interstate reconciliation, for one without the other makes for only superficial, fragile reconciliation. For countries that have experienced traumatic conflict, harmonious popular ties are not attainable until historically rooted animosity has been eliminated. This does not mean the memory of the historic conflict will have utterly disappeared from social discourse. People may still actively research and commemorate their traumatic history, but they will not treat it as a major source of resentment toward the other country. When new bilateral disputes arise, the tendency to hold history against their former enemy will be stalled or marginalized. To put it simply, popular reconciliation means the peoples of former enemy states have permanently put their traumatic history behind them. When this has happened, the atmosphere between the two peoples will be dominated by mutual trust, a sense of affinity, or both.

an operational definition of interstate reconciliation Existing studies of stable peace place it in a continuum of interstate relationships. Boulding suggests that there are four general phases in an international war-peace system – stable war, unstable war, unstable peace, and stable peace – and argues that the system will shift from one phase to another when the stability of the system varies.11 In this sense, postconflict reconciliation is a systemic transition from the phase of unstable peace, in which violent conflicts are halted but the possibility of more violence still exists, to the phase of stable peace, in which the likelihood of war diminishes to near nonexistence. 9 10 11

Phillips, Power and Influence, 53. Brandt, People and Politics, 407. Boulding, Stable Peace, ch. 2.

Explaining Deep Interstate Reconciliation

15

Following this general presumption, Alexander George divides postconflict international relations into three categories of peace: (1) precarious peace, when peace is just a temporary absence of war maintained by immediate military deterrence, such as the Arabic-Israeli and IndoPakistani relationships for the past several decades; (2) conditional peace, wherein general, not immediate, military deterrence plays the dominant role in maintaining a less acute, less heated conflict relationship, as in the Cold War superpower relations; and (3) stable peace, wherein states no longer consider the use or threat of military force, as in the relationships among European Union countries.12 Building on George’s categories, there are three stages of interstate reconciliation: nonreconciliation, shallow reconciliation, and deep reconciliation. Each stage has distinctive characteristics in both intergovernmental and popular dimensions. I use three indicators to measure intergovernmental relationships: (1) mutual expectation of war, (2) national recognition, and (3) economic interaction. The first indicator, the mutual expectation of war, is the most decisive indicator because it crystallizes the notion of stable peace. The other two indicators are corollaries of the first, useful in identifying variations in other aspects of intergovernmental relationships but unable to decisively measure reconciliation. At times, two countries have prospering commercial ties but still experience intense conflict militarily or politically. The limitation of relying on economic indicators to define interstate relations is evident in the eruption of World War I and WWII between countries that had heavily traded with one another13 and in the paradoxical coexistence of “cold politics” and a “hot economy” in Sino-Japanese relations during the Koizumi years. For the popular dimension of reconciliation, I use the degree of mutual trust and sense of affinity as the indicator, which is measured by public opinion surveys, supplemented by popular media, data on public activist movements, and academic studies of the state of affairs on bilateral popular relationships.14

12

13 14

George, foreword to Stable Peace. Benjamin Miller offers a similar typology of peace, including cold peace, wherein returning to the use of force is a present danger; normal peace, when most conflictual issues have been resolved but war is not ruled out as a policy instrument; and warm peace, when the use of force is unthinkable as a conflict resolution approach. See Miller, “The International, Regional, and Domestic Sources of Regional Peace.” Liberman, “Trading with the Enemy.” Although opinion surveys are regularly conducted and openly reported in (West) Germany and Japan, equivalent data in China and Poland were scant until only two decades

The Search for Reconciliation

16

The typology of the various stages and substages of interstate reconciliation is illustrated in Table 1.1. It covers different possible outcomes after a given traumatic conflict. A theory of reconciliation is considered useful if its predictions match either the outcomes of interstate relationships or the foreign policies that by logic should lead to such outcomes. Nonreconciliation The stage of nonreconciliation bears a strong resemblance to the category of precarious peace proposed by George. It is identified by the following four indicators: 1. Imminent expectation of war: Two former enemy states hold a common perception of the likelihood of imminent war between them, which can be identified from the statements of policy elites in open or private settings, official strategic planning, or the force posture of the military. 2. No national recognition: Reconciliation should begin by satisfying the fundamental needs of each party, fulfilling national aspiration, and accepting national identity.15 But under nonreconciliation, states refuse to establish formal diplomatic relationships, and in so doing they fail to accept one another’s national survival and sovereignty. They typically clash on both territorial sovereignty questions regarding boundaries and land and jurisdictional sovereignty questions concerning the government’s legitimacy to rule the population in the land.16

15 16

ago. Additionally, the credibility of public polls varies depending on how the questionnaires are framed and worded and how data are collected and presented, let alone the issue of political sensitivity in a communist country. Despite many problems with public polls, they can demonstrate certain representative popular beliefs in a relatively straightforward and transparent way. Also, for an authoritarian country, “polling is also a way to provide a voice to individuals when they may have few opportunities to express opinions,” in Johnston’s words. See Johnston, “The Correlates of Nationalism.” This book uses polling data to discern some conspicuous trends in public preferences and attitudes, rather than to study statistical causal relationships among variables. Popular media sources such as the internet and popular magazines and books are also used with caution here because they tend to reflect the views of the vocal public rather than the average opinions of the silent masses. Yet they merit attention because they are widely accessible to the general public and, especially in an authoritarian society, they are the most open space for discourse from the public to express themselves and try to influence government policy. Kelman, “Transforming the Relationship,” 198. For the distinction between territorial sovereignty and jurisdictional sovereignty, see Carlson, Unifying China, 11–15.

17

table 1.1. Measuring Interstate Reconciliation Shallow Reconciliation

Government-togovernment

People-to-people

Nonreconciliation

Friction

Rapprochement

Deep Reconciliation

Imminent expectation of war

Moderate expectation of war: Prepare for remote war

Moderate expectation of war: Cautious cooperation

Shared expectation of no war

No national recognition

Partial national recognition: Sovereignty disputes politicized

Partial national recognition: Sovereignty disputes deferred

Full national recognition

Minimal economic interaction

Limited economic interaction: Economic friction politicized

Limited economic interaction: Economic friction subdued

Comprehensive and smooth economic interaction

Popular hatred and fear

Moderate popular tension: Estrangement and suspicion

Moderate popular tension: Illustory friendship possible

Harmonious mutual feeling

The Search for Reconciliation

18

3. Minimal economic interaction: Because of alarming security concerns over adverse relative gains and mutual vulnerability in economic interdependence, states will reduce their trade, technological transfer, and other economic interactions to the minimum.17 Mutual trade embargoes are common, and economic isolation is the standard state of affairs, especially in a bipolar world wherein the sensitivity to relative gains is particularly high.18 4. Popular hatred and fear: Antagonistic feelings toward one another are prevalent among the people of the two countries. Besides, the two nations perceive a serious mutual threat and believe war between them is imminent. Shallow Reconciliation This stage corresponds with George’s conditional peace. Two different types of relationship can be found in this stage: friction and rapprochement. States that are in a relationship of friction remain plagued by the frequent escalation of political disputes and simmering popular resentment; in rapprochement, political disputes are deferred but not resolved, and popular friendship, although often fragile and short lived, is possible. These two substages of shallow reconciliation are introduced to better capture the complicated modes of international relations in the real world. As Chapters 4 and 5 show, Sino-Japanese relations in the 1970s and from the 1980s onward fell short of immediate danger of war, but the former was so much less contentious and volatile than the latter that the two periods ought to be grouped in separate subcategories. The stage of shallow reconciliation is characterized by the following four factors: 1. Moderate expectation of war: Here, the open hostility between states is considerably mitigated, but a common perception that 17

18

States fearing that another state might use force against them will be concerned about the security externalities of trade, especially if their economic interaction favors the other state more. So they are more inclined to trade with allies than with adversaries when the “specter of war” is present. See Gowa, Allies, Adversaries, and Trade; Grieco, Cooperation among Nations; and Powell, “Absolute and Relative Gains.” Historical cases suggest that states sometimes trade with their strategic adversaries shortly before or even during military confrontation. See Barbieri and Levy, “Sleeping with the Enemy.” But trading with the enemy is more common in a multipolar world in which the security ramifications of relative gains are considerably lower than in a bipolar world. See Liberman, “Trading with the Enemy.”

Explaining Deep Interstate Reconciliation

19

conflict will never be settled with force is still lacking. In a friction relationship, states still prepare for war in the long run, if not the immediate future. States in rapprochement consider war unlikely, but they do not forgo it as the last resort to settle bilateral disputes, and they take caution in cooperation, lest it fail someday. 2. Partial national recognition: States have normalized diplomatic relations but still disagree about sovereignty issues; they may retain contacts with rival governments or fail to settle their territorial disputes permanently. These issues are usually downplayed or temporarily shelved in a rapprochement relationship, but they tend to escalate to serious political disputes in a friction relationship. 3. Limited economic interaction: States have developed economic cooperation but still limit the level of trade dependence and the exchange of strategically important materials. Besides, security sensitivity to adverse relative gains can generate trade friction and reluctance to transfer technology or provide economic aids. Economic disputes are usually subdued in relationships of rapprochement but tend to be politicized in relationships of friction. 4. Moderate popular tension: Public perception of imminent mutual threat has abated, although it has not disappeared. While in a friction relationship, people feel mutually estranged and suspicious; in rapprochement, an illusory atmosphere of popular friendship is likely, often manipulated by official propaganda rather than based on genuine mutual understanding.19 Deep Reconciliation Deep reconciliation is equivalent to George’s conception of stable peace. Specifically, the two states should have developed the following: 1. Common expectation of no war: War has become unthinkable as an instrument to resolve any bilateral conflict. Feeling secure with each other, states tend to engage in close, long-term political and security cooperation. 2. Full national recognition: The two governments have not only recognized one another’s legal status but also permanently 19

For the effect of dynamic mutual understanding on uprooting old stereotyped views, see Kelman, “Transforming the Relationship,” 203–4.

20

The Search for Reconciliation resolved controversies regarding both territorial and jurisdictional sovereignty. 3. Comprehensive and smooth economic interaction: Bilateral economic interaction not only flourishes but also accepts strategic dependence. Economic friction, although still present, is caused by concerns about economic competitiveness rather than national security, and it is confined to the economic arena without damaging political relations. 4. Harmonious mutual feeling: The two nations hold a feeling of mutual closeness and sometimes affection, or at least mutual empathy. They also share the belief that war is unlikely in the foreseeable future.

the realist theory of external material threats As a broad paradigm, realism has many different branches and variants. It can be frustrating trying to infer determinate propositions from realism regarding how states will act under a given circumstance.20 This book applies one specific variant of realist theory that focuses on external material threats. It provides an influential explanation for the formation of different types of postconflict interstate relations.21 Whereas the literature sometimes treats threats as threatening capabilities, threatening intentions, or both, in this book I measure threat in terms of the international distribution of material resources.22 This choice is based on two methodological considerations. First, intention is one of the causal mechanisms derived from the national mythmaking theory, which is explained 20

21

22

Brooks, “Dueling Realisms”; Snyder, Myths of Empire, 11–12; Taliaferro, “Security Seeking under Anarchy.” For instance, Stephen Rock, in Why Peace Breaks Out, a study of how erstwhile enemies make a transition from war to peace, applies the realist theory of balance of power and balance of threat to four historical cases in Europe and America. Students of East Asian international relations also commonly argue that the Sino-Japanese “honeymoon” of the 1970s resulted from the common Soviet threat but that the relationship deteriorated after the Cold War because the friend and foe distinction was no longer clear, and they increasingly rivaled against each other. See Green and Self, “Japan’s Changing China Policy,” 42; Kokubun, “Shifting Nature,” 23–26; and Wan, Sino-Japanese Relations, 202–3. Neorealism emphasizes the influence of international distribution of material capabilities, whereas the balance of threat variant of realism argues that states, especially regional powers, tend to balance against security threats, measured by both capabilities and intention. The work representative of the former is Waltz, Theory of International Politics, and of the latter is Walt, Origins of Alliances.

Explaining Deep Interstate Reconciliation

21

later in the chapter. To use a strictly capabilities-based variant of realist theory ensures that the causal variables of the two competing theories are independent of one other, so as to determine which theory explains a certain outcome better than the other. Second, this book aims to demonstrate when and how historical ideas can significantly shape postconflict interstate relationships. A capabilities-based theory, admitting no independent, significant role of historical ideas, is the perfect null hypothesis against which one can evaluate the power of historical ideas. But the realist theory is not treated as a straw man in the book. I start out assuming that external material threat is an influential explanation and therefore put it into systematic testing no less rigorous than the alternative explanation. The testing results support considerable influence of external material threat; common threat proves to be quite useful for improving relationships between former enemy countries, albeit on its own not sufficient to bring about deep reconciliation. From the realist perspective, postconflict interstate reconciliation is treated as a form of international political cooperation. Realists believe cooperation in international relations is difficult because in an anarchic world a state is more likely to survive and prosper if it seeks to maximize its own power. Such structural pressure for self-helping behavior promises a prevalent inclination toward competition.23 Cooperation is especially rare between adversaries because anarchy “requires states to worry about the relative gains of cooperation and the possibility that adversaries will cheat on agreements.”24 Instead, a state commonly balances against other states or coalitions of states that endanger its national security. As Joseph Grieco says, “Realism presents a fundamentally pessimistic analysis of the prospects for international cooperation.”25 The circumstance under which cooperation is more likely to happen is when states try to counter a common enemy, either through a bilateral alliance or in alignment with 23

24

25

On the nature and implication of the self-help principle, see Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 105–7, 111. Glaser, “Realists as Optimists,” 50. Glaser actually critiques the standard realist “bias against cooperation,” arguing that states may prefer cooperation to competition under certain conditions. Here, Glaser confines the definition of cooperation to the military policy option of arms control. Although strategic adversaries like the United States and USSR did reach several arms control and disarmament agreements during the d´etente years, throughout the Cold War they were confrontational in grand strategy, military posture, and alliance structure, and they maintained political and economic alienation. Grieco, Cooperation among Nations, 27. On the scarcity and difficulty of international cooperation in an anarchic world, also see Greico’s “Anarchy and Cooperation” and Jervis’s “Cooperation.”

22

The Search for Reconciliation

an international power block in an alliance or alignment, concerns about relative gains are considerably mitigated because helping its allies helps a state to defend against a common external threat. Therefore, this realist theory claims that structural conditions have a decisive impact on a state’s decision concerning whether to pursue external cooperation or conflict. In general, the theory makes two predictions regarding postconflict intergovernmental and popular relations, respectively: Prediction I: The stronger the common threat that states face, the more positive the structural condition and the more likely they will reconcile at the governmental level; the stronger the mutual threat that states pose, the more negative the structural condition and the less likely they will reach official reconciliation. Specifically, depending on the nature and intensity of the external threat, the theory predicts three different outcomes. First, when states face a common security threat, usually as security allies or members of the same power bloc, they are considered to enjoy positive structural conditions. In this case, states should easily accomplish official reconciliation because they will have a strong incentive to provide mutual assistance and feel no need to use force against one another, which would undermine their balancing strategy against the external threat. Absolute gains concerns, rather than relative gains concerns, will dominate bilateral relations, and smooth and intimate political and economic cooperation will follow. In contrast, states encounter negative structural conditions when their capabilities pose a mutual threat. This happens when states engage in direct strategic rivalry. A mutual threat also arises when states join opposing power blocs, not necessarily to balance one another but sometimes in search of powerful allies to contain a third country. Yet interbloc struggle can be overwhelming enough to compel members of the two sides to confront one another regardless of their original intentions. Under negative structural conditions, war is considered highly likely, and relative gains concerns create immense obstacles for political and economic cooperation. Consequently, intergovernmental reconciliation should be out of the question. The third possible outcome occurs when the previous common security threat has diminished, states’ mutual threat declines, or the pressure

Explaining Deep Interstate Reconciliation

23

from their bloc leaders for antagonism has decreased – all categorized as neutral structural conditions. As a result, alliances will loosen or dissolve, and the erstwhile tension between adversaries will relax. Thus, states will enter a fluid relationship in which they consider war a possible but less immediate danger and begin to take an interest in political and economic cooperation, although still with considerable reservations, given their moderate concerns about relative gains and remote expectations of war. In such a circumstance, official reconciliation should be slow, limited, and tortuous. Regarding popular relations, realist theory emphasizes that nationstates are unitary, rational actors that behave primarily in response to national security needs. It dismisses the role of unit-level attributes, such as public opinion and domestic politics, believing that systemic factors trump disagreeing interests and perspectives at the societal or individual levels. Therefore, realist theory makes the following prediction regarding popular relations: Prediction II: The more positive the structural condition, the more likely it is that two nations will reconcile with one another at the popular level, and vice versa. According to realist theory, security concerns about external threats, not any genuine emotions about history, sway public opinion. Concretely speaking, when embracing each other to counter a common threat, people of both countries will willingly put behind them any ill feelings associated with past trauma. Meanwhile, the official policy of bilateral cooperation will facilitate societal contacts to enhance mutual understanding and use friendship propaganda to neutralize negative stereotypes and promote a strong sense of companionship between the two nations. The result is an overall amicable atmosphere, which, if combined with the general expectation of no war suggested in Prediction I, indicates the advent of deep reconciliation. Conversely, mutual threat will antagonize two nations because it will generate fear and distrust among the general public. People will use history to attack each other, not because they are truly obsessed with past trauma but because history provides a useful justification for strategic confrontation. Besides, the hostile official policy will discourage or even prohibit societal interaction, precluding genuine mutual understanding, confidence, and a sense of closeness. So, opportunities for both official

24

The Search for Reconciliation

and popular reconciliation will be slim, which predicts the stage of nonreconciliation. Additionally, under neutral structural conditions with no clear, imminent common threat or mutual threat, governments will show some interest in facilitating societal contacts but will install certain limitations because of remaining security concerns. When a bilateral conflict of interest occurs, popular antipathy will grow, and history may be utilized as a tool to pressure the other country; when the conflict calms down, negative popular sentiments will abate, and previous history disputes will leave no lingering effect. Such a popular relationship features moderate tension and a sometimes short-lived friendly atmosphere, together with limited official cooperation, forming the stage of shallow reconciliation. One may contend that realism hardly addresses the question of reconciliation or popular feelings, and it is unfair to apply a theory to a subject that it does not purport to explain. Let me explain why testing a realist theory is not off the mark for a study of reconciliation. First, interstate reconciliation is such an understudied area that it is not in the vocabulary of any major international relations schools. One need not be precluded from trying out any of the theoretical tools offered by the international relations literature. In the practical world, it is a common idea that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” that is, a common threat will bring states together. Because reconciliation is basically about states coming together to become friends, it is natural that people will bring the common wisdom to bear on the question. But that is something we need to test. Second, although the theory of external material threat predicts that deep reconciliation can occur, it does not have to be permanent deep reconciliation. Interstate harmony cannot outlive the common threat that states face. As long as the security incentives exist, the harmony should last. After all, theories predict a certain outcome only within the time frame when the independent variable is in place. Third, realists rarely tackle people-to-people relations, but we can still infer realist predictions on this question. Realists treat states as unitary actors with a single set of reasonably well-defined interests, a clear goal of maximizing their power, and a rational calculation of the costs and benefits of their policies. Realists ought to believe that popular feelings have no independent, separate dynamics from governmental policy; when the international structure transforms, popular relations will vary in parallel with political relations. In other words, we should expect realists to

Explaining Deep Interstate Reconciliation

25

think that popular attitudes, like other unit-level attributes, are basically penetrated by the structural context.

national mythmaking theory National mythmaking theory purports to reveal how a certain type of idea, historical myth, affects the development of postconflict interstate reconciliation. The significant impact of beliefs and ideas on international relations is well recognized in the burgeoning literature on “ideas and foreign policy.”26 This leads us to view ideas as not merely a justification for structurally driven political decisions but an independent source of foreign policy, and the causal role of ideas in policy making can be identified and systematically investigated with the tools of social sciences.27 Because the literature on the role of historical ideas in international relations is rather thin,28 national mythmaking theory must be built from scratch. The main argument draws upon a multidisciplinary literature on collective memory, social psychology, and nationalism and conflict. It posits that memory is an image of the past collectively constructed by members of a social group in the present. Although different social groups form different memories of the past, ruling elites tend to create national myths for instrumental purposes and infuse these myths into national collective memory through social institutional tools. Often self-glorifying, self-whitewashing, and other-maligning, national myths can cause a significant memory gap to develop between former enemy countries. Divergent memories influence foreign policy making through two mechanisms, emotion and intention, that can poison popular relations and exacerbate mutual threat perception at both popular and official levels. It is important to understand that national mythmaking theory is different from the simple instrumentalist view that a unified elite group manipulates history and the mass public follows like mindless robots. First, elite mythmaking must operate within the permissible limitations of 26

27 28

Some characteristic works on the policy implications of ideational forces include Goldstein and Keohane, “Ideas and Foreign Policy”; Hall, Political Power; Hunt, Ideology and Foreign Policy; and Katzenstein, Culture of National Security. Goldstein and Keohane, “Ideas and Foreign Policy,” 4–6. A few exceptions include Banchoff, “German Policy”; Berger, “Power of Memory”; Callahan, Contingent States; Gries, China’s New Nationalism; and Laffey and Weldes, “US Foreign Policy.”

26

The Search for Reconciliation

historical and cultural context to win public acceptance. Second, national mythmaking, although instrumentally motivated, is rarely implemented in a strictly top-down, coherent fashion because national memory is constructed through a complex process of national memory contestation. Next, I specify the origins of national myths. Subsequently, I describe how myths are purveyed, postulate the causal mechanisms through which myths may contribute to international conflict, and propose historical settlement as an effective measure to curb mythmaking. Finally, I draw general predictions from the theory for postconflict interstate relations. Origins and Nature of National Myths How does a nation remember its past? If only those individuals who experienced the past remembered it, then the prolonged memory of certain historical events across generations or the alternation between oblivion and active recollection of some events would be hard to explain. Social memory scholars like Halbwachs advocate the investigation of social variables besides individual aspects of memory.29 Although personal memories eventually fade, textbooks, memorials, and museums can spread individual memories to the farthest corners of the nation and sustain them for a long span of time, creating a collective national memory. Although reconstructed in light of a present social context, collective memory need not be an object of political manipulation. Memories held by such groups as families, gender groups, or local associations can be based on certain cultural norms, traditions, and values and do not have to be instrumental. But when politicians are historians, memory tends to follow interests. Because ruling elites have a high stake in political struggle, history becomes a valuable tool for them to win the struggle. As Foucault says, “Since memory is actually a very important factor in struggle . . . if one controls people’s memory, one controls their dynamism.”30 The product of elite manipulation of history is national myths, which are fanciful stories about the origins, identity, and purposes of a nation. Although often distorting historical facts, myths present a picture of the shared past that can evoke the deepest emotional resonance from the populace. In Lucian Pye’s words, “National myths are thus objective factors 29 30

See Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, 40. Quoted in Olick and Robbins, “Social Memory Studies,” 126.

Explaining Deep Interstate Reconciliation

27

in giving meaning to public life. . . . The fact that they may not accurately report actual historical events does not diminish their significance.”31 Not all national myths are elite driven or falsified. Anthony Smith’s ethnoculturalist theory claims that because national myths are traditional stories about the ethnic origins of a nation, they should be value neutral and not really falsifiable.32 Nationalism scholars in the “invented traditions” school, however, emphasize the falsity in certain mythical representations of national history.33 To understand the causes of interstate peace or conflict, this book focuses on falsifiable, pernicious national myths. Examples of pernicious myths can be found in Greenfeld and Chirot’s study of the early nation-building stage in Russia, Germany, and some Arabic countries, when a small group of elites used anti-Western national myths to legitimate their ascendance in the domestic power structure. These myths were conducive to aggression and brutality because they clearly divided “us” and “them,” reducing people of other nations to the status of evil and subhuman beings.34 This characteristic of national myths is consistent with social identity theory, which predicts in-group favoritism and out-group discrimination or hostility.35 International relations scholars point out that power elites can intentionally construct national myths to emphasize self-other conflict. These highly symbolic myths are used to justify national security policy36 or address domestic political concerns, such as regime legitimacy, social mobilization needs, and factional and organizational interests.37 In general, three types of national myths amplify self-other differences and serve to incite international conflict: (1) self-glorifying myths, which explicitly incorporate inflated or false claims of national virtue and competence, including myths of victimization that form a “cult of national martyrdom,” bestowing a nation with moral superiority;38 31 32 33 34 35 36

37

38

Pye, “Memory, Imagination, and Myths,” 21. Smith, Myths and Memories. Friedman, “Past in the Future,” 849. Greenfeld and Chirot, “Nationalism and Aggression.” Turner, “Towards a Cognitive Redefinition.” For example, Thomas Christensen argues in Useful Adversaries that Mao Zedong’s antiAmerican propaganda in 1958 was intended to mobilize mass support for his grand strategic goal of accelerating China’s industrial modernization. Kiernan, “Myth, Nationalism and Genocide”; Snyder, From Voting to Violence; Van Evera, “Hypotheses on Nationalism.” The self-glorification role of victimhood myths is revealed in many works on nationalism. Examples include Bartov, “Defining Enemies, Making Victims”; Linn and Gur-Ze’v, “Holocaust as Metaphor”; Orr, Victim as Hero; Walicki, “Three Traditions,” 30–35; and Wolffsohn, Eternal Guilt.

28

The Search for Reconciliation

(2) self-whitewashing myths, which deny or rationalize a nation’s past wrongdoing against others; and (3) other-maligning myths, which denigrate other nations as inferior, evil, or culpable.39 The Spread of National Myths and the Divergence of Historical Perceptions The interest calculus behind elite mythmaking does not suggest it is a linear process. Contestation over memory construction almost always exists between ruling elites and societal forces, and even between different factions of ruling elites with distinct political agendas. How and whether certain myths can become the hegemonic national memory and shape the core ideas of national identity are greatly determined by the larger political opportunity structure, including the balance of power between political groups and ultimately their ability to control the institutional setting of memory construction. Mass education, particularly school textbooks, is one of the most important social institutions used to inculcate the public with an authoritative “narrative of nationhood.”40 The conflict-provoking danger of history textbooks spreading chauvinistic national myths has been recognized since the end of WWI.41 Today, many countries are still wrestling with deciding whether to spread truthful or mythologized interpretations of the past.42 Second, studies suggest that mass media can act as “collaborators” or “coconspirators” of political and bureaucratic authority to enhance state legitimacy.43 National mythmaking theory assumes that ruling elites can use public communication methods, including print and broadcast media and films and literature, to propagandize myths. Third, public commemoration, including museums, monuments, and commemorative rituals, can serve as dramatic presentations and durable

39

40 41

42

43

The tendency to remember only the evils of other nations while trying to justify the wrongdoings that one’s own nation has perpetuated is commonly seen in national historiography. See Jacobsen, “Myths, Politics.” Hein and Selden, Censoring History; Posen, “Nationalism.” Friedel, German School; Langdon-Davies, Militarism in Education; Scott, Menace of Nationalism; Starr, Lies and Hate. There is a booming literature on the politicization of postwar school curriculum and textbooks. Examples include Chung, Kankoku to Nihon; Martin, The Making of a Sino-Marxist World View; Nozaki and Hiromitsu, “Japanese Education”; and Soysal, “Identity and Transnationalization.” Freeman, Closing the Shop; Krauss, Broadcasting Politics in Japan.

Explaining Deep Interstate Reconciliation

29

symbols of national myths and institutionalize the myths in national memory.44 One more institutional tool is postconflict resolution arrangements, including domestic compensation programs and interstate agreements on reparations. Political elites may manipulate these arrangements to accentuate their own country’s victimhood and shift the blame to others. Other ways to purvey national myths involve tampering with war crimes trials; retaining nationalistic values and symbols, such as Japan’s monarchy system; and discriminating against alien residents, especially nationals of former enemy states. One caveat is in order: National mythmaking theory does not claim that elites treat the past as totally malleable. Consuelo Cruz suggests that when constructing rhetorical systems for national identity, political actors must operate within the limits of “imaginable possibilities.”45 National myths usually contain certain historical facts. In this sense, the distinction between history and myth is not clear-cut. However, mythologizers are not like historians, who seek to “construct, on the basis of the evidence available, as accurate and truthful an understanding of the past as possible,” as Paul Cohen says, but pick and choose facts according to political convenience. Cohen points out that “even when mythologization is at its least innocent (and most premeditated), it achieves its effect typically not through out-and-out falsification but through distortion, oversimplification, and omission of material that doesn’t serve its purpose or runs counter to it.” For example, it is true that China and Poland suffered enormously at the hands of foreign aggressors, but to use victimhood to portray their entire modern history is a myth because it leaves out those more congenial, cooperative periods of their relations with the aggressor countries as well as their not-so-benign interactions with neighboring countries or ethnic groups within their own countries. Mythmaking is “fundamentally ahistorical” because it is “subjective, one-sided, egregiously incomplete.”46 National myths will sound more truthful and credible by not only including selected facts but also invoking genuine emotions and longembedded beliefs and values, therefore winning wider public resonance. One common tactic that mythologizers apply is to wrap national myths in the fabric of patriotic rhetoric, claiming that pride in one’s own nation 44

45 46

Bodnar, Remaking America; Gillis, Commemoration; Schwartz, “Commemoration”; Spillman, Nation and Commemoration; Winter, Sites of Memory. Cruz, “Identity and Persuasion.” Cohen, History in Three Keys, 213–14.

30

The Search for Reconciliation

and hostility to others is in the national interest. As John Bodnar argues, patriotic ideas appeal to the public because they are perceived as “fundamentally true” rather than as instruments of elite exploitation.47 The triumph of national mythmaking, often in the name of patriotism, results in former enemy states’ recounting dramatically different national histories. Starting from such divergent historical narratives, states disagree on “who bears what kind of responsibility to whom for having done what during the past conflict.”48 Myths that glorify their own country’s beneficence and virtues, deny guilt for crimes, and blame others for tragedies will harden the perpetrator side’s claim of its own innocence and the victim side’s demand for retribution. So mythmaking begets mythmaking, and the national memory gap becomes wider and more definite. From National Mythmaking to International Conflict: Two Mechanisms The Mechanism of Emotion Human emotion is largely neglected by the two dominant paradigms in international relations, realism and liberalism.49 Constructivist and social psychological studies of world conflict, however, emphasize that emotion and emotional relations often contribute to the eruption of mass violence.50 Even some structure-based explanations admit that emotional biases can cause people to “act in exaggerated or potentially ‘irrational’ ways that magnify the chances of conflict.”51 This book adopts Roger Petersen’s notion that emotion can be a powerful causal mechanism compelling certain political behaviors.52 The memory gap between former enemies resulting from national mythmaking can generate negative emotions. First, the victim country, indulging in myths of victimization and self-righteousness, will feel deep grievances inspired by a strong sense of injustice, often to the extent of self-pity, about its enormous sufferings in the past. Other-maligning myths held by the victim will at the same time stimulate the emotion of

47 48

49 50

51 52

Bodnar, Remaking America, 17. This formula delineating the key parameters of war responsibility is derived from writings ¯ by progressive Japanese intellectuals. See, Ishida, Kioku to Bokyaku no Seijigaku, 165. Also see Awaya, “Senso¯ Sekinin & Sengo Sekinin”; Ienaga, Senso¯ Sekinin, 29–35. Crawford, “Passion of World Politics,” 116–18. Kaufman, Modern Hatreds; Kelman, “Social-Psychological Dimensions”; Petersen, Understanding Ethnic Violence. Lake and Rothchild, “Containing Fear,” 55. Petersen, Understanding Ethnic Violence.

Explaining Deep Interstate Reconciliation

31

contempt for the perpetrator country, especially if that country denies its historical responsibility, which is condemned as morally despicable. As for the perpetrator country, its self-glorifying and self-whitewashing myths will lead to a lack of sympathy for the victim side and a failure to understand its animosity and bitterness. Dismissing the victim’s emotions as unreasonable and self-indulgent, the people of the perpetrator country will develop emotions of disgust and frustration because they are constantly reminded of a disgraceful past that they wish to forget. They will blame the national shame (not guilt), not on their past crimes but on the victim’s obsession with the past. Emotions can be noninstrumental, simply expressing feelings without demanding actions; but sometimes they are instrumental, heightening certain desires and demanding actions to satisfy them.53 Emotions derived from memory conflict should have both elements. The victim’s emotions lead to antipathy toward the perpetrator. They also translate into a sense of entitlement among the victimized people, who feel they deserve concessions and who will exert pressure on the government to adopt an uncompromising position during bilateral disputes. The perpetrator’s emotions similarly produce ill feelings toward the victim as well as discouraging policy compromise. The Mechanism of Intention Divergent memories of a traumatic history can also affect mutual perceptions of intention. The perpetrator that evades responsibility for its past wrongdoings and refuses to make amends for them makes the victim country suspect that the past aggressor may be mulling over renewed aggression. Meanwhile, the perpetrator country may find the sense of entitlement from the victim unjustified and perceive it to be merely a disguise for that country’s hostile intentions. Especially, the victim country’s quest for national greatness in the name of redeeming itself from past suffering and humiliation will stimulate fear of revanchist menace from the perpetrator. Therefore, historiographic divergence can amplify mutual threat perception, which then prompts states to watch out for foreign attack and prepare a military response. Effects of Emotion and Intention: Three Corollaries Emotion and intention influence foreign policy by changing public opinion and elite perceptions so as to set the foreign policy agenda, limit

53

Ibid., 17–19.

32

The Search for Reconciliation

policy options, and constrain or facilitate policy implementation. Three corollaries can be inferred about the distinct reactions of the public and elites to the two mechanisms. Corollary 1: Negative emotions and perceived intentions will worsen the overall climate of opinion regarding each country. One influential notion in existing studies on public opinion and foreign policy suggests that public opinion can be a “system of dikes” to guide and channel policy influence: “[S]upport permits or facilitates, while opposition limits or deters, policy makers’ discretion.”54 The climate of opinion is defined as the public context or environment in which policy makers perceive, think, and act. A negative climate of public opinion regarding another country, which might involve dislike, distance, alienation, and distrust, should make policy makers more reluctant to adopt accommodative policy toward that country, whereas a positive climate will permit or encourage diplomatic accommodation.55 This corollary is confirmed if public opinion data show a significant downturn in mutual feeling and, more importantly, the sources of the downturn are the negative emotions and perception of hostile intentions derived from bilateral memory conflict. Corollary 2: The public holding negative emotions and perceived intentions will pressure the government to adopt hard-line policies on specific bilateral issues. How does the system of dikes of public opinion function regarding specific policy issues? Herbert Kelman argues that the “collective moods” of public opinion centering on traumatic memories can figure prominently in national consciousness so as to produce “powerful social norms.” Leaders are compelled to keep policy in line with the prevailing norms, even if these norms have origins in their own mythmaking practices, often “choosing hostile actions over conciliatory ones.”56 So, a circular relationship exists between elites and public opinion: Elite mythmaking 54

55 56

Sobel, Impact of Public Opinion, 10. Although this existing literature mainly derives from studies of Western democracies, it has validity for some authoritarian cases wherein the society is considerably open and the state is vulnerable to public criticism because of the lack of legitimacy. For a discussion on the climate of opinion, see ibid., 14–15. Kelman, “Social-Psychological Dimensions,” 212–15.

Explaining Deep Interstate Reconciliation

33

shapes negative public opinion, but public opinion can later constrain leaders when they consider policy change. Following Thomas Risse-Kappen, I argue that the public can “affect the choices of top decision makers by changing policy goals, how those goals are prioritized, or by narrowing the range of options and/or means to implement goals” or “influenc[ing] the coalition-building processes among the elites.”57 To prove this prediction, one needs to show evidence that negative public opinion can directly constrain elite policy deliberation to favor hard-line options or strengthen the hands of hard-line elites over moderate ones, thus indirectly influencing government decision making. Particularly if the attentive segment of the public, sometimes called subelites, advocates a confrontational stance, it can constrain government policy on specific bilateral issues more than the mass public, which is less informed and less interested in the targeted issue areas. Two conditions affect the power of the bottom-up constraint. One is the intensity of popular emotions, which is a function of the degree of memory divergence between former enemy countries. The bigger the gap in their historical memories, the stronger the negative emotions the public will hold toward the other country and the more such emotions will be capable of swaying government policy. The other condition is the political system of a given country. Public opinion is more likely to be taken into account in policy making in a participatory democracy than in a nondemocracy. But, popular emotions can also matter in a nondemocratic country if societal forces have gained considerable access to public discourse and other political resources and if the government lacks legitimacy or suffers elite division. The case studies in the subsequent chapters show that public opinion was irrelevant in totalitarian China and Poland but did matter in democratic Japan and Germany, and that it also heavily constrained foreign policy in reform-era China under a half-open authoritarian system. Corollary 3: A negative perception of intentions, but not necessarily emotions, will heighten the elite’s threat perception, relative gains concerns, and willingness to risk conflict regarding another country. Because of the “blowback” phenomenon, elites may also believe in national myths if previously generated myths are internalized, regardless 57

Risse-Kappen, “Public Opinion,” 482.

The Search for Reconciliation

34

National Mythmaking Divergent Historical Memories

Emotions Grievances/Contempt (victim) (perpetrator) Disgust/Frustration

Public

Elites

Intentions New Aggression Threat Revanchist Menace

C1. Negative “Climate of Opinion”

C2. Public demands for confrontation limit policy options

C3. Realist concerns about mutual threat and relative gains

Popular Hostility and Official Tension figure 1.1. National Mythmaking: The Impact of Emotion and Intention.

of the original instrumental purposes of such mythmaking.58 Unlike the public, however, evidence could be lacking to demonstrate the effect of emotions among elites, especially in published sources or professional interlocutions, because their occupation values sober, rational reasoning. But elites should feel less restrained from expressing realpolitik concerns about relative gains and potential mutual threat, and these concerns should stem more from the mechanism of intention as a result of conflicting memories than from any rational assessment of international power distribution. Figure 1.1 illustrates the mechanisms of emotion and intention and the three corollaries regarding their impact on public and elite perceptions. It shows that national mythmaking will lead to popular hostility as well as confrontational foreign policy at the official level, seriously impeding bilateral reconciliation. So to facilitate reconciliation, countries should stop making egoistic national myths and try to reach a reconciliation of memories. This is done through historical settlement. 58

Snyder, Myths of Empire, 41–42.

Explaining Deep Interstate Reconciliation

35

Historical Settlement and Deep Reconciliation The literature on transitional justice in the aftermath of civil wars, ethnic conflicts, and political democratization advocates the redressing of historical injustices between former adversaries as an indispensable step toward reconciliation.59 The solutions center on the measures of restitution that correct wrongs, heal wounds, and restore trust, including apology and forgiveness, compensation, truth-telling commissions, and restorative justice. Although largely derived from empirical studies of intrastate conflict, these findings are also useful to understand the institutions and practices through which historical grievances can be allayed in international settings. Following this literature, I argue that joint history writing and serious restitution measures are two important means by which states can establish a shared historical memory, based on which they can settle physical and psychological accounts. Joint History Research A shared memory has to be established first through joint research and dialogue between historians of relevant countries. In the past century, frustrated by biased national history writing and its negative impact on interstate reconciliation, historians of some former adversary countries took the initiative to launch programs that foster transnational cooperation among historians. These programs include the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation set up under the auspices of the League of Nations between the two world wars, the postwar UNESCOsupported multilateral and bilateral historians’ dialogues, the textbookwriting cooperation between German and Polish historians from the 1970s onward,60 and the serial East Asia History Education Symposium and Japanese–South Korean Joint Workshops on History Textbooks starting from the mid-1980s.61

59

60

61

For a sample of the recent literature boom on these topics, see Barkan and Karn, Taking Wrongs Seriously; Berat and Shain, “Retribution or Truth-Telling”; Borneman, Settling Accounts; Knox and Quirk, Peace Building; and Shea, South African Truth Commission. For an overview of transnational historians’ dialogues in Europe since the end of World ¯ War I, see Kondo, Taiwa. Also see Berghahn and Schissler, ¯ Kokusai Rekishi Kyokasho introduction to Perceptions of History; Dance, History the Betrayer, ch. 6; Quillen, Textbook Improvement; and UNESCO, Bilateral Consultations. On Asian historians’ exchanges, see Kimijima, “Kyokasho Kokusai Kory ¯ ¯ u” ¯ and “Continuing Legacy.”

36

The Search for Reconciliation

One may cast doubt on the usefulness of joint history research by asking the following questions: If common history is based on truthful narrative, is there really an objective standard for measuring historical truth? Is a common history ever possible if historians themselves have biases? One obvious difficulty in attaining truth is the impossibility of establishing absolute facts: Some facts will never be clearly known. What exactly happened during the Nanjing Massacre, for example? Dead people cannot rise and tell the history. Historians can only partially reconstruct history using incomplete, fragmentary, and unstable evidence. But precisely because of the epistemological challenge inherent in history research, collaboration between historians on both sides of a past conflict is essential for obtaining more comprehensive source materials and updated research findings. The second problem with history cooperation is interpretation. Facts do not speak for themselves; they speak only when historians call on them.62 Because different people have different value standards and even professional historians are not free of political or ideological biases, reaching transnational historiographic convergence could be difficult. However, “it does not follow that, because a mountain appears to take on different shapes from different angles of vision, it has objectively either no shape at all or an infinity of shapes,” says E. H. Carr.63 Although historians’ biases do exist, they should not stop us from looking for a more objective interpretation “consistent with the existing historical record and the general consensus of professional historical scholarship.”64 Moreover, some kinds of interpretation are obviously better for the world than others. National myths that contain militarism, chauvinism, and racism harm world peace and a nation’s own interests. Total skepticism of historical objectivity would rule out any policy prescriptions to address problems caused by the purposeful misinterpretation of history. If the obstacles to interstate reconciliation truly lie in history, we are obligated to find a solution to them. One should note that whether and how soon historians can accomplish a complete and honest establishment of facts is a different matter. A singular, identical historical account of every factual detail is impossible and should not be the goal. Instead, through historians’ cooperation, states can make improvements and build agreements along the way, 62 63 64

Carr, What Is History, 9. Ibid., 30–31. Mendeloff, Truth-Telling and Mythmaking, 84.

Explaining Deep Interstate Reconciliation

37

eventually reaching consensus on the basic historical facts and fundamental definitions of war responsibility.65 Restitution Measures Having built a general consensus on what happened in the past conflict and who was responsible, states still need to institutionalize the consensus in public memory both with the aforementioned domestic social institutions and through international restitution measures. Restitution here refers to a wide range of rectifying means, including apology and forgiveness, legal accountability, and material compensation. If the past trauma prevents current relationships from moving on, “restitution provide[s] a mechanism for dealing with pain and recognizing loss and responsibility” with which “victims and perpetrators collaborate in searching for an exit from the bonds of history.”66 To begin with, the victim country’s grievances demand an unambiguous, complete, and public apology from the perpetrator country. An apology should start with acknowledging specific acts of wrongdoing. It should also admit collective responsibility and express sorrow and remorse.67 If apology becomes a message of regret that admits only harm, not responsibility, “one can presumably go around being sorry promiscuously about all sorts of things.”68 Finally, a full apology should promise not to repeat the offense.69 Apologies stated in public by government heads usually have the greatest political impact. By publicly renouncing one’s past behavior and pledging not to repeat it, the perpetrator’s apology serves to console and rehabilitate the victims as well as to assure them of future peaceful coexistence. As Melissa Nobles says, “The power of 65

66 67

68 69

Take the Nanjing Massacre, for instance: Chinese and Japanese historians may never agree on how many people died, but they can still converge on the notion that a massacre took place and a large number of people were slaughtered, which is the consensus of mainstream historians. Barkan, Guilt of Nations, xxiv, xl. The term collective responsibility is different from collective guilt. As West German president Richard von Weizsacker said in his Bundestag speech on May 8, 1945, “Guilt ¨ is, like innocence, not collective, but personal.” But the “collective responsibility” of a nation is for its younger generation to keep memories alive and acknowledge the disgraceful aspects of the national past. Cunningham says that people approach their circumstances with a certain social identity, which is significantly defined by the history of their social group, so it is unacceptable to claim no responsibility for the past actions of the group. See Cunningham, “Saying Sorry,” 290; Herf, Divided Memory, 357–58. Cunningham, “Saying Sorry,” 287; O’Neill, Honor, Symbols, and War, 185. Tavuchis, Mea Culpa.

38

The Search for Reconciliation

apologies . . . is that they not only publicly ratify certain reinterpretations of history, but they also morally judge, assign responsibility, and introduce expectations about what acknowledgement of that history requires. Thus, although apologies focus our attention on the past, they also have implications for the future.”70 Meanwhile, it is honorable for the perpetrator to apologize because doing so can end national shame and restore cleaner consciences. An apology shifts the moral burden to the victim to forgive. In his study of political forgiveness, Peter Digeser argues, “In a world in which what is done at one moment cannot be undone the next, forgiving relieves the burdens created by wrongful actions and unbearable debts. In relieving those burdens, forgiveness presents the opportunity to start afresh or reestablish a relationship of moral equality between victim and transgressor.”71 If apology uplifts the victims, forgiveness sets the perpetrators free. Forgiveness contains the commitment not to retaliate against or maintain estrangement from the perpetrator.72 So the exchange of apology and forgiveness will dampen national mythmaking and put historical hostility to rest. Still, the perpetrator’s apology should precede the victim’s forgiveness to ensure long-term amicability. Psychological studies show that empathy is the central facilitating condition that leads to forgiveness, but the victim will more likely feel empathy toward the perpetrator if the latter apologizes.73 At times, governments agree to let go of the past for the sake of political expediency. Without receiving a proper apology, however, the victimized people can continue to feel pain and refuse to forgive from the bottoms of their hearts. Furthermore, a victim country that receives no proper apology is a fertile ground for elite mythmaking to thrive because in the eyes of the public the perpetrator’s lack of repentance simply reinforces its negative image portrayed in national myths. In the same vein, true forgiveness will not be forthcoming if even the minimal demand of legal accountability is not met. Blanket amnesty would completely shut down the pursuit of justice and twist forgiveness into insult because people do not even know “who is forgiving whom for what.”74 As Donald Shriver Jr. says, the slogan cannot be “forgiveness for the past and accountability for the future” but must be “accountability 70 71 72 73 74

Nobles, The Politics of Official Apologies, 2. Digeser, Political Forgiveness, 11–12. McCullough, “Interpersonal Forgiving.” Ibid. Digeser, Political Forgiveness, 55.

Explaining Deep Interstate Reconciliation

39

for the past as a step toward forgiving it.”75 After all, forgiving is not forgetting. Nonetheless, the fact that historical wrongs can never be completely undone renders perfect justice impossible. Domestic cases of reconciliation remind us of other values equally important to legal justice. In the 1990s, South Africa’s truth-telling actions, which were carried out without prosecuting the guilty, helped stabilize the process of democratization. Mandela personally opposed Nuremburg-style tribunals or a public witch hunt. Instead, he expressed willingness to forgive those perpetrators of past crimes as long as they came forward to disclose their behavior publicly.76 Similarly, in interstate relations, too much retribution only becomes revenge and can trigger political backlash. The Nuremberg trials and the Tokyo trials have not only been criticized from a legalist perspective but also vehemently rejected by right-wingers in the perpetrator states as “victors’ justice.”77 Historical settlement should focus on seriously investigating past wrongdoings and encouraging free debates about history in the society. If doing so can bring the perpetrator to admit responsibility, legal prosecution may be dropped as a gesture of forgiveness. Like legal accountability, full compensation for loss through financial means is also difficult and may spark new resentments if the payment destabilizes the economy of the perpetrator country. Yet some amount of material compensation is necessary, especially if the victims are in a desperate condition. Still, the issue of moral and legal responsibility must be publicly stated before the victims will even be willing to accept the payment.78 Taken together, joint history research and restitution measures can heal and rehabilitate both the victims and the perpetrators and reintegrate them “into some approximate positive civic relationship.”79 Specifically, the negative emotions of grievances and resentment will be discarded because the victim’s emotional needs for honor and a sense of self-worth

75 76 77

78

79

Shriver, “Long Road to Reconciliation,” 211. See Berat and Shain, “Retribution or Truth-Telling.” Dower, Embracing Defeat, ch. 15; Luban, “Legacies of Nuremberg”; Minear, Victors’ ¯ ¯ o¯ Saiban Kara Sengo Sekinin no Shiso¯ e. Justice; Onuma, Toky For example, some former sex slaves in WWII resisted the compensation offered by a nominally nongovernmental Japanese fund precisely because it evaded the legal responsibility of the Japanese government for the crime. See Soh, “Japan’s Responsibility toward Comfort Women Survivors.” Shriver, “Long Road to Reconciliation,” 213.

40

The Search for Reconciliation

will be addressed, whereas the perpetrator’s debt will be canceled and historical stigma cleansed. A stereotyped negative image will be dropped, and mutual understanding and trust will be restored, all of which will help bring the two nations into a truly amicable relationship. Meanwhile, the perpetrator’s forthright acknowledgment of responsibility and pledge to not repeat past wrongdoings will eliminate worry about future aggression, and fear of the victim’s revanchist threat will dissipate as the victim promises not to hold history against the perpetrator. As threat perception and expectation of war diminish, the two governments will be confident in carrying out comprehensive and deep cooperation in security, the economy, and other areas. Hypotheses about National Mythmaking and Interstate Reconciliation National mythmaking theory makes one general prediction regarding interstate reconciliation: Prediction III: The more divergent two countries’ historical narratives after their past traumatic conflict, the more difficult they will be to reconcile; the more convergent their narratives, the more easily they will reconcile. Memory divergence between former enemy states is the greatest when their national myths generate combative narratives, which have three characteristics. These narratives are “mirror images,” with each side viewing the other as intrinsically aggressive, brutal, and evil and itself as always defensive and righteous. These “mirror images” will stir up indiscriminate, all-out hostile feelings and actions between the parties.80 Second, the narratives often clash on issues of fundamental national interest, such as territorial/border rights and population dislocation, and the clashes will call for immediate, violent responses. Finally, these narratives will center bilateral relations on historical legacy, making the resolution of this legacy the precondition for any future cooperation. Combative narratives set a prohibitively high hurdle for reconciliation by activating the mechanisms of emotion and intention to the extreme. The result is nonreconciliation. Less divergent are conflictual narratives, which still disagree on the scope and nature of historical responsibility but tend to not demonize 80

Kelman, “Transforming the Relationship,” 223–26.

Explaining Deep Interstate Reconciliation

41

the entire nation and blame only certain political and social groups in each country. These narratives usually do not involve historical disputes affecting today’s fundamental national interests. Additionally, although contesting how much contrition is enough, conflictual narratives tend not to make contrition a precondition for bilateral cooperation. These narratives also activate mechanisms of emotion and intention, thus limiting reconciliation, but they do not inflame intergovernmental belligerence or societal isolation outright. The result is shallow reconciliation, most likely in the substage of friction. A variant of the conflictual narrative is the quasi-convergent narrative, where some myths of the two sides may overlap, forming a shared but false historical memory, whereas other areas of memory disagreement still exist, although they are often covered up. These narratives are usually based on expedient agreements between ruling elites rather than on genuine historical settlement. They may subdue but will never truly eradicate the mechanisms of emotion and intention. And with elite readjustment of political priorities and societal demands for truth and justice, the quasi-convergence in historiography can easily break down, and serious historical disputes may ensue. The interstate relationship resulting from such narratives is still shallow reconciliation, most likely in the substage of rapprochement. Contrastingly, convergent narratives first emerge from bilateral joint history research, which gives an honest representation of the past traumatic conflict and an unambiguous definition of the responsibility for the conflict. Such a shared interpretation is perpetuated through interstate restitution arrangements that serve to heal historical trauma, at least partially, and neutralize mutual suspicion of malign intention. Without the effects of national myths on emotion and intention, official cooperation and societal contacts will flourish, and the popular atmosphere will become harmonious. Therefore, the outcome should be deep reconciliation. The predictions of realist theory and national mythmaking theory for interstate reconciliation outcomes, given different initial conditions, are illustrated in Table 1.2.

comparison with alternative theoretical approaches Although international relations literature largely neglects the subject of postconflict interstate reconciliation, it does contain a number of theories

The Search for Reconciliation

42

table 1.2. Competing Theoretical Predictions for Interstate Reconciliation Initial Conditions Realist Theory of External Material Threat

National Mythmaking Theory

Predictions for Interstate Reconciliation

Positive structural Convergent narratives Deep reconciliation conditions (historical settlement) (common threat) Negative structural Combative narratives Nonreconciliation conditions (national mythmaking) (mutual threat because of direct balancing or interbloc struggle) Neutral structural Conflictual narratives or Shallow reconciliation conditions quasi-convergent (no clear, imminent narratives common, or mutual (national mythmaking) threat)

about international peace and stability that are relevant to the subject. This section confronts challenges and objections from three alternative theories to the two examined in this book. They are democratic peace theory, commercial peace theory, and the theory of regional integration and security community. Democratic peace theory argues that democracies do not war against one another because of their shared liberal norms and the constraints of democratic institutions.81 The theory would suggest that former enemy states cannot reach true peace until they have both democratized.82 Supported by significant statistical evidence, democratic peace theory is considered close to a law in the study of international relations. Critics argue, however, that the theory ignores the common realist interests between democracies, fails to consider the war proneness of newly democratizing countries, and contains methodological flaws in statistical analysis.83 Moreover, democratic peace theory sets too high a bar for the reconciliation of former enemies. History shows evidence of durable peace between some nondemocracies, such as members of the Association of 81

82

83

Doyle, “Kant and Foreign Affairs”; Owen, “Liberalism Produces Democratic Peace”; Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace, ch. 2. For example, Edward Friedman argues that China and Japan cannot peacefully coexist unless China becomes a democracy. See Friedman, “Preventing War.” For the theoretical debate on democratic peace, see Brown, Debating the Democratic Peace.

Explaining Deep Interstate Reconciliation

43

Southeast Asian Nations, and between states where only one is a democracy, like the U.S.-Mexican relationship before the 1980s.84 Moreover, a good theory should have prescriptive richness, which means it “points to manipulable causes, since manipulable causes might be controllable by human action.”85 But the policy prescription of this theory – democratization – is such a difficult and sometimes war-prone process that it is hardly manipulable.86 Finally, emphasizing democratic peace risks blaming only the nondemocratic side for international conflict. This book resists such a simplistic conclusion about reconciliation, which is a highly complex and emotionally charged process that takes the efforts of all relevant parties. The liberal theory of commercial peace poses another challenge to the approach of this book. This theory holds that increasing levels of economic interaction should reduce the likelihood of armed conflict mainly because the economic costs of conflict grow as economic interdependence deepens, thus discouraging states from resolving disputes by force. Statistical data do suggest a generally negative correlation between trade levels and militarized interstate disputes.87 Empirical tests of commercial peace theory are still inconclusive, however, because of the different choices of control variables and ways of measuring trade employed in the rapidly growing literature.88 Besides, realist critics argue that international power structures can trump economic relations. When states’ fundamental security interests clash, relative gains concerns will discourage close economic interaction, especially the trading of strategic goods; a high level of economic interdependence only follows shared security interests. When process tracing the different outcomes of interstate relations in the case studies, I demonstrate that the level of economic interaction is to a considerable extent contingent on other variables like the international power structure and historical memory; moreover, when it seems separate from political

84 85 86

87 88

Acharya, “Collective Identity”; Kacowicz and Bar-Siman-Tov, “Stable Peace,” 16. Van Evera, Guide to Methods, 21. On the conflict proneness of states in the democratization process, see Mansfield and Snyder, “Democratization and War.” The authors later qualified this thesis by arguing that democratization will increase war danger if the process is stalled or incomplete and when government institutions that regulate political participation are weak. See Mansfield and Snyder, Electing to Fight. For a recent critique disputing the significance of the war proneness of new democracies, see McFaul, “Are New Democracies WarProne?” Oneal and Russett, “The Classical Liberals Were Right.” Barbieri, “Economic Interdependence”; Barbieri and Levy, “Sleeping with the Enemy”; Papayaonou, Power Ties.

44

The Search for Reconciliation

factors, as in Sino-Japanese relations during the Koizumi period (2001–6), booming economic ties fail to smooth over interstate political tension. The third alternative theoretical approach is proposed by the literature on regional integration and the security community, an idea pioneered by Karl Deutsch in 1957 that recently received an outstanding revisitation from the constructivist perspective by Adler and Barnett. According to these studies, pluralistic security communities characterized by shared regional identity and a strong sense of community can alter member states’ interests and transform their security policies toward seeking pacifist relations with one another; the essential conditions for security communities include multiple ranges of communication and transaction, the functioning of international organizations and institutions, and the process of socialization and learning.89 But, as Raimo Vayrynen suggests, the constructivist approach risks ¨ a tautology: “Common identities help to establish a security community whose existence – that is, the absence of war – proves that the participants share common identities.” It is unclear if common identity is a necessary precondition for or an indicator of the security community.90 Although both the security community and deep reconciliation concepts feature stable peace, the latter does not require the common identity and sense of “we feeling” unique to a community. This is not to refute that a security community often arises between former adversaries that have deeply reconciled, as it did in Germany and Poland after the Cold War. Still, this literature may challenge realist theory and national mythmaking theory by suggesting that the same forces that bring about the security community, such as transnational interactions and international institutions, can shape states’ perceptions of their structural interests as well as their historical memories. Evidence shows, however, that a security community is more likely to emerge when structural conditions permit it to. The U.S.-Canadian stable peace, for instance, was initially driven by power politics and then followed by the development of shared identity and close intergovernmental and societal ties.91 Likewise, the European community did not expand to Eastern Europe until the Cold War ended. As for memory, the case studies in the following chapters suggest that different regional orders in postwar East Asia and Europe indeed 89 90 91

Adler and Barnett, Security Communities, ch. 2; Deutsch, Political Community, ch. 2. Vayrynen, “Stable Peace,” 120. ¨ Shore, “No Fences.”

Explaining Deep Interstate Reconciliation

45

predisposed the two perpetrator states in WWII, Germany and Japan, to define their national identity and interpret their war history in rather contrasting ways: Germany is far more forthright in accepting war responsibility and anchors its national identity more deeply in a regional sense than Japan. But, the argument of transnational sociological interactions does not identify a microlevel causal mechanism directly addressing the emotional and perceptual paths leading to reconciliation. An emphasis on the effect of historical ideas cannot completely explain the divergent international relations outcomes following traumatic conflict – perhaps no single approach could – but it can shed light on a fundamental yet poorly understood part of the puzzle.

2 When East Meets West Postwar German-Polish Reconciliation

Germany and Poland, the two Central and Eastern European neighbors, experienced enduring, traumatic conflicts with one another in modern history, which culminated in the immensely destructive World War II. After the war, the danger of military confrontation continued to haunt the two countries as they were separately allied with the United States and the Soviet Union. However insurmountable the historical and structural hurdles to reconciliation between these countries seemed to be, their relationship began to improve starting in the early 1970s and approached the stage of deep reconciliation in the 1990s. I argue that German-Polish reconciliation to a significant extent can be attributed to the institutional measures of historical settlement that began in the 1970s, including German restitution to Poland and bilateral cooperation among historians. Endorsed at a time when the systemic conditions turned favorable, these efforts nurtured a positive mutual image and trust that cushioned the impact of negative international conditions in the 1980s and paved the way for eventual reconciliation between the unified Germany and Poland after the Cold War. This chapter begins with an introduction of the historical background of German-Polish relations and divides the reconciliation process after WWII into four periods. Subsequent sections apply realist and national mythmaking theories to each period and assess their relative explanatory power.

historical trauma and the periodization of postwar relations For centuries, Poland was caught both geographically and politically between its two powerful neighbors, Prussia/Germany and Russia/the 46

When East Meets West

47

USSR, at the hands of which the Polish people endured devastating and humiliating national trauma.1 The three partitions of Poland by Prussia, Russia, and Austria from 1772 to 1795 reduced the once-great European power to the status of nonexistence. Napoleon Bonaparte’s victories against Russia and Prussia brought a partial and ephemeral restoration of Polish national statehood as the Duchy of Warsaw. But with his defeat, the three partitioners soon regained Polish lands. After WWI, the Treaty of Versailles brought about the rebirth of the Polish state. The twenty years of the interwar period was only “a brief interlude in the over-all stream of statelessness” for Poland, however.2 On the eve of WWII, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a secret protocol in their Treaty of Non-Aggression, or the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, that promised the eastern half of Poland to Moscow. On September 17, less than three weeks after Hitler invaded Poland from the west, Soviet foreign minister Molotov declared that the Polish government had ceased to exist and ordered the Red Army to occupy eastern Poland. So Poland was once again carved up: Its western territories were annexed to Germany, the eastern area went to the Soviet Union, and the central part became a German protectorate named the General Gouvernement. German atrocities during the invasion and occupation of Poland were horrendous.3 More than six million Polish citizens were killed, which amounted to 22.2 percent of the total Polish population living under German occupation. (Compare this figure to the suffering of the next two countries on the tragic list, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, which lost about 10 percent and 4 percent of their populations, respectively.) Half of the Polish killed were Jews, who perished in ghettos, concentration camps, and prisons together with millions of Jews deported to Poland from other European countries conquered by Germany. Poles were also subject to a variety of brutalities, including mass execution, slave labor, medical experiments, and daily terror and political persecution. Poland’s material losses during the war amounted to 38 percent of total national wealth, the highest among all Nazi-occupied countries on a per capita basis.4 The capital city, Warsaw, was 75 percent destroyed, and other 1

2 3

4

Unless specially indicated, the following review of Polish history draws upon Davies, God’s Playground. Ibid., 6. For further details on German victimization of Poland during World War II, see Gross, Polish Society; Kulski, Germany and Poland, ch. 2; and Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, German Crimes in Poland. Dziewanowski, Poland in the Twentieth Century, 147.

48

The Search for Reconciliation

major cities also suffered severe damages.5 Additionally, Nazi Germany attempted to exterminate the Polish leadership stratum, massacred or deported the intelligentsia, banned publications and art performances in the Polish language, and minimized educational opportunities for Poles. The goal was to turn Poles into a semiliterate people and to permanently eliminate Polish national identity. Compared to German aggression, the Soviet military conquest of eastern Poland was less damaging because it lasted only two weeks and incurred relatively low casualties (fewer than three thousand). The Red Army’s use of violence during the occupation was in most cases selective, as it targeted mainly Polish officers, policemen, and landowners to root out the ruling apparatus of the “capitalist” Polish regime.6 Still, in the first two years of the war, prior to the beginning of the Nazis’ systematic mass annihilation of Jews, the Soviets actually killed more people in Poland than the Nazis did. Some of the most notorious Soviet atrocities include the Katyn Massacre in the spring of 1940, in which five thousand Polish POWs and prisoners were murdered and another ten thousand went missing, and the killing of about one hundred thousand people when evacuating prisons in the Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia during June–July 1941.7 Therefore, although the German action of the Holocaust carried out largely in Poland has no parallel in human history, the ruthless Tsarist and later Soviet aggression made Poland’s “Slavic brother” another major perpetrator in Polish history. Overall, Germany and Russia posed the gravest menace to Polish national survival in modern history. The country’s experience of dual victimization led to a considerable emotional and political paradox when Poland had to choose sides between the two in the postwar era. The aftermath of the war saw a dramatic alteration in the Polish geographic and demographic landscape, which added another page to the traumatic history of German-Polish-Soviet relations. At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, where the postwar spheres of influence were determined, Allied leaders accepted Stalin’s demand that the Soviet Union would annex eastern Poland up to the Curzon Line and Germany would compensate for Poland’s loss with its territories east to the Oder-Neisse

5 6 7

Schatz, The Generation, 200. Gross, Revolution from Abroad, 42. For a comparison of Poland’s suffering in the German and Soviet occupation zones, see the epilogue in ibid.

When East Meets West

49

Line. As a result, Germany not only lost some forty thousand square miles of its eastern territories richly endowed with natural resources and industries, it also saw the expulsion of about 2.9 million German people from Poland, who endured unforgettable hardship and humiliation in the journey back to Germany.8 Many Germans blamed this “barbarous exodus,” in fact the result of an Allied decision, on “Polish revenge” and claimed themselves as the victims of the war. The definition of victimhood in this case is further blurred by the entangled relationships between Poles and those minority groups inhabiting Poland before the war, including Ukrainians, Belorussians, and particularly Jews. The dominant trend of Polish nationalism in the twentieth century, aiming at establishing a Polish state consisting of primarily ethnic Poles, fueled violent ethnic conflicts in Poland before and during WWII.9 These conflicts reinforced the racist feelings among Poles toward their Jewish neighbors, whom they saw as outsiders, wicked exploiters, and Communist collaborators. During the Holocaust, Poles largely acted as passive witnesses, but sometimes they also acted as Hitler’s willing helpers, as in the case of the 1941 Jedwabne Massacre.10 More pogroms against Jews, many of them Holocaust survivors, occurred in Poland in the late 1940s, in which thousands were killed and most of the remaining Jewish population was driven to flee the country.11 This is the dark side of Polish history, which Poles, posing as indisputable victims in modern European history, refused to face for a long time after the war. This chapter divides the postwar German-Polish reconciliation process into four periods. Period One, from the end of WWII to the mid-1960s, was a stage of nonreconciliation, mainly because the East-West confrontation in Europe locked the two countries into strategic antagonism. During this period, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) government of West Germany headed by Konrad Adenauer hinged such top national priorities as security, unification, and economic revival upon a strategic alliance with the West. Adenauer refused to make any compromise to Eastern bloc countries, wishing only to impose Bonn’s terms on them when the Western alliance achieved absolute superiority. To make things worse, West Germany and Poland held combative historical narratives of their past conflict, which aggravated the structural barriers to reconciliation.

8 9 10 11

Schatz, The Generation, 201; Steinlauf, Bondage to the Dead, 43. Walicki, “Intellectual Elites.” Gross, Neighbors. Gross, “Tangled Web”; Steinlauf, Bondage to the Dead, 51–52.

50

The Search for Reconciliation

Bilateral relations progressed to shallow reconciliation in Period Two, starting from the late 1960s when the Social Democratic Party (SPD) took power and initiated the Ostpolitik. The focus was on improving relations with the Eastern bloc to foster inter-German contacts and prepare for eventual German unification. Aided by the East-West d´etente at the time, West Germany and Poland partially settled border disputes and the legal status of East Germany. Also, they commenced a history education dialogue enabled by not only their diplomatic normalization but also West Germany’s politics of reconciliation. Still, Polish foreign policy was not free of Soviet control in the 1970s, which set the upper limit for its cooperation with West Germany. Period Three, spanning the 1980s, saw the continuation of shallow reconciliation. On one hand, the two countries were alienated because of the dissipation of d´etente and the Polish government’s crackdown on the Solidarity movement. On the other hand, the SPD carried out a shadow Ostpolitik as an opposition party, and starting in 1984, Chancellor Helmut Kohl resumed dialogue and cooperation with Soviet allies. In addition, the bilateral historiographic gap shrank in this period thanks to the unprecedentedly open debates in West Germany on war memory, the liberalization of Polish history writing propelled by Solidarity, and the continuing bilateral textbook cooperation. The end of the Cold War created an indeterminate structural setting in Europe at the beginning of Period Four. Nevertheless, the two countries permanently settled their territorial disputes, institutionalized security and economic cooperation, and developed a sense of closeness and mutual trust at the popular level – all characteristics of deep reconciliation. One major driving force pertained to Germany’s goal of achieving reunification and neutralizing neighbor countries’ mistrust of a unified Germany. For this reason, Germany did not seek dominance in Europe through its power advantage but opted instead for a multilateral, institutional approach that centered on regional integration with European countries. The second cause was the increasing convergence of German and Polish national memories resulting from the demythification trend in each country’s national historiography as well as comprehensive exchange programs and historians’ dialogue.

nonreconciliation in period one: 1945 to the mid-1960s From the war’s end to the mid-1960s, West Germany and Poland had no formal diplomatic relations, their commercial and societal exchange activities were kept at a minimal level, and fear of imminent war and popular

When East Meets West

51

animosity toward one another were prevalent. The negative structural conditions that the two countries faced after WWII were the main cause of nonreconciliation in this period. Besides, national mythmaking, motivated by strategic interests and domestic political needs, gave rise to combative narratives of the two countries’ traumatic conflict history that aggravated the structural antagonism and stifled any momentum toward bilateral reconciliation. Structural Constraints, Heightened Expectation of Bilateral Conflict, and National Nonrecognition When the Cold War Iron Curtain descended in Europe in the late 1940s, West Germany and Poland fell on opposite sides of it. Because of its vast land mass and geographic position right on the lines of transportation and communication linking the Soviet homeland with Soviet forces in East Germany, Poland became a key component of the Eastern European buffer zone for the defense of the Soviet heartland. The Polish military, the largest in Central and Eastern Europe, was also Stalinized to the greatest extent of all the Soviet allies. Not only were Soviet-style internal organizations, training patterns, and doctrinal systems indiscriminately imported, but also all important posts in the military, including the defense minister, chief of the general staff, and high-ranking commanders, were held by those who had served in the Red Army.12 Confronting the Soviet military threat, the United States propped up its own allies in Europe, including West Germany. Germany was one of the five centers of industrial and military power that, according to George Kennan, the West could not let fall into hostile hands. Given the lessons of WWII and the postwar military balance in Europe, moreover, it was believed that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO’s) eastern front would be indefensible in the face of a Soviet blitzkrieg and that its defenders would have to make tactical retreats to cushion the enemy assault and buy time to prepare a counterattack. Bringing Germany into NATO would stretch the defense line further to the east and strengthen Western defenses both spatially and temporally. West Germany formally joined NATO on May 6, 1955, and soon twelve German divisions were created as an important part of NATO’s forward defense.13

12 13

Johnson, “Warsaw Pact”; Korbonski, “Soviet Policy toward Poland.” For the history of German rearmament and military integration with the West from the late 1940s to the early 1950s, see Lyman, NATO and Germany, chs. 2 and 3; McAllister, No Exit; and Willis, France, Germany.

52

The Search for Reconciliation

The Eastern bloc responded to West Germany’s inclusion in NATO by immediately concluding the Warsaw Pact on May 14. Thus, Poland and West Germany became the bridgeheads of their respective security alliances guarding against an imminent war. The interbloc struggle translated into direct military tension between the two countries. In addition to the interbloc military standoff in Europe, West Germany and Poland were also antagonized by a direct clash of national interests. They first confronted each other over the frontier issue. At the Yalta Conference, Stalin demanded a shift in Poland’s territory westward to weaken Germany and also extend his country’s own sphere of influence in Europe. The proposed eastern Polish border was already a fait accompli created by the Red Army occupation. But, the Oder-Neisse Line was accepted by other Allied Powers only grudgingly. The joint communiqu´e signed at Potsdam approved Moscow’s formula but stated, “The final delimitation of the western frontier of Poland should await the peace settlement,” suggesting that the border agreement was not a permanent settlement.14 This issue drove a deep wedge between West Germany and Poland. For more than two decades, Bonn rejected the Oder-Neisse Line as Germany’s final eastern frontier, a position supported by America, Britain, and France.15 Also, the millions of Germans expelled from the annexed German territories constantly pressured Bonn to take back their lost land. So, the German threat that Stalin sold to Poles when proposing the territorial shift became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Poland’s worst fear was that Western powers would support West Germany’s bid to change the postwar territorial status quo by force. This fear of German revanchism compelled Poland to integrate its army with the Warsaw Pact, which explicitly targeted West Germany. The message was that any territorial encroachment would be intolerably expensive for the West.16 So, the frontier dispute obstructed mutual respect for territorial integrity, an important aspect of national recognition. Another major source of conflict between West Germany and Poland was the division of Germany, the so-called German question. After the war, Germany was divided into four occupation zones controlled by the United States, the USSR, Britain, and France. But, the Berlin Blockade in

14 15

16

Kulski, Germany and Poland, 67. The French position fluctuated from the end of the war until 1959, when de Gaulle made a dramatic turnaround to announce that he favored the establishment of a unified Germany that would remain within its present frontiers. Ibid., 93. Herrmann, “Comparing World Views,” 83.

When East Meets West

53

1948–49 ended Western hope about German unity in the near future; the West decided to fuse the three western occupation zones into the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in July 1948. In the east, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was established in October 1949 in the Soviet occupation zone. The newly founded GDR received a letter of congratulations from Warsaw immediately. Because of its painful interactions with Germany in their long history, Poland desired to keep Germany divided and weak. The existence of a socialist East Germany, dependent on the recognition and support of the Soviet bloc, on Poland’s western border could also contain German territorial revanchism. On July 16, 1950, the GDR and Poland signed a boundary treaty. The preamble of the treaty stated that the frontier issue had been settled at Potsdam, and Article 1 specified that the Oder-Neisse Line constituted their state border. Whereas Poland endorsed a two-Germany policy, the Adenauer government refused to accept the legitimacy of East Germany. Adenauer insisted that the West would eventually become so much more powerful than the East that it could force Moscow to assent to the absorption of the GDR by the FRG.17 This “policy of strength” precluded any compromise with the Eastern bloc over East Germany. At the end of 1955, Bonn declared in the Hallstein Doctrine (named after the then undersecretary for foreign affairs) that it would rupture diplomatic relations with any third state that was to recognize the GDR. On June 28, 1956, Bonn reconfirmed that it had no intention of establishing diplomatic relations with the Eastern European states and would not recognize the GDR or its present frontiers.18 Thus, the German question constituted a major barrier to Bonn-Warsaw diplomatic normalization. Two opportunities for normalization arose in Period One, both doomed to fail because of structural constraints. The first emerged following the 1956 crisis in Soviet-Polish relations. After defeating the Stalinist faction in the Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR), Wladyslaw Gomulka, the Communist leader of Poland, expressed in June 1957 the wish to normalize relations with West Germany without any preconditions. But Adenauer refused to deal with Poland, citing the Hallstein Doctrine. This was hardly a lost chance because Adenauer never wavered in his conviction that Western integration was the best means to gain national unity, and the Gomulka government was not fully autonomous vis-a-vis Soviet ` control. 17 18

Grabbe, “Konrad Adenauer.” Kulski, Germany and Poland, 109–11.

54

The Search for Reconciliation

New hopes for bilateral rapprochement came after the “the hour of great disillusionment,” when Western allies failed to respond resolutely to the erection of the Berlin Wall by the USSR and GDR in 1961. The foreign minister of the new Erhard government in Bonn, Gerhard Schroder, ¨ developed a “policy of movement” to improve relations with the East without requiring a quid pro quo, as opposed to the previous theory of “maintained tensions.”19 But, this policy retained a number of rigid Adenauer-era premises, including that the FRG was part of the Western strategic community, must represent all German nations, and would not recognize the postwar frontier. These terms were unacceptable to the Eastern bloc. To make things worse, Bonn approached the dissident Soviet allies, Romania and Czechoslovakia, but bypassed the GDR, Poland, and in effect the USSR. To stop any deviation by its satellite states, Moscow violently crushed the Prague Spring in 1968. This also crushed Bonn’s hope for the policy of movement. Structurally Imposed Economic Isolation Traditionally, Poland’s commercial relations with Western Europe, especially Germany, were far more prosperous than with Russia and Eastern Europe.20 After WWII, such close economic ties were expected to continue. A report published by the Organization for European Economic Cooperation in December 1948 predicted that around 1952–53, when the Marshall Plan was scheduled to end, trade between Eastern and Western Europe would reach approximately 80 percent of the exports and 73 percent of the imports of the 1938 level.21 Nevertheless, East-West trade declined, mainly because of the rising hostility between the superpowers. The U.S.-led Marshall Plan was supposed to be open to all of Europe.22 But, soon after the first planning meeting for the Marshall Plan in July 1947, Stalin decided to withdraw. 19

20

21 22

The Adenauer government had insisted that any move toward relaxing tensions with Eastern European states must be matched by moves toward German reunification. See Whetten, Germany’s Ostpolitik, 12. In 1937, only 1.5 percent of Poland’s total imports were from the USSR and the Baltic republics, and 6.0 percent were from Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Romania combined. Germany alone provided 14.5 percent of imported goods in Poland. See Fallenbuchl, East-West Technology Transfer, 9. Adler-Karlsson, Western Economic Warfare, 158. But few in the American government ever believed that Stalin would accept the offer, and even if he had chosen otherwise, Congress would not have funded a program that included the USSR. Maier and Bischof, Marshall Plan and Germany, 56.

When East Meets West

55

table 2.1. Poland’s Imports from Major Trade Partners, 1937–1970 (by %)

Year

USSR

Eastern Europe

Other European Countries

1937 1947 1954 1955 1960 1965 1970

1.5 25.1 37.3 33.7 31.1 31.1 37.7

6 7.9 30.3 26.9 27.8 32.8 29.6

56.4 43.9 21.5 24.3 22.8 21.1 22.8

Sources: Fallenbuchl, East-West Technology Transfer, 9; United Nations, International Trade Statistics Yearbook, various years.

He feared that a large influx of dollars into the Soviet sphere of influence would increase its economic dependence on the West, and the shipment of raw materials from the East to the West would damage Soviet strategic interests. Stalin also dragged Poland and Czechoslovakia out of the program. To compete with the Marshall Plan, Moscow proposed a Molotov Plan, which later evolved into a Soviet-sponsored economic grouping in Eastern Europe. As a prime candidate for the Marshall Plan, Poland deserved a special compensatory gesture from Moscow. The Polish-Soviet Trade Treaty signed in January 1948 provided for their cooperation, worth two million rubles over four years.23 The Polish economy was soon subject to intrabloc coordination to enhance the self-sufficiency of the East and reduce its strategic vulnerability to the West. So, the direction of Poland’s foreign trade shifted dramatically. Table 2.1 indicates that from the 1950s to 1970, Poland’s imports from the USSR and Eastern Europe combined were always two to three times as large as those from the rest of Europe. The economic autarky of the Soviet bloc was not entirely self-imposed: Western economic warfare also contributed to the East-West economic stratification. In November 1949, Washington orchestrated the establishment of CoCom (the Coordinating Committee) of the Consultative Group, an international organization coordinating export control against the socialist bloc. West Germany was particularly vulnerable to U.S. pressure for a trade embargo to the East: Unlike other Western European countries, where export control followed a nonbinding “gentlemen’s 23

Davies, God’s Playground, 572.

56

The Search for Reconciliation

agreement” with the United States, the foreign trade of the occupied West Germany was directly supervised by the three Western occupying powers. West German export control observed the American Positive List, which was longer and more severe than the European CoCom list. Bonn also desperately needed American aid because its economy had been devastated by the war and now faced the challenge of absorbing millions of expellees from the eastern territories. From 1945 to 1955, Bonn was the third largest recipient of American grants and credits, after the United Kingdom and France.24 It could not afford damaging its relationship with Washington by doing trade with Poland. In response to the Western embargo, the Soviet Bloc implemented a counterembargo, albeit in a less organized fashion, sharply reducing exports of strategic goods to the West.25 West German–Polish trade was badly affected by this interbloc economic warfare. Penetration of Societal Relations by Structural Pressure West German–Polish popular relations during this period were marked by a high degree of mistrust and animosity. In a West German public survey in September 1959, 36 percent of respondents reported that they held a “mainly negative attitude” toward Poland, compared to 24 percent who had a positive attitude. The arguments for a negative attitude included descriptions of Poles as “sly, treacherous, deceitful, unreliable” and “dirty, slovenly and backward” as well as objections to Poland’s policy of maintaining the Oder-Neisse Line and Communism. Polish survey data were lacking during this period, but Polish animosity toward West Germany can be felt in the latter’s poll about Polish perceptions of themselves. In a West German poll in 1959, 49 percent of respondents agreed that “the Poles have nothing good to say about the Germans,” compared to only 12 percent who believed Poles had a positive view about Germans and “would be prepared to live in friendship with [them].”26 The interbloc security dilemma obviously contributed to such negative popular perceptions. One clear indicator was the common concern among the West German public about the danger of war in a polarized world. Most West Germans did not believe that in the long run Western democracies and Communism in the East could live together in peace, and more were “constantly afraid of another war” than could “look calmly to 24 25 26

Maier and Bischof, Marshall Plan and Germany, 4–5. Adler-Karlsson, Western Economic Warfare, 81. Noelle and Neumann, Germans, 567–68.

When East Meets West

57

table 2.2. Foreign Tourists to Poland, 1960–1970 (Thousands) Year

FRG

GDR

USSR

Czechoslovakia

1960 1965 1968 1969 1970

11.4 26.6 22.9 25.7 36

37.5 330.6 525.6 542.6 539

22.9 148.2 278.4 319.2 335

51.8 355.8 467.5 643 489

Source: Central Statistical Office of the Polish People’s Republic, Concise Statistical Yearbook of Poland, various years.

the future.” The deeply entrenched fear of the Communist threat explains the overwhelming public support for Adenauer’s policy of Western integration. In polls conducted from the 1950s to the mid-1960s, far more people would “side with the West in the present world conflict” than would “side with [the] East” or stay neutral. In the 1950s, the USSR and Poland topped the list of countries that the West German public did not want their government to cooperate with, whereas the United States was always believed to be “Germany’s best friend,” with which West Germany should “seek the closest possible cooperation.”27 The East-West strategic standoff in Europe also dampened societal exchange activities that would have been conducive to mutual understanding at the popular level. Bilateral personnel exchanges were rather scarce. Table 2.2 indicates that the number of tourists from West Germany to Poland lagged far behind that from socialist countries. Historical Mythmaking and Intensified Bilateral Tension Historical Amnesia in Adenauer’s Germany To conservative leaders, the German defeat in WWII and the Allied denazification campaign, including war crimes trials, purges, and reeducation programs, would only sap national morale or provoke anti-Western nationalism. These leaders believed that there was an urgent need to rebuild national confidence based on a positive self-evaluation, whereas Germany’s past wrongdoings were better glossed over. Moreover, Adenauer’s foreign policy of Western integration, Westbindung, also required him to shift the focus of the national psyche from reflection on Germany’s past guilt to the Cold War strategy of containment. In his view, the denazification campaign in Germany was excessive 27

Ibid., 598, 605, 523, 509–11.

58

The Search for Reconciliation

and very unfavorable for German rearmament.28 If Germany continued to be chastised for its past history, he felt, it would only encourage Cold War defeatism and diminish Germany’s will to resist the Soviet pressure. So, he insisted that the FRG’s integration into the West would fail unless the Allies forgave and forgot Nazi crimes. Domestic politics also motivated conservative mythmaking. In the early postwar period, the general population in West Germany was so preoccupied with its own suffering and the strenuous task of surviving in the war-ravaged country that the people were in no mood to face up to the Nazi past. Adenauer would have lost public support for his new government had he loaded a big part of the public with “a burden of guilt.”29 Moreover, there was a powerful conservative constituency in West Germany in the 1950s and early 1960s that opposed the postwar territorial status quo and cried for revenge against the Poles for the expulsion of German nationals from the eastern territories. The largest and most powerful political advocates of this discourse of victimhood and territorial revisionism were various expellee organizations, including a political party, the GB/BHE (Gesamtdeutscher Bund/Bund der Heimatvertriebenen und Entrechteten), that became a political partner of Adenauer’s CDU. The nine million expellees who resettled in the FRG after being uprooted from Eastern Europe constituted 16–18 percent of the country’s total population, which gave the expellee organization heavy political weight in the election. To ensure the support of this powerful voting bloc and also use it to legitimize the Westbindung policy and call for German unification, the CDU government co-opted the expellees by establishing the Ministry for Expellees, officially recognizing the expellee organizations, and endorsing their memory of suffering.30 These domestic and international strategic interests drove West German ruling elites to propagate and institutionalize a mythical interpretation of the war history marked by a national amnesia about Nazi crimes, emphasis on German victimhood, and a sharp contrast between contrition toward Western allies and unrepentance toward Eastern bloc countries. First, the Adenauer government fostered the myth of “good Germans versus bad Germans.” Although openly condemning the Nazi past, Adenauer rejected the notion held by the Social Democrats that the German nation should bear collective responsibility for Nazi crimes. Rather, he 28 29 30

Herf, Divided Memory, 270. Olick and Levy, “Collective Memory.” Ahonen, “Domestic Constraints”; Levy and Dierkes, “Institutionalising the Past.”

When East Meets West

59

argued that the vast majority of Germans were innocent victims of a small number of Nazi leaders who corrupted “the German name” with shame.31 He spoke of the Wehrmacht soldiers in an honorable manner without referring to their complicity in the race war in the East or the Holocaust. He also tried to exonerate the war responsibility of Germany’s big capital, which was the postwar political ally of the conservative CDU. In line with this narrow definition of German war responsibility, the government tried to thwart the Allied denazification programs. At Nuremberg and other Allied trials between 1945 and 1949, 5,025 Germans were convicted of war crimes against peace or humanity, of whom 486 were executed. These trials were unpopular with Germany’s conservative voters, who wanted to put the past behind them. To appeal to the public mood, Adenauer repeatedly called for forgiveness and mercy rather than justice against war criminals in his election campaigns.32 Internationally, he demanded the release of convicted war criminals held by the Allies. Fearful that Germany’s frustration with the war criminal issue might discourage its rearmament and Western integration, the Western powers yielded. By 1958, all but a handful of German war criminals had been pardoned and freed.33 Additionally, the Bundestag passed two amnesty laws in 1949 and 1954, absolving tens of thousands of Nazi perpetrators and ending all further legal measures against individuals responsible for Nazi crimes.34 Bundestag legislation passed around 1951 rehabilitated public officials dismissed during both the Third Reich and the occupation on political or racial grounds. In this way, many former Nazi sympathizers were restored to official and professional positions.35 Officially sponsored war commemorative rituals also encouraged ordinary German people to think of themselves as war victims rather than perpetrators. Adenauer delivered his first postwar public statement in Cologne, a city devastated by Allied air raids, to highlight German suffering. The myth of German victimization also centered on such miserable experiences as the forced expulsion of ethnic Germans from the East, the Allied occupation, and Germany’s division after the war. From

31 32 33 34 35

Herf, Divided Memory, 212. Ibid., 221. See Frei, Adenauer’s Germany, 229–30. Ibid., chs. 1 and 4. Ibid., ch. 3.

60

The Search for Reconciliation

1952, a national day of mourning was established to commemorate German war victims. Absent in official war commemoration, however, were memorial rituals on the day of Germany’s surrender or at the sites of concentration camps or other Nazi atrocities. Also covered up in the mainstream conservative narrative was the historical context in which the expulsion of Germans took place – that it was Germany’s initiation of a self-destructive war that caused the postwar territorial loss, that many more Eastern Europeans than Germans had been displaced during the war, and that some of the homelands that the expellees vowed to return to had never belonged to Germany before 1937. German war restitution during this period was limited to victims in Western-supported countries, especially Israel, a move justified by strategic interests. Adenauer cited the “political power of Jews” in influencing U.S. decision making regarding extending foreign credits to West Germany and even shaping the general trend of the U.S. occupation policy. Washington pressed Bonn to pay Israel reparations in order to convince American domestic opinion of the merit of integrating Germany with the West. Therefore, “restitution was part of the price of West German entry into the Western alliance.”36 In 1952, Bonn signed the Luxembourg Agreement with the state of Israel to compensate Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. By 1971, Bonn had paid about 40.4 billion German marks to Jewish survivors.37 It showed no contrition to residents of Eastern bloc countries that also suffered enormously from German aggression, however. Coverage of National Socialism in West German history textbooks was seriously inadequate and distorted. The FRG had a federalist education system; textbooks were approved by the Ministry of Education of each Land, so they contained considerable variance across states.38 West German history textbooks published in this period minimized the history of Nazi aggression, skipped or toned down the genocidal Holocaust, freed the Wehrmacht of responsibility, and ascribed all guilt to Hitler while ignoring the support that the German people gave to Hitler and exonerating them because they were “unaware” of Nazi atrocities. These textbooks also gave extensive treatment to German suffering during the war and to the postwar expulsion, and they blamed Western allies for

36 37 38

Herf, Divided Memory, 287. Ibid., 288. After an interstate agreement was signed in 1971, some basic consistency of textbooks ¨ came to exist between Lander. See Pagaard, “German Schools,” 541.

When East Meets West

61

capitulating to Stalin’s territorial demands.39 In addition to the textbook cover-up, history teachers avoided touching on such sensitive topics as WWII, Nazism, and the ascendance of Hitler. Even the students, many of them the children of the two million German soldiers who died in the war, resisted the teaching of any negative history about their fathers in the classroom.40 Not only did they whitewash and glorify the German nation, German history textbooks also contained appalling demonization of the Eastern bloc countries, particularly Poland. During the interwar period, in service of a racist, expansionist government policy toward Eastern Europe, German scholarship on “Eastern Studies” degenerated into an openly political discourse of anti-Polonism. After the war, the ideology of anti-Polonism conveniently transformed into anti-Communism, serving to legitimize Adenauer’s foreign policy of Westbindung and isolation from the Eastern bloc.41 West German textbooks not only perpetuated the Weimar myth of Poland as an inferior, backward nation, but also used emotive language to accentuate the self-other distinction and enmity between the righteous, victimized Germans on one hand and the evil, despicable Poles on the other, who had annexed the “lost territories” and brutally expelled Germans.42 German society was not completely devoid of competing historical narratives. Particularly the left-wing Social Democrats tenaciously pursued an accounting of the legal and moral responsibility of the German nation and advocated that only honest history education of the German youth could prevent ultranationalism and lay down a solid ground for German democracy. But, the conservative myths prevailed in this period because of the CDU’s control of state power, the widespread public sense of victimhood, and the power of the conservative constituency. The expellees were so politically significant that not only the CDU but also the SPD had to endorse their ideological and political demands for tactical reasons.43 Poland’s Selective Tradition During this same period, Poland’s national history was manipulated by the Communist elites to bolster the political legitimacy of the Communist

39 40 41 42 43

Borries, “Third Reich”; Krug, “Teaching of History”; Pagaard, “German Schools.” Mattheisen, “History and Political Education,” 43. Muller, “Joint Polish-German Commission,” 434–35. ¨ Becker, “Textbooks,” 262–63. Ahonen, “Domestic Constraints.”

62

The Search for Reconciliation

regime and justify its tight relationship with the USSR. The prewar Polish Communist movement had been weak, as the country was “overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, essentially agrarian, and had a very small working class.” In 1945, the Polish Workers’ Party (PPR) only had twenty to thirty thousand members. The majority of the population felt suspicion and even hostility toward the new Communist regime. Even Stalin declared, “Communism does not fit the Poles. They are too individualistic, too nationalistic.”44 After WWII, Polish Communists faced a precarious domestic scene, given the chaos and misery left behind by the war, the challenges from bourgeois parties, and a bloody civil war against underground forces that went on until 1947.45 In addition, the new government was plagued by factional strife between the indigenous Communists, including people like Wladyslaw Gomulka and the Soviet-trained “Muscovites.” The factional struggle intensified from 1948, the beginning of the so-called Stalinist period in Poland, when Gomulka and his associates were purged from the Communist Party leadership. All these unstable factors – factional politics; the widening gap between the party, now renamed the PZPR, and general society; and the growing public demands for liberty and a better living standard, as manifest in the 1956 Poznan Revolt – contributed to an acute sense of power insecurity among the Communist elites. The strategy of the Polish Communist government in search of power consolidation and regime legitimacy relied on two fundamental pillars. Domestically, it promoted a nationalist ideology to rally public support, and externally it maintained solidarity with the Soviet Union. On the former, employing profuse patriotic slogans, the government mobilized people to reconstruct a new, prosperous nation. This nation was said to have one great enemy: West Germany. Such anti-German nationalism was popular because Poles still had vivid memories of the Nazi atrocities in Poland. It was also useful to quell the latent anti-Soviet public sentiments that lingered from the war. Polish Communists would not have been able to seize power had it not been for the military dominance of the Red Army in Poland by the end of the war. The political instability and economic difficulty of postwar Poland compelled the Communist regime to seek Soviet backing for its survival: This was the second pillar of the Polish government’s power in this period. The alliance with Moscow had significant security 44 45

Dziewanowski, Poland, 148–49. Schatz, Generation, 204.

When East Meets West

63

implications. Although Germany had been defeated in WWII, its past experience of resurrecting itself from the ashes and initiating new aggression still frightened Poland. Especially the frontier issue fueled Polish fear of German revanchism, and the Soviet Union was the only major power that was willing to ensure the inviolability of the Oder-Neisse Line. Poland had no other choice but to rely on the USSR. Even when Gomulka took power again in 1956 and purported to take a “Polish Road to Socialism,”46 Warsaw maintained strong economic and strategic links with Moscow. Motivated by these pressing domestic political and international strategic goals, Polish Communist elites constructed national memory in the fashion of what Raymond Williams called a “selective tradition,” wherein “certain meanings and practices are selected for emphasis and certain other meanings and practices are neglected or excluded.”47 Specifically, Polish suffering at the hands of Nazi Germans and its ideological solidarity with the USSR and GDR were emphatically presented, whereas the history of Russian/Soviet aggression against Poland and the Poles’ own responsibility for the suffering of the Jews were omitted. In fact, from 1948 to 1956, academic activities in Poland were subject to direct Soviet interference. The prewar Polish Academy of Learning was replaced by the Soviet-style Polish Academy of Science, which exercised state control over all research institutions and universities, including the Institute of History. Moscow even issued detailed instructions for writing new school and university textbooks. Strong Soviet influence led to the authority of Marxist historical materialism in the Polish history discipline. Polish official historiography depicted the USSR as Poland’s unfailing friend and omitted mention of all noncommunist political traditions in Poland and its Western cultural connections.48 In addition to the Marxist ideological overtone, another dominant theme in official memory was Polish victimhood. Polish nationalism since the nineteenth century had been strongly inspired by national myths

46 47 48

Davies, God’s Playground, 553. Williams, “Hegemony and Selective Tradition,” 58. Valkenier, “Rise and Decline,” 663–64; Valkenier, “Stalinizing Polish Historiography.” However, Valkenier points out that a complete Stalinization of Polish history was never achieved because of Soviet historians’ lack of confidence about their own knowledge of Polish history and the resistance of some Polish historians to excessive manipulation of history writing in defense of scholarly standards and professional autonomy. In fact, a private discourse about national history always existed in opposition to the official discourse in Communist Poland. See Orla-Bukowska, “New Threads.”

64

The Search for Reconciliation

about heroic defeat and martyrdom. This “cult of national martyrdom” gave the Poles a feeling of moral superiority and inspired their patriotic emotions.49 Communist elites adopted this old myth, with a selective focus on West Germany as the chief enemy. Textbooks and extracurricular reading materials on history presented the past ten centuries of Polish history as full of life-and-death struggles between the German and Polish nations, with the former constantly advancing the Drang nach Osten (German for “drive toward the East”) and the latter resisting it heroically despite many tragic defeats. These materials portrayed WWII as simply another brutal and massive attempt of Germany to subjugate Poland, and they described Adenauer’s FRG as a hotbed of fascism, its policy of territorial revisionism the current continuation of Drang nach Osten.50 The textbooks downplayed or omitted periods of cooperation in German-Polish relations. War commemoration in Communist Poland perpetuated these myths. The government regularly held ceremonies on the anniversaries of the outbreak of WWII, the German invasion of the USSR, the victory over Germany, and May Day to eulogize Soviet assistance in the defeat of Nazi Germany, to glorify Polish patriotism, and to condemn the antiPolish policy of Adenauer and his American supporters. Distortion of war history also existed in two additional aspects: Official remembering of WWII martyrs gave the main credit for Polish victory to the Communist resistance forces and their Soviet allies. For instance, Witold Jarosinski, ´ secretary of the PZPR’s Central Committee, spoke at the ceremony memorializing fifty Polish patriots killed by the Nazis in 1957: It was the PPR which had been the first, in the most difficult period of the nation’s life, to start the fight for independence, and had devoted all its forces and its best people to the struggle. It was the PPR which had put forward the slogan of the unity of all democratic forces of the Polish resistance movement. From the very start, the PPR had seen the guarantee of victory in the cooperation with the USSR.51

This statement lied about the patriotic credentials of the Polish Communists; the wartime underground resistance in Poland was actually dominated by the non-Communist, anti-Soviet Home Army, the members of 49 50 51

Gross, Polish Society, 4–9; Walicki, “Three Traditions,” 30–32. Sander, “Contribution of Schools.” “Commemoration of Execution of 50 Patriots by the Nazis,” BBC Summary of World Broadcast, “East Europe,” Part IIA, October 14–16, 1957.

When East Meets West

65

which suffered persecution and defamation under the postwar Communist regime. The tragic Warsaw Uprising that the Home Army launched against the Nazi occupation in 1944, in which more than two hundred thousand Poles died while the Soviet Red Army watched from a short distance away, was neither mentioned in the official history nor properly commemorated after the war.52 Another distortion was in the Polish memory of the Holocaust. As Polish official historiography promoted a sense of national self-pity and self-righteousness, historians were not allowed to touch on those topics that might tarnish the Poles’ image of themselves as innocent victims. So memory of the Holocaust was essentially Polonized; in other words, Jews died because they were part of the Polish nation, not because they were Jews, and Poles were said to have suffered as much as Jews.53 Anti-Semitic myths persisted in Communist Poland, partly from the long-held cultural prejudice but also because they were a useful instrument in factional politics and social pacification. In the late 1960s, the intraparty struggle between the conservative faction, the Partisans, and another faction consisting of liberal intellectuals and reformers, including many Jews, intensified. In 1967–68, at the juncture of the Six-Day War in the Middle East and burgeoning democratic protests by Polish students and intellectuals, Gomulka sanctioned a sweeping cultural revolution and political purges by the Partisans against the liberals, who were labeled as revisionists and Zionists colluding with “American imperialism” and “West German revanchism.”54 So the ruling regime oppressed demands for reform and freedom under the cover of fighting ethnic and imperialist enemies. Combative Narratives and Negative Emotions/Intentions Elite mythmaking in West Germany and Poland resulted in mutually combative historical narratives. Because the two countries’ myths stressed the victimhood of each nation and refused to empathize with the other, extremely negative emotions about the other country prevailed in both societies. For the Polish people, the whole German nation was “brutal, powerful, cold, and ruthless.” The Polish word for German (niemiec)

52

53 54

Only during the 1980–81 solidarity movement were relatively free discussions of the Uprising allowed to appear in public, and only after 1989 were heroes of the Uprising rehabilitated and their stories openly researched and commemorated. See Davies, Rising ’44, 577–613. Steinlauf, Bondage to the Dead, 62–74; Young, Texture of Memory. Dziewanowski, Poland, 189–94; Schatz, Generation, 283–312.

66

The Search for Reconciliation

derives from the word for “mute” (niemy); the Polish term Kryzak, linguistically related to the German Kreuzritter (Teutonic Knights), has the connotation of brutality; the Polish word Prusak means both “Prussian” and “cockroach.”55 West Germans also thought Poland was an ill-natured nation and viewed all Poles with disdain. The Weimar myth that Poles were incapable people and that they should be subordinate to Germans was common in intellectual and popular writings in West Germany.56 Psychologically, Germans particularly could not accept that a nation they traditionally considered inferior now ruled the former eastern territories of Germany, whereas the Germans were deprived of old imperial glory, homelands, and power.57 It is worth noting that Polish war memory demonized all Germans, including those in the GDR. It is true that out of Cold War necessity the Polish official stance made a distinction between the FRG and GDR, calling the latter a country of good Germans that had broken away from the aggressive German tradition. Polish textbooks took a nation-based approach to the history of German-Polish relations, however, wherein there were “no good and bad Germans (the exploited and the exploiters), but simply German perpetrators who hate Poles and commit atrocities on them.” Thus, ironically, Polish perceptions of the two Germanys were not significantly different.58 Accompanying the negative stereotypes was the strong mutual perception of hostile intention. West Germany’s lack of contrition for its Nazi past and rejection of the postwar territorial status quo (which was supposed to compensate for Poland’s war suffering) fueled the Polish panic about new German aggression. But, to the West Germans, the Polish suspicion of a Nazi revival was groundless because the FRG was a democracy that would never repeat the treacherous policies of Nazi Germany. Unable to understand the Polish feeling of trauma and Polish national security concerns, West Germany attributed Polish hostility to the aggressive policy of the Communist country against a democratic country. In Period One, then, national mythmaking practices in West Germany and Poland and the impact of negative international structural conditions actually reinforced one another. The negative emotions and perceptions 55 56

57 58

Markovits and Reich, German Predicament, 109–10. For the perpetuation of the Weimar myths about Poles and their critics in West Germany after WWII, see Rosenthal, German and Pole, 127–42. Becker, “Textbooks,” 262–63; Kulski, Germany and Poland, 88–89. Sander, “Contribution of Schools.”

When East Meets West

67

of intention that resulted from the sharply divergent historical narratives of the two countries increased public support for the hostile policies of the two nations’ governments that had been shaped by the Cold War structure. In an FRG poll conducted in April 1952, for instance, 55 percent of respondents said the government should negotiate with the Russians for national unity but “on no account should we forgo the regions east of the Oder-Neisse Line,” 20 percent insisted on starting no negotiation but focusing on getting the territories back first, and another 9 percent wanted to renounce the eastern territories for now but try to regain them later, with only 3 percent willing to trade territories for unification.59 In a democratic country facing intense electoral competition, all major political parties in the FRG had to heed the prevailing public opinion, which was then dominated by the conservative constituency. Domestic pressure was one of the major constraints on the Bonn government in its Eastern policy decisions during Period One.

shallow reconciliation in period two: the late 1960s to the late 1970s In the decade between the late 1960s and the late 1970s, West German– Polish relations entered the stage of shallow reconciliation, in which the two countries normalized diplomatic relations based on partial recognition of sovereignty rights, and bilateral commercial and societal links also developed to a higher level than in Period One. Such significant headway in reconciliation can be first attributed to the East-West d´etente, which shifted the previously negative structural conditions to a neutral structure. This greatly reduced the danger of war between the two blocs and facilitated their political and economic contacts. Under d´etente, the Brandt government was able to carry out a flexible Ostpolitik, seeking more inter-German contacts through a modus vivendi with Moscow and its Eastern European allies. Meanwhile, the reconciliation politics of West Germany and the trend of political liberalization in Poland brought the decline of national mythmaking in both countries and regular dialogues between their historians regarding textbook content. As a result of these new moves, the previously combative national narratives of the war and its meaning changed into conflictual narratives, which mitigated negative emotions and improved each country’s image of the other. Both the

59

Noelle and Neumann, Germans, 470.

68

The Search for Reconciliation

favorable structural changes and the decreased memory divergence helped push the reconciliation process forward. D´etente, Brandt’s Ostpolitik, and Partial National Recognition Period Two was the so-called d´etente era of Cold War history. Interbloc agreements reached during d´etente on arms control and confidencebuilding measures, particularly the agreements resulting from the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks, which included the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and measures to better maintain the Washington-Moscow direct communication link to strengthen crisis prevention and management, diminished the risk of large-scale armed conflicts. As tensions among the superpowers eased, the risk of military conflicts in Europe also declined. One important symbol of the progress in European stability was the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, which began in November 1972. Among other achievements, the Final Act of the conference declared ten principles to govern interstate relations, which specified that states were not to threaten or use force against one another, that they were to respect national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and that they were to pursue the peaceful settlement of disputes.60 D´etente also directly relaxed the security dilemma concerning Germany. First, it enabled a smooth resolution of the Berlin problem, a powder keg for East-West crises in postwar Europe. In the Quadripartite Agreement on Berlin signed in September 1971 by the four occupying powers, Moscow guaranteed unimpeded traffic to and from West Berlin and granted de facto recognition of the ties between West Berlin and the FRG, whereas Western powers accepted de facto East German control of East Berlin and refrained from treating West Berlin as a territory of the FRG. The West German–Soviet security talks that proceeded simultaneously with the negotiation of the Berlin Agreement led to the signing of the Moscow Treaty in August 1970. It was followed by a series of bilateral treaties between Bonn and Soviet bloc countries, including the Warsaw Treaty with Poland in December 1970, the FRG-GDR Basic Treaty in December 1972, and the FRG-Czechoslovakia Treaty on Mutual Relations in December 1973. All these treaties stipulated the renunciation of threat or use of force in settling disputes and the inviolability of national frontiers. 60

Garthoff, D´etente and Confrontation, 527–28.

When East Meets West

69

It was against the backdrop of d´etente that Willy Brandt, the head of the SPD-FDP (Free Democratic Party) coalition government from 1969, carried out his Ostpolitik. Previously, Bonn’s rigid policy to attain unification through Western integration had only insulated West Germany from East Germany. When the interbloc tensions relaxed, Brandt and other SPD leaders reoriented German foreign policy to emphasize political, economic, cultural, and social contacts with Soviet bloc countries, including the GDR. The new policy could both improve West Germany’s security environment and draw the two Germanys closer to a common German identity. Yet d´etente did not mean the end of Cold War structural constraints. Ostpolitik had to proceed in parallel with Westpolitik to neutralize the concerns of Western powers that it might lead to the “Finlandization” of West Germany or a resurgence of German nationalism.61 Further, the previous diplomatic fiasco of the Erhard government had taught Brandt the lesson that if his government failed to address the fundamental security concerns of Moscow and Warsaw regarding frontier issues, any solution to the German question would be untenable. So his agenda was to achieve rapprochement with Moscow first, then normalize the relationship with Warsaw, and finally negotiate with East Germany.62 In the Moscow Treaty, Bonn recognized the inviolability of all postwar European boundaries, including the Oder-Neisse Line and the inter-German border, and promised to make no territorial claims against third countries. The treaty did not mention German unity, and by mentioning the GDR by name it actually gave official acknowledgement of East Germany. The German guarantee to respect the European status quo was recapitulated in the Warsaw Treaty with Poland. The Moscow and Warsaw treaties provided only a provisional solution to West German–Polish sovereignty disputes, however. The Brandt government claimed that the FRG recognized the Oder-Neisse Line on its own behalf and only for the duration of its existence, suggesting that the question could be reopened when Germany became unified. Warsaw rejected Bonn’s interpretation and claimed that the Warsaw Treaty “definitely closed” the frontier issue with Germany.63 Despite the disagreement, the

61

62 63

For the Soviet and American concern that closer cooperation between the FRG and the Eastern states would weaken their respective alliances, see Sarotte, Dealing with the Devil, 35–36, and Jain, Germany and Eastern Europe, 62–66. Garthoff, D´etente and Confrontation, 125–26. Kulski, Germany and Poland, 192–95.

70

The Search for Reconciliation

treaty system established in the early 1970s finally enabled the two countries’ diplomatic normalization. In return for Bonn’s flexibility on the status of the GDR and the frontier, the Soviet bloc offered greater tolerance of inter-German contacts. In fact, the four-power negotiation on the Berlin settlement gained momentum only after the Moscow Treaty and Warsaw Treaty were signed. Also, the Berlin Agreement came into effect in June 1972, after the Bundestag had ratified the other two treaties in May 1972. The FRG and GDR began talks immediately afterward, resulting in the Basic Treaty about seven months later. Soviet pressure was critical in forcing the reluctant GDR government to accept the FRG’s links with West Berlin. Moderate Economic Interaction and Reduced Popular Tensions under D´etente Ostpolitik also delivered handsome economic benefits, especially to Poland. Failing to accomplish national economic self-sufficiency and improve the standard of living, the Polish Communist regime was in a legitimacy crisis from the 1960s. Strikes, protests, and demonstrations occurred across the country, including three major crises in 1968, 1970, and 1976. The food crisis in December 1970 even forced Gomulka to step down.64 The government was eager to obtain economic and technological aid from West Germany to boost its economic performance. Believing economic contacts could reduce tension with West Germany’s eastern neighbor, Brandt responded positively. The two governments concluded a trade agreement in October 1970 and signed the ten-year Agreement on the Development of Economic, Industrial and Technical Cooperation in 1974. Another breakthrough in bilateral economic ties came in 1976, when Poland’s new leader, Edward Gierek, visited the FRG, the first visit by a Polish first secretary since 1945. This visit resulted in a five-year economic agreement promising to expand the bilateral exchange of raw materials and energy. An additional fourteen contracts were signed between Polish state-owned enterprises and German companies and banks so that the German side could extend loans and financial credits to large Polish industrial projects.65 Boosted by these official agreements, West German– Polish trade increased sevenfold during the 1970s (see Figure 2.1). From 64 65

Davies, God’s Playground, 588–91, 628. Jain, Germany and Eastern Europe, 124.

When East Meets West

71

million US dollars 25000

20000

15000

10000

5000

0

53 55 57 59 61 63 65 67 69 71 73 75 77 79 81 83 85 87 89 91 93 95 97 99 01 03 04 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 20 20 20

Imports from Poland

Exports to Poland

figure 2.1. German-Polish Trade Relations, 1953–2004 (million U.S. dollars). Source: United Nations, International Trade Statistics Yearbook, various years.

1973, the FRG became Poland’s largest trade partner after the USSR, overtaking all its Eastern European allies. Although trade with the Eastern bloc was never a significant part of West Germany’s total foreign trade, certain of its industrial sectors relied heavily on this trade. In the mid1970s, for example, the East absorbed about 20 percent of the exports of West Germany’s iron and steel industry.66 People-to-people relations also improved considerably during this period. In the early 1970s, images of the Eastern European countries in West Germany were unprecedentedly positive.67 According to a West German poll conducted in August 1972, 43 percent of respondents thought that through the Warsaw Treaty a lasting good relationship with Poland could be achieved, compared to 24 percent who disagreed.68 The Polish popular perception of Germans also improved. One important reason was that the turnaround of German policy on the frontier issue

66 67 68

Garton Ash, In Europe’s Name, 246. Muhle, Germany and the East, 169. ¨ Noelle-Neumann, Germans, 461.

72

The Search for Reconciliation

greatly assuaged, although it did not completely dispel, the Polish fear of German revanchism. Bilateral societal contacts also increased under d´etente and Ostpolitik. Bonn considered all-European ties conducive to deepening interbloc peace, influencing the political behaviors of the Eastern countries, and, very importantly, facilitating the growth of all-German contacts. Warsaw also welcomed the limited expansion of such contacts because they could appease domestic political dissidents and work to assert Poland’s political autonomy from Moscow. During Gierek’s visit to the FRG in 1976, an intergovernmental cultural agreement was concluded, and both sides promised to continue efforts for “more comprehensive knowledge and mutual understanding.”69 Thus, during 1971–79, the annual number of FRG travelers to Poland increased from 50,000 to 330,000, whereas Polish visitors to the FRG rose from 60,000 to 200,000.70 The Trend of Historical Settlement as a Driving Force for Reconciliation Besides the favorable structural changes of East-West d´etente, a domestically sprung trend toward historical settlement became a second driving force for West German–Polish reconciliation. This trend comprised three interrelated processes: the gradual decline of national mythmaking in both countries, the politics of reconciliation in West Germany and its manifestation in foreign policy toward Poland, and the historians’ dialogue between the two countries, generated in an effort to narrow their war memory gap. The Decline of National Mythmaking in West Germany and Poland During this period, war historiography in both countries experienced profound reconstruction, mainly from internal political changes. In West Germany, Bundestag debates about the statute of limitations on prose¨ cuting Nazi criminals, or Verjahrungsdebatten, ushered in active public discussions about the Nazi past. By the end of the 1950s, the fifteen-year statute of limitations was about to expire, meaning that thousands of suspects of Nazi crimes could escape prosecution. In 1960, SPD politicians proposed the extension or elimination of the statute in the Bundestag, arguing that the German nation had a historical and moral responsibility 69 70

Jain, Germany and Eastern Europe, 124. Muhle, Germany and the East, 169–70. ¨

When East Meets West

73

to rehabilitate Nazi victims by bringing the criminals to justice. But rightwing members opposed the proposal on the ground that further trials would tell the world Germany was a nation of murderers. In the end, the Bundestag rejected the SPD’s initiative. But this issue was suddenly put in the spotlight in 1961 when the Israeli government held a sensational open trial of Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann. In light of the growing domestic and international attention to the judicial failure in the FRG, new rounds ¨ of Verjahrungsdebatten took place in 1965, 1969, and 1979, which led to the eventual abolition of the statute.71 These debates brought the memory of the Nazi past into German public consciousness. Although in the 1970s a national consensus on Germany’s war responsibility had not formed and biases against Eastern European countries remained strong, the spirit of reconciliation preached by the Left began to capture the imagination of the German public. ¨ Parallel to the Verjahrungsdebatten, the German education system underwent a significant reform that resulted in increased textbook coverage of Nazi history. From the late 1950s, criticism of German history textbooks from the Left and from international society mounted. In 1959, the Land government of Hesse conducted a survey of all its graduating high school students and found that 57 percent of them had not learned anything about the Nazi era, and 79 percent had not discussed the rise of Hitler or the Nazi Party in the Weimar period. The situation in other states was similar. Meanwhile, anti-Semitic incidents surged in the FRG in the late 1950s to early 1960, prompting the government to respond to the void in teaching recent German history. In February 1960, the Kultusministerien (Permanent Conference of the State Ministries of Education and Cultural Affairs) instructed schools to scrutinize the history of National Socialism. In July 1962, the Kultusministerien issued “Guidelines for the Treatment of Totalitarianism in Classroom Teaching,” specifying that Nazi atrocities be taught to students.72 More reforms were introduced in the late 1960s, first in Hesse and later taken ¨ up by other Lander; these reforms democratized the decision-making process for educational policy and content, increased the coverage of Nazi Germany in school curricula, and deemphasized nationalistic education themes.73

71 72

73

Herf, Divided Memory, 337–42. Braham, Treatment of the Holocaust, 8–9. Also see Mattheisen, “History and Political Education,” 42–44. Soysal, “Identity and Transnationalization,” 142.

74

The Search for Reconciliation

Education reform continued through the 1970s. One turning point was the state legislation passed in North Rhine–Westphalia in 1978 that legally mandated the importance of teaching Nazi history in schools, which read, “One of the most urgent tasks of the schools, even decades now after Auschwitz, is the remembrance of the causes and effects of National Socialism. We have no right to forget, and no impressive achievement of the postwar generation will relieve us of the responsibility which we bear.”74 In the same year, the State Ministries of Education called for nationwide antifascist commemorative ceremonies and urged an “active opposition to uncritical acceptance or presentations which even glorify the Third Reich, characterized as it was by dictatorship, genocide and inhumanity.”75 These reforms contributed to the noticeable improvement of German textbook representation of the Nazi history in the 1970s.76 Generational shifts in the composition of the teaching force provided a new source of vigor for education reform in the 1970s. Unlike the older generation of teachers, who shunned teaching about Nazi history, the younger teachers belonged to the generation of the rebellious sixties who tended to reject “everything their parents represented,” including their Nazi past. They were more willing to confront the guilt of their parents, although their largely Marxist ideology prevented them from being truly concerned with the racist thrust of Nazism or the memory of the Holocaust.77 It is worth noting that by the late 1960s, an important domestic driving force for national mythmaking, the expellee organizations, had lost influence. West German journalists and publicists shifted their attitude about the expellees from being sympathetic and respectful to harshly criticizing them as anachronistic and obstructive to a more flexible and innovative German foreign policy. The public obsession with recovering the eastern territories also waned. In a West German poll in July 1970, 63 percent of respondents agreed that “the division of Germany and the loss of the eastern parts are the results of lost war – results which we can no longer 74 75 76

77

Quoted in Pagaard, “German Schools,” 544. Braham, Treatment of the Holocaust, 9. According to a comprehensive comparison of German secondary school textbooks published in the 1950s–60s and in the 1970s–early 1980s for college-bound students, the later editions provided more details on Nazi crimes. See Calvert, Germany’s Nazi Past, 176–87. On the contributions and limitations of the German sixties on historical consciousness, see Art, Politics of the Past, 97, and Judt, Postwar, 416–21.

When East Meets West

75

change. It doesn’t make any sense to pretend that it’s not final.” Similarly, a poll in May 1972 showed that 62 percent of respondents accepted the Oder-Neisse Line.78 After Brandt came to power in 1969, he abolished the Ministry of Expellees and transferred its tasks to the Ministry of the Interior, indicating that the expellee problem was now only a domestic policy issue. His SPD also ceased to court the expellee organizations, and the government held much less frequent consultations with expellee representatives. Further, the ratification of the Moscow and Warsaw treaties in the Bundestag in 1972 dealt a heavy blow to the expellee lobby. Even the conservative CDU/CSU (Christian Social Union) retreated from outright support of their political positions.79 Another catalyst for rethinking WWII history was the broadcast of the American TV miniseries Holocaust in Germany in January 1979. More than half of West German adults watched it. The repercussions were enormous. The broadcasting authorities, newspapers, journals, and public institutions received numerous telephone calls and mail, and intense discussions about the topic burst out in both public and private settings. This wave of visceral reactions to the series contained shock, remorse, and confession as well as outraged protests against “defamation of the Germans.”80 What is important to note is that Holocaust broke the taboo on discussing this topic and awakened the historical and moral consciousness of West Germans about the nation’s disgraceful past. The telecast also enlightened school students, who, knowing very little about Nazi history, now pressed their teachers to cover it in the classroom. By the end of the 1970s, more than five thousand school groups were visiting the Dachau concentration camp annually, compared to only 471 in 1968. The public impact of the telecast also directly helped the SPD to defeat the conservatives in the Bundestag five months later over the statute of limitations issue.81 In Communist Poland, national mythmaking also declined in this period, although to a lesser extent than in West Germany.82 Academic censorship relaxed in 1971–72 as Gierek tried to placate the social 78 79

80 81 82

Noelle-Neumann, Germans, 459–60. Ahonen, After the Expulsion, 243–55; Levy and Dierkes, “Institutionalising the Past,” 257–58. Zielinski, “History as Entertainment,” 89–90. Judt, Postwar, 811. The following analysis of Polish historiographic changes, unless indicated otherwise, draws upon Valkenier, “Rise and Decline,” 664–71.

76

The Search for Reconciliation

resentment resulting from the 1970 crisis.83 Historians now could present alternative views to the official historiography, and academic standards of objectivity and rigorous research were reaffirmed. Consequently, the dominance of official Marxist historiography in the Polish history profession eroded. In 1979, the Polish Historical Association changed its statutes to stop treating Marxism as the sole recognized method of scholarship. During the 1970s, historians no longer confined their liberal opinions to specialized conferences and publications of small circulation, but tried to disseminate them widely in society through school education and other means. In the late 1970s, the nongovernmental, uncensored Association of Academic Courses, also known as the Flying University, gathered prominent historians from various schools of thought to lecture on Polish history in major university cities. Independence among historians also grew. The Catholic historian Bohdan Cywinski published a ´ pamphlet in 1979 titled Poisoned Humanistic Studies that attacked the historical distortion in Polish textbooks and called for youth to educate themselves to counter the influence of official historiography. In May 1980, a respected historian requested the withdrawal of his textbook on modern Polish history from circulation because it contained gross falsification. The liberalization of Polish historiography had limitations. In Communist Poland, the preparation of all teaching syllabi was directed by the official Institute of School Programmes; syllabi had to be approved by the minister of education and then implemented in all schools. Any changes of educational content had to receive the explicit consent of the minister.84 Moreover, Gierek’s political reform was by no means thorough, because the remaining influence of the Partisans in the party and the government’s continuing reliance on the Soviet Union for survival. In the 1970s, such sensitive topics as the Katyn Massacre and the MolotovRibbentrop Pact remained taboo in public discourse. Polish historians also largely failed to reflect on the Poles’ own historical responsibility in Polish-Jewish relations. Nevertheless, the relatively relaxed official control of historiography reduced the political obstacles for Polish historians to communicate with their Western counterparts. It prepared Polish intellectuals and society for the pathbreaking textbook cooperation with West Germany that was to come. 83 84

Dziewanowski, Poland, 211. Tomiak, “Educational Policy,” 152.

When East Meets West

77

West German Politics of Reconciliation It was a religious organization, the Evangelical Church of Germany, that took the initiative in the historic reconciliation with Poland. In October 1965, the church published a letter encouraging the FRG government to formally renounce the eastern territories and calling on Germans and Poles to begin a process of healing through dialogue.85 Polish bishops wrote back in a remarkably cordial and conciliatory tone, appealing, “Let us try to forget! No polemics, no more Cold War. . . . We forgive and we ask you also to forgive.” The German bishops then replied, “We, too, ask to forget, yes, we ask to forgive.”86 Whereas the bishops were mainly inspired by the Christian teaching of leniency and love, Brandt and other SPD leaders embraced the reconciliation agenda as an integral part of Ostpolitik because it was essential to rebuilding trust and normalizing relations with Eastern European countries. Such leaders hoped that reconciliation could facilitate inter-German connections, improve West Germany’s security environment, and bring direct economic benefits. As Brandt said in his government declaration in 1969, “We want to be a nation [Volk] of good neighbors.” In his farewell statement in 1982, Schmidt also summarized the foreign policy of the social-liberal coalition as having, “with its treaty-and-reconciliation policy towards the eastern neighbors, created the second pillar, the necessary addition [to Adenauer’s Western ties] for peaceful neighborliness in all directions.”87 In addition to serving material interests, Brandt’s politics of reconciliation had an important ideological and moral dimension.88 Contrary to Adenauer, who tried to improve the national image by downplaying Nazi crimes, Brandt believed that one of the cornerstones of postwar German national identity – democracy – would not be truly strong until the nation came to terms with its past.89 Besides, Brandt was a rare world leader who recognized morality as a political force. In his speech in honor of Brandt in 1989, President Richard von Weizsacker said, ¨ You have achieved something quite rare in politics: In your person you have overcome the tension between power and morality. There is no political responsibility without power. Morality without power does not solve any problems. 85 86 87 88

89

Phillips, “Politics of Reconciliation,” 70. Garton Ash, In Europe’s Name, 299. Ibid., 300. For a lengthier analysis of the mixture of morality and pragmatism in German foreign policy of reconciliation, see Feldman, “Principle and Practice.” Herf, Divided Memory, 344.

78

The Search for Reconciliation

It merely becomes ideology and condemns rather than helps. Power without morality is a dead-end street, because it finds no trust. You have found trust and used it.90

Owing to his genuine care for German democracy and morality, Brandt’s politics of reconciliation was not a tactical move but an embodiment of sincere contrition. His apology to Poland for Nazi crimes was unequivocal. In his official visit to Poland in December 1970, Brandt fell to his knees at the memorial for the Jews murdered in 1943 by SS units in the Warsaw Ghetto. With the entire world watching, Brandt’s gesture conveyed a clear message to the Polish nation that the Germans offered their heartfelt repentance. In addition to symbolic gestures, the SPD fought for further investigations into and trials of Nazi crimes in the ¨ previously mentioned Verjahrungsdebatten. In terms of war commemoration, Schmidt was the first West German chancellor to deliver a speech at Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland, a prime symbol of the Holocaust, in November 1977. He said, “The crime of Nazi fascism and the guilt of the German Reich under Hitler’s leadership are at the basis of our responsibility. We Germans of today are not guilty as individual persons, but we must bear the political legacy of those who were guilty. That is our responsibility.” He made it clear that German contrition was the foundation for reconciliation with neighbors. One year later, Schmidt made another forthright speech on the fortieth anniversary of the anti-Jewish pogrom, in which he gave a detailed description of Nazi persecution, criticized ordinary Germans who failed to protest the crimes, and urged the younger generation to face history to prevent the same thing from happening again.91 The question of war reparations not only had a massive scale but also was too delicate to be resolved quickly. Poland refrained from raising this issue in the normalization talks for fear of impeding German recognition of the Oder-Neisse border, which was of key importance to Poland. But throughout the Cold War, the Polish government insisted that the compensation issue remained open. In the 1970s, the FRG partially compensated Polish war victims on two occasions. In 1972, the two governments agreed on German compensation to Polish victims of medical experiments during the war, and in August 1975, Gierek and Schmidt signed the so-called cash for people deal, in which Poland agreed to allow 120,000–125,000 ethnic Germans to emigrate to the FRG over 90 91

Available at <>. Herf, Divided Memory, 346–47.

When East Meets West

79

four years, in return for which it would receive one billion marks credit at a low interest rate and a one-time financial settlement of pension and accident claims in the amount of 1.3 billion marks for former prisoners of concentration camps.92 West German–Polish Textbook Cooperation At the beginning of d´etente, West German and Polish national memories were strikingly divergent.93 Even the letters of Polish and German bishops in 1965 betrayed their contrasting opinions of German historical atrocities in Poland, the eastern frontier, and the postwar expulsion of Germans. It appeared that promoting a common understanding of their past traumatic conflict, in addition to other forms of cooperation, would solidify bilateral reconciliation. In fall 1970, the German and Polish delegations to the UNESCO General Conference in Paris formally founded the German-Polish Textbook Commission. In February 1972, an elevenmember German delegation led by historian Georg Eckert arrived in Warsaw and received an enthusiastic welcome from the Polish Academy of Sciences. This trip inaugurated a bilateral textbook dialogue between the two countries. The Textbook Commission was not the only channel for bilateral discussion among historians. After the war, some low-key, often half-private contacts existed between West German and Polish university scholars. Later on, German research institutions began to regularly host Polish visiting scholars, including the Institute of European History in Mainz from the 1960s and the departments for East European History at universities in Frankfurt, Giessen, Freiburg, and Mainz from the early 1970s.94 The Textbook Commission made a unique contribution to the atmosphere of new openness, however, by holding a long-term, regular, systematic, cross-national examination of history textbooks. Jointly financed by the governments of the SPD-run West German states, the Textbook Commission was made up of professional historians and was free from governmental interference, at least on the West German side. Historians of the two countries met twice a year from 1972, in Warsaw and Braunschweig alternately, to discuss the coverage 92

93

94

For a detailed study on West German–Polish compensation negotiations based on archival research, see Jarzabek, “Problem of Reparations.” This section, unless indicated otherwise, draws on an in-depth study of West German– ¯ Polish textbook cooperation by Takahiro Kondo¯ (Kokusai Rekishi Kyokasho Taiwa, chs. 2–3) and the Web site of the Georg Eckert Institute at <>. Muller, “Joint Polish-German Commission,” 435. ¨

80

The Search for Reconciliation

of German-Polish relations in their textbooks. The first major accomplishment of the commission was the publication of the famous “Recommendations on History and Geography Textbooks in the Federal Republic of Germany and the People’s Republic of Poland” (hereafter “Recommendations”) in April 1976. It included twenty-six topics ranging from the Teutonic Knights in ancient history, to the three partitions of Poland, to Nazi occupation and the Polish resistance movement, to such contemporary events as the postwar territorial alterations and the migration of ethnic Germans. The “Recommendations” not only looked straight into acts of injustice committed by one nation against the other but also explored the historical consciousness at the time that was used to justify these acts. The initial responses to the “Recommendations” in West Germany were uneven. The bilateral cultural agreement signed in 1976 promised to incorporate the “Recommendations” in school textbooks. But this promise by the federal government had no binding power on the states. The CDU/CSU–controlled states were critical of the “Recommendations,” whereas the SPD-governed North Rhine–Westphalia, Hamburg, Bremen, Hesse, and West Berlin endorsed the “Recommendations” as the guidelines for textbook authorization and reference for classroom teaching. West Berlin even invited Polish historians to participate in its own symposium of joint textbook research. Because the SPD supported textbook cooperation and a few key figures like Georg Eckert were SPD members, the project became a subject of power struggle between the Left and the Right. The Munich-based rightwing paper Deutsche National-Zeitung denounced participating German historians as the “complicities of Pan-Slavist agitation” and “masochists of the nation.” Other conservatives criticized the dialogue as being a politically driven “textbook diplomacy” that sacrificed historical truth for the sake of reconciliation with Poland. The conservative offensive culminated in the publication in 1978 of the “Alternative Recommendations for the Treatment of German-Polish History in Textbooks,” authored by Professor Josef Joachim Menzel at Mainz University.95 Disputing all twenty-six of the topics covered in the “Recommendations,” this report tried to

95

Von Karlheinz Lau, “Durchbruch zum Diskurs: Drei Jahrzehnte Deutsch-Polnische Schulbuchkommission” [Breakthrough to Discussion: Three Decades of GermanPolish Schoolbook Commission], Das Ostpreußenblatt, July 28, 2001. Available at <>. I thank Verena Blechinger for locating and translating this source material for me.

When East Meets West

81

whitewash Germany’s historical responsibility while blaming Poland for postwar German expulsion and territorial loss. The debate on textbook cooperation in West Germany gradually tipped to favor the Left, however, as a result of a confluence of the positive changes in the national consciousness about war history discussed earlier, including the education reform in various German states, ¨ the new Verjahrungsdebatten debates, and the broadcast of Holocaust. ¨ From the end of the 1970s, conservative-dominated Lander began to appreciate the endeavors of the Textbook Commission. Lower Saxony, where the Georg Eckert Institute is located, distributed the “Recommendations” in 1978, albeit accompanied by a note warning that the views of the document remained controversial. Another CDU Land, RhinelandPalatinate, distributed both the “Recommendations” and Menzel’s report to all secondary schools in the state. The government of Saarland also expressed willingness to fulfill the spirit of the “Recommendations” in history education. Even Bavaria, the base camp of the conservative CSU and previously a staunch opponent of textbook cooperation, began permitting schools to use the “Recommendations” as one type of teaching material. Evidence of the impact of the “Recommendations” on West German ¨ textbook content was compelling. According to a 1982 cross-Lander assessment by the Georg Eckert Institute of thirteen editions of history textbooks, coverage of Poland reached the level of other major European countries, such as France, and showed a tendency to further expand. Also, more than 90 percent of the changes in the textbook coverage of Polish history were made in the direction advised by the “Recommendations.” Conflictual Narratives and Mollified Emotions/Perceptions of Intentions The trend toward historical settlement between West Germany and Poland narrowed their differences in historical perception. First, because of the improvement of textbook content, the Weimar myth that the Poles were lazy, incompetent, and disgraceful people began to lose currency. Ordinary Germans in general still felt indifferent to Poland, but their bitterness about the expulsion history waned because of the growing national consciousness that Germany was not just a victim but also, and more importantly, a perpetrator during WWII. Second, German official apology and restitution measures considerably mollified Polish grievances and perceptions of the threat from Germany. When Brandt knelt down at the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial on

82

The Search for Reconciliation

December 7, 1970, in a totally unplanned move, members of his delegation were in tears, and his Polish hosts were stunned. The Cold War reality at the time made it difficult for Poles to say words of appreciation in public, but Brandt did recall that the next morning Polish Premier Cyrankiewicz took him by the arm in the car and told him that many people had been deeply affected by his gesture.96 At the time, Bonn was reluctant to respond to Warsaw’s reparation claims, preferring to compensate with economic aid. Nevertheless, the “cash for people deal” obliged Bonn to pay a large sum in pension funds, many of whose beneficiaries were concentration camp survivors and former forced laborers. In this more favorable context, the Polish mass media conceded that there were reasonable men in the SPD and FDP with whom Poles could peacefully coexist. Although Poles’ distrust of Germany could not immediately disappear, they came to believe in Brandt’s personal integrity and welcomed his Ostpolitik.97 From the early 1970s, the Polish official attack against the German revanchist threat subsided. Instead, Poles spoke confidently of a secure and amicable surrounding environment, as is evident in the following newspaper statement published on May Day, 1974: “The tragic history of the Polish nation has changed completely. Never before had Poland such favorable and ethnically just borders as well as such friendly relations with her neighbors.”98 To be sure, Brandt’s Ostpolitik was not without domestic opponents. Members of expellee organizations and conservative politicians accused him of abandoning Germany’s eastern territories and the cause of national unification. The government pushed the Moscow and Warsaw treaties through the Bundestag only after narrowly defeating a no-confidence motion by the opposition. But German public support for Brandt was remarkable during the ratification battle and after Brandt won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971 for his contribution to peace in Europe.99 As for the historians’ dialogue, it continued to suffer ideological and political constraints in the Cold War environment. The “Recommendations” could not include such sensitive topics as the Katyn Massacre and the secret protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Nevertheless, historians began to develop a common language in professional debates in the

96 97 98

99

Brandt, People and Politics, 399. Kulski, Germany and Poland, 288. “Text of Report of ‘Zolnierz Wolnosci’ Article,” May 1, 1974, in BBC Summary of World Broadcast, “East Europe,” May 3, 1974. Brandt, People and Politics, 429–35.

When East Meets West

83

1970s that paved the way for a higher level of historiographic cooperation and a fast track toward bilateral deep reconciliation after the Cold War.100

ongoing shallow reconciliation in period three: the 1980s From the late 1970s, superpower tension resumed, but West German– Polish relations did not regress to nonreconciliation, as realist theory would predict. Mutual agreement on the territorial status quo continued to hold, and economic and societal interactions grew steadily. Popular relations suffered alienation but did not return to the militant hostility of Period One. Two factors accounted for the resilience of the West German– Polish reconciliation process. First, the Ostpolitik and the politics of reconciliation had taken deep roots in West Germany during d´etente; not only the liberal opposition but also the Kohl government maintained contacts with the East. Second, the memory conflict between the two countries further declined because of the emergence of a German national consensus on war responsibility from heated domestic debates, further liberalization of Polish historiography, and the continuation of GermanPolish textbook cooperation. New Structural Obstacles to German-Polish Reconciliation D´etente declined from the middle to late 1970s, thanks to the escalation of superpower competition in Africa and the Middle East. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 marked the collapse of d´etente. By the time Ronald Reagan took office in January 1981, Washington and Moscow had resumed a confrontational footing. This U.S.-Soviet “Second Cold War” exerted a negative impact on West German–Polish relations, first through the issue of Euromissile deployment. In 1976, Moscow began the deployment in Europe of the new SS-20s carrying MIRVed nuclear warheads. In response to the Soviet buildup of theater nuclear force, NATO decided in 1979 to deploy 572 Pershing II missiles in Western Europe that were capable of reaching targets deep in Soviet territories. The majority of these Euromissiles would be deployed in West Germany. When the deployment formally began in December 1983, 351 Soviet

100

Muller, “Joint Polish-German Commission,” 442. ¨

84

The Search for Reconciliation

SS-20s had been installed, many based in Eastern European countries.101 Thus, the specter of war rose again between West Germany and its eastern neighbors. The political alienation between Warsaw and Bonn was exacerbated by the Polish crisis of Solidarity. In summer 1980, nationwide labor unrest in Poland culminated in a large-scale strike at the Lenin Shipyards in Gdansk. The charismatic leader of the Gdansk strike, Lech Walesa, was elected as the chairman of a free national trade union known as Solidarity. The Solidarity movement, demanding labor reform and greater civil rights, soon attracted the membership of about one-fourth of the Polish population. To quell Solidarity and also head off a possible Soviet military intervention, on December 13, 1981, General Jaruzelski of the Polish government declared martial law.102 The Western reaction to the declaration of martial law was furious. The United States imposed economic sanctions against both Warsaw and Moscow and demanded its European allies follow suit. The FRG canceled the planned meetings to help Warsaw with its huge hard-currency debt, although without joining the sanctions against Moscow. To be sure, Bonn’s action against Warsaw was half-hearted. Schmidt wrote in his memoir that harsh sanctions against Poland would “supply the communist propagandists in Warsaw with arguments against the alleged ‘German revanchism.’”103 Yet at the time Schmidt was under pressure from Reagan not to respond to Polish appeals for economic aid. Anti-German propaganda flared up again in Poland; Warsaw castigated Bonn’s economic sanctions and its foot-dragging in providing Poland with the much-needed financial assistance. Bonn’s ambivalent attitude also alienated Polish society. Although sympathetic to the workers, Bonn did not want to destabilize Poland by establishing official contacts with Solidarity. But this policy brought disillusionment to Poles about the democratic FRG.104 If the Solidarity crisis pulled Poland away from the FRG, Kohl’s readjustment of German foreign policy distanced the FRG from Poland. In October 1982, the CDU/CSU leader Helmut Kohl took power and soon spelled out three pillars of a new Westpolitik: First was to reaffirm Bonn’s relationship with the United States and security commitments to NATO,

101 102 103 104

Garthoff, D´etente and Confrontation, 943–48. Mastny, “Soviet Non-Invasion of Poland.” Quoted from Garton Ash, In Europe’s Name, 304. Garton Ash, In Europe’s Name, 305–6.

When East Meets West

85

including the theater nuclear force defense strategy. Second was to reassert its commitment to Western European integration. The last was to reemphasize German reunification, which had been somewhat downplayed during d´etente to soothe the East.105 All three of these pillars were offensive to the Soviet bloc. From 1984, Soviet propaganda stepped up the assault on the “revanchist, neo-Nazi, neo-fascist” trends in German politics. As Moscow turned hostile to Bonn, constraints on Bonn’s contacts with Eastern Europe increased. In that year, visits by leaders of East Germany and Bulgaria, Honecker and Zhivkov, to West Germany were canceled, as was West German foreign minister Genscher’s planned trip to Poland.106 Domestic Moderating Factors Although the end of d´etente created new structural obstacles, the West German–Polish relationship in the 1980s, after an initial setback, largely maintained its status of shallow reconciliation. Some domestic factors moderated the impact of the Second Cold War. They included the efforts of the liberals and leftists in West Germany to adhere to Ostpolitik, Kohl’s refocusing on West Germany’s relationship with the East from 1984, and Poland’s reliance on German economic assistance. After losing power in 1982, the SPD carried out a shadow Eastern policy, or a “second Ostpolitik.” Egon Bahr, one of the original architects of Ostpolitik, proposed the bold notion of “common security” between Eastern and Western Europe in the face of growing superpower tension: It advocated that the Europeans ought to stake out their own autonomous policies and that West Germany had special responsibility to build a security partnership with the Eastern bloc countries. Bahr’s thinking was first endorsed as the new international strategy of the party at the 1983 Cologne party conference.107 Guided by the new strategy, the SPD began regular party-to-party talks on security issues with the East German Socialist Unity Party, which eventually resulted in a joint proposal in July 1988 for a “zone of trust and security.”108 SPD politicians also held policy talks with Eastern European Communist leaders. One influential event was the Gorbachev-Brandt

105 106 107 108

Ibid., 100. Jain, Germany and Eastern Europe, 196. Garton Ash, In Europe’s Name, 314–19. Ibid., 320–23.

86

The Search for Reconciliation

meeting in May 1985, the first meeting that this reformist Soviet leader had with a Western statesman after rising to the top in March. Later that year, Brandt met with Honecker of East Germany and Jaruzelski of Poland. When visiting Poland to commemorate the fifteenth anniversary of the Warsaw Treaty, Brandt received a warm welcome. There, he reconfirmed the Oder-Neisse Line, asserted the SPD’s interest in a stable Poland, and promised to influence the Kohl government so that it would broaden cooperation with the Polish authorities. Brandt also spoke of the magnitude of Poland’s suffering during WWII and his belief that the young generation in the FRG should know more about history. He emphasized the importance of the Textbook Commission and expressed his hope that the implementation of the “Recommendations” would move forward more quickly.109 Regardless of how much the SPD’s shadow diplomacy actually influenced Kohl’s foreign policy, these talks and working groups constituted an important channel of communication between the FRG and the East. In the eyes of the Eastern bloc countries, the personal charisma and prestige of prominent SPD politicians like Brandt greatly empowered their statements, even though they were in opposition. Brandt’s remarks on preserving peace in Europe and remembering Polish suffering particularly placated Polish anxieties vis-a-vis Germany. Historical memory was ` no small issue in Polish perceptions of Germany, as indicated by Jaruzelski at a dinner with Brandt: Also of key importance for us, for well-known historical reasons, is the moral climate accompanying the development of our relations. Casual gestures will never substitute for honest self-examination. One cannot win the credibility of Poles by cosmetic measures accompanied by revanchist and SS rallies, historical falsifications and disgusting efforts to rehabilitate criminals who have been condemned by the entire human race. We are not concerned with complexes or morbid memories but with the truth, because only on this can a secure future be constructed.110

So Brandt’s forthright attitude toward German war responsibility had a salutary effect on nurturing mutual trust and understanding in West German–Polish relations. 109

110

“Willy Brandt’s Visit to Poland: Text of Report of Willy Brandt’s Press Conference,” Warsaw Home Service, December 9, 1985, in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, December 11, 1985. “Willy Brandt’s Visit to Poland: Excerpts from Recording of Dinner Speech by Jaruzelski,” Warsaw Home Service, December 7, 1985, in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, December 11, 1985.

When East Meets West

87

As for the ruling CDU/CSU, Kohl’s ascendance to power sparked fear in Warsaw that he might overturn the previous frontier agreement. The Poland News Agency published a commentary warning that a CDU government would espouse revanchism with respect to Poland and nationalist trends with respect to the GDR.111 Yet despite his emphasis on crossAtlantic relations, Kohl’s Eastern policy embodied continuity from his Social Democratic predecessors. One sign was that Genscher, Schmidt’s foreign minister and a key supporter of Ostpolitik, retained his post in the Kohl government. In fact, because the resounding success of Brandt’s Ostpolitik in the 1970s, by the 1980s many CDU politicians had taken to heart the idea that ongoing dialogue and cooperation with Eastern Europe would contribute to a European order of peace and promote the FRG’s national security. Soon after entering office, Kohl reassured Moscow that Bonn would be a “solid, honest and reliable partner in relations to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe on the basis of existing contracts and agreements.” This statement was tantamount to an implicit acceptance of the eastern treaties signed in the 1970s.112 Moreover, one of Kohl’s policy priorities, national unity, also mandated a cooperative relationship with the East because it was important to maintaining inter-German relations. This linkage was evident in 1982–83, when West German economic sanctions against Poland and the Euromissile deployment caused Honecker to cancel his visit to Bonn twice. Kohl realized that to limit the damage to the German-German relationship, Bonn had to improve its relationship with Moscow and Warsaw. Kohl’s effort to mend the fence with Poland started with economic diplomacy. In January 1984, he gave the go-ahead to reopen the economic relationship with Poland. Facing a serious currency debt crisis at the time, the Jaruzelski regime was eager to engage in economic cooperation with the FRG, Poland’s largest Western creditor and trading partner. The breakthrough came in March 1985, when West German economics minister Bangemann visited Poland. There, he renewed the bilateral trade agreement signed in 1974 and promised to restore export credit guarantees to Poland, making West Germany the first Western government to do so after the imposition of martial law. From 1985, bilateral

111

112

“The Collapse of the West German Coalition Government,” PAP, September 20, 1982, in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, September 23, 1982. “Kohl Meets Soviet Aide, Urges ‘Genuine D´etente,’” Washington Post, October 8, 1982.

The Search for Reconciliation

88

trade recovered to the level of 1980. Moreover, Bonn offered to support Poland’s application to join the International Monetary Fund, a significant gesture to help rebuild Poland’s financial credit and end its international isolation. In May 1987, Bangemann visited Warsaw again and promised to provide a further grace period for Poland’s debt repayment and promote German investment in Poland. With government sponsorship, by 1987 most German banks had written off up to 80 percent of their debt claims on Poland.113 Further Development of Historiographic Convergence Another factor favoring bilateral reconciliation was the continuing trend of demythification in the two countries’ national memories. From the mid1980s, active public debates on war memory broke out in West Germany, in the course of which a national consensus on war responsibility began to emerge. At the same time, the liberalization of Poland’s history profession and history education deepened, and bilateral textbook cooperation also carried on. These positive movements created greater common ground between the two countries’ understanding of the past conflict, which mollified structurally imposed bilateral tension and prevented mutual perceptions from returning to their previous low point. Bitburg and Historikerstreit: German War Memory from Polarization to Consensus In the past, West German war memory had been polarized between the political Left and Right. The shift from polarization to a national consensus began in the 1980s, triggered by several key events. The first was the Bitburg Incident. In 1985, Kohl invited President Reagan to attend a memorial service at the Bitburg military cemetery to symbolize the reconciliation and firm alliance between West Germany and the United States. But the plan provoked immediate attacks from the German left wing and from the Jewish and veterans’ communities in the United States because among those buried at Bitburg were also forty-nine men of the notoriously atrocious WWII Waffen-SS.114 Reagan did go to Bitburg on May 5, but only after laying a wreath at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp first. The incident galvanized German public debate surrounding the Nazi past. Three days later, President 113 114

Davis, Uses and Abuses, 215, 228–29. Maier, Unmasterable Past, 9–16.

When East Meets West

89

Weizsacker, representing the liberal faction of the CDU/CSU, made a ¨ world-famous Bundestag speech to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of VE Day of WWII. His speech was a straightforward acknowledgement of Germany’s collective responsibility, for he said there was no doubt that ordinary Germans had witnessed or heard about Nazi crimes and yet allowed them to happen. Moreover, when speaking of the victims of Nazi Germany, he crossed the Cold War fault lines and included “countless citizens of the Soviet Union and Poland” in his list. He also traced the roots of the postwar German division to Nazi expansion rather than the evilness of Communism. Overall, Weizsacker rejected a mythi¨ cal interpretation of history in favor of truth. “Look truth straight in the eye – without embellishment or distortion,” he said.115 Weizsacker’s speech had enormous resonance among the German pub¨ lic. More than sixty thousand Germans wrote letters to him, the vast majority of which praised the speech. Hundreds of thousands of copies of the speech were distributed to schools, and more than two millions copies of it have since appeared in books, articles, cassettes, and videotapes.116 Afterward, the struggle between the conservative and liberal views of history intensified, particularly in the well-known Historikerstreit, or historians’ quarrel. Around 1986, several conservative historians published works attempting to normalize National Socialism and the Holocaust by comparing them with the atrocities of other brutal regimes in modern history. One historian, Ernst Nolte, even suggested that Hitler’s Final Solution was inspired by the Stalinist purges of the 1930s, so Auschwitz was not “absolute evil” but simply a German copy of Soviet terror.117 Such apologetic views about the Nazi past drew sharp criticism from liberal historians such as Christian Meier and Hans Mommsen. Meier argued that the Holocaust was singular in human history and that remembering its crimes “must be an important part of the historical consciousness of the Germans.” He called on the Germans to learn to “bear the truth” and “accept responsibility for all that we caused and that was done in our name.”118 The Historikerstreit culminated with an intervention by Jurgen Habermas, one of the most influential philosophers in West Germany. Habermas castigated the conservative historians for trying to whitewash the horrors of the Nazi past and argued that the danger

115 116 117 118

Herf, Divided Memory, 355–59. Art, Politics of the Nazi Past, 74. Maier, Unmasterable Past, 16–33. Meier, “Condemning and Comprehending,” 28.

90

The Search for Reconciliation

of the revisionist view of history was that it would overturn the liberal democratic trajectory of postwar Germany and “destroy the only reliable foundation for our ties to the West.”119 So he reaffirmed that it was the obligation of all Germans to “keep awake the memory of the suffering of those murdered by German hands,” and he warned, “Otherwise we cannot respect ourselves and cannot expect respect from others.”120 Interestingly, more public debates did not exacerbate but only moderated the polarization of historical consciousness because the majority of the German public endorsed the liberal school’s historical narrative. After these debates, a national consensus came to exist that West Germany’s democracy and international status had to be premised on a national identity more forthright about the nation’s responsibility for the Nazi past. Continuing Liberation of the Polish History Discipline and Bilateral Textbook Cooperation In Poland, the Solidarity revolution in 1980–81 brought about an outburst of societal demands for intellectual freedom.121 Soon after the Gdansk strike, the Polish Historical Association passed resolutions calling for the removal of political constraints on scholarly research. Also, the teachers’ strike in Gdansk resulted in guidelines for history education reform that emphasized the importance of teaching history based on reality rather than political needs. These guidelines were incorporated into the settlement between the Ministry of Education and the striking teachers and were later endorsed by the historical association, which negotiated an agreement with the Ministry of Education in 1981 that promised to overhaul the history curricula and grant teachers autonomy in the classroom. Although government control on educational content loosened, unofficial organizations articulated competing historical views. One example was the National Education Booklets produced by the Committee for Independent Education, which contained a drastically different narrative than the official one.122 The previously clandestine Flying University began to operate quite openly in 1980–81, attracting many young people who were interested in finding out “what really had been the

119 120 121

122

Habermas, “Settlement of Damages.” Habermas, “Public Use of History,” 165–66. Unless noted otherwise, the following discussion of the liberalization trend in the Polish history profession is distilled from Valkenier, “Rise and Decline,” 672–80. Garton Ash, Uses of Adversity, 109.

When East Meets West

91

case.”123 Moreover, bold discussions started in Polish society regarding the country’s sensitive history under Communist rule, with participants coming from Solidarity organizations, the church, universities, the army, and even the party. The result was the compilation of several scholarly works offering a reappraisal of some major political crises in Communist Poland. Solidarity’s “truth-telling” campaign caused such a deep-reaching liberalizing trend in Poland’s history research and teaching that it transformed the entire intelligentsia. Even after decreeing martial law, the government was unable to resume the same degree of crude political manipulation of history it had earlier exercised. Liberal historians did not suffer severe persecution, and the historical association continued to push for textbook reform. The underground press and educational networks such as the Council of National Education continued to provide the public with the uncensored teaching of Poland’s recent history. Such a relatively free atmosphere contributed to the emergence of a more objective collective memory. One indicator was the end of silence on the controversial subject of Polish-Jewish relations. Right after the Gdansk strike was settled, an independent newsletter published a special supplement titled “Jews and Poles” to mark the fortieth anniversary of the sealing of Jewish ghettos. The editors urged that in addition to remembering Soviet crimes at Katyn and the German murder of Poles, “We must remember the beginning of the annihilation of the Jews of Europe.” The editors called on Poles to face up to their indifference to Jewish suffering during the war and to the persistence of anti-Semitism in Poland.124 In 1982, another essay by Jan Jozef Lipski was secretly circulated among ´ intellectuals. Titled “Two Fatherlands, Two Patriotisms: Remarks on Polish National Megalomania and Xenophobia,” this essay directly attacked Polish historical injustices toward minority groups, especially Jews.125 Two subsequent incidents triggered open debates on Polish-Jewish relations. In 1987, Polish literary historian and critic Jan Blonski published an essay titled “The Poor Poles Look at the Ghetto,” initiating a heated discussion among Polish intellectuals about the Poles’ moral responsibility during the Holocaust. Another trigger was Claude Lanzmann’s film Shoah, a nine-hour documentary purporting to be “an oral history of the Holocaust.” When Shoah was shown in Poland, many people were shocked by the persistent, crude anti-Semitic stereotypes in 123 124 125

Tomiak, “Educational Policy,” 161. Steinlauf, Bondage to the Dead, 98–99. Ibid., 109–10.

92

The Search for Reconciliation

Polish society reflected in the film.126 The shock and subsequent public discussions called into question Poland’s pure victimhood. These debates were part of a general trend in Polish society to unmask the history that had been distorted by politics. While demythification of national history made headway in West Germany and Poland, bilateral meetings of textbook cooperation continued regularly, even after the conservative CDU/CSU took power in 1982. This ¨ was the case in part because, mainly financed by SPD-dominant Lander and run by professional historians, the Textbook Commission did not depend on federal government support for its operation. Another reason was the profound legacy of Brandt’s Ostpolitik, which had convinced many Germans, including conservative elites, that Germany’s democracy, national security, and unification all hinged on its reconciliation with the eastern neighboring countries. On April 26, 1985, under public pressure from the Bitburg Affair, Kohl issued a statement that acknowledged the contribution of the Textbook Commission to German-Polish reconciliation and expressed government support for its activities.127 Interestingly, the fifteenth conference of the Textbook Commission in 1982 concluded that the dialogue of the commission should aim not at negotiating a common view of the past per se, but at fostering free debates over national history that could transcend national biases and deepen each country’s understanding of the other’s perspective. This conclusion signals the difficulty of reaching historiographic harmony during the Cold War, but it also suggests a high degree of respect for academic pluralism. Encouraged by the spirit of the cross-national dialogue, German historians incorporated more of their Polish colleagues’ research into the key scholarly debates over modern history, and Polish historians began to discard the traditional Polono-centric narratives and the Communist discourse when approaching issues of German-Polish conflict.128

approaching deep reconciliation in period four: the post–cold war era Since the beginning of the 1990s, German-Polish relations have gradually advanced toward deep reconciliation. The frontier treaty signed in November 1990 instated a permanent settlement of sovereignty disputes. Poland’s entry into NATO, with crucial support from Germany, provided

126 127 128

Polonsky, My Brother’s Keeper, 9–11. ¯ Kondo, Taiwa, 127. ¯ Kokusai Rekishi Kyokasho Muller, “Joint Polish-German Commission,” 439–43. ¨

When East Meets West

93

a further guarantee of bilateral, stable peace. Economic interactions also boomed and reached a high degree of interdependence, thanks to the expansion of German investment and economic aid to Poland as well as to Poland’s new membership in the European Union (EU). The two countries’ popular relationship also improved considerably. Such significant progress in German-Polish reconciliation could hardly be attributed to the post–Cold War systemic setting in Europe, which was laden with uncertainty. Instead, two nonsystemic factors explain the bilateral harmony better. First, the need to settle the German question and meet the security and economic interests of both countries facilitated the resolution of bilateral territorial disputes and pushed for Germany’s and Poland’s integration within the European community. Second, the two countries’ converging collective memories of the past conflict and Germany’s policy of restitution fulfilled the requirement of bilateral historical settlement. The Indeterminate, Neutral Structural Environment From the end of the 1980s, the European international system underwent a “great transition” as Communist regimes in Eastern European countries collapsed one after another. In the national election held in June 1989, Solidarity won a landslide victory and formed the first non-Communist government in Poland. Later that year came the fall of the Berlin Wall, the symbol of the Iron Curtain of the Cold War. On September 12, 1990, the four occupation powers signed the Two-plus-Four Treaty with the two German states, which cleared external obstacles to German unification. Subsequently, Soviet troops withdrew from Polish and East German territories. In December 1991, the Soviet Union itself dissolved. These profound changes signified that the Cold War structural constraints on bilateral relations had shattered. On one hand, Germany and Poland were no longer obligated to confrontation on behalf of their respective alliances. On the other hand, the systemic shift from bipolarity to an ambiguous unipolarity, or “uni-multipolarity” in Samuel Huntington’s term, generated considerable uncertainty and anxiety for Polish and German foreign policy makers.129 At the beginning of this period, Poland was concerned that a unified Germany would challenge the postwar territorial status quo in Europe and revive its traditional penchant for eastward expansion. Whereas Poland used to depend on the Soviet Red Army for guaranteed security the formal dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991 left Poland to face the unified Germany alone. Poland’s ancient fear of 129

Huntington, “Lonely Superpower.”

94

The Search for Reconciliation

Russian expansionism was also rekindled. So when the Cold War ended, Poles found themselves again sandwiched between their two powerful neighbors of the WWII era, and they feared that Poland might become a frontline state in future NATO-Russian military conflict.130 Germany also stood at the crossroads. The collapse of the Soviet bloc wiped out the strategic threat to Germany from the east. But how to deal with former Warsaw Pact states became a new challenge for German foreign policy. With embattled economies and fragile young democracies, these countries could be a major source of instability. And the end of the Cold War created a new context for the long-standing German question. In 1990–91, the previously declining expellee organizations in Germany resumed their push to recover the lost homeland.131 Even though none of their demands were met, they did raise the specter of German revanchism in the eyes of Eastern European countries. Germany’s relationship with the West also needed redefinition. Without a clear common threat, whether Germany should stay in NATO became questionable. During the German unification negotiation, Moscow explicitly stated the desire to keep the unified Germany outside NATO and demilitarized. But the prospect of German neutrality aroused deep concerns in some Western European countries, especially France, about a potential German threat. French President Mitterand endorsed the German unification timetable only on the precondition that German unification had to be embedded firmly in NATO and the European integration process.132 The new structural environment did not dictate how Germany should position itself in Europe, but an option did arise for it to weaken the alliance ties with NATO and expand its sphere of influence to the east.133 The German Question, European Integration, and Greater German-Polish Cooperation A major effect of the uncertain international system was the fear and mistrust that neighboring countries held toward a unified Germany. Poland 130 131

132 133

Asmus and Szayna, Polish National Security, 10–12. They collected signatures in support of a referendum in Poland under the slogan “Peace through Free Choice.” They then proposed two more initiatives for the Europeanization of the Oder-Neisse territories and the enfranchisement of the German minorities in Poland to vote in German parliamentary elections. Expellee activists also demanded “limited sovereignty” for Sudeten Germans in their homeland, which had been Czechoslovak territory after WWII. See Wolff, German Question, 156–57. Tiersky, “France in the New Europe,” 132–33. Duffield, “Political Culture,” 767.

When East Meets West

95

in particular worried about the reopening of the frontier issue. Such nervousness was not unfounded because even after the signing of the Warsaw Treaty, the German Constitutional Court held that a united German state would exist within the German borders of December 31, 1937.134 After 1989, German Foreign Minister Genscher repeatedly expressed his acceptance of the Oder-Neisse Line, but Chancellor Kohl did not publicly state his position, which aroused uneasiness in Poland. It was widely suspected that Kohl kept this reservation to appease domestic hard-liners, especially the expellee organizations. Therefore, once the Two-plus-Four talks on German unification began, Poland insisted that German unification had to occur with the agreement of all the interested parties to guarantee the inviolability of the Western frontier of Poland. It argued that for Germany the frontier issue was “a historical-sentimental question” or “a card in the electoral game,” but for Poland it was “a question of life and death,” as “this is one third of our territory, this is one third of the populace, this is 85 percent of our access to the sea.”135 Polish anxiety received sympathy from France, Britain, and the United States. From July 1990, Poland was invited to sit in on the Two-plus-Four talks. The pressure from Poland, other major powers, and even his coalition partner Genscher made Kohl realize that a frontier settlement was the price that Germany had to pay for unification. Public opinion at the time also supported an unambiguous renunciation of the eastern territories.136 On March 7, Kohl dropped a precondition he had attached to the formal acceptance of the existing German-Polish border, which was for Poland to renounce WWII reparations claims against Germany.137 In a statement on June 17, Kohl spelled out the importance of the territorial settlement to German unification; he said that although the Bundestag resolution was tough for the expellees to take, anyone who advised him against it would be asking him to put German unity in jeopardy.138 In the meantime, Poland also backed down from its demand that a bilateral border treaty had to be signed before German unification. Formal bilateral negotiation began in October, leading to the conclusion of a frontier treaty in November confirming the existing border and obligating the two countries to mutual and unconditional respect for each other’s 134 135 136 137

138

Millett, Neorealist Claims, 103. Jain, Germany and Eastern Europe, 225. Ahonen, After the Expulsion, 261–64. “Kohl Forced to Back Down on Polish Border Dispute,” Financial Times, March 7, 1990. Jain, Germany and Eastern Europe, 224.

96

The Search for Reconciliation

sovereignty and territorial integrity. The frontier treaty paved the way for the signing of the bilateral Treaty on Good Neighborly Relations and Friendly Cooperation in June 1991. The territorial settlement was not simply a deal of “land for unification.” Germany’s desire for a secure, prosperous surrounding environment also propelled the government to seek genuine reconciliation with Poland. In his response to the Polish demand for a border treaty, Genscher said, “Germany’s decision to place its fate within the fate of Europe is definitive and final. . . . We Germans want nothing more than to live with our neighbors in unity, liberty, and peace.”139 Genscher’s words at the signing ceremony of the treaty further explicated that a border settlement was indispensable to eliminating mistrust and forging stable peace in German-Polish relations: The Treaty on the Final Settlement on Germany rightly describes the confirmation of the final nature of the borders of the united Germany as a fundamental component part of the peace order in Europe. . . . Because the border between our states is now definite it puts an end to mistrust. Now people, Poles and Germans, can meet anew. They learn that they can make a joint contribution to the emerging Europe. A border that is not being questioned does not divide, it unites.140

As for Germany’s position in Europe, Bonn was aware of the fear and suspicion that other European countries felt about a unified Germany. Although Germany had the choice to return to realist normalcy, using its power advantage to maximize national interests, German leaders did not want Germany to be surrounded by an array of mistrustful countries. They decided to endorse “multilateral, institutionally mediated systems” that “softened” or “tamed” Germany’s newly gained sovereignty power.141 The unified Germany opted to stay in NATO and championed the expansion of the Western European community to Eastern Europe, including Poland. Poland also had a great interest in returning to the West. Alternative options, such as keeping a neutral status or realigning with Russia, were less desirable because they would either turn Poland into a buffer zone or force it to rely on a country of which it had a historical fear. If admitted to NATO and the EU, Poland would obtain security guarantees and regional economic benefits without depending on either Russia or Germany. 139 140

141

Quoted in Millett, Neorealist Claims, 133. “Speech by German Foreign Minister on Signing of Polish-German Treaty,” Polish TV, November 14, 1990, in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, November 16, 1990. Katzenstein, Tamed Power, 4.

When East Meets West

97

The first country that supported Poland’s application to European institutions was Germany. Kohl’s Ten-Point Plan for Unification issued at the end of November 1989 included a point that the EC should be open to the East, beginning with East Germany and extending to “other democratic countries in Central, East, and Southeastern Europe.”142 When signing the German-Polish border treaty, Genscher claimed, “The nearer Poland gets to the EC, the more intensively we can use this framework also for German-Polish cooperation.”143 In early 1993, German Defense Minister Volker Ruhe became the first major Western official to state ¨ his support for Poland’s membership in NATO. Germany’s position on NATO expansion was that “Poland’s security [became] the security of Germany, and the security of Germany is the security of NATO.”144 German-Polish security cooperation had begun even before Poland’s accession to NATO. In 1993, the two countries opened their military academies and training facilities to each other’s militaries.145 Before Poland fully joined NATO, more than one thousand Polish officers had received training in NATO countries, mostly in Germany and the United States.146 Moreover, at a symbolic ceremony held on September 1, 1994, the head of the German military, General Klaus Naumann, laid a wreath at the Westerplatte Memorial, where Nazi Germany launched its first attack against Poland in WWII, to show that “the German and Polish armed forces have stepped out of the past’s shadow and want to forge ahead into a good future.” During this visit, Naumann signed a military cooperation agreement with the Polish army chief of staff.147 From September 12, NATO conducted a weeklong joint military exercise with former Eastern bloc countries outside Poznan in Western Poland. The exercise indicated a significant breakthrough in German-Polish security relations. As German Defense Minister Volker Ruhe ¨ said, “Anyone who knows even a little bit about history knows this is not a routine event when Polish and German soldiers are working together. It shows how well German-Polish relations are developing.”148 142 143

144 145 146 147

148

Millett, Neorealist Claims, 111–12. “Speech by German Foreign Minister on Signing of Polish-German Treaty,” in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, November 14, 1990. Millett, Neorealist Claims, 144. Bryt, “Polish-German Relations,” 9. Phillips, Power and Influence, 93. “German Soldiers Join Poles in Marking War’s Outbreak,” Associated Press, September 1, 1994. “Biedrusko Journal; The Cold War Armies Meet, Just to Link Arms,” New York Times, September 15, 1994.

98

The Search for Reconciliation

After Poland received an invitation to join NATO at the Madrid Summit in July 1997, German and Polish armed forces further integrated within the multilateral security system. In 1999, Germany, Poland, and Denmark opened the headquarters of the North-East Corps in Szczecin, Poland, which was tasked to strengthen NATO’s northeastern flank.149 The new NATO was not a traditional security alliance designed only to balance a common threat; it also constituted a security community that ensured peaceful settlement of interstate disputes. Poland’s membership in NATO decisively diminished the danger of German-Polish armed conflicts. The high degree of mutual trust and solidarity was illustrated by an opinion poll conducted in 1998 by the Public Opinion Research Center, a leading polling center in Warsaw. It shows that Germany was one of the Poles’ favorite military partners (43 percent), second only to the United States (59 percent) and much preferred over traditional allies like Britain (15 percent), France (14 percent), Russia (12 percent), and the Czech Republic (6 percent).150 Bilateral economic cooperation also prospered as a result of both pure economic interests and Germany’s active assistance. In 1989, Germany led the creation of the PHARE (Poland and Hungary Assistance for the Restructuring of Their Economies) program by the EU. Between 1990 and 1995, Poland received 35 percent of total EU aid to Central and Eastern European countries. Poland also received a 45 percent reduction of its debts from the London and Paris clubs, to which Germany was a main contributor. Such massive German aid greatly improved Poland’s economic conditions and prepared it for EU accession.151 Bilateral trade jumped more than fourfold from 1989 to 1999. Germany’s share in Poland’s total foreign trade increased from 15.3 percent in 1989 to nearly 30 percent after 1993, making Germany Poland’s most important trading partner.152 Poland was also Germany’s top trading partner among Central and Eastern European countries. In addition, by the mid-1990s, Germany had become the biggest foreign investor in Poland.153 So in the 1990s, the Polish public commonly viewed Germany as the economic future of their country.154

149 150 151 152 153 154

Bryt, “Polish-German Relations,” 9. CBOS, Polish Public Opinion (Bulletin), July/August 1998. Millett, Neorealist Claims, 168–70, 187. United Nations, International Trade Statistics Yearbook. Malachowski, “Polish-German Economic Relations,” 18. In the 1998 CBOS poll, 61 percent of Polish respondents chose Germany as their favorite economic partner, with Russia and the United States trailing at 31 and 30 percent, respectively. CBOS, Polish Public Opinion (Bulletin), July/August 1998.

When East Meets West

99

German-Polish economic relations in this period were also quite stable. Although Poland recorded a trade deficit with Germany throughout much of the period, the problem of trade imbalance did not spark anti-German sentiment among the Polish public. Hardly anyone in Poland perceived German economic policy as “economic invasion” or trying to take advantage of Poland. Another issue of potential friction was related to German foreign direct investment. Although a few ardent Polish nationalists opposed German investment because they thought the Polish economy would be sold out to Germany, most Poles felt the investment should be increased. The Polish government sided with the majority opinion, appealing for more, rather than less, German investment.155 The Demythification of Memory, Historians’ Dialogue, and Popular Reconciliation After the Cold War, both the unified Germany and democratizing Poland searched for a new national identity. German society essentially abandoned xenophobic, bellicose nationalism but anchored national identity on an unswerving commitment to European integration and a forthright acknowledgement of Germany’s war responsibility. In Poland, the democratic transition delegitimized historical mythmaking and drove dramatic reform of educational policies and commemorative institutions in favor of an honest, balanced national history narrative. Meanwhile, textbook cooperation and youth exchange programs between the two countries not only contributed to memory convergence about their past conflict but also nurtured a sense of European community and shared identity. German National Identity and Historical Memory after Unification After German unification, many expressed concerns about the resurgence of ultranationalism as Germany again became strong and proud. German official data show a hike of criminal offences against immigrants and ethnic minorities in the early 1990s.156 East Germans were thought to be particularly amenable to nationalism because of their nation’s short history of democracy and high unemployment rate.157 Right-wing extremism was justified by the New Right, made up of young German intellectuals who sought to normalize the Nazi past, free the nation from the socalled guilt mythology, and shift the core of national collective memory to 155 156 157

Phillips, Power and Influence, 93. Skrypietz, “Militant Right-Wing Extremism,” 133. Weissbrod, “Nationalism in Reunified Germany.”

100

The Search for Reconciliation

German suffering. In an ad published on the fiftieth anniversary of the end of WWII, representatives of the New Right such as Rainer Zitelmann reminded people that May 8, 1945, was the “beginning of the expulsion, terror, and new oppression in the East and the division of our nation.”158 The New Right was hostile to immigration and a multicultural society, which its members saw as deadly threats to Germanness. They also advocated a normal, self-confident “Berlin republic” free of the institutional constraints of the Western community. However worrisome they were, far-right forces remained marginalized in German politics. The right-wing party Republikaner had some successes in local and state elections, such as in Baden-Wurttemberg in ¨ 1992 and 1996, but never came close to winning 5 percent of the vote in other state elections or any national elections. The New Right’s attempt to push the FDP rightward also miscarried. Pressure from the party’s liberal leaders and the rank and file eventually forced out right-wing members.159 The danger that the former East Germany would provide a fertile ground for nationalism to thrive was overstated, moreover. During the Cold War, the official historiography of East Germany blamed monopoly capitalism for German fascism but lacked any painful reflection on Nazi crimes and the German tradition of anti-Semitism.160 After unification, the higher education system in East Germany was overhauled. This included closing down certain colleges, dissolving or reorganizing the entire history departments of many institutions, and setting up structural commissions with equal representation of academics from East and West Germany to revamp the history curriculum.161 Another important measure was to organize youth programs to teach young people about the Nazi atrocities. One such program was held at the Buchenwald concentration camp in East Germany. During the Cold War, Buchenwald was a site for condemning monopoly capitalism and praising the heroism of the inmates from the Red Underground. After unification, the nongovernmental Service Civil International brought student groups comprised of both East and West German youth to Buchenwald, where they learned the horror of the Nazi persecution and the multifaceted resistance campaign through seminars, on-site research, and dialogues. These new education programs promoted a common, more objective German memory and 158 159 160

161

Heilbrunn, “Germany’s New Right,” 91. Art, Politics of the Nazi Past, 148, 171–74. On the highly politicized historiography in the GDR, see Herf, Divided Memory, chs. 5– 6, and Ruge, “Historiography in the GDR.” Hoyer, “Path to Academic Freedom,” 265–68.

When East Meets West

101

encouraged youth to recognize the danger of contemporary xenophobia and racism.162 In German public discourse, the progressive view of history focusing on the victims of Germans prevailed over the old myths centered on German victims. War commemoration in 1995 was a milestone for the victory of the former. On April 27, together with former Israeli President Chaim Herzog and president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany Ignatz Bubis, Kohl attended an assembly at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp to memorialize the Nazi victims. Other concentration camps also held memorial services on the anniversaries of their liberation. Museums in all major cities staged exhibitions about Nazism. Meanwhile, official commemoration of the bombing of Dresden and postwar expulsion of ethnic Germans from East Europe stressed the German initiation of the war as the cause of German suffering.163 The Bundestag even approved January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, as a German national day of remembrance for the victims of Nazi persecution and genocide. Moreover, the commemorative activities in 1995 particularly emphasized the perpetrator role of not just the Nazis but also ordinary Germans. When delivering the central official speech to mark the end of war, Bundestag President Roman Herzog explicitly stated that although the Nazi regime was responsible for the war, those who carried out the Holocaust were Germans: “The basic feeling of collective shame . . . was there and became clearer with time.”164 Several new debates on history further increased German public consciousness about the war responsibility of individual Germans. One surrounded the publication of Daniel Goldhagen’s book Hitler’s Willing Executioners. Goldhagen argued that the German people willingly endorsed Hitler’s genocidal project because their deeply rooted tendency toward “eliminationist anti-Semitism” dated back for centuries. Although criticized by some American historians for failing to provide sufficient evidence to support its sweeping argument, this book was embraced by Germans with great enthusiasm, causing the so-called Goldhagen effect. It was actually taken by the German left wing as a weapon to counter the renewed conservative attempt to normalize the Nazi past and downplay German guilt.165 A mainstream political and intellectual monthly

162 163 164 165

Wegner, “Power of Selective Tradition.” Herf, Divided Memory, 367; Langenbacher, “Competing Interpretations,” 97. Herf, Divided Memory, 369. Eley, “Ordinary Germans.”

102

The Search for Reconciliation

in Germany, the Journal for German and International Politics, even selected Goldhagen for the 1997 Democracy Prize. Other important events of memory contestation include the controversy over the Wehrmacht exhibition in Hamburg that began in 1995, the 1998–99 debate between Ignatz Bubis and the revisionist German writer Martin Walser, and the 1999 Bundestag debate on the construction in Berlin of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews in Europe.166 Still new tensions emerged around 2003 regarding the initiative by a few conservative German politicians to build a Center against Expulsions dedicated to the commemoration of the expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe after WWII. This proposal aroused strong Polish fear that it would spur German nationalistic sentiment centered on the memory of German suffering and legitimize the compensation claims of German expellees to Poland. German elites quickly came out to oppose the initiative, and German leaders repeatedly reassured their Central Eastern European neighbors that the government did not support the project. All of these debates in the past decade have stimulated lively, cathartic public discussions, in which the memories of German victims and victims of Germany sharply confronted each other. Eventually, the latter prevailed in these debates and consolidated a hegemonic position in German national memory.167 The progressive historiography was institutionalized through persistent German acts of contrition, including official apologies and the payment of war reparations to Poland. One of the most emotional moments of reconciliation between the two countries occurred at the fiftieth anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, August 1, 1994, when German President Herzog expressed heartfelt remorse in front of Polish President Walesa and many foreign dignitaries, including the vice president of the United States and the British prime minister: “Today, I bow my head before the fighters of the Warsaw Uprising, as before all the victims of war. And I beg forgiveness for that which was perpetrated by Germans against each and every one of you.”168 Upon hearing his words, surprised Polish veterans of the uprising burst into applause. Afterward, Herzog was widely praised by Poles, as well as by many German commentators, who compared his speech with Chancellor Brandt’s visit to Warsaw

166 167 168

Fuchs, “Ethics of Remembering”; Niven, Facing the Nazi Past, chs. 6–8. Langenbacher, “Moralpolitik versus Moralpolitik.” Davies, Rising ’44, 609. I thank Wanda Jarzabek for research advice on the 1994 commemoration of the Uprising.

When East Meets West

103

in 1970.169 Other significant occasions of German public apologies for war responsibility in this period include Chancellor Gerhard Schroder’s ¨ speeches at the Warsaw Uprising Memorial in 2004 and at Auschwitz in 2005. Regarding monetary compensation, the pension fund that the FRG gave Poland in 1975 was not war reparations in the strict legal sense. After unification, the German and Polish governments agreed to establish a reconciliation foundation, through which Germany would pay 500 million marks to Polish war victims. But the allocated compensation was too small, given the huge number of claims by nearly six hundred thousand victims. In 1997, the Greens and Social Democrats pushed for government legislation to mandate compensation to foreign forced laborers, whom the German government had long denied the status of Nazi victims and therefore eligibility for compensation.170 After the SPD leader Gerhard Schroder became chancellor in 1998, the government and indus¨ try reached an agreement at the end of 1999 on a $5.1 billion fund to compensate former slave and forced laborers. The Bundestag passed the reparations bill with a large margin of 556 to 42. Beginning in mid2001, payments began to arrive in the hands of surviving forced laborers in twenty-five countries. As many as five hundred thousand Poles, the largest group among all the beneficiary countries, were eligible for the compensation.171 Moreover, the Polish-German reconciliation foundation began to pay compensation to the victims of Nazi medical experiments starting in December 2003.172 Democratic Identity and the Decline of Egocentric Nationalism in Poland Poland’s democratic transition shaped a new national identity. The postcommunist Polish leaders relied on democratic values to legitimize their power. The “Solidarity ethos” that served as the spiritual glue of the new regime was defined as an ideology “based on truth, dignity, community, Christian humanism, respect for the individual, and solidarity with the weak.”173 Although the Solidarity movement presented itself as 169 170 171 172

173

“Widespread Praise for German Apology,” Press Association, August 2, 1994. Hofhansel, “Diplomacy of Compensation.” New York Times, December 15, 1999, and June 29, 2001. “Polish Victims of Nazi Medical Experiments to Get Compensation,” Warsaw Polish Radio, in FBIS-EEU, December 18, 2003. See the speech by Halina Bortnowska, a liberal theologian and member of the Citizens’ Committee of Solidarity, in December 1989. Quoted in Grabowski, “Party That Never Was,” 239.

104

The Search for Reconciliation

the “national front of all patriotic forces,”174 it by no means embodied ethnic intolerance or chauvinism. Even the Communists were forced to adapt to democratic values, abandoning ideological dogma and egocentric nationalism.175 The impact of democratization was directly felt in Poland’s history education reform. In June 1990, the government ended censorship of mass media by closing down the Main Office of Control of Publications and Presentations. Soon, the formerly state-owned publishing industry was privatized, and decentralization of the decision-making process of educational policy was set afoot.176 In 1991, the Ministry of Education formed the history curriculum reform group, consisting of historians with different opinions, backgrounds, and working experiences in the educational system. The education reform produced three revisions of the basic curriculum in 1992, 1994, and 1997. Subsequent reform introduced a threetier, compulsory nine-year elementary school system compatible with that in other European countries. The Ministry of Education specified the goal of history teaching in the 1999 Pronouncement on the Basic Curricula for General Education Subjects as a curriculum that respects “the Christian system of values . . . embraces universal ethical principles, . . . serves to develop children’s feelings of responsibility, love for the fatherland and respect for the Polish cultural heritage while simultaneously being open to values of European culture and the world.”177 This document indicated that history education in Poland would not indoctrinate the younger generation with a nationalist ideology fixated on national virtues and repulsion toward other nations but instead would teach them to embrace a cosmopolitan and pro-Europe perspective. The final version of the Basic Curriculum, signed into law in 1999, made notable improvements on earlier versions. Among others, two previously taboo topics received prominent coverage. One was the inglorious aspect of Soviet policy toward Poland during and after the war. The other topic was Polish-Jewish relations.178 Whereas the first topic debunked the Communist myth about Soviet-Polish relations, the second addressed the silence about Jewish subjects in national curricula. Of particular importance was the Polish-Israeli Textbook Commission, 174 175 176 177 178

Ibid., 223. Vachudova and Snyder, “Are Transitions Transitory,” 7. Parker, History Education Reform, 159–60. Ibid., 152. See the comparison of the 1999 version and 1997 version of the basic curriculum in ibid., 185–86.

When East Meets West

105

established in 1994 to evaluate the treatment of Polish-Jewish relations in each other’s textbooks. In 1995, the commission published its recommendations, which were adopted in the Basic Curriculum.179 In 1998, a Polish-Swedish pilot project for increasing Holocaust awareness among high school students, “The Holocaust and Contemporary Forms of Ethnic and Religious Prejudice,” was set up in Warsaw. In the same year, the first teachers’ guide for primary school multicultural education came out in Poland.180 Holocaust history and Jewish suffering received much prominence not only in school teaching but also in official war commemoration. PostCommunist Polish leaders apologized to Jewish victims on various ceremonial occasions, including President Walesa in the Israeli Knesset in 1991, and the foreign minister in Kielce on the fiftieth anniversary of the Holocaust. In July 2001, with the presence of then Israeli Ambassador to Poland, the Polish president made a public apology at an extraordinary on-site commemoration in Jedwabne. This apology came in the midst of heated debates in Poland concerning the book by American-based historian Jan Gross, Neighbors, that documents in detail the 1941 Jedwabne Massacre. These debates forced Poles to go deeper in national reflection on questions of victimhood, complicity, and coresponsibility.181 Youth Exchanges and Textbook Cooperation The end of the Cold War brought about an instant boom in GermanPolish personnel exchanges. Whereas in 1989 only 7.2 percent of total foreign visitors to Poland were from West Germany, by the mid-1990s the ratio had increased to more than 57 percent.182 An important dimension of German-Polish societal contacts was devoted to building a shared historical memory. One type of such programs was the thick network of youth exchange programs.183 The German-Polish Youth Office, founded in 1991, spearheaded youth exchange programs. It was modeled after the Franco-German Youth Office created several decades earlier. Financed by the two governments and run by a board filled with Germans and Poles in equal proportion, the office brought young students from Germany and 179 180 181 182

183

Ibid., 191–204. Ambrosewicz-Jacobs, “Attitudes of Young Poles,” 589. Orla-Bukowska, “New Threads,” 197. Poland Central Statistical Office, Concise Statistical Yearbook and Statistical Yearbook of the Republic of Poland. I appreciate Verena Blechinger’s help with my research on German-Polish youth exchanges in the 1990s.

106

The Search for Reconciliation

Poland together not just to learn each other’s language, social life, culture, and religion but also to develop a common understanding of bilateral history through history workshops, internships at museums, and tours of Holocaust concentration camps.184 Besides government-sponsored programs, a number of private organizations also carried out youth exchanges. One example was the German War Graves Commission, which organized summer work camps for youth, including Polish students, to visit soldiers’ graves and war memorials in Europe and attend seminars discussing issues of war, peace, and international understanding.185 Another private organization, the German-Polish Youth Academy of the European Youth Exchange Network, organized exchange programs aimed at facilitating mutual understanding between German and Polish youth.186 Additionally, the foundations of major German political parties – the Konrad Adenauer Foundation for the CDU, the Hanns Seidel Foundation for the CSU, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation for the SPD, and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for the FDP – all provided student scholarships, part of which funded students to participate in seminars held at historical sites in Poland. Also beneficial to bilateral memory convergence was the continuation of historians’ dialogue. After 1989, the contacts between German and Polish historians greatly proliferated, including such new channels as the German Historical Institute in Warsaw, the Berlin research center for social and political sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and a number of existing German institutions that expanded their activities related to Polish-German contacts.187 Nevertheless, the German-Polish Textbook Commission remained a major forum for formalized dialogue. In mid-1989, the commission set out to write a teacher’s handbook series on twenty “cross-points in the history of German-Polish relations.” Typically, one historian from Germany and one from Poland would team up to work on each cross-point subject. In this way, historians of the two countries, including East German teachers, jointly wrote the text of

184

185

186

187

See the Web site of the German-Polish Youth Office at <>. For information on the youth work camps organized by the German War Graves Commission, see <>. See the Web site of the German-Polish Youth Academy at <>. Muller, “Joint Polish-German Commission,” 446. ¨

When East Meets West

107

every historical event, compiled relevant source materials, and translated everything into the German and Polish languages. The first handbook was published in 1991 as a model, followed by a number of additional handbooks and workbooks containing shared glossaries and pedagogical details.188 Furthermore, the Textbook Commission expanded the topics of historians’ dialogue beyond the history of German-Polish relations.189 At the twenty-sixth conference of the Textbook Commission in 1994, German delegates proposed concluding the discussions on bilateral history that had been going on since the 1970s and shifting the textbook cooperation project to a new agenda. Acting on the proposal, historians began to examine topics related to Germany’s and Poland’s relations with other nations, such as minorities and neighboring countries of Germany and Poland. The conference in 1995 was held under the theme “The Germans, Poles, and Jews from the Enlightenment Era to the Onset of World War II” – the first time that the commission’s conference theme included a third party other than Germany and Poland. Not only German and Polish historians but also Israeli scholars attended the conference. The next year, the Textbook Commission sponsored a seminar in Berlin titled “Understanding the Others: The Contribution of History Education to Europe.”190 The following quote from a new teachers’ manual published by the commission in 2001 spelled out its broader commitment: The teachers’ manual will make it difficult to sustain a portrayal of history that mainly emphasizes the national dimension, national homogeneity, and promotes latent xenophobic rejection of foreign influences. The multitude of perspectives, especially expressed in the didactical reflections and the choiceof primary sources, is intended to challenge national narrow-mindedness and one-sided emotional evocations. It encourages a common European future based on universal values.191

In expanding the scope of textbook cooperation from national history to the complex ethnic, cultural, and social history of Europe, the Textbook 188 189

190 191

¯ Kondo, Taiwa, 139–42. ¯ Kokusai Rekishi Kyokasho The “Recommendations” published during the 1970s still needed improvement, such as to include facts about Soviet atrocities in Poland during WWII. But after the Cold War, the German side opposed paying excessive attention to Soviet atrocities because doing so would dilute Germans’ sense of their own responsibility. ¯ Kondo, Taiwa, 145–48. ¯ Kokusai Rekishi Kyokasho The text of this summary can be found at the official Web site of the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research at <>, accessed July 1, 2008.

108

The Search for Reconciliation

Commission intended to cultivate a European-oriented atmosphere of reconciliation and community. Convergent Narratives and Deep German-Polish Reconciliation As result of the deep-going demythification trend in German and Polish history research and education, as well as the extensive youth exchanges and textbook cooperation projects, the national memories of Germany and Poland about their past conflict began to show a high degree of convergence. This does not mean the two sides had identical interpretations of every historical event. German historian Michael Muller suggests that ¨ after the Cold War, historians from the two sides had more debates than before, but this phenomenon should be seen in a positive light because historians now were more outspoken and less “tactical,” and such free cross-national communication could produce genuine understanding of each other’s perspectives. Moreover, during these debates, historians were often not divided along national lines, as they valued academic integrity more highly than national loyalties. Academic debates aside, German and Polish historians joined hands in opposing renewed attempts at national mythmaking. One example was a controversy around 2003 regarding the demand to build a Center against Expulsions by German expellee activists. In response, the Polish-German Commission of Historians issued a joint declaration. It rejected the underlying notion of the expellees’ demand that Germans were special victims of population displacement in the twentieth century, insisting that this issue should be studied in a broader European context that involved the massive deportation of Poles and Jews as well.192 Changing German-Polish mutual popular feelings testified to the significant contribution of historical settlement to the dissolving of emotional and psychological barriers to reconciliation. In the early 1990s, Polish views about Germans remained largely negative. In a 1990 poll in Poland, as many as 70 percent of the respondents agreed with a popular Polish saying: “Never in this world can a German be a brother to a Pole.” This percentage remained high (60 percent) two years later.193 Similarly, prejudices against Poles remained strong in the newly unified Germany. This was crystallized in an incident taking place at the Bridge of Friendship linking Germany and Poland across the Oder River in April

192 193

Muller, “Joint Polish-German Commission,” 446–47. ¨ Nasalska, “German-Polish Relations,” 55.

When East Meets West

percent 100

109

IN YOUR OPINION, IS RECONCILIATION BETWEEN THE POLES AND THE GERMANS: Possible

80 60 40 Impossible 20 Difficult to say

Fe

b. 1 Fe 990 b. 1 Ma 991 y1 99 Ju 2 ne 19 Ju 93 ne 19 9 Ma y1 4 Ma 995 y1 99 Ju 6 ne 1 9 Ju ne 97 19 98 Ap ril 19 99 Ma y2 00 Ma 0 y2 0 Se 01 pt. 20 02 Ju ly 20 0 Oc t. 2 3 0 Ju ne 04 20 05 De c. 20 05

0

figure 2.2. Polish Polls: The Possibility of German-Polish Reconciliation. Source: Polish Public Opinion (Bulletin), January 2006.

1991. After Germany lifted visa restrictions for Poles, a German welcoming committee held an opening ceremony for their Polish neighbors at the bridge. But on that night, some 150 neo-Nazis gathered on the German side, shouting Nazi slogans and throwing rocks at a bus carrying a guest Polish orchestra. “Friendship? Hah! These people still have Hitler in their souls,” said an elderly Polish woman interviewed at the scene.194 At that time, Germans had significant reservations about EU expansion to include Poland because of the heavy cost of absorbing its cumbersome, inefficient economy and for fear of losing jobs to cheap Polish labor, especially in the East German border region. But over the years, the situation improved considerably. Figure 2.2 shows that Poles’ confidence in the possibility of their reconciliation with Germans has increased systematically since the mid-1990s; the proportion of those who thought reconciliation was possible reached 80 percent in 2002, compared to 47 percent in 1990. Also, in 1997, the proportion of Poles who had negative feelings toward Germans dropped to 38 percent from 53 percent in 1993. In 1996, most Poles felt no external threat; among those who did, the source of potential threat was Russia or other 194

“Germany for the Germans,” Newsweek, April 22, 1991.

110

The Search for Reconciliation

parts of the former USSR (combined 57 percent), not the unified Germany (only 7 percent).195 In the meantime, more Germans now felt sympathy than animosity toward Poles.196 They were also more willing to live peacefully and cooperatively with Poles than before. An Emnid poll in 2000 showed that more than two-thirds of Germans favored the EU’s eastern enlargement. Fears and prejudices about Poles still existed in east German border towns, but the federal government campaigned aggressively through media and cultural events to encourage Germans there to embrace their neighbors.197 Some may contend that such public opinion changes were more driven by Poland’s integration with the European community than anything else. Although admitting the importance of regional institutions in nurturing a sense of closeness between Poles and Germans, one can nonetheless make a strong case that given the heavy influence that historical memory had on German and Polish popular attitudes, the trend toward popular amicability to a large extent came from a reconciliation over history. A 1996 Polish poll shows that as many as 47 percent of high school and university students thought that WWII history had a large impact on contemporary German-Polish relations, compared to only 10 percent who thought it had no impact. Whereas still vividly remembering their suffering at the hands of German aggressors, Poles now wanted to put history behind them. In a 1994 poll, 61 percent of Poles thought they should forgive Germans for WWII crimes.198 In 2000, 31 percent of Poles still associated Germans with the war and Nazi crimes, but 58 percent said they liked Germans.199 Without the robust convergence in Polish and German national memories, over which historians and politicians of both sides had worked laboriously in the past decades, this remarkable spirit of forgiveness without forgetting would not have been imaginable. The Poles’ desire to shake off the yoke of history in response to German repentance was exemplified at the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising in 2004. After laying a wreath at the monument to 195 196 197

198 199

Nasalska, “German-Polish Relations,” 54. Jedlicki, “East-European Historical Bequest,” 44. “Poll Shows Majority of Germans for EU Expansion,” Der Spiegel (Hamburg), September 11, 2000, in FBIS-EEU. Nasalska, “German-Polish Relations,” 56. “Most Poles Think Reconciliation with Germans Possible, Opinion Survey Shows,” PAP (Warsaw), December 6, 2000, in FBIS-EEU.

When East Meets West

111

the victims, with tears in his eyes, Chancellor Gerhard Schroder embraced ¨ a former Polish resistance fighter. He then expressed Germany’s shame and appealed for reconciliation and peace in a speech. Schroder dispelled ¨ remaining doubts in Poles’ minds about the controversy over the expulsion issue, moreover, by speaking firmly at a news conference in Warsaw against the construction of a Center against Expulsions and against restitution claims by German expellees on the Polish people.200 A poll following the ceremony showed that 43 percent of Poles thought Schroder’s ¨ words met the expectations connected with his Polish visit, compared to 25 percent who believed the opposite; also, as many as 85 percent of Poles said they felt no ill will or hatred toward present-day Germans because of WWII history.201 More interestingly, the biggest weekly magazine in Poland, Polityka, published an article on August 7 urging Poles to look forward rather than dwell on the past. The author praised Schroder for his historical attitude ¨ shown at the ceremony and suggested that Poland should no longer hold the past against Germany: Is it a coincidence that the highest-ranking guest at the commemoration of the Uprising was a German? Not someone from the allies, but rather the chancellor of the “eternal enemy,” the enemy that razed the city and massacred its residents? The reception given to Chancellor Schroder demonstrates that a historic change ¨ in awareness has come to fruition within us, that we have come to believe in a democratic and peaceful Germany, our chief partner in Europe and the driving force of our economy. Chancellor Schroder proved up to the task, and Prime ¨ Minister Belka was right when he said to the guest at the ceremony in this regard: let’s not expect anyone to fall to their knees.

In addition, after reviewing the historical grievances that Poles had toward Russians, Americans, the French, and the British for their unfair treatment of Poles in history, the author lamented, “What strikes me in August 2004 is that we have some sort of bitterness and animosities with everyone around. There is no foreigner whom we would look at enthusiastically, spontaneously, and with pleasure. And it somehow seems to me that this is more our problem than theirs.” Overall, the author criticized that “history in Poland places an excessive burden on our foreign policy” and 200

201

“Poland-Germany Mark New Stage in Post World War II Reconciliation,” AFP, August 1, 2004, in FBIS-EEU. “Polish Survey Shows 43 Percent Satisfied with German Chancellor’s Statement,” PAP (Warsaw), August 4, 2004, in FBIS-EEU.

112

The Search for Reconciliation

called on Poles to realize that “perhaps it is now time to hide our tears in our own pillows.”202 To categorize current German-Polish relations as approaching the stage of deep reconciliation does not mean that the two nations have completely overcome the shadow of their shared history or eliminated traditional prejudices about each other. Anti-Polish feeling is still strong in parts of former East Germany, ordinary Germans lack interest in Poland, and many Poles continue to view today’s Germany through the lens of the past.203 The recent flare-up of the expulsion debate has caused bewilderment and at times an emotional outcry on both sides.204 Yet overall, the two nations no longer wish to hold history against one another in developing a relationship of cooperation in the present day. Reconciliation is “a dynamic, open-ended process.”205 Germany and Poland need to keep the momentum going.

conclusions Postwar German-Polish relations unfolded against the background of a seemingly “insurmountable legacy” featuring repeated, brutal invasion, occupation, expulsion, and the Cold War.206 In 1945, anti-German resentments and fears were undoubtedly spontaneous and genuine in Poland. To make things worse, the Polish Communist government exploited such popular animosity toward Germany to justify its internal and external policies at the time. Adenauer’s government also encouraged national amnesia about Nazi crimes and German victim consciousness, which not only perpetuated traditional German prejudices against Poland but also fueled new grievances about the lost eastern territories. Such intense mutual ill feelings greatly exacerbated the already severe security dilemma between the two sides imposed by the Cold War. In this context, the new fraternization between Germany and Poland that we see today is indeed an extraordinary phenomenon in international relations. The roots of reconciliation began to grow in the d´etente years,

202

203 204

205 206

“Poland: World War II History, Past ‘Grudges’ Place ‘Excessive Burden’ on Foreign Policy,” Polityka (Warsaw), August 7, 2004, in FBIS-WEU. Jedlicki, “East-European Historical Bequest,” 44; Stachura, Poland, 147. Yet in recent years, German and Polish historians have made new collaborative efforts searching for a common understanding of the expulsion issue. See Lutomski, “Center against Expulsions.” Feldman, “Principle and Practice,” 336. Cordell and Wolff, Germany’s Foreign Policy, 30.

When East Meets West

113

when a more relaxed European international structure enabled a new German Ostpolitik in the spirit of accommodation, confidence building, and remorse. An even more remarkable move in this period was that not only political leaders but also historians began to puncture the Iron Curtain: The work of the unofficial German-Polish Textbook Commission contributed to the decline of national mythmaking and fostered understanding between the nations of their perspectives and feelings. Institutional contacts between the two governments and societies continued and even expanded during the so-called Second Cold War of the 1980s, which significantly cushioned the negative impact of the collapse of d´etente on bilateral relations. As a result, the West German–Polish relationship did not regress to its previous level of total antagonism. After the Cold War, the international structure in Central and Eastern Europe was neutral, but German-Polish relations progressed steadily toward deep reconciliation. Besides Germany’s desire for reunification and security and Poland’s accession to the European community, another important driving force toward reconciliation was the profound progress in bilateral historical settlement during this period. To better understand the contribution of historical settlement to German-Polish reconciliation, it is useful to consider Germany’s relationship with another victim country of Nazi Germany and a former Soviet ally, the Czech Republic. German-Czech diplomatic normalization also occurred during d´etente, but the two countries did not engage in textbook cooperation. In 1997, after years of tough negotiations, they finally signed the Declaration of Reconciliation, but until then the Czech Republic stood as the only country whose Nazi victims had not received any war reparations from Germany.207 The ostensible delay in addressing the two nations’ bilateral historical legacy made it much harder for them to move quickly toward reconciliation later. Despite the simultaneous accession of Poland and the Czech Republic to NATO and the EU, post–Cold War German-Czech reconciliation was much more “clumsy and painful” than reconciliation in the German-Polish case. The Czech people remain still less willing than Poles to use the term “reconciliation” in describing their relations with Germans; they have long preferred “good neighborliness” or “straightening.”208 According to a 2000 poll, 51 percent of

207

208

Before 1997, only 89 Czechoslovakian victims of pseudo-medical experiments had obtained social benefits from Germany. See Gniazdowski, “The Problem of War Reparations,” 173. Feldman, “Principle and Practice,” 346–52.

114

The Search for Reconciliation

Czechs still believed that the Nazi regime could return to power in Germany, and 60 percent said “we must always beware of Germans.”209 The German-Czech case shows that short of bridging the national memory gap, pragmatic interests and regional institutions alone cannot truly touch the hearts of nations and pull them closer. 209

CTK National News Wire, January 4, 2000.

3 Initial Isolation Pre-Normalization Sino-Japanese Relations

The Chinese and Japanese nations are intimately related, not only from the point of view of communications but in all other respects as well. There is a saying among the people of both countries that China and Japan are brother nations, whose people are of a similar race and culture; that, therefore, they should join hands in common effort. – Sun Yat-sen, November 28, 1924

In parallel with the European case, I divide postwar Sino-Japanese relations into four periods. In the 1950s and 1960s, China and Japan were in a state of nonreconciliation, treating each other as enemies and preparing for an immediate violent conflict. In the second period, from 1972 through 1981, bilateral relations improved to the stage of shallow reconciliation– rapprochement, in which bilateral political and economic cooperation expanded smoothly but failed to reach a comprehensive level, and warm feelings developed between the two peoples as a product of political manipulation and romanticized imagination rather than true mutual understanding and trust. The third period began in the early 1980s, when the atmosphere of friendship was replaced by friction and alienation in both governmental and popular dimensions, marking a relationship downturn from rapprochement to friction within the stage of shallow reconciliation. Japan and China also began to bicker about war history in the 1980s, something that they rarely did in the previous two periods. In the fourth period, from the 1990s to the present, the bilateral relationship essentially stayed in the shallow reconciliation–friction stage, where it enjoyed temporary serenity in the first few years, only to deteriorate again from the mid-1990s. 115

116

The Search for Reconciliation

Why have Sino-Japanese relations traveled a trajectory of progress and reaction in the approximately six decades since World War II? Were there any lost chances? Why did the history issue become politically salient from the 1980s but not immediately after the war, when most people had firsthand war experience? In this chapter, I first outline the traumatic historical legacy between China and Japan, consider the structural conditions that affected their postwar relationship, and take an initial look at their engagement in mythmaking. Given this context, I then analyze the development of Sino-Japanese relations in the 1950s and 1960s. The next three chapters examine bilateral relations in the following three periods, respectively.

a modern history of trauma Like German-Polish relations, the neighboring countries of China and Japan have a history of traumatic conflict. From the late nineteenth century, they clashed violently for about a half century, including two fullscale wars.1 The first Sino-Japanese War in 1894–95 was a military fiasco for China that concluded with what the Chinese considered to be a humiliatingly unequal treaty, the Treaty of Shimonoseki. China endured even graver pain and shame in subsequent encounters with Japan, including such infamous events as the “Twenty-One Demands”2 and the Japanese annexation of Manchuria in 1931. But nothing bears comparison to the second Sino-Japanese War from 1937 to 1945 in terms of scale, brutality, and destructiveness. The war left immense physical and psychological trauma in both nations. The Chinese nation was clearly the victim in the 1937–45 war. Chinese official estimates of casualties range from several million to thirty-five million.3 Today, most historians agree that approximately ten million 1

2

3

A stricter standard of coding counts thirty-four militarized disputes between China and Japan over a period of eighty-five years from 1873 to 1958. See Diehl and Goertz, War and Peace, 146. This was a Japanese attempt to extend its sphere of influence to Manchuria, Mongolia, and Shandong as well as to secure control of Chinese internal affairs. First presented to the Chinese government in 1915 with an ultimatum, some important parts of the TwentyOne Demands were forced on China in 1917 through a secret treaty. This aroused strong Chinese protest after World War I, which culminated in the May Fourth Movement of 1919. The Nationalist government officially claims total Chinese military casualties of 3.3 mil¯ lion and civilian casualties of approximately 8.4 million. See Yin, Chunichi Senso¯ Baisho¯ Mondai, 384. The Communist government had claimed more than 21 million Chinese

Initial Isolation

117

Chinese people died and “uncertain millions” of people were wounded during the war.4 It is not these statistics, however, but Japanese wartime atrocities that are remembered most vividly in China. Indiscriminate killing of Chinese noncombatants occurred frequently after Japanese expansion in China began, but it escalated to a massive scale in winter 1937 when Japanese troops captured China’s capital city, Nanjing. In the incident known as the Nanjing Massacre, more than two hundred thousand Chinese civilians and POWs were killed, and approximately twenty thousand cases of rape and numerous cases of looting and destruction took place over approximately six weeks.5 Indeed, Japanese atrocities were common during the war. The Japanese policy of “kill all, ¯ burn all, destroy all” (sanko-seisaku) in the Communist areas of northern China caused a reduction of the population by as many as nineteen million people during 1941–42.6 The Japanese army’s notorious Unit 731 used live human beings as biological test materials in Manchuria and killed thousands of people, possibly many more, most of them Chinese.7 And among the more than forty-one thousand Chinese laborers brought to Japan by force, about 17 percent died because of the working conditions of slavery.8 Others suffering from Japanese atrocities included Chinese “comfort women,” who were forced to provide sexual services to Japanese soldiers; victims of Japan’s bacterial and chemical warfare; and many ordinary citizens under the harsh Japanese occupation. In addition to human suffering, the Chinese economy was paralyzed and social life profoundly disrupted as 26 of 30 Chinese provinces were completely engulfed in the war, 930 cities were occupied, and

4 5

6 7

8

casualties, including 10 million deaths. See Information Office of the State Council of the People of the Republic of China, Zhongguo de Renquan Zhuangkuang, part 1. But in 1995, Chinese president Jiang Zemin dramatically increased the casualty estimate to 35 million in a public speech commemorating the end of WWII. See Tian, Zhanhou Zhongri Guanxi Wenxianji, 2: 948. Dower, War without Mercy, 296. The exact death toll of the Nanjing Massacre is still a subject of heated debate. The Tokyo War Crimes Trial put the number at upward of two hundred thousand, and the Nanjing War Crimes Trial held by the Nationalist government in 1947 stated that three hundred thousand Chinese were killed, which is also the official figure maintained by the Communist government. See Yang, “Convergence or Divergence.” Johnson, Peasant Nationalism, 55–58. The death toll of Japanese biological warfare remains controversial, in part because of the refusal of the Japanese government to open related files. See “Japan Rebuffs Requests for Information about Its Germ-Warfare Atrocities,” New York Times, March 4, 1999. Official statistics released by the Japanese government, cited in “Over 1,000 Chinese Forced Laborers in World War II Traced,” People’s Daily (Online), September 15, 2001.

118

The Search for Reconciliation

23 provinces suffered Japanese air raids. The war cost China $62 billion in direct losses and $500 billion in indirect losses.9 The war ended in 1945, but many wounds inflicted by the war remain open even today. The large number of Japanese chemical shells left in China have, since the end of the war, killed or injured two thousand Chinese.10 In summer 2003, an injury case caused by the leaking of these weapons sparked a public uproar in China.11 The war also created some outstanding political controversies encompassing the legal status of Taiwan, a former Japanese colony, and territorial disputes over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, which had been part of the Taiwan colony. The perpetrator, the Japanese nation, also emerged from the war with enduring scars. The Japanese government estimates that more than 3 percent of the total Japanese population died in the war, including 1.7 million military and nearly 1 million civilian deaths.12 The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki stands out as the icon of Japanese national trauma. Hibakusha (atomic bomb victims) suffered radiation illness and psychological disorders long after the war was over, which were compounded by their stigmatization in postwar Japanese society.13 The Japanese people also kept vivid memories of the American firebombing of Tokyo, which killed a hundred thousand people in one night, and the devastating air raids on sixty other Japanese cities in 1945.14 Additionally, ordinary people experienced grave food shortages during the war, those repatriated from China lost all their possessions and personal dignity when returning to Japan, and thousands of Japanese orphans were stranded in China after the war. Last but not least, the defeat and unconditional surrender and the subsequent seven years of foreign occupation are all regarded as Japan’s national shame.

9

10

11

12 13

14

Information Office of the State Council of the People of the Republic of China, Zhongguo ¯ de Renquan Zhuangkuang, part 1; Yin, Chunichi Senso¯ Baisho¯ Mondai, 380. The Japanese government puts the number of its chemical shells in China at seven hundred thousand, whereas Chinese surveys in the 1950s estimated two million shells left in China. The cleaning of these chemicals has been slowly progressing since the two governments reached an agreement in 1996. “Cleansing Job,” Economist, April 5, 1997; Asahi Shimbun, September 14, 2000. “Relic of War Adds to Strain in Beijing Ties with Tokyo,” New York Times, August 12, 2003; “China Nets Million Japan Protests,” BBC News, September 18, 2003. Dower, War without Mercy, 297–99. Committee for the Compilation of Materials on Damage Caused by the Atomic Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Dower, “The Bombed.” “100,000 People Perished, but Who Remembers?” New York Times, March 14, 2002.

Initial Isolation

119

It was against this historical background of traumatic conflict that the two former enemies entered their first period of postwar relations, which can be categorized as a period of nonreconciliation. Elites of both countries were on high alert for imminent war, and their acute sense of mutual threat was shaped mainly by the two countries’ antagonistic positions in the Cold War structure in Asia. The two countries failed to recognize each other’s sovereignty rights through diplomatic normalization. Beijing actually wrote off Japan’s historical debts to pave the way for its “People’s Diplomacy” to win Japanese diplomatic recognition. But, the concerted pressure from the United States, Taiwan, and the Taiwan lobby in Japan kept Tokyo’s nonrecognition policy toward Beijing in place throughout this period. Bilateral economic interactions were kept at an artificially low level because Japan’s economic policy toward China was constrained by its participation in the U.S.-led economic warfare against the socialist bloc. China was actually willing to sacrifice economic interests for political goals and never raised serious demands for war redress for fear of impeding its economic People’s Diplomacy toward Japan. The outright public animosity between the two countries during this period can also be explained by the impact of the Cold War structure than by the effects of historical memory. Chinese public opinion was largely manipulated by strategically oriented government propaganda, although it was to some extent reinforced by personal experiences during the war, whereas Japanese feeling was mainly shaped by disgust with the Communist ideology, fear of Chinese power, and concerns about war entanglement. Thus, a close examination of the period lends stronger support to realist theory than to national mythmaking theory because the negative structural conditions of the Cold War fundamentally antagonized China and Japan, whereas their historical memories, highly manipulated for the purpose of facilitating a more formal diplomatic relationship, were not really an obstacle to their reconciliation.

the international system: antagonism at creation American occupation of Japan after WWII initially aimed to disarm and demilitarize Japan to make sure that it would no longer pose a military threat.15 From the late 1940s, when the Cold War arose in Asia, however, 15

See the “United States Initial Post-Surrender Policy for Japan,” released on September 22, ¯ u, ¯ 28. 1945, in Hosoya, Nichibei Kankei Shiryosh

120

The Search for Reconciliation

the Truman administration accorded strategic priority to Japan. The NSC 13/2, approved on October 7, 1948, stipulated a so-called reverse course of U.S. policy toward Japan, which shifted the focus of occupation from punishment to rehabilitation.16 Later, in a speech in January 1950, Secretary of State Dean Acheson included Japan in America’s Pacific “defense perimeter.” After the Korean War broke out, Washington pressed Japan to rearm and signed a security treaty with Japan’s Yoshida government to tightly knit Japan into a broad defense framework. The treaty granted the United States exclusive rights to use military bases in Japan and stated that American forces stationed there would be utilized “to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security in the Far East.” This clause implied that Japan should provide base facilities and other support to American military actions in China, Taiwan, the Soviet Union, or on the high seas.17 From Yoshida’s perspective, the threat of monolithic international Communism was not real, and American military bases and Japan’s rearmament promised to be costly. At the time, however, Japan was occupied by the United States and depended on American economic aid and political backing for national rebuilding. Because signing the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, or the Anpo, was directly linked to the early conclusion of a peace treaty and restoration of Japanese sovereignty, Yoshida had few other choices but to become America’s Cold War ally.18 As for China, during WWII, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) actually maintained a reasonably good relationship with Washington.19 But later in the Chinese Civil War, the Communists grew increasingly resentful about American military aid to their political adversary, the Kuomintang (KMT), or the Nationalists. After the CCP defeated the KMT, the Truman administration hesitated to recognize the CCP regime and abandon the KMT regime in Taiwan because doing so would have contradicted its political campaign to convince the reluctant public and isolationists in Congress to underwrite anti-Communist programs in Europe, Japan, and Southeast Asia.20 Meanwhile, CCP policies hardly convinced the Americans that the regime was not a Soviet puppet. In June 1949, Mao 16

17 18

19 20

National Security Archive, “Recommendations with Respect to U.S. Policy toward Japan.” Igarashi, Sengo Nichibei Kankei no Keisei, 280. Dower, Empire and Aftermath, 370. The two treaties were actually both signed on September 8, 1951. Cohen, America’s Response to China, 145–46. Christensen, Useful Adversaries, 101.

Initial Isolation

121

Zedong declared that China would lean to one side, the socialist side.21 In February 1950, moreover, China signed a military alliance treaty with the USSR, prompting hard-liners in Washington like John Foster Dulles and Dean Rusk to demand the reconsideration of American China policy, especially to increase military assistance to Taiwan.22 Once the Korean War erupted, Truman ordered a naval blockade of the Taiwan Strait and declared that the status of Taiwan had to await future determination. Soon, the American-led UN troops crossed the ThirtyEighth Parallel on the Korean Peninsula and advanced toward the Yalu River along the Chinese border. Fearing that the United States might launch a two-front attack from Manchuria and the Taiwan Strait, Mao decided to send the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) across the Yalu to fight the Americans.23 Thus far, the rise of a bipolar international structure since the late 1940s had drawn China and Japan into opposing strategic camps and made them adversaries in the first hot war in their postwar history. In the subsequent two decades, American policy toward China was characterized by what A. Doak Barnett terms “containment and isolation.”24 This policy required active cooperation with Japan. Washington encouraged Japan to expand trade and investment to non-Communist countries in Asia to increase the economic strength and political stability of this area. Besides using Japan as the regional economic engine, the United States also emphasized Japan’s military role. Their 1954 Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement committed Japan to carrying out incremental remilitarization and assuming greater responsibility for its defense. Japan’s collaboration with America’s containment strategy determined that it must develop a formal relationship with Taiwan, South Korea, and other American allies in Southeast Asia. But in the eyes of Beijing, Japan’s formal recognition of the Taiwan regime was in outright defiance of Chinese interests. Beijing was also sensitive to Japan–South Korea relations because South Korea was China’s adversary in the Korean War.

21

22 23

24

“Sweeping the house clean before inviting guests” (meaning to remove Western influences in China), “leaning to one side,” and “making a fresh start” (meaning to scrap old diplomatic relations established by the Nationalist government and replace them with new ones) were the three principal decisions on foreign relations that Mao Zedong made shortly before the PRC was founded. See Xue, Dangdai Zhongguo Waijiao, 3–5. Christensen, Useful Adversaries, 128–30; Tucker, “John Foster Dulles,” 236–37. For recent studies on Mao’s war decision, see Chen, China’s Road, chs. 6–7; Christensen, Useful Adversaries, 173; and Pollack, “Korean War.” Congressional Quarterly Inc., China and U.S. Far East Policy, 279.

122

The Search for Reconciliation

Chinese anger toward Japan soared, especially when Prime Minister Sato¯ agreed in a joint statement with Nixon in 1969 to link Japanese national security to the defense of Taiwan and South Korea. To sum up, China and Japan became strategic adversaries in the first period, just as West Germany and Poland did in Europe. The difference is that West Germany and Poland were not only enmeshed in the global rivalry between the Eastern and Western blocs but also had direct conflicts of national interest, whereas Sino-Japanese confrontation in the early Cold War years was primarily driven by interbloc rivalry. If such negative structural conditions were the decisive force shaping Sino-Japanese relations in the 1950–60s, we should expect the countries’ relationship to have been in the stage of nonreconciliation. Imminent expectations of bilateral armed conflict should have prevailed among elites, mainly from the fear that they would be dragged into the interbloc confrontation. Mutual national recognition should have been out of the question because the bloc leaders would not tolerate their allies’ flirting with their Cold War adversaries. Additionally, economic cooperation should have been scarce as a result of the irresistible pressure from bloc leaders to minimize economic ties with the enemy bloc for security reasons. We should expect the two nations to have had a strong mutual aversion and fear, mainly from the negative structural conditions that set them apart both physically by obstructing their regular societal contacts and psychologically in terms of aggravating mistrust. Although they might still have brought up war history, we should expect them to have done so mainly to justify or reinforce the official opposition to the other state’s current policies rather than to seek rectification of historical wrongs.

national mythmaking: conflictual/quasi-convergent narratives Again, similar to the European case, both Japanese and Chinese ruling elites constructed national myths to glorify or whitewash the wartime actions of their own nation while blaming others for causing the tragedy. In pursuit of Japanese diplomatic recognition, however, Beijing endorsed the myth of the military clique created by Japan’s conservative elites and slighted its historiographic disagreement with Tokyo. Consequently, despite national mythmaking and the nonsettlement of the historical burden during this period, Japanese and Chinese war memories were quasi-convergent, and bilateral conflict over the history issue was by and large absent.

Initial Isolation

123

Japanese Politics and Elite Mythmaking Japan’s conservative elites represented continuity from prewar politics, as many had been loyal supporters of the imperial government and after the war still clung to traditional modes of authority.25 In the early postwar years, they were confronted with considerable political hurdles when pursuing three major domestic and international goals. The first goal was to consolidate the conservatives’ ruling power in the face of the severe challenge from the Left that was resurrected after the war. The Japan Socialist Party (JSP) alone won 20 percent of Diet seats in the first postwar election in 1946, and socialist Prime Minister Katayama Tetsu took power, albeit briefly, in 1947. Meanwhile, the leftists were active in promoting the “revolution from below” through the labor movement. Although a general strike planned for February 1, 1947, was called off because of MacArthur’s intervention, union membership continued to rise, and in the January 1949 elections the Japan Communist Party (JCP) sharply increased its representation in the Diet from four to thirty-five seats.26 The conservatives’ fear of leftist competition for power was exacerbated by the attitude of the American occupation authorities. The idealist “New Dealers” in SCAP (Supreme Command for the Allied Powers) were highly sympathetic to the leftists, who had been persecuted by the militarist government for openly opposing the war. The JCP leader Nosaka Sanzo once declared, “We communists are the true patriots and the true service brigade for democracy.”27 In contrast, the conservatives frequently became the targets of occupation purges because of their close links with the wartime government.28 In the early occupation years, Washington was so suspicious of the conservatives that it tried ¯ oteki ¯ to promote a Chud (of the middle road) regime until the socialistdemocratic coalition governments first led by Katayama and later Ashida both collapsed quickly.29 25

26 27 28

29

¯ u¯ Gurupu ¯ Members of this group include prewar high-ranking bureaucrats, the Kyuch (the imperial court officials), conservative intellectuals and politicians mostly associated with the Liberal Democratic Party that formed in 1955, and big capitalists. Masumi, Nihon Seijishi, 4: 111, 157. Dower, Embracing Defeat, 256. For example, the occupation purge implicated all but three members of the Shidehara cabinet in power from October 1945 to May 1946. The three spared in the purge were Prime Minister Shidehara, Foreign Minister Yoshida Shigeru, and Health and Welfare ¯ 34. Minister Ashida Hitoshi. See Kitaoka, Jiminto, Watanabe, “Sengo Nihon no Shuppatsuten,” 24.

124

The Search for Reconciliation

The conservatives’ second major goal was to implement an economic recovery program tied to a triple alliance of bureaucracy, big business, and the conservative parties. Of the 261 members of Yoshida’s Liberal Party elected to the lower house in 1949, 158 were from the business circle, and 44 were ex-officials.30 The Liberal Party later merged with HatoyamaKishi’s Democratic Party to form the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which included more small and medium-sized businesses, particularly those connected to Kishi.31 The JSP, on the other hand, drew 59 percent of its support from blue-collar and white-collar workers.32 The leftists emphasized both economic growth and social equality and strove for “people’s democracy” through grassroots mass movements. Their socioeconomic agenda jeopardized the capitalist interests represented by the conservatives. The conservative mainstream was committed, finally, to strategic collaboration with the United States to end the occupation soon and regain economic prosperity. But, the policy failed to gain a national consensus. When the reverse course in occupation policy began to suppress the labor movement, not only the Communists turned explicitly against the United States but also the moderate liberals, such as the prominent intellectual Nanbara Shigeru, were disillusioned about the Americans and advocated Japanese neutrality in the Cold War. They particularly demanded a Zen¯ men Kowa (comprehensive peace treaty) with not just Western allies but also the Soviet Union and China.33 The Diet vote that passed the San Francisco Peace Treaty crystallized the polarization in Japanese politics: Of a total of 481 approval votes, 461 were cast by conservative representatives, whereas 71 of a total of 92 objection votes came from the JCP and the left wing of the JSP.34 All these political struggles pitted left-wing and liberal critics against the dominant conservative elites. It was imperative for the conservatives to search for powerful ideological instruments to boost their own prestige and political influence. Because of their inextricable ties with the wartime government and its policies, the conservatives suffered disgrace vis-a-vis their morally cleaner leftist adversaries. They needed a view of ` the war that could remove their past stains and win over the hearts and 30 31 32 33

34

Dower, Empire and Aftermath, 315. Samuels, “Kishi and Corruption.” See 1955 data cited in Curtis, Japanese Way of Politics, 120–21. ¯ Kato, Maruyama Masao o ¯ Nanbara Shigeru, 160–64; Kato¯ and Hidaka, Dojidaijin Kataru, 58–63. Igarashi, Sengo Nichibei Kankei no Keisei, 222.

Initial Isolation

125

minds of the Japanese people. They also used the reinterpretation of national history to mobilize public support for their pro-United States international strategy. To this end, in the aftermath of the war, the conservative elites created self-whitewashing, self-glorifying national myths that minimized the scope of Japan’s war responsibility, narrowly focused on Japan’s interaction with Western powers, and glorified the imperial Japanese army. First of all, the conservatives created the myth of the military clique, blaming a small group of military leaders for launching the war and asserting that the Japanese people were peace-loving, innocent victims of the war. This myth whitewashed the complicity of a wide range of wartime political actors, including the emperor and court officials; zaibatsu, or business conglomerates; civilian politicians; and high-ranking bureaucrats, who regrouped in the conservative circle after the war. The exoneration of the emperor embodied in this myth was particularly striking and had an enduring impact on postwar Japanese politics. After Japan surrendered, enormous pressure came from both Allied countries and Japanese leftists demanding that the emperor step down and be indicted as a war criminal.35 However, a tarnished image of the emperor would lead to the crumbling of Kokutai, or “national polity,” an ideology that reveres the emperor as the symbolic head of a nation united by blood ties. Kokutai used to be a powerful spiritual tool for the imperial government to mobilize public endorsement of its policy of military expansion. The postwar conservative government continued to anchor national identity to Kokutai, using it as the ideological justification for its ruling power. It was determined to defend the absolute impunity of the emperor by establishing a mythified image of him as a pacifist, a passive figurehead who himself was deceived by the jingoist military. In November 1945, the Shidehara cabinet issued the following official statement to fend off accusations of the emperor’s war responsibility:36 1. That we believe the Empire was compelled to embark upon the Greater East Asian War in view of the surrounding circumstances. 35

36

Dower, Embracing Defeat, 320–22; Schaller, American Occupation of Japan, 3. The Showa emperor’s war responsibility was long a taboo subject in Japan. Since his death in 1989, historians have found more evidence to prove that Hirohito was not a passive figurehead manipulated by people surrounding him but a major protagonist in making the war. See Bix, Hirohito. For critiques of Bix’s argument, see Andrew Gordon’s and Ben-Ami Shillony’s book reviews. Quoted in Bix, “Showa Emperor’s ‘Monologue,’” 306.

126

The Search for Reconciliation

2. That His Majesty the Emperor worried over negotiations with the United States and did not give up trying to reach a peaceful settlement until the very end. 3. Concerning matters such as the decision to begin hostilities and the carrying out of operational plans, His Majesty the Emperor followed established constitutional practices and did not reject the decisions of the imperial headquarters and the government. 4. In order to avoid attacking while Japan-United States negotiations were still going on, we made efforts to send a message notifying the United States of the termination of negotiations. 5. The imperial rescript declaring war was an internal rescript, intended for the nation. . . . 6. [omitted] Here, the emperor was presented as a peace-minded constitutionalist and principled seeker of diplomatic solutions to the U.S.-Japan conflict. In addition, many conservative elites, including Prince Konoe and Yoshida Shigeru, lobbied the Americans that war crimes investigations should exclude the emperor but go after Toj ¯ o¯ Hideki, a general and prime minister of Japan during much of the Pacific War.37 In so doing, they tried to shift the responsibility of the wartime ruling class to only a few military leaders, whom they said had hijacked the Japanese state and led the country into a catastrophe. The myth of the military clique ignored the enthusiastic support that numerous ordinary Japanese had given to the war policy. It sponsored a Japanese sense of victimhood by claiming that the vast majority of the nation was made up of unfortunate victims of the disastrous decisions of the military clique. Besides, the conservatives argued that postwar Japan naturally became a peace-loving country because the Japanese people had suffered enormously during the war. In the occupation years, Yoshida repeatedly issued passionate statements of pacifist ideals.38 By highlighting Japanese suffering and whitewashing Japan’s wrongdoings, the conservative historiography tried to clean up the national image and regain international acceptance of the country. In addition to perpetuating the myth of the military clique, the conservatives accepted Japanese responsibility for opening hostilities against the Western Allies, but they avoided admitting to Japanese aggression or the 37 38

Dower, Embracing Defeat, 480–84. Pyle, Japanese Question, 21–22.

Initial Isolation

127

atrocities the Japanese had committed in Asia. Having cast its lot firmly with the United States in the Cold War, Japan had to admit that the war against the Allied Powers was an act of aggression to obtain an entrance ticket to the Western bloc. But, the fiscal pressure to minimize external debts to Asian countries, Japan’s traditional contempt for other Asian nations, and the fear that acknowledging and thoroughly investigating war crimes in Asia would incriminate many people outside the military clique motivated the conservatives to downplay Japan’s victimization of Asia and the accompanying war responsibility. Finally, the conservative elites gave former imperial soldiers special honor and care, arguing that these soldiers had answered the call when the country needed them and made great personal sacrifices. Even convicted war criminals were held up as heroes because they had done what they believed was good for the Japanese nation. This “heroic sacrifice” myth circumvented admitting to the fundamental mistakes in Japan’s war policy and the horrendous atrocities committed by the military rank and file. It was useful to rehabilitate the reputation of the Japanese military and defeat the leftist objection to the Anpo, American bases, and Japanese rearmament. The myth was perpetuated in the government’s tacit support for the Yasukuni Shrine and compensation programs in the postwar settlement policy, which are discussed later. Prime Minister Ikeda made an official gesture to endorse this myth at the End of War Memorial Day ceremony on August 15, 1963. In his speech, the main thrust of which was often repeated by later prime ministers, he claimed that those who died in the war paved the way for Japan’s subsequent prosperity.39 Japanese Memory Contestation and the Institutionalization of National Myths The conservative historiography about the war was challenged by a progressive view of history in Japan. Japanese liberal and leftist intellectuals lashed out at the fundamental flaws in the prewar Japanese political system that had caused the expansionist policy and war. For example, Maruyama Masao, a student of Nanbara and one of the most influential intellectuals in postwar Japan, was convinced that the war revealed the inherent defects in prewar Japanese national identity and the political system. He advocated deep transformation of the national essence rather 39

¯ Yoshida, Nihonjin no Sensokan, 109–12.

128

The Search for Reconciliation

than simply punishing several militarist conspirators. The progressives also believed that frankly acknowledging Japan’s war responsibility and genuine soul-searching were indispensable steps if postwar Japan was to reject the antidemocratic prewar politics and prevent the resurgence of militarism and a repetition of tragic history. A left-wing intellectual, Hosokawa Karoku, urged the Japanese people to stage their own trial and punishment of those responsible for the war.40 Other influential liberal ¯ intellectuals, such as film director Itami Mansaku, economist Okuma Nobuyuki, historian Hani Goro, ¯ and writer Nakano Shigeharu, spoke out about the need for self-criticism by the wartime intelligentsia class for their collaboration with or failure to oppose the militarist state.41 In the 1950s–60s, progressive historiography was closely associated with the Marxist opposition parties, labor unions, and teachers’ organizations, such as the influential left-wing Japan Teachers’ Union. Whereas the conservatives manipulated history to achieve their domestic and international goals, Japan’s political Left also practiced “history as opposition,” in Carol Gluck’s words, using the struggle over history to compete with the conservatives for power and influence. However influential they were in academic and intellectual circles, progressive voices were marginalized in official public memory because of the conservatives’ dominant control over memory institutions.42 The conservatives’ interest in manipulating history coincided with the American strategy, moreover, after the reverse course began to support a stable conservative government in Tokyo to make Japan an important anti-Communist bulwark in Asia. The influence of progressive forces on hegemonic national memory diminished as the leftist parties repeatedly lost the power struggle against the Americansupported LDP. Furthermore, the conservative myths of self-glorification and whitewashing prevailed because they captured the imagination of the Japanese public, who like the Germans in the early postwar years were preoccupied with their own suffering and in no mood to face up to their own war guilt vis-a-vis other Asian nations. Even the Japanese leftist approach to war ` responsibility had its limitations. It mostly shunned the question of collective responsibility and converged with conservative narratives of Japanese victimhood and the pacifist outlook.43 As a result, the conservatives 40 41 42 43

Dower, Embracing Defeat, 507, 476. Sumitani, “Toky ¯ o¯ Saiban.” Gluck, “Past in the Present,” 70–71. For a sharp critique of the left-wing intellectuals’ view on Japanese war responsibility ¯ ¯ o¯ Saiban kara Sengo Sekinin no Shiso¯ e, 169–74. since the mid-1950s, see Onuma, Toky

Initial Isolation

129

were able to disseminate national myths through such institutional tools as the Tokyo War Crimes Trial, media control, educational policies, postwar compensation policies, and war commemoration rituals. The 1946–48 Tokyo War Crimes Trial was the authoritative legal institution designed to establish an official view of war history. In the trial, American occupation authorities worked closely with Japanese conservative elites, not only because many Japanese government documents had been destroyed right before Japan’s surrender but also because of the American desire to achieve occupation objectives with the “indirect rule” of Japan, such as through the monarchy system.44 Not surprisingly, the trial validated the conservative position, taking a minimalist approach to determining Japan’s war responsibility. Only twenty-five officials of the imperial government were convicted, of whom seven were sentenced to death. The verdict conspicuously avoided any reference to the Showa emperor but inculpated Toj ¯ o¯ and a few top army officers. Thereafter, no further promised trials were carried out, and those sentenced to imprisonment were released after the peace treaty was signed. The trial also perpetuated a Western-centric bias in Japanese war memory. Only three of the eleven justices were Asian, whereas the rest were all from Western countries. The trial devoted the bulk of the prosecution time to Japanese “crimes against peace” in the war with Western powers but downplayed Japanese war atrocities committed mostly in Asian countries.45 In the arena of mass media, in September 1945, MacArthur’s General Headquarters published the Press Code, inaugurating the censorship of postwar Japanese media.46 Initially concentrating on banning wartime rhetoric and criticism of the victorious powers, SCAP’s media control shifted its focus to limiting and even suspending the left-wing press from the late 1940s. Deprived of access to the mainstream media, Japanese progressives suffered severe drawbacks in the bid for dominance in national memory building. The occupation media campaign meanwhile spread the so-called ¯ Taiheiyo¯ Sensokan (Pacific War view of history), which echoed the conservative myths. National newspapers serialized “A History of the Pacific War,” penned by the staff of the Civil Information and Education Section within SCAP, and the public broadcaster NHK (Japan Broadcasting

44

45 46

For a detailed account of the Japan-United States collaboration to preserve the monarchy system during the occupation years, see Bix, “Inventing the ‘Symbol Monarchy.’” Dower, Embracing Defeat, 469–70; Wakamiya, Postwar Conservative View, 105–7. ¯ no Masukomi, 19. Matsuura, Senchu¯ Senryoka

130

The Search for Reconciliation

¯ (This Corporation) broadcast a ten-week program called Shinso¯ wa Koda Is Truth). Both programs ignored Asian resistance movements, stressing American military superiority as the main cause of Japanese defeat. They also held the military clique accountable and portrayed the rest of the nation as innocent victims.47 Concerning school education, Civil Information and Education instilled the Pacific War view of history in the new curricula and teaching materials that it directly supervised, including the new textbooks Kuni no Ayumi (Footsteps of the Nation), Nihon Rekishi (Japanese History), and Minshushugi (Democracy).48 SCAP did try to reform wartime Japanese education institutions, but with little success. In the spirit of “indirect rule,” SCAP let Mombusho¯ (the Japanese Ministry of Education) take charge of textbook certification as a temporary measure, planning to devolve power to elected local boards of education later, as stipulated by the 1947 Fundamental Education Law and the 1948 Textbook Law. When SCAP’s censorship ended in July 1950, however, textbook certification passed entirely under Mombusho’s ¯ control. Furthermore, in 1956, the Japanese government abolished elective boards of education and let heads of local governments appoint the board members. Thereafter, the conservative-minded Mombusho¯ relied on a centralized textbook certification system and the publication of teaching guidelines as two important institutional tools to shape educational content.49 Thus, in postoccupation Japan, the central government essentially controlled educational content, which is a distinct institutional legacy from that in Germany, where a decentralized system was maintained, allowing greater ¨ input from the education ministry of individual German Lander and also ordinary German teachers. Consequently, history textbooks published in the early 1950s depicted the 1931–45 war as a period of “fascism from above,” in which the military faction and a small group of right-wing members of the government had duped the Japanese people. And they all focused on the battlefield but not the suffering of the people in the occupied territories.50 From the mid-1950s, the left-wing antinuclear movement spread nationwide, compelling school textbooks to cover more Japanese experiences of the atomic

47 48 49 50

¯ Yoshida, Nihonjin no Sensokan, 30–33. Orr, Victim as Hero, 77. Dower, Empire and Aftermath, 351–52. Fish, “Manchurian Incident to Nagasaki”; Orr, Victim as Hero, 80–83.

Initial Isolation

131

bombing.51 But the conservative government soon launched a so-called ¯ ureubeki kyokasho (deplorable textbooks) campaign to crack down on the progressive influence on education and tightened textbook screening from the late 1950s. The liberal members of the Textbook Certification Investigation Council who provided expert opinion on textbook authorization were replaced by people with conservative sympathies. Publishers fell under greater pressure to keep their textbook content in conformity with Mombusho’s ¯ instruction.52 As a result, textbooks’ treatment of the war in the 1960s became more ambiguous and conservative. The militarists and the right wing were singled out more clearly from the rest of the nation than they had been before. In terms of war experiences, the textbooks included only antiseptic and minimal coverage of both American air raids and the atomic bombing.53 It was against this backdrop that in 1965 a progressive historian, Ienaga Saburo, ¯ filed his first two lawsuits against Mombusho, ¯ beginning his famous three-decade legal fight for textbook freedom. Japan’s institutional framework of sengo shori, meaning compensation measures as postwar resolution, also perpetuated the conservative myths. Only days after regaining sovereignty, the Japanese government promulgated the Wounded Veteran and Bereaved Family Assistance Act to resume payments to injured and killed soldiers and their families “in the spirit of state compensation.” The Pension Law enacted in August 1953 then formally revived the military pension system, offering blanket rewards to members of the military for their service to the nation and making war criminals eligible for the same benefits as well.54 Compared to this swift action to compensate the military, the government dragged its feet in providing relief to civilian war victims. By 1959, cumulative payments for military pensions and survivors’ benefits reached 567 billion yen, whereas payments for aiding repatriates and families of those stranded abroad totaled 13.4 billion yen, only about 2 percent of the former total.55 State compensation to Hibakusha in particular was put off. The 1957 Atomic Bomb Victim Medical Care Law extended only 51

52 53 54 55

Orr, Victim as Hero, 83–89. While inspiring pacifist ideals, atomic victim consciousness also directed attention away from Japan’s responsibility for victimizing other Asian people. Duke, “Textbook Controversy,” 348–50. Fish, “Manchurian Incident to Nagasaki”; Orr, Victim as Hero, 89–97. Tanaka, “Why Is Asia Demanding Postwar Compensation Now?” 6–8. Ibid., 9.

132

The Search for Reconciliation

meager relief to a few Hibakusha and treated such payments as a special kind of social welfare rather than as state compensation.56 Furthermore, Japanese government compensation to domestic victims by far exceeded its payments to foreign victims. Up to 1993, domestic war compensation was forty times what Japan had paid in external reparations. Meanwhile, almost all domestic compensation programs included a citizenship clause to exclude former colonial subjects from receiving benefits. Although the large discrepancy between its attitudes to military and nonmilitary victims reveals the government’s intention to defend wartime policies and glorify the Japanese military, this “Japan first, Japan only” characteristic of postwar resolution policy attests to Japan’s failure to assume responsibility for causing suffering to other countries.57 In terms of war commemoration, in the first postwar years, the conservative government installed several formal institutions to commemorate the war. The first official memorial ceremony for the war was presided over by the Showa emperor on May 2, 1952, shortly after the occupation ended. Gradually, August 15 was institutionalized as the annual commemoration day of the war, when key politicians, officials, and representatives of the Nihon Izokukai (Japanese Bereaved Families Association) would attend a formal ritual in Tokyo’s Budokan. The prime minister and ¯ emperor would both speak, typically offering vague apologies and eulogizing those who gave their lives for their country but failing to mention Japan’s war responsibility to other Asian people. Besides holding official ceremonies, the government also tacitly encouraged a memorial service sponsored by the Yasukuni Shrine, a Shintoist temple that glorified the patriotic spirit of Japanese soldiers. When state Shintoism was banned in December 1945, Yasukuni was turned into a purely religious entity whose connection with the government was formally severed. Soon after the occupation ended, conservative parliamentarians requested that the WWII war dead be honored there, and the powerful Nihon Izokukai passed a resolution demanding kokka goji, or state financing of Yasukuni’s memorial services; it also launched a nationwide signature campaign to solicit public support.58 In response to the pressure inside and outside the government, beginning in 1953 the Diet authorized the provision of a special travel discount to bereaved family members who needed to visit Yasukuni. In April 1956, 56 57 58

Orr, Victim as Hero, 144. Tanaka, “Why Is Asia Demanding Compensation,” 8–11. Tanaka, Izoku to Sengo, 207–9.

Initial Isolation

133

the Ministry of Health and Welfare issued an official notification directing all levels of local government to work with Yasukuni to investigate soldiers who had died in the recent war and inform their families, with all costs underwritten by the state. According to this notification, every year Yasukuni would hold memorial services twice for those deceased soldiers whose names appeared in the list compiled by the government.59 This move actually circumvented the constitutional principle of separation between religion and politics and extended de facto state sponsorship to Yasukuni. Further, except for Katayama and Hatoyama, all other Japanese prime ministers during 1945–85 worshiped at Yasukuni, even after Class A war criminals were enshrined there in 1978. In addition to honoring the war dead, another major theme in postwar Japanese war commemoration was to highlight the Hiroshima memory of the atomic bombing. First opened in 1955, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum portrayed the horror of the bombing and conveyed a pacifist message that all wars were evil. Also, since 1946, the city has held an annual memorial ceremony on August 6, the anniversary of the bombing, to which the prime minister usually sends an open message; cabinet members began to attend the ceremony in 1960.60 Absent from the Hiroshima memory was any deep reflection on Japan’s provocation of the war, its prolonged, cruel victimization of foreign people, and its refusal to surrender prior to the bombing.61 Additional evidence of Japan’s lack of feelings of guilt was the exclusion of foreign victims, most notably the twenty to thirty thousand Koreans who died in the bombing, from the official representation of Hiroshima history until 1970.62 Domestic and International Motivations for Chinese Communist Mythmaking Chinese domestic politics was in flux during much of the 1950s and 1960s. When the PRC (People’s Republic of China) was first established, the government inherited a war-wrecked economy, the recovery of which was delayed by the eruption of the Korean War. Politically, the previously powerful landlords, capitalists, and bourgeoisie received the 59 60 61

62

¯ ¯ Asahi Shimbun, August 11, 2001; Itagaki, Yasukuni Koshiki Sanpai no Sokatsu, 306–10. Ubuki, Heiwa Kinen Shikiten no Ayumi, 75–78. Yoneyama, Hiroshima Traces, 17–18. Only after the Socialist Party took power in 1994 did the Peace Museum undergo a renovation to feature more exhibits on the historical context of the atomic bombing and Hiroshima’s link to Japan’s war of aggression. Ibid., 151–52.

134

The Search for Reconciliation

Communist regime with suspicion, alienation, and even acts of subversion. Meanwhile, anti-Communist guerrilla forces supported by the KMT and America still operated in various parts of the mainland. To cement the Communist revolution and solidify class loyalty to the party’s ruling power, Mao’s government carried out successful but frequently violent land reform in the countryside, suppression of counterrevolutionaries in the cities, and the Three Anti and Five Anti campaigns, mainly targeted at private businesses, by 1952.63 Although the party temporarily emphasized economic development over political struggle in 1953–57, it soon introduced new campaigns of class struggle and radical socioeconomic policies such as the Anti-Rightist Movement in 1957, the People’s Commune and Great Leap Forward in 1958, and ultimately the Red Guard riots and Cultural Revolution beginning in 1966. On the international front, the central theme of Chinese grand strategy was to counterbalance the threat of “American imperialism” as a response to U.S. containment policy against China and support for the KMT regime in Taiwan. Related to the struggle against the United States was China’s policy toward its Western allies, including Japan. The CCP leaders saw a world not merely dominated by two superpowers but also driven by contradictions between superpowers and smaller powers; if Beijing could build a revolutionary United Front with both socialist countries and smaller Western powers, it would erode international support for the U.S.-led containment of China.64 From the 1950s, Beijing practiced People’s Diplomacy toward Japan, a semiofficial diplomatic campaign aimed at changing Tokyo’s policy of nonrecognition of Beijing and undercutting its security alliance with Washington.65 All these domestic and international pressures motivated Marxist propaganda by the government to rally public support to its regime and policies. In line with this ideological framework, history was used to construct a Communist national identity that emphasized the irreconcilable antagonism between the Chinese Communists on one hand and capitalists

63

64

65

The Three-Anti campaign was against corruption, waste, and obstructionist bureaucracy. The Five-Anti campaign was against bribery, tax evasion, theft of state property, cheating on government contracts, and stealing state economic information. For more on China’s “United Front” strategy toward the “intermediate zone” over time, ¯ see Okabe, Chugoku no Tainichi Seisaku, 22–39. Chinese official recounts and diplomats’ memoirs on the People’s Diplomacy to Japan include Sun, Nihon to no 30 Nen; Xiao, Eien no Rinkoku to shite; and Xue, Dangdai Zhongguo Waijiao, ch. 16.

Initial Isolation

135

and imperialist forces, including the KMT and its American ally, on the other, rather than between the Chinese and Japanese nations. The official narrative of the Sino-Japanese War promoted several self-glorifying and other-maligning myths that exalted the role of the CCP in winning national liberation, demonized the KMT and the United States, and condemned the Japanese militarists while sympathizing with Japanese people. First of all, Chinese official historiography established the CCP as the sole leader of what was called the “Great Chinese War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression” and praised the CCP-led Eighth Route Army, New Fourth Army, and other guerrilla troops as the predominant resistance forces in China. The role of Nationalist troops in the resistance campaign was basically ignored. The official history also distorted facts regarding the internal strife between the Communist and Nationalist forces during the war. The CCP claimed that the Communist attacks on the Nationalist army both were carried out in self-defense and were patriotic actions because the KMT attempted to stop Communist troops from marching onto the anti-Japanese battlefield.66 The official history portrayed the KMT as a corrupt, oppressive, and reactionary political force. It accused KMT leaders of kowtowing to and actively collaborating with the Japanese aggressor, claiming that if there had been no CCP, China would have been totally conquered by Japan. Meanwhile, the narrative omitted any mention of the American military aid China had received to fight the Japanese troops, nor did it introduce the U.S.-China joint military operation in the China-Burma-India theater or the broader picture of the U.S. struggle against Japan in the Pacific War. Instead, it claimed that America sat idly watching the Chinese people suffer and profited from the Sino-Japanese conflict by playing one country against the other. Unlike its outright condemnation of the KMT and the United States, Chinese official war history refrained from demonizing the entire Japanese nation, drawing a clear line between “the small handful of Japanese militarists” and ordinary Japanese people, who were treated as the Chinese people’s fellow victims of the militarists. As Zhou Enlai told a visiting Japanese Diet delegation in 1954, “[the history of Japanese militarist aggression] has been something of the past. Chinese people are able to 66

One of the highlighted events was the Wan’nan Incident in 1941, in which KMT forces ambushed the New Fourth Army in the South Anhui Province. On wartime NationalistCommunist friction, see Slyke, “Chinese Communist Movement,” 659–71.

136

The Search for Reconciliation

make a distinction between militarists and the people.”67 Such a moderate tone on Japanese war responsibility was designed to promote a favorable impression of Communist China in Japanese society and facilitate People’s Diplomacy. Moreover, the distinction between the many good Japanese and the few bad Japanese supported the class-based Communist ideology, the primary foundation of the Beijing regime’s legitimacy. It is noteworthy that Chinese war history during this period avoided elaborate treatment of Japanese war atrocities and Chinese suffering. Instead of encouraging Chinese people to perceive themselves as tragic war victims, the Communist ideologues constructed a triumphant narrative that could boost national morale and public confidence in the successful leadership of the CCP. Institutionalization of Myths in Chinese National Memory Compared to Japanese conservative elites, Chinese Communist ideologues enjoyed an even greater monopoly over the reinterpretation of national history. With its totalitarian control of state power and thorough penetration of societal life, the CCP easily institutionalized war myths as the hegemonic national memory. The main institutional approaches that the party used to instate these myths included school textbooks, commemoration, and cultural propaganda. When the PRC was founded in October 1949, there was no time to compose new textbooks before school started that year, so schools used some existing teaching materials as a temporary substitute.68 The National Publication Conference held a year later decided to centralize the compilation and distribution of secondary school textbooks, including the establishment of the People’s Education Press as the specialized institution to prepare school textbooks. Direct government control over the educational content of these books began in 1952 through Curricular Standards, or Teaching Guidelines, that were drafted by the State Education Commission and updated every few years. The commission then entrusted the People’s Education Press to gather textbook authors to 67

68

“Zhou Enlai’s Remarks on ‘The Foundation of Japanese-Chinese Friendship’ in the Meeting with Japanese Diet Delegation and the Delegation of Academic Survey, Oct¯ 27–33. ober 11, 1954,” in Ishikawa, Sengo Shiryo, These substitute materials included history readers used by schools in the Shan-Ganning area controlled by the CCP during the Civil War and history materials originally prepared for party cadres. This section on Chinese textbooks draws on the author’s interviews with officials from the People’s Education Press, June 2000.

Initial Isolation

137

prepare official textbooks based on the Teaching Guidelines.69 From then on, all Chinese pupils were educated under the so-called yigang yiben (One Guideline, One Textbook) system.70 History textbooks published in the 1950s–60s (see the Appendix) constantly compared and contrasted policies of the allegedly traitorous, reactionary KMT and the patriotic, progressive CCP. They claimed the anti-Japanese base areas under Communist control resisted four hundred thousand Japanese troops by 1938,71 and altogether the Communist troops resisted 64 percent of Japanese troops in China and 95 percent of total puppet troops.72 They left out or downplayed the important battles fought by KMT troops, but gave detailed coverage of Communist military actions.73 Besides, textbooks were eager to expose the KMT’s atrocities against the patriotic masses, close contacts with puppet regimes, and wartime negotiations with Japan, all said to be evidence of its betrayal of the Chinese nation. Compared to the vivid descriptions of the wartime roles of the CCP and KMT, textbook treatment of Japanese actions was rather cut-and-dried, rarely providing details. When condemning Japan’s long-held ambition for imperial expansion, the attack was focused not on the Japanese nation as a whole but on ridi ( Japanese imperialism), rijun (the Japanese military), or rikou ( Japanese bandits). Japanese atrocities were described

69

70 71 72 73

Up to the mid-1960s, the People’s Education Press had produced four editions of official textbooks under four different Teaching Guidelines. Except for the radically leftist edition published in 1960 that was used only briefly in limited areas, all other editions were used by secondary schools nationwide. When the Cultural Revolution started in 1966, schools were shut down, and no formal textbooks were either produced or in systematic use. See Ye, “Huigu yu Sikao,” 11–14. Zhang, “Zhongri Zhongxue Lishi Jiaokeshu Bijiao,” 42. HST 2, vol. 4: 68; MST 4, vol. 4: 117; HST 3, 61. STM 3, 246–47. For example, the Taierzhuang Battle fought by the Nationalist military in 1938 was the first major Chinese victory in conventional warfare against the Japanese; it lasted about two weeks and claimed thirty thousand Japanese dead. But only two substitute textbooks (STM 1 and STM 3) mentioned the battle. They claimed that the victory was possible because the Communist troops pinned down most of the Japanese troops, and in subsequent battles the Nationalists were quickly defeated by the Japanese. In contrast, all textbooks in the 1950s–60s prominently covered the Communist victory in the Pingxingguan Battle of September 1937, a one-day ambush that killed about 500 Japanese soldiers. They also failed to mention that Pingxingguan was part of the Shanxi campaign jointly fought by the Nationalist and Communist troops. See Eastman, “Nationalist China during the Sino-Japanese War 1937–1945,” 555; Slyke, “Chinese Communist Movement,” 639; and Yang, “Guanyu Pingxingguan Zhandou de Shishi Chongjian Wenti.”

138

The Search for Reconciliation

in general terms, like “brutal killing, burning, raping,” and “cruel economic exploitation and enslaving education and cultural policies.”74 The Nanjing Massacre was the only concrete case mentioned in textbooks, with the number of three hundred thousand used as the total victim toll. Many textbooks blamed the KMT for failing to defend Nanjing, moreover, just as bitterly as they condemned the Japanese barbarism.75 Concerning foreign help to China’s resistance campaign, the textbooks praised the Soviet Union for providing loans and military supplies, even though such aid was provided to the KMT rather than to CCP forces, and stated that the Soviet attack in Manchuria in August 1945 accelerated Japanese surrender. Conversely, they criticized the United States for supplying arms to the Japanese military and dismissed American sympathy toward China as hypocritical. They also accused the United States, because of its assistance to the KMT, of instigating a Chinese civil war and desiring to ultimately secure exclusive colonization of China.76 These Chinese war myths were institutionalized not only through textbooks but also through commemoration. During this period, the PRC government built various memorial sites eulogizing the Chinese revolution, the most famous being the Monument to the People’s Heroes in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. This thirty-six–meter obelisk built in 1958 commemorated the hundred-year Chinese struggle against foreign imperialism and domestic reactionary forces. Of the ten relief sculptures on the monument depicting revolutionary events in Chinese modern history, only one presented scenes from the anti-Japanese war. So this war was defined as just one episode in the history of Chinese national struggle, which ended with the CCP’s triumph over the KMT in 1949.77 This again reflected the class-based official historiography. On September 18, 1946, the Communist media issued its first commemorative statement on the war, which was an editorial in the Yenanbased Jiefang Ribao (Liberation Daily) to mark the fifteenth anniversary of the Manchuria incident. The article presented three major reasons

74

75

76 77

Only Japanese brutality against Communist base areas received detailed treatment, including Sanguang (burn all, kill all, destroy all), Saodang (mop-up), Canshi (nibbling), and Qingxiang (clearing the countryside). Only one textbook named the Japanese war criminal convicted for the massacre, Tani Toshio, but the same textbook immediately attacked Chiang Kai-shek for sending back Japanese war criminals in the name of “loving your enemy.” See STM 3, 199. See HST 2, vol. 4: 70, 83–84; MST 4, vol. 4: 119. Hung, “Tiananmen Square.”

Initial Isolation

139

why Japan was able to invade China, including the reactionary rule of the Japanese financial magnates and military clique, Chiang Kai-shek’s numerous acts of betrayal of the country, and Japanese imperialists’ connivance with the Americans.78 The practice of issuing anti-KMT/United States commemorative editorials or speeches by leaders on such important war-related anniversaries as July 7 (the beginning of the war), September 2 (formal surrender of Japan), and September 18 (Japanese annexation of Manchuria) continued throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Chinese artists were also summoned to propagate national myths through literature, theaters, and movies. Take war movies, for example: So-called revolutionary movies accounted for about half of the films produced by the film industry between 1949 and 1952, the years when the domestic and international situation for the PRC was most volatile. At the end of the 1950s, the production of revolutionary movies gained momentum once again, coinciding with sharply intensified internal and external tension.79 These movies covered various periods in Chinese revolutionary history, from the peasant uprising in the 1920s and 1930s to the anti-Japanese war, Civil War, and Korean War. Most movies on the Sino-Japanese War highlighted the brave resistance campaigns led by the CCP and condemned the Japanese aggressors, the KMT reactionaries, and the traitors, who were usually described as having colluded with the KMT. Almost all these movies avoided elaborating on the horror of Japanese atrocities and the suffering of the Chinese people. At the time, the political principles guiding Chinese artworks claimed that any artistic attempts to “reflect the real life” or “human nature” by showing individual tragedy or instinct for survival during the revolutionary struggle would disseminate sentimentalism and capitalist humanitarianism, which would “dilute our hatred of imperialism” and “lower our morale.” Instead, artists created an ideal image of the fearless Chinese nation inspired by “revolutionary heroism.”80 The perpetuation of pernicious 78 79

80

Tian, Zhanhou Zhongri Guanxi Wenxianji, 1: 33–36. Only after the mid-1960s did the production of revolutionary movies substantially decline because Mao instructed that artwork should reflect “socialist revolution and construction.” During the Cultural Revolution, a handful of Yangbanxi (model theaters), which had an extremely rigid ideological angle, dominated the scene of performing arts, but even Yangbanxi avoided revolutionary war topics because the political radicals considered history to be too remote to mobilize the ongoing class struggle. See Compilation Committee of the Dangdai Zhongguo Series, Dangdai Zhongguo Dianying, 1: 78, 183–84, 281–86, 326–29. See Chen, “Genggao di Juqi Mao Zedong,” 5–6.

140

The Search for Reconciliation

national myths in both Japan and China led to quasi-convergent, but in fact, conflictual memories. On one hand, the Chinese distinction between Japanese militarists and innocent Japanese people echoed the myth of the military clique propagated in Japan. On the other hand, such Japanese myths as the glorious image of the imperial army and the Westerncentric perspective conflicted with the Chinese view that highlighted the role of the Communist resistance movement against Japanese military invasion. If historical memory had been the sole determining factor in SinoJapanese relations, such quasi-convergent war memories should have produced a relationship of shallow reconciliation, most likely in the substage of rapprochement. Chinese elites should have feared a Japanese threat, given that they saw Japan’s national myths as indications of its intentions to undertake new aggression. Yet they should not have perceived a danger of imminent armed conflict with Japan, for it was considered only a secondary enemy of China compared to the United States and the KMT. Likewise, Japanese elites should have believed China was hostile but also should have seen no immediate danger because Chinese historiography did not embody explicitly revanchist demands against Japan. In such a case, the two countries should have reached partial national recognition, for they had no critical disputes over territories, resources, or ethnic relationships, nor did their quasi-convergent historiography require historical atonement as a precondition for normalization. Still, mutual mistrust derived from historical memory should have prevented permanent settlement of sovereignty controversies, such as the status of Taiwan. Finally, the two countries should have been engaged in a limited degree of economic interaction, although their quasi-conflictual histories should have given rise to relative gains concerns that impeded comprehensive economic interdependence. In terms of popular relationships, the Chinese and Japanese people should have found each other detestable and threatening because of Chinese grievances about past suffering and the Japanese lack of remorse as well as Japanese resentment about Chinese obsession with this history. But the emotional power of these recollections should not have blocked societal contacts or resulted in public endorsement of a total confrontation because Chinese national myths targeted only Japanese militarists, not the entire Japanese nation. The remainder of the chapter tests the extent to which these predictions of national mythmaking theory held true, given the context of SinoJapanese relations in the 1950s and 1960s described previously.

Initial Isolation

141

sino-japanese relations in the 1950s and 1960s High Alert for War Chinese and Japanese strategic thinking and planning in the 1950s and 1960s revealed serious concerns about a possible war between the two countries; such concerns were based more on realpolitik considerations than on grievances and mistrust derived from their divergent war memories. For Chinese strategists, war with Japan seemed imminent because of the United States-Japan security collaboration. In Japan, a variety of factors, including the Sino-Soviet alliance, Chinese military capabilities, Communist infiltration, and the danger of conflict entanglement, explained the anxiety held by different factions of elites regarding military conflict with China.81 As revealed in the Chinese media campaign from the late 1960s, fiercely bashed the possible revival of Japanese militarism, Chinese elites worried about Japan’s role in the U.S. containment of China far more than about its historical amnesia, and Japanese reactions to the campaign were more rationally than emotionally driven. The Structural Bases for Sino-Japanese Mutual Expectations of Military Conflict From the beginning of the 1950s, China clearly saw Japan as an enemy with whom war might erupt at any time. Article 1 of the Sino-Soviet alliance treaty signed in 1950 explicitly warned of the danger of Japanese attack and promised prompt use of force to answer such an attack. In 1953, a People’s Daily editorial reconfirmed that the Sino-Soviet alliance treaty was “targeted at aggressive Japanese militarists” and vowed to destroy any invaders while at the same time “maintaining peace in the Far East and opposing the resurrection of Japanese imperialism.”82 Why was China so worried about Japan, a country that had just been devastated in the war? By the late 1950s, Japan had gradually built up a small ground force of 190,000 men,83 which was dwarfed 81

82 83

It may seem strange that Japan would expect war with China because its peace constitution renounced war as a legitimate means of settling international disputes. But in reality, except for the first few years of the occupation, the conservative government always claimed that Japan was entitled to the right to use force for self-defense purposes. ¯ 146. See Tanaka, Anzen Hosho, Tian, Zhanhou Zhongri Guanxi Wenxianji, 1: 158. Boei Jieitai Nenkan, 1957, 140. ¯ Sangyo¯ Kyokai, ¯

142

The Search for Reconciliation

by the multimillion-strong PLA.84 What China expected was not further Japanese imperialist aggression against China but new Sino-Japanese violent conflict as a result of the Cold War in Asia. A leading Chinese historian, Yang Kuisong, suggests that around the time that the Sino-Soviet alliance was formed, Chinese leaders were worried about a possible military confrontation with the United States in three areas: the Taiwan Strait, Vietnam, and Korea.85 Because Japan provided military bases to the United States that assisted its interventions in these areas, Beijing considered conflict with Japan almost inevitable. During the Korean War, for example, Mao was said to fear that MacArthur would send Japanese soldiers to fight against the Chinese forces.86 Japan indeed provided transport, communication, and maintenance support to American troops in Korea, and the newly formed Japanese military engaged in limited operations under American command. Therefore, China actually evaluated Japanese military capabilities, although very modest, in the broader context of the American containment policy against China, of which Japan was an integral part. In September 1951, Premier and Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai lashed out at the newly established U.S.-Japan alliance: The U.S.-Japan bilateral security treaty was intended to rearm Japan and pave the way for completely transforming Japan into an American military base. This is indisputable evidence of the American government’s preparation for aggressive war at a greater scale in Asia and [the] Far East. The central government of the People’s Republic of China considers that the San Francisco Peace Treaty and U.S.-Japan bilateral security treaty signed under American coercion have posed a severe security threat to the PRC and many other Asian countries.87

From then on, the Chinese official media frequently accused Japan of being an American “vassal state,” a “military bridgehead,” or even a “running dog.” Typically, China’s rhetorical assault would escalate if Tokyo showed stronger solidarity with the American Cold War strategy, particularly during the Kishi and Sato¯ administrations.

84

85 86

87

The PLA had about 4 million troops during the Civil War, but this figure dropped to its all-time low of 2.4 million by 1958. In 1959, the PLA began a massive expansion, and by 1971 its total strength reached 6 million. See Zhang, Zhongguo Renmin Jiefangjun, 48, 155, 254. Yang, Zhonggong yu Mosike de Guanxi, 621. For a discussion of Chinese top leaders’ concern about America’s direct use of Japanese troops in containing China, see Christensen, “Troubled Triangle,” 22–23. Tian, Zhanhou Zhongri Guanxi Wenxianji, 1: 103.

Initial Isolation

143

As for Japanese strategic assessments regarding China, the right wing of the conservative elites saw the global ambition of international Communism as a serious threat to Japanese security. Ashida Hitoshi, president of the Democratic Party and a leading conservative hawk, wrote in his diary in February 1951, in the middle of the Korean War, “Communist China was completely under Soviet control. . . . Japan would be in great danger if it does not join those increasingly strong liberal countries to strike hard at Communist China.”88 In September, he prepared a report on Soviet military action toward Japan in which he claimed, “In light of the current situation, initiating a world war by the Soviet Union and China was inseparable from their policy towards Japan.”89 The view that Chinese intervention in Korea was part of the Soviet global strategy of encircling the West or striking it from its weakest point was popular among quite a few Japanese strategic elites during the Korean War.90 But the conservative mainstream, the Yoshida faction, disagreed that China, either by its own military power or through an alliance with the USSR, seriously threatened Japan. Yoshida was contemptuous of Chinese military power based on his prewar experience in China, belittling the Chinese military as merely a “primitive coolie army” with no cross-ocean capabilities. Even the PLA’s performance in the Korean War did not change his view.91 Nor did the Sino-Soviet alliance seem a real danger to the Yoshida faction. The representative of the Yoshida government to the San Francisco peace negotiation, Okada Akira, told John Foster Dulles that the Sino-Soviet alliance treaty was of a similar nature as the one signed by the Nationalist government and Soviet Union in 1945, “both being the natural result of the interaction between two neighboring powers.”92 In his memoirs, published in 1957, Yoshida rejected the thesis of monolithic Communism and predicted the eventual Sino-Soviet breakup.93

88 89 90

91 92

93

Ashida, Ashida Hitoshi Nikki, 4: 103. Ibid., 7: 420. See Kaga, “Soren no Sekai Seisaku”; Kogo, “Soren wa Tsugi ni Do¯ Deru ka”; and Wada, ¯ “Chugoku no Nashonarizumu.” ¯ ¯ Chen, Sengo Nihon no Chugoku Seisaku, 12–13. It is true that in the famous “Yoshida Letter” of December 1951, which formally committed Japan to a peace treaty with the ROC, Yoshida brought up the Sino-Soviet alliance treaty as a major threat to Japan. But this was mainly for tactical reasons because otherwise it would have been impossible to justify the lack of a peace treaty with the Communist government. See ibid., 63–64. Yoshida, Kaiso¯ Junen, 1: 270. For Yoshida’s view about the Sino-Soviet relationship, also see Yoshida’s conversation with Japanese diplomat Okada Akira in 1958, recorded in Okada, Mizudori Gaiko¯ Hiwa, 58–62.

144

The Search for Reconciliation

Another source of Japanese anxiety about Chinese capabilities was China’s first nuclear test in 1964. Believing that the “Chinese acquirement of nuclear arms is the most important trigger of great changes to the overall strategic system in the Far East,” some Japanese defense experts called for serious reassessment of Japan’s air defense capabilities, and a few even cried for either independent nuclear arms or introduction of American nuclear weapons to Japanese soil.94 But the elite majority responded to the nuclear test with calm as demonstrated in the following excerpt from a statement by the LDP Investigation Council on National Security on November 18, 1964: The success of [the] Chinese nuclear test does not mean that Chinese military nuclear power would immediately pose a threat [to Japan]. Moreover, even if China develops further certain types of nuclear arms, it would still be a little plus on top of the Soviet nuclear power that has threatened Japan from the past, so it is not necessary to be disconcerted and feel particularly shaken now.

Rather than adopting any radical changes in the national security policy, the LDP mainly envisioned the strengthening of Japan’s national defense system and the maintenance of the security alliance with the United States as its countermeasures to Chinese nuclear power.95 A form of threat from China on which officials more commonly agreed was not its military power but its political infiltration of Japan. Conservative politicians believed in an “international Communist conspiracy,” that is, that the domestic radical Left was not an isolated organization but that it received support from Communist countries to incite antigovernment riots. The fact that the JCP abandoned its previous strategy of following a “peaceful line” after being criticized by the Cominform and the CCP in early 1950 seemed to confirm this suspicion.96 The Public Security Investigation Agency of the Ministry of Justice estimated that Japan had up to one million Communist sympathizers by 1956.97 Yoshida called these Japanese Communists “a destructive force” in his memoir, a view that hard-liners like Ashida also shared. A point of broad consensus across the political spectrum in Japan was the fear of conflict entanglement that might cause another war with 94

95 96 97

For a flurry of Japanese media coverage of Chinese nuclear testing and various kinds of responses from the Japanese political circle compiled from a somewhat hawkish perspective, see Kokubo¯ (The National Defense), 13 (November 1964): 82–83. Wakaizumi, “Chugoku no Kakubuso,” ¯ ¯ 76. Benfell, Rich Nation, No Army, 77–79; Dower, Embracing Defeat, 272–73. “Some Aspects of the Internal Security Situation in Japan, January 11, 1956,” Confidential U.S. State Department Special File, “Japan, 1947–1956,” reel 39.

Initial Isolation

145

China. The political Left argued that because the United States and Japan were committed to defending a vaguely defined “Far East,” Japan would be dragged easily into American military conflict with the USSR and China. The conservatives were also nervous about Japan’s entanglement in international military conflict, not because of the U.S.-Japan alliance, which they thought was in Japan’s interest, but because of their belief that the East-West confrontation had created several flashpoints in East Asia, including crises in Korea and Taiwan, which particularly boded ill for peace between China and Japan. During the Korean War, Yoshida refused to rearm Japan rapidly, in part out of fear that the United States might want Japan to join the war, which would replay the WWII nightmare that the Japanese troops were bogged down when fighting the Chinese.98 In 1955, Prime Minister Hatoyama even told the Diet that with the Chinese Communists crying to liberate Taiwan and the Nationalists vowing to return to the mainland, there was a high risk of war across the Taiwan Strait that could escalate into “World War Three.”99 A concrete example of Japanese defense planning in response to a possible Sino-Japanese military conflict inadvertently triggered by regional tensions was the “ThreeArrow Research” by the Japanese Defense Agency. Secretly conducted around the mid-1960s, this military plan envisioned the use of a Japanese Self-Defense Force if an international conflict in the Korean Peninsula spread to Japan.100 Bashing Japan’s Reviving Militarism: Indulgence in the Past or Anxiety about the Present? The preceding analysis shows that Chinese and Japanese elite expectations of war were not so much the product of their direct conflict of interest as of the interbloc rivalry in Cold War Asia. Did war memory also significantly influence their strategic thinking? Chinese rhetoric indeed frequently cited history to argue that Japan’s anti-China policy was a replication of its past militarist aggression. China usually blamed the American government, rather than Japanese historiography, however, for intentionally propping up Japanese militarism to wage the Cold War. Chinese media typically intensified its attacks on the perceived Japanese militarist revival when Tokyo closely followed

98 99

100

Dower, Empire and Aftermath, 388–89. National Diet Library of Japan, Kokkai Kaigiroku, Budgetary Committee of the House of Representatives, March 26, 1955. ¯ 215–16. Tanaka, Anzen Hosho,

146

The Search for Reconciliation

the footsteps of American containment policy, but criticisms of Japanese historical attitudes were nearly absent in such attacks. In the late 1950s, when Kishi carried out an active diplomacy to America’s other regional allies, including Taiwan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia, and revised the U.S.-Japan alliance treaty, China attacked him for “participating in the American-led aggressive military organization” and “plotting new aggression and war.”101 The U.S.-Japan Joint Statement of November 1967, which emphasized the Chinese military threat, also provoked a Chinese media onslaught that dragged on for more than four years. It culminated in late 1969 following the issue of the Nixon-Sato¯ Joint Statement with its “Korea and Taiwan” clause, which in Chinese eyes signaled U.S.-Japan joint military adventurism in China’s surrounding area. Political scientist Okabe Tatsumi conducted a careful content analysis of China’s Japan-bashing campaign from the late 1960s to early 1972 and found that Chinese media criticism of a perceived aggressive Japanese nature tended to be made in general terms, making use of abstract threats such as “overseas deployment of troops,” “arms buildup,” and “antiChina,” all of which emphasized the negative consequences of U.S.-Japan security relations more than any specific threat from Japan itself. What the Chinese media really suggested was that the Japanese militarist revival equaled its political subordination to the United States.102 One rare occasion on which the Chinese did raise the war history issue was during the semiofficial negotiation over the Sino-Japanese Memorandum Trade (MT), held in spring 1970, shortly after the declaration of the Nixon-Sato¯ Joint Statement. Chief Chinese negotiator Liu Xiwen spoke of four signs of Japanese militarist revival: (1) Japanese support to Taiwan, troop dispatches to South Korea, aid to South Vietnam, and economic expansion to Southeast Asia; (2) military buildup in the name of an “independent defense” posture; (3) military budget increase; and (4) public showing of the movie Yamamoto Isoroku, which glorified Japan’s war history.103 The last point was included for tactical purposes because the Chinese side failed to pursue it in subsequent meetings, concentrating instead on the first three points plus the issue of American bases in Okinawa. In the joint statement concluding the talk, the Chinese side condemned the Nixon-Sato¯ Joint Statement, the Japanese side promised

101

102 103

“Resolutely Oppose Japan-US Military Alliance, People’s Daily editorial, January 15, 1960,” in Tian, Zhanhou Zhongri Guanxi Wenxianji, 1: 479. ¯ Okabe, Chugoku no Tainichi Seisaku, pt. 2. ¯ o¯ Hiroku, 226–27. Tagawa, Nitchu¯ Kosh

Initial Isolation

147

to oppose Sato’s ¯ hostile policy toward China, and the two sides jointly appealed for bilateral friendship and regional peace.104 Nowhere in the document was Japanese war historiography mentioned or changes of its interpretation demanded. This is not to deny that Chinese war memory indeed cast a shadow on Chinese perceptions of Japan after the war. But China’s logic in this period was that Japanese militarism might revive “because Japan was militarist in the past and continued to be militarist by supporting the American containment” rather than “because Japan was militarist in the past but has not shown remorse for it.” The latter was what the Chinese believed starting in the 1980s, as we shall see. In the face of Chinese media bashing, the conservative mainstream in Japan dismissed the peril of Japanese militarism. After the trade talks ended, the LDP passed a party statement claiming that a painful war indeed happened in bilateral history, but Japan never forgot the pains and since the end of the war had become a peaceful country, so the Chinese accusation “was totally opposite to the facts and full of hostility to the Japanese nation. It was not only a pure slander but also made people suspect that it was intended to compromise Japan’s friendly relationship with other Asian countries.” This strong statement reflected only the opinion of party hawks, however. Most conservative elites, although disagreeing with Beijing about reviving Japanese militarism, did not interpret the Chinese attitude to be excessively anti-Japanese or to imply Chinese indulgence in the past trauma. At the LDP party meeting that passed this statement, the chief Japanese negotiator of the MT talks, Furui Yoshimi, walked out in protest. Furui was one of those dovish LDP politicians who believed that certain Japanese policies indeed triggered Chinese misunderstanding and that special efforts were needed to reassure China.105 Not only the party doves but also some hard-liners openly stressed the necessity of mitigating Chinese suspicion. For example, Prime Minister Sato, ¯ the number one target of the Chinese media offensive, told the Diet that Chinese isolation from the rest of world accounted for its strikingly poor understanding of the real situation in present Japan and maintained that Japan should adhere to its peace constitution and

104

105

“The Communiqu´e of Sino-Japanese Memorandum Trade Talks, April 19, 1970,” in Tian, Zhanhou Zhongri Guanxi Wenxianji, 1: 913–15; Kazankai, Nitchu¯ Kankei Kihon ¯ u, ¯ 338–40. Shiryosh Furukawa, Nitchu¯ Sengo Kankei Shi, 299–301.

148

The Search for Reconciliation

keep up the efforts to explain its policies to China.106 The JDA director at the time, Nakasone Yasuhiro, also stayed calm after being named by the Chinese media for advancing a militarist policy. He testified to the Diet that he did not blame China for being unreasonable or hostile but only expressed the hope that Japan would do as much as possible to clear up Chinese misunderstanding.107 Other conservative politicians tried to understand China’s harsh rhetoric by looking at its domestic politics and international environment rather than historical memory. The leader of the still-influential ¯ Yoshida faction, Ohira Masayoshi, commented that Beijing set a sharp tone in the joint statement because it was waging another blatant war of words against the Soviets and had to uphold stringent political principle on all issues, and China’s volatile domestic situation at the time had exacerbated problems in its ties to many foreign countries. He further argued that the primary hurdle to a smooth Sino-Japanese relationship was nothing but the Taiwan issue, without a decisive change of Japanese policy, for which Japan could only attract more Chinese hostility.108 The ¯ somber-minded Ohira later became the foreign minister of the Tanaka government and played a critical role in forging Sino-Japanese diplomatic normalization. Absence of National Recognition In 1952, Japan signed a separate peace treaty with the Republic of China (ROC) regime in Taiwan, formally recognizing it as the sole legitimate representative of China. For two decades afterward, Japan shunned a formal relationship with Beijing. In 1961, when the UN began to reconsider the PRC’s membership, the Ikeda government joined the United States in submitting the “important question” proposal, which required a twothirds vote of all member countries to approve the PRC’s UN seat. Ten years later, Tokyo again proposed with Washington the double representation of both the PRC and ROC, although this time failing to stop the PRC from finally replacing the ROC in the UN in September 1971. Tokyo’s stubbornness in maintaining a nonrecognition policy toward Beijing was driven home by Prime Minister Ikeda’s words in 1964. When questioned at the Diet as to why Japan still refused to recognize the PRC 106

107

108

National Diet Library of Japan, Kokkai Kaigiroku, Plenary Session of the House of Councilors, May 8, 1970. National Diet Library of Japan, Kokkai Kaigiroku, Cabinet Committee of the House of Representatives, October 28, 1970. Furukawa, Nitchu¯ Sengo Kankei Shi, 301–2.

Initial Isolation

149

when even some Western powers like Britain and France had done so, he answered, “There is the view that if Japan becomes the last nation to recognize China, it is not good from the standpoint of future diplomatic relationships. However, if there are good reasons, then it is all right to be the last nation.”109 The absence of normal relations meant the state of war between Japan and the PRC continued as the two countries refused to acknowledge each other’s fundamental right of national survival. War memory could not explain their long diplomatic isolation. In fact, Beijing took unilateral actions after the war to write off Japan’s historical debts to pave the way for People’s Diplomacy, but this move failed to bring about a Japanese policy change. The real hurdle for normalization was the Taiwan issue, a quintessential symbol of the structural constraints of the Cold War. Beijing Writes Off Japan’s Historical Debts Pro-Taiwan opponents to Sino-Japanese normalization typically argued that Japan should maintain close ties with Taiwan because of both their common interests in countering the Communist threat and Chiang Kai-shek’s act of “repaying violence with virtue” after the war.110 Like Taiwan, however, Beijing never made formal relations with Japan conditional on Japanese repentance or restitution. To convince the Japanese people of its goodwill, Beijing actually adopted an exceptionally generous policy on war-related issues, including justice, reparations, and repatriation – at times even more generous than Chiang’s policy. If historical burdens did not stop Tokyo from recognizing Taipei, they should have been even less of an obstacle to normalization with Beijing. Immediately after the war, Chiang was determined to pursue restorative justice, in part because doing so would help rebuild national morale and enhance his regime’s legitimacy.111 The Nationalist government 109

110

111

National Diet Library of Japan, Kokkai Kaigiroku, Budgetary Committee of the House of Representatives of the 36th Diet Session, January 31, 1964. Kaya Okinori, a diehard figure of the pro-Taiwan faction, published an essay in August 1972 that elaborated on Japan’s “four-fold deep indebtedness” to Taiwan: (1) Chiang Kai-shek swiftly and safely repatriated the 2.2 million Japanese soldiers and residents stranded in China after the war; (2) Chiang opposed the USSR-led conspiracy to abolish the emperor system; (3) Chiang saved Japan from being divided and occupied by multiple powers; and (4) Chiang renounced claims for war reparations. See Wakamiya, Postwar Conservative View, 126–28. Chiang Kai-shek did decline to occupy Japan, mainly because he was afraid that otherwise the Soviet Union would be let in as well, which would have strengthened the CCP. See ibid., 130.

150

The Search for Reconciliation

compiled a large body of evidence of Japanese atrocities and presented it at war crimes trials in Nanjing and Tokyo. The trials held by the Nationalist government convicted 29.7 percent of the accused Japanese war criminals, including 149 death sentences and 83 life imprisonments.112 Besides, in the two years after the war, as many as 30,828 Chinese traitors were prosecuted, half of whom were convicted and received severe punishment, including the death penalty.113 Compared to Chiang, Mao was far more lenient toward Japanese war criminals. In the late 1940s, the CCP was highly critical of the excessively generous verdicts of the Tokyo trial and announced that it reserved the right to try some noted Japanese war criminals who had been absolved and returned to Japan by the KMT government.114 But from the 1950s, the Communist attitude softened considerably. In October 1954, Zhou Enlai told a visiting Japanese Diet delegation that China had been exercising leniency on Japanese war criminals and wished to settle this issue soon.115 At the time, about a thousand Japanese war criminals were detained in China, mostly in Fushun War Criminal Prison in southern Manchuria. The legal authorities originally prepared a prosecution list of 107 war criminals, 70 of whom were to receive death sentences. But they were soon informed of two principles defined by the CCP Central Committee on war criminals: No one should be executed or jailed for life, and imprisonment sentences should be limited to only a few people.116 Furthermore, the First Plenary of the Chinese People’s Congress passed a resolution in April 1956 ordering lenient treatment of Japanese war criminals in reference to “the changes in the 10 years after Japanese surrender and the current situation, the current development of a friendly SinoJapanese relationship, and various degrees of contrition by the majority of these war criminals during their detention period.”117 Such policy adjustments were clearly consistent with the new Chinese strategy since the Bandung Conference in 1955 to broaden the international United Front and with the People’s Diplomacy that was directly linked to the strategy. Consequently, the war criminal trial held in June–July 1956 sentenced

112 113 114

115 116 117

Piccigallo, Japanese on Trial, 173. See Liu, Kankan Saiban, 178. Tian, Zhanhou Zhongri Guanxi Wenxianji, 1: 57–59, 77. In fact, punishing Japanese war criminals was one of the eight preconditions that Mao raised in January 1949 for opening peace negotiations with the KMT. See Zhou, Zhou Enlai Nianpu, 827. ¯ 32. Ishikawa, Sengo Shiryo, Jin, Qiyuan, ch. 25. Tian, Zhanhou Zhongri Guanxi Wenxianji, 1: 272–73.

Initial Isolation

151

only forty-five Japanese war criminals to imprisonment, whereas more than a thousand were pardoned and quickly repatriated. Those sentenced war criminals were also released by May 1964.118 They and their families commonly expressed deep appreciation for Chinese leniency, and many became pro-China activists after returning to Japan.119 On this score, Beijing’s goodwill policy paid off handsomely. Chiang also made a more serious attempt than Mao to get Japanese war reparations. Chiang ordered a war damage survey as early as 1943 and confiscated Japanese properties in areas under his control. Following Japanese surrender, the Nationalist government provided rich information to the Pauley reparation mission, which, after several months of investigation in China, issued the Pauley Report in December 1945, with its harsh demand for Japanese reparations.120 But from 1947, Washington urged a dramatic scaling back of the reparations burden on Japan to facilitate its restoration and rearmament. In November 1950, the United States announced the seven principles for the Japanese peace treaty, which required all parties to waive war claims. Because the Nationalists had been heavily dependent on U.S. aid during the Chinese Civil War, Chiang accepted these principles, but he attached a condition that if any other country got reparations, his government should get equal benefits.121 Later, when negotiating the Japan-ROC treaty, Chiang again demanded Japanese compensation through labor service. He finally had to give up reparations lest Japan refuse to recognize the ROC as the legitimate government of all of China.122 In contrast, the Communist government lacked interest in the reparations issue from the very beginning. After the Japan-ROC treaty was 118 119

120

121 122

Jin, Qiyuan, chs. 25–27; Tian, Zhanhou Zhongri Guanxi Wenxianji, 1: 716–18. These people organized the Liaison Organization of the Repatriated from China (Chugoku Kikansha Renrakukai) in 1957, which for decades actively exposed Japanese ¯ atrocities in China, supported compensation claims of Chinese war victims, advocated Sino-Japanese rapprochement, and opposed the U.S.-Japan alliance. It is true that at the time Chiang advocated Kuanda Zhengce, or a policy of generosity toward Japan, but by “generosity” he actually referred to the handling of the Japanese monarchy system and repatriation of Japanese nationals rather than to war reparations. ¯ Yin, Chunichi Senso¯ Baisho¯ Mondai, 227–28. Taiwan negotiators still made a last-ditch effort to request that the treaty text should mention that Japan had the responsibility to pay reparations but that the ROC would renounce reparation claims considering the miserable situation in Japan and the principle of generosity. These words would have implicitly acknowledged Japanese war responsibility and saved Taiwan some face, but Taiwan negotiators failed to have them included in the final text. See Ishii, “Nikka Heiwa Joyaku Teiketsu Kosh ¯ ¯ o¯ o Meguru Jakkan no Mondai,” 85–90.

152

The Search for Reconciliation

signed, Beijing protested Japanese recognition of Taiwan and rejected any agreements reached between them, including that on reparation. However, Beijing never mentioned reparations as a precondition or bargaining chip when dealing with Japan. In 1957, a member of a visiting JSP delegation asked Zhou if one day when normalization was realized Beijing could adopt a clement policy on reparations similar to that of its handling of war criminals. This triggered a policy debate among Chinese leaders in the early 1960s, which led to an internal decision that China would give up any claim to reparations upon normalization to show friendship to the Japanese people.123 Beijing was also highly cooperative on the question of repatriating Japanese nationals. By 1949, approximately thirty-five thousand Japanese soldiers and civilians were still stranded in China. In 1952, the head of the Japanese Red Cross, Shimadu Tadatsugu, and one of the three Japanese Diet members who came to China and signed the first nongovernmental trade agreement, Kora ¯ Tomi, raised this issue to the Chi124 nese government. Beijing responded that the Japanese militarists were China’s enemies, but the Japanese people were friends, so the Chinese government was willing to help those Japanese who wished to return to Japan.125 By March 1955, the Chinese Red Cross and Japanese NGOs working together had repatriated about twenty-nine thousand Japanese.126 Beijing actually repatriated Japanese nationals without any reciprocal action from Tokyo, which procrastinated on allowing Chinese nationals in Japan, including thirty-two thousand Chinese POWs and forced laborers, to return home. Only in mid-1953 did Tokyo allow 551 people

123

124 125

126

Incidentally, this decision was leaked in 1965 to the passionate pro-China politician Utsunomiya Tokuma, who then told Japanese journalists about it. After Yomiuri reported the news, Zhou Enlai’s right-hand man on Japan policy, Liao Chengzhi, issued a correction statement that China did not say if it would give up on or request reparations, although he also expressed Chinese reluctance to use Japanese reparations for socialist construction. See the recollections by Zhang Xiangshan, an important member of Zhou’s inner group on Japan policy, in Zhang, Zhongri Guanxi, 67. I thank Daqing Yang for bringing this fact to my attention. Furukawa, Nitchu¯ Sengo Kankei Shi, 58. “The Reply of the People’s Central Government on Questions Regarding Japanese Residents in China, December 1, 1952,” in Tian, Zhanhou Zhongri Guanxi Wenxianji, 1: 139–40. “The Announcement of the Agreement on Assisting the Repatriation of Japanese Residents, March 5, 1953”; “The Consultation Memorandum of the Chinese Red Cross, Japanese Red Cross, and Japan-China Friendship Association on the Repatriation Issue, November 3, 1954”; and “The Statement of PRC Diplomatic Spokesman, August 16, ¯ 27, 33–35. 1955,” all in Ishikawa, Sengo Shiryo,

Initial Isolation

153

and the ashes of 560 dead to be sent back to China. To make things worse, Tokyo sent some Chinese to Taiwan and imposed strict rules prohibiting Chinese in Japan from visiting the PRC. In light of the deep anxiety that the Japanese people felt about getting their family members home, Beijing’s unilateral, unusually friendly policy appealed to many corners of Japanese society. According to Xiao Xiangqian, a member of Zhou’s inner group on Japan policy, the settlement of the repatriation issue marked a great breakthrough in Beijing’s People’s Diplomacy.127 The question is: If Chiang was afraid that a soft position toward Japan might spark a domestic uproar, how could a People’s Diplomacy that preached friendship to the former enemy not meet with opposition within China? The answer lies in the totalitarian nature of the Chinese political system during this period. With tight control of the media, the government blocked information about Japanese textbook distortions and other acts of national mythmaking that could have sparked Chinese public resentment. It also deliberately discouraged domestic truth-telling about Japanese atrocities to avoid fanning Chinese hatred for Japan. Historians at Nanjing University did conduct a comprehensive study of the Nanjing Massacre in the early 1960s, but for many years this study remained unpublished because it was out of tune with People’s Diplomacy. When the Chinese justice at the Tokyo Trial, Mei Ruao, referred to historical research into the Nanjing Massacre in the 1960s, he was accused of “stirring up national hatred and revenge” against the Japanese people, and his writing about Chinese defeat and misery in Nanjing was criticized for accentuating the strength of the enemy and therefore being unpatriotic.128 Additionally, Mao’s charismatic leadership and dictatorial grip of central power largely precluded intraparty challenges to the propagation of myths that downplayed Japanese war crimes.129 Chinese private memories of the war, although still alive, were not allowed to enter the public space of discourse. Structural Factor: The Taiwan Hurdle Given Sino-U.S. strategic confrontation and American political and military support to the Taiwan regime, Taiwan became critically important for the PRC’s fundamental legitimacy and national security. Japan’s

127 128

129

Xiao, Eien no Rinkoku to shite, 23. Yang, “Convergence or Divergence,” 858, and the author’s interviews with two historians in Nanjing on June 20, 2000. Factional politics was a constant phenomenon in Mao’s era, but overall he prevailed in intraparty debate over grand strategic designs and major foreign policy decisions.

154

The Search for Reconciliation

official recognition of Taiwan only validated the Chinese belief that Japan was colluding with the United States to contain China. But Japan’s position was the result of Cold War structural constraints rather than its own foreign policy preference. Yoshida personally believed that political and economic interaction with China would be useful to bring about changes there, whereas a policy of isolation would only push China to the Soviet side.130 Although never intending to recognize Beijing as the only legitimate Chinese government, Yoshida did hope to maintain ties with both Taiwan and Beijing, that is, a two-China policy. He procrastinated on developing substantial political contacts with Taiwan and even suggested a plan to the Diet to set up an official office in Shanghai. Yoshida only gave in to U.S. pressure when Dulles threatened that the American Congress might refuse to ratify the San Francisco Treaty if Tokyo failed to conclude the peace negotiation with Taiwan quickly. Such was the background of the famous “Yoshida Letter” sent to Dulles in December 1951, in which Yoshida gave his formal assurance that Japan would sign a peace treaty with the ROC “applicable to all territories which are now, or which may hereafter be, under the control of” the Nationalist government.131 The treaty was eventually signed on April 28, 1952, the same day that the San Francisco Treaty became effective. Tokyo’s formal recognition of Taiwan did not stop Beijing from implementing People’s Diplomacy, the essence of which was to “start with the people, and use the people to influence the government” (minjian xianxin, yimin cuguan). Zhou Enlai once gave an optimistic forecast of People’s Diplomacy: “As ‘People’s Diplomacy’ carries on, more and more Japanese nongovernment groups will come, and more and more of our groups will go. When [these groups] finish doing everything needed between the two countries, what is left is only for the foreign ministers of two countries to put down signatures and drink champagne.”132 However, no matter how brilliantly crafted and tenaciously executed it was, People’s Diplomacy could not bypass the Taiwan hurdle. The San Francisco Treaty and JapanROC Treaty had set the status quo of Japanese policy toward China for

130

131

132

The discussion here on Yoshida’s China policy draws on the following works that are based mainly on Japanese and Western archival records: Chen, Sengo Nihon no ¯ Chugoku Seisaku, chs. 1–2; Cohen, “China in Japanese-American Relations”; Dower, Empire and Aftermath, 400–14; Ishii, “Taiwan ka Pekin ka” and “Nikka Heiwa Joyaku ¯ Teiketsu Kosh ¯ o¯ o Meguru Jakkan no Mondai.” “Letter from Prime Minister Yoshida to Ambassador Dulles, December 24, 1951,” in ¯ u, ¯ 144–145. Hosoya, Nichibei Kankei Shiryosh Jiang and Qiu, “Zhongri Guanxi Wutai Shang de Huihuang Yuezhang,” 227.

Initial Isolation

155

the next two decades. It was so sticky that the efforts of a number of succeeding Japanese leaders failed to break it. Long an opponent of Yoshida’s one-sided dependence on the United States, Hatoyama took power in December 1954 and immediately proclaimed an autonomous orientation of Japanese foreign policy, including reopening political contacts with Moscow and Beijing.133 The normalization of the Japanese-Soviet relationship would not upset the status quo because Washington itself had formal ties with Moscow. But officializing the Japanese relationship with China would have fundamentally challenged the U.S. strategic framework in Asia. Ultimately, no breakthrough was accomplished on China diplomacy before Hatoyama stepped down in December 1956. Hatoyama’s successor, Ishibashi, was a genuine liberal and had been famous for his cosmopolitan sympathy toward Asia from the prewar period. But Ishibashi had to resign due to illness only a few months after taking office.134 The next prime minister, Kishi, was a right-wing nationalist politician who had actively supported the Pacific War. But in 1957, Kishi seemed to have made a turnaround. When addressing the U.S. Senate, he claimed, “The most important issue regarding our relationship with the free world is the cooperation with the United States.”135 His strategy was to capitalize on Japan’s indispensable role in the American containment framework to seek greater international influence. Kishi responded to Eisenhower’s call to send anti-Communist overtures to South Korea, expanded economic cooperation with Southeast Asia, and became the first postwar Japanese prime minister to visit Taiwan. Kishi was also the founder of the powerful Taiwan lobby in the Diet. In the late 1950s, he and Ishii Mitsujiro¯ created the Japan-ROC Cooperation Committee, which was made up of pro-Taiwan LDP parliamentarians. Aided by the pressure from Washington and Taiwan, the Taiwan lobby successfully blocked major modification of China policy under Prime Ministers Ikeda and Sato. ¯ Ikeda formally introduced the principle of Seikei Bunri, or the separation of politics and economics, in dealing with China and stayed away from any official commitments to formal relations. Sato¯ initially envisioned a fundamental policy readjustment toward China.136 But the pro-Taiwan conservative politicians soon formed the

133 134 135 136

Furukawa, Nitchu¯ Sengo Kankei Shi, 76. Wakamiya, Postwar Conservative View, pt. 2, ch. 4. Furukawa, Nitchu¯ Sengo Kankei Shi, 140. Soeya, Japan’s Economic Diplomacy, 49–50.

156

The Search for Reconciliation

Asian Problem Study Group to stop Sato¯ from improving the relationthe study group ship with China.137 Sato¯ was quite vulnerable vis-a-vis ` because most of its members, from eighty to one hundred parliamentarians, were from the LDP mainstream factions that had helped Sato¯ win the presidential election. America’s war in Vietnam escalated from the mid-1960s, moreover, which made the timing inopportune for Sato¯ to reorient China policy.138 Under the dual force of internal and external pressure, Sato¯ had to shift his diplomatic focus from China to the reversion of Okinawa, for which purpose he had to show enthusiasm toward U.S. Cold War policy. In 1967, Sato¯ made a tour of America’s major regional allies, including Taiwan, where he consented to Chiang Kai-shek’s three points: that a two-China policy would be wrong, that Communist China must not be recognized, and that the disorder in Vietnam provided a good opportunity for striking back and recovering mainland China.139 He also accepted the provocative “Korea-Taiwan” clause in the final agreement with the United States on the Okinawa reversion in November 1969. Therefore, starting with a positive stance on China policy, Sato¯ ended up drastically changing course, unable to change the Cold War status quo. Low-Level Economic Interaction Commerce between China and Japan had been significant to both economies since the beginning of the twentieth century, thanks to their geographic proximity, divergent resource endowments, and complementary industrial structures. In the 1920s, Japanese direct investments and loans in China were about 4.5 times as large as all other foreign investments combined, and bilateral trade exceeded 20 percent of Japan’s total trade.140 Before the war ended, Japan was more than 90 percent dependent on the China market,resulting from its isolation from other markets.141 Besides, China occupied a vital position in supplying important raw materials to Japan, including iron ore, coal, cotton, and soybeans. After Japan’s defeat, however, bilateral trade volume plunged to 3.6 percent of the prewar level and 1.2 percent of the wartime average in 1946.142 During the Korean War, trade was cut off between China and 137 138 139 140 141 142

Fukui, Jiyuminshu-to¯ to Seisaku Kettei, 316. Yamada, Seiden, 2: 56. Ibid., 107–8. Akagi, “Japan’s Economic Relations,” 498–99. Tucker, “American Policy,” 185. Ibid., 194.

Initial Isolation

157

table 3.1. The Composition of Japan’s Foreign Trade by Market, 1952–1970 (percent) China

1952 1955 1960 1965 1970

Southeast Asia

United States

Exports

Imports

Exports

Imports

Exports

Imports

0.05 1.4 0.1 2.9 2.4

0.7 3.3 0.5 2.8 1.6

36.2 24.1 21.2 15.8 24

20.6 22.3 17.7 13.3 17.3

18 22.3 26.7 29.3 31.2

37.9 31.3 34.4 29 25.2

Source: Computed from data in Japan Ministry of International Trade and Industry, ¯ o¯ Hakusho. Tsush

American-occupied Japan. From the 1950s, bilateral economic interaction was confined to an informal, small-scale trade relationship. Four nongovernmental trade agreements were reached in 1952–57, none of which were fulfilled completely. Even in the peak year of 1956, trade with China accounted for only 2.6 percent of Japan’s total foreign trade. Then the Nagasaki Flag incident happened. In May 1958, a Japanese man was detained for hauling down the PRC’s national flag at a Chinese commodity exhibition in Nagasaki but was released the next day. The incident triggered Beijing to unilaterally cut off all bilateral ties. Informal commercial ties resumed in 1960 and grew steadily thereafter. After the Sino-Soviet split, Japan became China’s leading trading partner in 1964.143 Nevertheless, China’s market remained insignificant to Japan when compared to those of Southeast Asia and the United States, which made up about half of Japan’s total trade (Table 3.1) – not to mention the complete absence of Japanese investments and industrial activities in China, an important aspect of their traditional economic relations. Furthermore, mutual dependence on strategically important goods was negligible. Japan’s exports to China consisted of textiles, insecticide, general machinery, and a small amount of iron and steel materials. In the 1960s, when Sino-Soviet relations deteriorated, China did try to switch to Western Europe and Japan for more technology help, but Japan offered little to China. Throughout the 1960s, Japan concluded only one plant contract with China.144 Such a low level of bilateral economic interactions was not a natural result of pure economic interests. After the war, China hoped to use trade 143 144

Soeya, Japan’s Economic Diplomacy, 46. Yokoi, “Plant and Technology Contracts,” 130.

158

The Search for Reconciliation

with Japan to frustrate the American policy of international isolation and boost its national economy, and Japan was anxious to reach out to the Chinese market for economic regeneration as well as to weaken China’s link with the USSR. But their common interest in trade expansion was trumped by structural constraints. American containment strategy prohibited Japan from establishing a formal, substantial trade relationship with China, and China was willing to sacrifice economic benefits for political principles, especially when it concerned Taiwan. Compared to the structural forces, the history factor was nearly absent in either government’s calculus on trade policy. The Japanese trade embargo against China and insistence on Seikei Bunri were driven by the Cold War framework in Asia rather than fear of a Chinese revanchist threat. Nor did Beijing consider Japan’s war amnesia an obstacle to bilateral trade. And the continuation of the colonial-era trade pattern, that is, selling Chinese raw materials to get Japanese industrial products, did not yet elicit Chinese worry about Japanese “economic aggression,” as it would in the 1980s. Japan: Trade Embargo and Separation of Politics and Economy Postwar Japan faced the daunting task of rebuilding its war-ravaged economy. But the limited amount of high-priced raw materials and food shipped across the ocean from the United States fell short of demand. It was a common understanding in Japanese business and political circles in the late 1940s that restoring the traditional trade links with nearby China was the real solution to the economic plight. In November 1949, Trade Minister Inagaki Heitaro¯ revealed that the government planned to promote the China trade so that it contributed up to 25– 30 percent of Japan’s total foreign trade.145 Even after China announced the “lean-to-one-side” policy and introduced strict control of foreign trade, Gaimusho¯ (the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs) issued two reports in October 1949 and March 1951 arguing that Beijing would still accommodate economic contacts with Japan because of their importance to China’s own economic reconstruction and that Beijing knew it would be too costly to depend completely on the Soviet bloc.146 Yoshida said in 1949, “I don’t care whether China is red or green. China is a

145 146

Tucker, “American Policy,” 194–95. First Division of the Investigation Bureau of the Foreign Ministry, Japan, “Chuky ¯ o¯ no Boeki” and “Chuky Also see Chen, Sengo Nihon no ¯ ¯ o¯ no Genjo¯ to sono Shorai.” ¯ ¯ Chugoku Seisaku, 9–10.

Initial Isolation

159

natural market, and it has become necessary for Japan to think about markets.”147 Given the wide consensus on restoring bilateral trade, why did Japan keep economic interactions with China at such an artificially low level during the 1950s and 1960s? The causes lie mainly in Japan’s endorsement of U.S.-led economic warfare against the socialist bloc in general and the harsh measures of isolating China both politically and economically in particular. In 1948, Washington introduced the so-called R procedure prohibiting the export of militarily useful goods to the Eastern bloc countries. The R procedure constituted the policy basis for the CoCom.148 In March 1949, President Truman approved the NSC 41, which subjected western export to China, including export from occupied Japan, to the R procedure.149 After the Korean War erupted, Washington imposed a total economic embargo on China and prohibited Japan from trading with China. Japan had to search for alternative markets. In mid-1951, Japan sent its first economic mission to Southeast Asia. In February 1952, Suto¯ Hideo, head of the Japanese Economic Stabilization Bureau, submitted a report to the U.S. government promising that Japan would “cooperate more actively with the economic development of South East Asia . . . and thereby increase the imports of goods and materials from this area.”150 Having settled the national economic strategy on the two legs of U.S. aid and Southeast Asia trade, Tokyo joined the China Committee (CHINCOM) that was established in September 1952 to coordinate export control against Communist China.151 Constrained by the Cold War structure in Asia, Japan pursued economic relations with China within the limits of Seikei Bunri in the next two decades. A highly pragmatic policy doctrine to create a modus vivendi within the Cold War framework, Seikei Bunri accepted a certain amount of China trade to satisfy domestic business interests and soothe public resentment against the Western isolation of China but strictly banned official relations with China that might spring from these trade relations.152

147 148

149

150 151 152

Quoted in Tucker, “American Policy,” 193. Yasuhara, “Amerika no Tai-Kyosanken Kinyu Seisaku to Chugoku Boei ¯ ¯ ¯ no Kinshi 1945–1950.” National Security Archive, “United States Policy Regarding Trade with China, February 28, 1949.” For the U.S. export control to China during the Cold War, also see Ishii, “Taichu¯ Kinyu to Nihon no Keizai Jiritsu,” and Zhang, Economic Cold War. Dower, Empire and Aftermath, 425–27. Ishii, “Taichu¯ Kinyu to Nihon no Keizai Jiritsu,” 117–21. Shimizu, “Perennial Anxiety.”

160

The Search for Reconciliation

The doctrine determined the failure of the joint efforts of Beijing and Japanese private organizations to expand nonofficial trade relations, not to mention the goal of realizing Japanese official recognition of China. Two Sino-Japanese trade agreements were signed in Beijing in 1952 and 1953, respectively, but the Yoshida government refused to endorse the agreements. The implementation of these semiofficial agreements was also hampered by structural factors. The CHINCOM list of export control, known as the “China differential,” was more restrictive than that of CoCom against other socialist countries. Furthermore, NSC 152/2, passed in July 1953, urged the U.S. government to “continue intensified efforts to persuade our allies to refrain from relaxing their controls on trade with Communist China.”153 Under such stringent export control regulations, Sino-Japanese trade in 1952–54 totaled $109 million, falling far short of the expected level (about $84 million under each agreement). Moreover, this trade included only a small fraction of the designated amount of strategic commodities in Category A. Hatoyama was initially more positive on promoting trade with China. In March 1955, the director of the Japan-China Trade Promotion Diet Members League that signed the third trade agreement, Ikeda Masanosuke, conveyed Hatoyama’s “support” for and “cooperation” with the trade agreement.154 But American diplomats soon intervened in various ways to “stifle the courtship between Japan and the PRC,” which forced Tokyo to promise that the prime minister would not endorse the specific provisions of the agreement.155 This agreement was again only partially fulfilled. The fourth agreement was concluded in March 1958. Taipei soon protested and even threatened to suspend all business ties with Japan. Unwilling to sacrifice existing economic interest in Taiwan for future interest in China and afraid of alienating America, Kishi imposed political restrictions on the China trade. An official letter was sent to Japanese signatories of the trade agreement on April 9 stating that the government would support trade expansion only “within the scope of our national laws and on the basis of the non-recognition of the [Chinese] 153

154 155

National Security Archive, “Economic Defense, July 31, 1953.” Only until March 1954 did the NSC adopt the State Department proposal to “release Japan gradually, as appropriate, from its obligations under the US-Japanese bilateral agreement . . . to maintain export controls higher than the CHINCOM levels.” See U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–54, vol. 14, pt. 2, 1615. Soeya, Japan’s Economic Diplomacy, 36–40. Shimizu, “Perennial Anxiety,” 233–39.

Initial Isolation

161

government, and taking into account of the current international relations.” On the same day, Cabinet Secretary Aichi Kiichi issued a statement that “the Government had no intention to recognize Communist China, nor to give privileged public status to the private trade representative that this private agreement seeks to establish.” Aichi specifically mentioned that flying the PRC’s national flag would not be recognized as a diplomatic privilege.156 Shortly afterward, the Nagasaki Flag incident happened, and China announced its decision to suspend bilateral trade. The abruptness and harshness of China’s decision can be attributed to the general radicalization of Chinese domestic politics and belligerent foreign policy around 1958, embodied in the Great Leap Forward, the second Taiwan Strait Crisis, and the blasting of Yugoslavian revisionism.157 But the origins of Chinese resentment against Kishi undoubtedly lay in his intimacy with Taiwan and his obstruction of the nongovernmental trade agreement. When Ikeda Hayato, a disciple of Yoshida, succeeded Kishi, bilateral trade resumed, thanks to not only the moderate attitude of the Yoshida faction toward China policy but also China’s de facto acceptance of the Seikei Bunri principle, which was formally spelled out by Ikeda. In August 1960, Zhou Enlai enunciated the “three trade principles” that allowed space for three forms of bilateral trade, including governmental agreement, private contract, and individual consideration. This signaled that China no longer insisted on pulling the Japanese government into trade agreements. One form of the new trade tie was Friendship Trade, whereby a selected group of Japanese “friendly firms” were allowed to do business with China. Another form was the so-called LT Trade, launched by the first long-term (five-year) trade agreement signed in 1962 by Liao Chengzhi (L) and the moderate LDP politician Takasaki Tatsunosuke (T). LT Trade transformed into MT in 1968.158 These trade ties were never allowed to go beyond the limit of Seikei Bunri. In October 1962, Ikeda told the press that not only would the government not take a formal stand on the nongovernmental trade relationship but also that the importance of this relationship should not be overstated. “There is 156 157

158

Soeya, Japan’s Economic Diplomacy, 38–39. ¯ On the Chinese internal and external situation in the late 1950s, see Okabe, Chugoku no Tainichi Seisaku, 30–34, and Robinson, “Restructuring Chinese Foreign Policy.” For more discussions on Sino-Japanese nongovernmental commercial relations during the 1950s–60s, see Morley, Soviet and Communist Chinese Policies, chs. 3, 7–9; Ogata, “Business Community,” 178–85; Shimizu, “Perennial Anxiety”; and Soeya, Japan’s Economic Diplomacy, chs. 2–5.

162

The Search for Reconciliation

no ‘dreaming of another dream,’ thinking of the old continental trade,” said Ikeda. “Communist China would want to buy a lot of things from Japan, but what would Japan buy from Communist China?”159 To show its adherence to the Seikei Bunri principle, the Ikeda government put off the granting of export credits by the Export-Import Bank for the export of a Nichibo chemical fiber plant to China to the year 1964.160 As for Ikeda’s successor, Sato, ¯ he stepped up policy coordination with the United States on a wide range of issues, from Taiwan and South Korea to Vietnam. So it was out of the question that he would tolerate any breakthrough in the nonofficial, small-scale Sino-Japanese trade relationship. On various public occasions, Sato¯ repeatedly reconfirmed Seikei Bunri. Regarding the issue of export credits, Sato¯ not only denied their use for plant exports to China but also applied the restriction to other commodities. As a result, plans to export about forty plants and related facilities to China were canceled, and China’s third five-year plan excluded Japanese plants and compensated for them with European ones.161 China: Politics First, Economy Second, and History Last Like Japan, China was also eager from the end of the 1940s to promote bilateral trade to support national reconstruction.162 But Japan’s economic value for China dropped following the formation of the Sino-Soviet alliance, which brought China generous economic aid and “the most comprehensive technology transfer in modern industrial history.”163 In the 1950s, almost all of China’s exports of strategic and other important raw materials went to the Soviet bloc countries, which in turn supplied China with iron, steel, and other industrial products that had been traditionally imported from the West.164 So when Beijing sought trade expansion with Japan in the 1950s, economic incentive was not the main reason. Even less significant was the history factor. The harrowing memory of early twentieth-century history, when Japan used China as a source of cheap raw materials and market

159 160 161 162

163 164

Quoted in Soeya, Japan’s Economic Diplomacy, 48. Ibid., 95–100; Cohen, “China in Japanese-American Relations,” 53–54. Soeya, Japan’s Economic Diplomacy, 99–100. In 1949, the CCP leaders made it known to American diplomats that China would barter coal and salt or pay in scarce gold or U.S. currency on deposit in Hong Kong for some Japanese goods important to Chinese economic survival. See Tucker, “American Policy,” 192–93. Goldstein, “Nationalism and Internationalism,” 235–36. Zhang, Economic Cold War, 94, 108.

Initial Isolation

163

for Japanese industrial products, did not dampen Beijing’s interest in restoring commercial links with Japan. Rather, political interest was the real driving force behind Beijing’s economic policy toward Japan. Private economic agreements and cultural exchange activities were important channels for Beijing to build people-to-people relations, with the goal of eventually winning Tokyo’s official recognition. To this end, Beijing constantly sought to augment the political dimension of the informal economic relationship. First, the four informal trade agreements in the 1950s all designated a large proportion of Japanese exports to be strategically sensitive items, including metal products, large machinery, and transportation equipment. The Chinese side even insisted that strategic items must be traded before less strategic commodities could be transferred.165 This term was intended not so much to meet Chinese needs for strategic materials as to push Japan to abandon its adherence to the containment framework against China. Second, in a so-called tsumiage (piling up) fashion, China attempted to gradually upgrade the political profile of the informal trade relationship so as to finally pull in the Japanese government. The second trade agreement attached a memorandum stipulating the establishment of trade representatives in each other’s countries; the third stated that such trade representatives’ offices would enjoy diplomatic privileges; and the fourth specified these diplomatic privileges to include freedom of travel, the right to fly the national flag, and waiver of fingerprinting procedures. Moreover, from the third agreement, a special article was included that signatories should urge their own governments to hold trade negotiations soon. It was such escalations in China’s trade diplomacy that compelled Kishi to assert political limitations on bilateral economic interactions, which became the trigger for the Nagasaki Flag incident. Interestingly, around the same time as the flag incident, another incident involving the bilateral war legacy occurred. The different ways in which Beijing handled the two incidents reveal that it was not genuinely concerned about how Tokyo dealt with war history but that it used the history issue only as a bargaining chip for political gain. In February 1958, Liu Lianren, a Chinese forced laborer who escaped from a coal mine in Hokkaido in July 1945 and hid for thirteen years without knowing that the war had ended, was found by the Japanese government. Beijing’s initial reaction was slow and cautious. Only in midMarch did the People’s Daily publish a short article criticizing Japan for 165

Soeya, Japan’s Economic Diplomacy, 34.

164

The Search for Reconciliation

holding Liu for illegal entry.166 But in April, Beijing escalated the Liu Lianren Incident, which coincided with Kishi’s intervention in bilateral trade. On April 9, the semiofficial Chinese Red Cross demanded a thorough investigation of Chinese forced labor in Japan. One week later, a lengthy editorial in the People’s Daily explicitly held the Kishi government responsible for the Sino-Japanese War and Japanese war crimes.167 Prior to that time, the miserable situation of Chinese forced labor in Japan during the war – no news to the world – had never drawn Beijing’s protest. This issue suddenly heated up in 1958 because Beijing wished to exert moral as well as political pressure on Kishi. When Chinese Foreign Minister Chen Yi announced the suspension of relations in May, he did not touch on war history but blamed only Kishi’s refusal to recognize the PRC and Japan’s collusion with the United States and Taiwan. Nor did the “three political principles” that Zhou proposed in August 1958 as preconditions for reopening trade with Japan make any reference to the history issue.168 In the Friendship Trade, Beijing clearly subordinated economic interest to political considerations. Although Japanese trade organizations recommended friendly firms that could do business with China, Beijing had the final say. To continue to trade with China, the Japan Association for the Promotion of International Trade, a largely internationalist-oriented trade organization that became dominant in trade with China from the mid-1960s, had to accept political conditions set by Beijing. In March 1967, its delegation to Beijing agreed to sign a joint communiqu´e that not only reaffirmed the “three political principles,” the “three trade principles,” and the inseparability of politics and economics but also designated U.S. imperialism, Japanese reactionaries, Soviet revisionism, and JCP revisionists as the “four enemies” that all “friendly firms” had to oppose.169 As for the LT/MT trade, it was originally envisioned to respond more directly to economic than to political needs. The 1962 LT Trade

166 167 168

169

Tian, Zhanhou Zhongri Guanxi Wenxianji, 1: 343–44. Ibid., 355–56, 364–66. Zhou raised the three principles to a visiting JSP Dietman of the Upper House, Sata Tadataka, demanding that the Kishi government stop its hostile policy against China, its conspiracy to create “two Chinas,” and its obstruction of Sino-Japanese diplomatic normalization. See “The Report of the Visit to China by Japanese Member of the House of Councilors Sata Tadataka, August 29, 1958,” in ibid., 392–99, and Ishikawa, Sengo ¯ 98–101. Shiryo, Tian, Zhanhou Zhongri Guanxi Wenxianji, 1: 870–72.

Initial Isolation

165

agreement avoided mentioning any political conditions. When political tension worsened between Beijing and the Sato¯ government, however, the MT agreement in March 1968 included the “three political principles” and other political conditions. Meanwhile, China insisted on reducing the term of the agreement from five years to one year, citing Sato’s ¯ antiChinese policy as the reason. Deeply embroiled in the Chinese media campaign against Sato, ¯ subsequent trade talks became an annual ordeal for Japanese negotiators. During the negotiation of the MT joint communiqu´e in 1970, Zhou enunciated additional preconditions for future trade development, dubbed “Zhou’s Four Principles.”170 Applied to both Friendship Trade and LT/MT Trade, these new political conditions further limited bilateral economic ties. Popular Hostility The Japanese and Chinese climate of opinion on mutual image was predominantly negative during this period. In totalitarian China, no polling data were available to gauge genuine Chinese feelings about Japan, but as the official media frequently bombarded Japanese policy, it is not hard to imagine that the Chinese public would believe Japan, or at least its government, to be nothing but dangerous and hostile. Traumatic war memory did reinforce Chinese animosity toward Japan but was not an independent factor generating popular reactions or shaping official policies toward Japan. Japanese polls show that far more Japanese disliked Communist China than felt affection for it. For the Japanese, China was the second-leastfavorite country, next to the USSR (Figure 3.1). Japanese popular feelings about China were mainly affected by fears about the Chinese security threat, rather than by war memory, however. Negative mutual perceptions were exacerbated by the lack of societal contacts, which were caused not by historical memories but by the travel restrictions of the Japanese government, which feared that unrestrained personnel exchange might undermine its policy of nonrecognition of China. 170

The four principles were that China would not deal with (1) trading firms and manufacturers supporting the aggression of the mainland by Chiang Kai-shek and of North Korea by Park Chung Hee; (2) trading firms and manufacturers with large investments in Taiwan and South Korea; (3) enterprises supplying arms and ammunitions to the United States for invading Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia; and (4) U.S.-Japan joint enterprises and subsidiaries of U.S. firms in Japan. See Furukawa, Nitchu¯ Sengo Kankei Shi, 302, and Ogata, “Business Community,” 185.

The Search for Reconciliation

166

percent 60

50 Dislike USSR

40

30 Dislike China

20

0

Like USSR

Like China

10

1962

1963

1964

1965

1966

1967

figure 3.1. Japanese Public Feelings about China and the USSR in the 1960s Source: Jiji monthly polls, Public Relations Office, Cabinet Secretariat of Japanese ¯ Nenkan. Data used are from polls conducted every Prime Minister, Seron Chosa May.

Origins of Popular Animosity: History or Structure? From the late 1960s to the early 1970s, several public demonstrations were staged in Chinese cities denouncing the reactionaries in the Sato¯ government and supporting a tough Chinese position vis-a-vis Japan.171 `

171

See Liao, Antiforeignism and Modernization, 269, 270, 282, 284.

Initial Isolation

167

These mass protests happened in parallel with the official campaign bashing the militarist revival in Japan. They were actually organized by the Chinese government as part of a concerted political offensive against Sato, ¯ whose intimate relationship with the United States was seen as threatening to Chinese strategic interests.172 The public would not have become such a captive audience of the government propaganda on reviving Japanese militarism, however, had it not been for its traumatic war experiences. Chinese public feelings of repugnance toward the Japanese after the war were manifested in the spontaneous student movement of Fan Meifuri (opposing the American buildup of Japan) in 1948, which involved Chinese of all political shades and persuasions.173 After the PRC was founded, private memories of war history survived, although they were largely unable to enter the official discourse. The bitter emotions derived from private memories clearly aggravated public hostility toward Japan. Still, emotions alone would not have independently mobilized massive anti-Japanese protests, given the Chinese official promotion at the time of a quasi-convergent war narrative with Japan. As discussed earlier, the Chinese government suppressed truth-telling about Japanese war crimes and exhorted the people to focus their hatred on the KMT and American imperialism. With such heavy political manipulation of public opinion, an articulate, spontaneous public movement demanding a confrontational policy toward Japan could hardly have emerged. The influence of historical memory on Japanese public perception was even more ambivalent. The Japanese people remembered vividly the bloody war scenes in China and the wartime hardship on the home front.174 But historically, Japanese people had a sentimental attachment toward China because of their racial, cultural, and geographic affinity.175 A 1970 Japanese survey shows that 79 percent of the respondents agreed 172

173 174

175

Besides strategic motivations, the desire to consolidate power and strengthen leadership by the pro-Mao leftists also contributed to the vigorousness of these antiforeign mass movements that the Chinese government organized in the late 1960s. Ibid., 184–85. Zhang, “Fan Meifuri.” Japanese veterans’ recollections about the war that came out in the 1950s and 1960s were written mostly by former staff officers of the navy or air force who did not fight face to face with the enemy. Only from the 1980s did Japanese military repatriates speak out about their memories of the nasty ground battles in China. See Yoshida, Nihonjin ¯ no Sensokan, 90–97. For studies of the complexity of Japanese feeling about China in the 1950s and 1960s, see Leng, Japan and Communist China, ch. 6; Mendel, Japanese People and Foreign Policy, ch. 9; and Ogata, “Japanese Attitude toward China.”

168

The Search for Reconciliation

that Japanese culture was influenced by China, and 72 percent believed that they understood Chinese emotions better than the Americans did.176 Such a feeling of kinship was blended with a strong nostalgia for China held by those Japanese who used to live there and a certain degree of guilt consciousness. Although the mainstream historiography minimized Japanese war responsibility, many people regretted deeply in their hearts what Japan had done to China during the war, and some left-wing activists and intellectuals openly expressed their guilt feelings.177 Positive Japanese feelings toward China were also associated with the economic lure of the China market, as in the Kansai area (KyotoOsaka-Kobe), which traditionally had intimate economic ties with China. Speaker Yoshimune Sadayuki of the Osaka municipal assembly said in a 1957 interview, “Osaka’s industry and economy have long depended on trade with China, so you can’t think of Osaka’s prosperity without it.”178 These Japanese were ready to put the past behind them for the sake of present business benefits. What shaped a negative image of China in Japan was not war memory but structurally driven factors, meaning Japanese fear about the security threat from Communist China, inadvertent violent conflicts with China, or both. Except for a small number of left-wing elites, most Japanese people disapproved of and feared the Communist ideology. Whereas public opinion polarized between allying with the West and staying neutral, the Japanese public persistently stayed away from the third option of joining the Communist bloc.179 In addition, Japanese people feared China’s military capabilities. In a 1970 poll, China was perceived as a dark (64 percent), strong (69 percent), cold (62 percent), and sharp (54 percent) country.180 Japanese apprehension particularly worsened after China obtained nuclear weapons. After learning about the upcoming Chinese nuclear test, 68 percent of the respondents felt Japan’s national security 176

177

178 179

180

¯ Public Relations Office, Cabinet Secretariat of Japanese Prime Minister, Seron Chosa Nenkan, 1970, 558–59. To take a famous example, the influential writer Takeuchi Yoshimi once asserted that Japan need not be sorry about fighting with other imperialist powers but had to bear ¯ ¯ o¯ Saiban kara Sengo Sekinin no the responsibility for invading China. See Onuma, Toky Shiso¯ e, 175. Yet these positive feelings about China should not be overstated because the postwar generation, which exceeded half of the total population after 1960, was less affected by the sense of kinship and feelings of guilt and more receptive to the national myths in the mainstream narrative. Quoted in Mendel, Japanese People and Foreign Policy, 226. ¯ Nenkan, See the annual opinion polls conducted by Jiji Tsushin Sha, in Seron Chosa various years. National public opinion survey on “China and Chinese People,” Mainichi Shimbun, ¯ Nenkan, 1970, 560. March 1970, in Seron Chosa

Initial Isolation

169

would be endangered.181 In another survey in 1970, 58.4 percent of people said they felt threatened because China had developed more nuclear weapons and even launched a man-made satellite capable of delivering nuclear weapons.182 Apart from fear of China’s military strength, the danger of Japan being dragged into a Sino-U.S. war also contributed to Japanese threat perception. Polling data in Table 3.2 show a high degree of public concern about war entanglement. The major causes of international conflicts cited here included general East-West confrontation, the unpredictable nuclear age, and, more importantly, the spillover of regional crises in the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan Strait, and Indochina, which might have trapped Japan in a war with China.183 Structural Constraints of Societal Contacts Alongside fostering informal trade relations, promoting bilateral societal contacts was another important aspect of Beijing’s People’s Diplomacy. Yet Tokyo restrained bilateral societal contacts for fear that they would challenge its nonrecognition policy to China. In 1952, the three Japanese parliamentarians who signed the first informal trade agreement were immediately prosecuted after returning to Japan for violating passport regulations and traveling to a prohibited “Communist area.”184 The government also turned down the travel application of a Japanese left-wing delegation to attend the May Day celebration in Beijing that year. When this delegation plotted to sneak out of a Japanese port, all its members were arrested.185 The first Japanese group permitted to go to China was a delegation to negotiate the repatriation issue in January 1953.186 The first group of Chinese visitors to Japan was a Chinese Red Cross delegation in October 1954 sent to reconfirm the joint settlement on repatriation.187

181

182

183

184 185

186

187

¯ Nenkan, 1962 (covering April Tokyo Shimbun survey, March 1963, in Seron Chosa 1962–March 1963), 73. Yomiuri Shimbun survey on U.S.-Japan alliance and national security, May 1970, in ¯ Nenkan, 1971, 538. Seron Chosa For Japanese public fear of war entanglement in the 1960s, also see Watanabe, “Japanese Public Opinion,” 118. Xiao, Eien no Rinkoku to shite, 18. Immigration Bureau of the Ministry of Justice, Japan Ministry of Justice. Shut¯ ¯ 1981, 271. sunyukoku Kanri no Kaiko to Tenbo, ¯ o¯ Undo National Headquarters of the Japan-China Friendship Association, Nitchu¯ Yuk Shi, 60–61. Immigration Bureau of the Ministry of Justice, Japan Ministry of Justice. Shut¯ ¯ 277. sunyukoku Kanri no Kaiko to Tenbo,

170

table 3.2. Japanese Worry about War Entanglement in the 1960s (% of respondents)

Newspaper Polls A: Worry about war entanglement or national security

November 1965 a ¯ ¯ oshitsu ¯ Sorifu Koh

August 1965 Asahi Shimbun Shab

April 1969 Mainichi Shimbun Shac

December 1969 ¯ Kyodo Tsushin Shad

49

60% (Vietnam War spillover to Japan)

55

56.6

Korean Peninsular 72 Sino-Soviet border 36 Taiwan Strait 23 Southeast Asia 23

Korean Peninsular 42.8% Taiwan Strait 7.7 Southeast Asia 14.7

Reasons for A (multiple choices) East-West confrontation

16.5

Age of nuclear war

14.1

Conflicts in Asia

20.1

U.S.-Japan alliance and U.S. bases in Japan

12.1

Other B: Do not worry about war entanglement or national security C: Do not know

35

21.2

25

23

34.8

22

19

38

28.8

29

21

7

14.6

¯ Nenkan, 1966, 149; b Idem., 1966, 297; c Idem., 1970, Sources: a Public Relations Office, Cabinet Secretariat of Japanese Prime Minister, Seron Chosa 475; d Idem., 1970, 545.

Initial Isolation

171

table 3.3. Visitors between Japan and China, 1964–1971 Year

Japan to China

China to Japan

1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971

1,508 3,921 2,869 1,526 1,170 661 1,447 5,176

562 576 503 150 11 16 139 283

Source: Immigration Bureau of the Ministry of Justice, Japan Ministry ¯ of Justice. Shutsunyukoku Kanri Tokei Nenpo, various years.

Tokyo’s restrictions on personnel exchange slightly relaxed after Hatoyama took power. During the tsumiage years of 1955–57, contacts extended to such areas as science and technology, medicine, culture and religion, and the media. Exchanges even spread from national organizations to municipal and prefectural levels.188 But even then, restrictions on mutual visits, such as Chinese immigrants’ visits back to China, were strictly enforced. Only in 1957 did Tokyo make a small concession to grant identification certificates issued by the Japanese Red Cross to Chinese immigrants who desired to go to China for “humanitarian needs.”189 After the abrupt interruption following the flag incident, nongovernmental exchange programs gradually recovered from 1960 and reached another height around the mid-1960s. But the total volume of personnel exchange was still kept low, especially the number of Chinese visitors to Japan (Table 3.3). Chinese applications for Japanese visas were always ruled on a case-by-case basis, and many cases were rejected on the grounds of political sensitivity. The Japanese government did not hesitate to keep out Chinese visitors whose objectives for travel were deemed detrimental to the Japanese strategic relationship with the United States and its official policy on the Taiwan issue.190 188

189

190

¯ o¯ Undo National Headquarters of the Japan-China Friendship Association, Nitchu¯ Yuk Shi, 67–84. See Immigration Bureau of the Ministry of Justice, Japan Ministry of Justice. Shut¯ sunyukoku Kanri no Kaiko to Tenbo, 85–86. It was only in 1970 that Chinese immigrants began to be granted certificates issued by the Immigration Bureau of the Ministry of Justice and were allowed to visit China not only for humanitarian needs but also for business matters. Among those denied entry visas in the 1960s were such important Chinese political figures as Peng Zheng, member of the CCP Central Politburo and mayor of Beijing; Zhao

172

The Search for Reconciliation

These political restrictions on bilateral societal contacts largely denied the public unbiased, independent sources of information about the other country. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, only senior Chinese government officials or cultural elites, largely serving as agents of People’s Diplomacy, had the privilege of visiting Japan, whereas ordinary Chinese people had zero first-hand experience of postwar Japanese society. So public knowledge about contemporary Japan was confined to government propaganda.191 In the meantime, most Japanese could understand Communist China only from books, news, school teaching, or anecdotes told by others who had visited China.192 The shortage of free exchanges between the two societies only exacerbated mutual negative stereotypes.

conclusions and implications I have argued in this chapter that systemic constraints and incentives played a more decisive role in determining the development of SinoJapanese reconciliation during the 1950s and 1960s than did traumatic memories of war. Specifically, the mutual threat resulting from the antagonistic Chinese and Japanese positions in the bipolar world system of the Cold War was critical in causing expectations of an immediate war between China and Japan to be high. The overarching structural constraints also accounted for Japanese policies of nonrecognition of the Beijing regime and restriction of bilateral economic interactions and societal contacts as well as the mutual fear and animosity held by the people of the two countries. Under the Cold War structure in Asia, Beijing’s People’s Diplomacy, which attempted to alter these Japanese policies through gradual, long-term accumulation of informal relations with Japan, was doomed to fail. The influence of historical memory fails to explain the overall pattern of bilateral relations during this period. Both nations indeed kept vivid

191

192

Anbo, secretary-general of the China-Japan Friendship Association; and Liu Ningyi, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. Even the few Chinese cultural elites who were fortunate enough to visit Japan after the war sometimes failed to understand the postwar Japanese society. See Kuraishi, “Chugokujin no Mita Sengo no Nihon.” ¯ National public opinion survey on “China and Chinese People,” Mainichi Shimbun, ¯ Nenkan, 1970, 559. Admittedly, Japanese literature or March 1970, in Seron Chosa stories told by Japanese visitors to China, especially those by left-wing Japanese, often gave favorable descriptions of China. Certain segments of the Japanese public were attracted to China by their romanticized feeling about China’s socialist achievements. However, the majority of Japanese were deeply suspicious of the leftist portrayal of a bright and liberated China. See Johnson, “Patterns of Japanese Relations,” 400, and Leng, Japan and Communist China, 114–17.

Initial Isolation

173

memories of the past war, and a lot of Chinese people held a negatively stereotyped image of Japan based on such memories. But their historically rooted emotions were never allowed to be vented in public discourse, nor did they significantly constrain government policy toward the other country, largely because the Chinese government deliberately stressed a myth that blamed only a small handful of Japanese militarists for the war while deemphasizing and even suppressing areas of memory divergence. It did so to win the hearts and minds of the Japanese people and eventually lure the Japanese state to the Chinese side of the Cold War fault line. Totalitarian control of the public space of discourse in China also precluded an independent role for public opinion in foreign policy making. Nor was the Japanese policy of isolating China driven by the WWII legacy. Without American opposition, most Japanese leaders would have countenanced a more formal relationship with China, given their common economic interest, historical ties, and Japan’s desire to enhance its international status through an autonomous foreign policy. Although it does not explain actual policy outcomes, national mythmaking theory still captures the two countries’ foreign policy preferences in this period: The Chinese and Japanese elites would have normalized relations and developed more economic and societal contacts if there had not been overwhelming structural pressure that prevented any flirtation between members of opposing blocs. The theory also correctly illustrates the origins of national myths. Although it is true that the elites manipulated history to serve strategic interests, such as Beijing’s desire to facilitate People’s Diplomacy, Chinese and Japanese elites also had other domestic political and ideological objectives in mind when they created national myths. So national myths proved not entirely dominated by the international structure, as realist theory would predict; they were also shaped by domestic motivations. Moreover, national myths constructed and institutionalized during this period had tremendous staying power. The official policies of the two countries based on these myths would block the path to a settlement of their historical accounts in the future. For example, the Chinese official acceptance of the innocence of the vast majority of Japanese people and the decision to renounce war reparation claims denied China any future chance of readdressing historical issues through formal, legalistic measures. The study of post-normalization bilateral relations in subsequent chapters shows that some serious history problems that arose later actually harkened back to myths developed during this period.

4 The “Honeymoon” Period Sino-Japanese Relations, 1972–1981

This chapter explains the significant progress in Sino-Japanese reconciliation from the two nations’ diplomatic normalization in 1972 to the beginning of the 1980s. Because of the escalation of the Sino-Soviet split and the dramatic rapprochement between China and the United States, from the beginning of the 1970s China and Japan faced a common Soviet enemy. Given such positive structural conditions, realist theory would predict that the two countries should have reached deep reconciliation. In reality, Sino-Japanese political relations indeed entered a short-lived “honeymoon” period, with considerably reduced expectations of bilateral conflict, mutual national recognition, and prospering economic interaction and societal contacts. Yet overall, the relationship progressed only to the stage of shallow reconciliation–rapprochement, falling short of deep reconciliation. Bilateral security cooperation was seriously limited, and the two governments also failed to permanently resolve outstanding sovereignty controversies regarding Taiwan and offshore islands. Their commercial ties lacked interdependence in any strategic sense, and the atmosphere of popular friendship was largely simulated by government propaganda rather than built on genuine mutual understanding. Reasons for the absence of deep reconciliation include Japan’s fear of being dragged into the Sino-Soviet conflict if it drew too close to China and obstruction from the pro-Taiwan faction in Japan of a tight relationship with China. Another important restraining factor in the reconciliation process was the negative impact of war memory. Because the two governments maintained their old national myths and never tried to settle their historical accounts through substantial measures of restitution and joint history research, their historical memories remained 174

The “Honeymoon” Period

175

quasi-convergent. Under the facade of Sino-Japanese friendship, Chinese grievances and mistrust toward Japan persisted, although the state restrained their public expression. China’s constant guarding against the revival of Japanese militarism precluded a truly harmonious political tie, and their commercial interactions also betrayed China’s wounded nationalism as derived from the historical legacy.

new triangular relations and sino-japanese cooperation From the late 1950s, Sino-Soviet friction began to rise because of Chinese and Soviet competition for leadership of the international Communist movement and Chinese resentment toward what it saw as Soviet chauvinism in dealing with China.1 Moscow’s disrespect for its allies was crystallized in its crackdown on the Prague Spring in August 1968 and its subsequent enunciation of the Brezhnev Doctrine to justify its intervention in other socialist states in violation of their sovereignty rights. Moreover, armed clashes erupted in March 1969 between Soviet and Chinese troops along the border formed by the Amur and Ussuri Rivers and spread from there to Central Asia. The mutual hostility was so intense that the Soviet Union increased its military deployment along the border from thirty divisions in 1970 to forty-four divisions a year later, posing a formidable threat to China.2 To find a counterweight to the Soviet threat, Beijing reached out to the West for support. At the time, Washington had begun gradual extrication from the war in Indochina through the policy of Vietnamization. Thus, ironically, at the beginning of the 1970s, the erstwhile socialist ally, Moscow, replaced the imperialist Washington as China’s more dangerous and immediate adversary. Beijing’s intention coincided with the interest of the Nixon administration in seeking Chinese assistance to end the Vietnam War and to facilitate the broader goal of balancing Soviet power, which had reached a strategic parity with America. In Harry Harding’s words, it was the perception of each other’s weakness that brought Washington and Beijing together to counter Moscow.3 In February 1972, Nixon went to China and signed the Shanghai Communiqu´e, which included a principle of opposition to

1

2 3

On the history of Sino-Soviet friction from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, see Yahuda, China’s Role in World Affairs, ch. 4. Cheng, “Mao Zedong’s Perception,” 251. Harding, A Fragile Relationship, 24.

176

The Search for Reconciliation

“hegemony,” China’s code word for the USSR. But the formation of a Sino-American strategic partnership did not mean it was immediately targeted at the Soviet Union because Washington tried to improve relations with Beijing and construct d´etente with Moscow simultaneously. Henry Kissinger, the key architect of d´etente, said in his memoir, “The hostility between China and the Soviet Union served our purposes best if we maintained closer relations with each side than they did with each other.”4 America’s even-handed policy melted away from the late 1970s, when the Soviets engaged in active military intervention in the Third World and superpower d´etente deteriorated into confrontation. To contain the increasingly audacious Soviet expansion, Washington began to play the “China card.” In December 1978, Washington formally recognized the PRC and reiterated the antihegemony line. Shortly afterward, Deng Xiaoping visited America, where he openly denounced Soviet hegemonism and sought American endorsement of China’s military action to contain the Soviet-supported Vietnam. China also began in 1980 to receive American military technology.5 Thus, the U.S.-China-USSR strategic triangle transformed from a “romantic marriage” structure pivoted on Washington to an anti-Soviet “stable marriage” between Beijing and Washington, in Dittmer’s words.6 Overall, the profound transformation of the international system during 1972–81 created positive structural conditions for deep reconciliation between China and Japan to emerge. According to realist theory, the Sino-Soviet split and subsequent Sino-American rapprochement should have pushed China and Japan, the most important American ally in Asia, toward a strategic alignment against the common Soviet threat. Specifically, elite expectation of armed conflict between China and Japan should have diminished, enabling their diplomatic normalization and settlement of major sovereignty controversies. Common security interest should also have decreased relative gains concerns in favor of absolute gains, giving rise to close military collaboration and comprehensive economic interdependence. Regarding popular relations, the security incentives to counteract the Soviet threat should have generated solidarity between the two nations. Because societal ideas are trumped by structural constraints in the realist view, any negative emotions and perception of hostile intentions derived from historical memory should have been neutralized. 4 5 6

Quoted in Garthoff, D´etente and Confrontation, 277. Tow, “International Strategic System,” 182. Dittmer, “Strategic Triangle.”

The “Honeymoon” Period

177

The favorable strategic environment should also have removed previous travel restrictions and greatly facilitated intimate, dynamic societal contacts. Therefore, an amicable atmosphere at the popular level should have arisen – not as the product of the people’s imagination or government propaganda but based on deep mutual understanding between the two nations.

the continuity of quasi-convergent narratives Dominance of Conservative Historiography in Japan As in the previous period, the primary political goal of Japanese conservative elites remained holding on to political power. Whereas the Japan Socialist Party’s (JSP’s) share of Diet seats sharply declined in this period, the opposition competition was no less intense in light of the budding multiparty system. By the end of the 1960s, several new opposition parties had been created, including the Japan Democratic Socialist Party and the Komeit o. ¯ ¯ In the 1972 general election, the LDP won fewer seats than ever before, sparking the fear of an end to the LDP-dominant “1955 system.” At the local level, the party’s hegemony was also threatened by opposition party–supported governors and mayors as well as the surging grassroots movements demanding that the government improve the quality of life, which earlier growth-oriented policy had ignored.7 These challenges were compounded by the 1973 Oil Shock and by revelations of LDP corruption, which culminated in the Lockheed Scandal of the mid1970s that implicated even former Prime Minister Tanaka, who remained a powerful LDP faction leader. In the face of mounting societal dissatisfaction, Japanese conservatives clung to the same type of pernicious national myths they had developed in the early postwar period as the ideological justification for their ruling power. Propelled by the altered Japanese political landscape, flourishing citizen activism on a variety of political issues, and the massive protests in Japan against the Vietnam War in the 1970s, however, a new wave of liberal, nonideological “countermemory” sprung up calling for a reconstruction of national memory, especially regarding Japan’s own war crimes.8 One manifestation was the advent of citizens’ campaigns to record the war

7 8

Curtis, Japanese Way of Politics, 18–30, 62–64. On the connection between the impact of the Vietnam War and the awakening of Japanese people to their country’s own war responsibility, see Seraphim, War Memory and Social Politics, 23–24.

178

The Search for Reconciliation

experiences of ordinary people. Unlike previous narratives that emphasized only the monarchy, military clique, and high-ranking bureaucrats, the new narratives covered Allied air bombing, women’s war suffering, and the dark, cruel war scenes remembered by the Japanese military ¯ o¯ Daikush ¯ u¯ rank and file.9 A representative example was the book Toky (Tokyo Air Raid), first published in 1971, which compiled reminiscences of ordinary Japanese people about that tragic event in 1945.10 The articulation of ordinary Japanese people’s war memories was closely related to a second societal trend that urged the public to recognize Japan’s role as a victimizer vis-a-vis other Asian countries. From the ` 1970s, a great number of first-hand testimonies of Japanese war crimes appeared in Japan. Most notably, journalist Honda Katsuichi published a series of articles in Asahi Shimbun in 1971 that later appeared in the ¯ famous book Chugoku no Tabi (The Journey in China). Based on the journalist’s personal visits to many areas in China and interviews of surviving Chinese victims, these articles were devoted to exposing the Japanese army’s war crimes in the China theater, including forced labor, biological warfare, the Nanjing Massacre, and the “Three-All” campaign.11 Japanese textbooks in the 1970s also began to cover the infliction by the Japanese military of suffering on other Asian peoples. A 1979 textbook for the first time mentioned the Nanjing Massacre (Nankin daigyakusatsu) by name. Being buried in footnotes and without boldface print, however, the new information had very limited pedagogical impact.12 Meanwhile, Ienaga won a partial victory in his textbook lawsuits when the Tokyo District Court ruled twice, in 1970 and 1974, against the abuse of power by Mombusho¯ in ordering specific changes in educational content, although the verdicts still affirmed the constitutionality of government screening of textbooks. In 1973, Mombusho¯ approved Ienaga’s textbook, which contained more extensive descriptions of Japanese aggression in South Korea and China than had appeared in earlier textbooks.13 Albeit courageous and tenacious, the efforts by liberal and progressive forces to debunk pernicious national myths failed to shake the official interpretation of war history or restitution policy. Unlike in West 9 10 11 12 13

Takahashi, “Senki Mono” o Yomu, 105–12, 121–32. ¯ o¯ Daikush ¯ u. ¯ Saotome, Toky ¯ Honda, Chugoku no Tabi. Fish, “Manchurian Incident to Nagasaki.” Nozaki and Inokuchi, “Japanese Education,” 109–11. Ienaga went on to file a third lawsuit against the Mombusho¯ in 1984.

The “Honeymoon” Period

179

Germany, where the leftist party, the Social Democratic Party, seized state power and began to implement a politics of reconciliation toward Eastern European countries, in Japan the political Left was not powerful or coherent enough to prevail in electoral battles in the 1970s. Backed by the conservative hegemony in politics, the old myths continued to dominate Japanese national memory, and the state never reached out to the Asian victim countries with genuine expressions of contrition. Additionally, memory contention at the time was largely confined to a relatively narrow elite circle; it did not set in motion a profound public rethinking about war responsibility like what happened in West Germany during the 1970s, which included sharp parliamentary debates, major education reform, and a spotlight shed by the mass media. Another incentive that encouraged more critical examination of Germany’s war history at the time, the generational effect, was weak in Japan. The radical student movements of the late 1960s in Japan, often with a strong Marxist persuasion and targeted at the Anpo and U.S. military bases in Japan, lacked a strong impulse to confront Japan’s past crimes against other nations. It is observed that liberalism in Japan began to fade after the student revolts, whereas “conservative ideas and ultra-nationalism were emerging.”14 The government maintained an evasive attitude on Japanese war responsibility while glorifying the military and emphasizing national victimhood. All Japanese prime ministers during 1972–81 – Tanaka, Miki, ¯ Fukuda, Ohira, and Suzuki – worshiped at the Yasukuni Shrine multiple times while in office. In 1975, Miki became the first prime minister to go there on August 15, the anniversary day of the end of the war. Neither did the Japanese government provide any significant restitution to Asian war victims. True, Tokyo took diplomatic initiatives to foster political and economic cooperation with Asian countries, including the 1977 Fukuda Doctrine, purporting to develop a heart-to-heart relationship with ASEAN countries. The doctrine was driven not by an aspiration to atone for Japan’s past aggression, however, but by the pressing economic and security interests of the time. In his memoir, Fukuda explained that after the American withdrawal from South Vietnam and the fall of Saigon, Japan’s closer cooperation with Southeast Asia promised to ease the feeling of uncertainty permeating the region and contribute to a stable environment; it was also essential to Japan’s own economic prosperity.15 14

15

Hamada, “Japan 1968,” 3. For more on Japanese student radicalism in the 1960s, see Fuse, “Student Radicalism in Japan,” and Shimbori, “Zengakuren.” ¯ unen, ¯ Fukuda, Kaiko Kyuj 276–80.

180

The Search for Reconciliation

Similarly, Japan’s relationship with South Korea progressed considerably in the late 1970s, motivated by their common concern about American retrenchment in East Asia and their mutual economic interest.16 Yet Japan hardly expressed remorse to Korea. When addressing the Diet, Tanaka Kakuei tried to justify Japan’s colonization of Korea by saying that it made a positive contribution to the development of Korean education and the Korean economy.17 Old Myths in Chinese Historiography During the 1970s, Chinese historiography about the Sino-Japanese War retained the self-glorifying and other-maligning myths constructed and institutionalized in the earlier period. First, the conflict between the CCP and KMT remained the central theme in the official history because Beijing still wished to isolate Taipei internationally and insulate its influence on ordinary Chinese people. Taiwan’s security and legitimacy challenge to the Communist government did lessen significantly after the PRC entry to the UN and Sino-American rapprochement, but Washington maintained diplomatic relations with Taipei until January 1979 and maintained defense commitments to it afterward. Additionally, China’s ideological propaganda remained intense in the 1970s, despite the waning of the Cultural Revolution and the development of a more accommodating policy toward capitalist America. This was partly from inertia but also a product of the still-strong influence of radical political forces, mainly the Gang of Four, until the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976. Afterwards, a class-based ideology continued to be used to salvage public reverence for the party leadership clearly responsible for initiating and perpetuating the recent political turmoil. At the CCP theoretical conference in March 1979, Deng enunciated the Four Cardinal Principles to keep to the socialist road and uphold the dictatorship of the proletariat, the leadership of the CCP, and Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong thought.18 The authoritative evaluation of Mao’s legacy that the CCP Central Committee completed in 1981 also claimed that Mao had been correct 70 percent of the time and at fault only 30 percent of the time, and any attempt to use Mao’s mistakes to “try to negate the 16 17

18

Cha, Alignment despite Antagonism, ch. 5. Tanaka’s speech at the plenary session of the Lower House on January 24, 1974, quoted ¯ in Yoshida, Nihonjin no Sensokan, 139; Wakamiya, Postwar Conservative View, 195– 96. Deng, Deng Xiaoping Wenxuan, 144–70.

The “Honeymoon” Period

181

scientific value of Mao Zedong thought and to deny its guiding role in our revolution and our construction” would be “entirely wrong.” So it concluded, “Socialism and socialism alone can save China.”19 Consistent with Beijing’s international and domestic agenda, the first two editions of a post–Cultural Revolution history textbook published in 1978 and 1981 hardly changed the wording of passages glorifying the role of the CCP during the war and condemning the KMT.20 The film industry resumed the production of revolutionary films after 1979 along a similar propaganda line, although new movies focused more on individual experiences than on the military struggle itself, and they depicted the heroic image of Communist troops from a more humanistic perspective than before.21 Regarding the role of foreign countries, history textbooks still criticized American assistance to the KMT to repress the Communists but, apparently reflecting the newly formed Sino-American strategic alignment, dropped the accusation that America connived to bring about Japanese aggression. Meanwhile, the 1978 history textbooks deleted coverage of Soviet aid to Chinese war efforts. Only when Sino-Soviet relations began to thaw in the early 1980s did Soviet aid again receive a brief mention in the 1981 textbooks.22 Another aspect of an old myth kept intact was the distinction between Japanese militarists and ordinary Japanese people. Beijing had earlier used this distinction to push for Japanese official recognition of China, but now it used it to justify the newly established friendship with Japan. Premier Zhou reaffirmed this historical view at the welcome banquet for Prime Minister Tanaka on September 25, 1972, when he stated that the few militarists had to be strictly distinguished from the vast majority of Japanese people and that both Chinese and Japanese people were traumatized during the war.23 Chinese textbook coverage of Japanese military savagery and Chinese people’s suffering was confined to simple and general descriptions. New war movies also deemphasized the war of resistance against Japan, in part because of a wave of so-called scar

19 20 21

22 23

Quoted in Spence, Search for Modern China, 679. See MST 5, vol. 4; MST 6, vol. 4. Author interview with a senior faculty member of the Beijing Film Academy, November 22, 2002. Also see Chun, “Zhuoyi Miaoxie Renwu de Dute Minyun,” and Compilation Committee of the Dangdai Zhongguo Series, Dangdai Zhongguo Dianying, 1: 362–66. See MST 5, vol. 4; MST 6, vol. 4. ¯ u, ¯ 420–21; Tian, Zhanhou Zhongri Guanxi Kazankai, Nitchu¯ Kankei Kihon Shiryosh Wenxianji, 2: 103–4.

182

The Search for Reconciliation

literature reflecting on the recent tragedies of the Cultural Revolution, which became much more popular than artistic representations of the war. One exception to the low-key treatment of the war was the sensational movie An Unfinished Go Game, jointly produced by China and Japan to commemorate the tenth anniversary of diplomatic normalization.24 It tells a tragic story of two families of go players, one from China and the other from Japan, whose dream to bring the art of go playing to perfection through cross-national exchange was smashed by evil Japanese militarists. The intimate links between the two families, a symbol of SinoJapanese friendship, were highlighted by their common cultural roots, ties by marriage, and similar suffering at the hands of Japanese military police during the war. This movie conveys the political message that both Chinese and Japanese people were victims of Japanese militarism and that they should move beyond the past trauma to construct peace and mutual friendship. To sum up, in the 1970s, Japanese and Chinese ruling elites perpetuated those old national myths constructed and purveyed in the 1950s–60s. There was a considerable overlap between their war narratives, whereas their memory divergence remained toned down. Propaganda of national myths prevented rigorous investigation of historical facts, and political gestures were substituted for sincere, concrete restitution or cooperation on history writing. Thus, if the history factor was indeed the dominant driving force in Sino-Japanese relations, we should expect Sino-Japanese relations to have progressed to, but not beyond, the stage of shallow reconciliation, most likely in the substage of rapprochement.

sino-japanese relations in 1972–1981 Moderate Expectation of War The profound transformation of U.S.-China-USSR triangular relations in the 1970s generated strong strategic incentives for China and Japan to forsake hostility and form a quasi-alliance against the common Soviet 24

The Culture Department of the Chinese State Council directly supervised the production of this movie. Although the movie was released in August 1982 in the middle of the Japanese textbook controversy, the script revision and film production process were conducted mainly between 1979 and 1981 when Sino-Japanese relations were still in the honeymoon period. Zhou and Kang, “‘Yipan Wei Xiawan de Qi’ Juben Chuangzuo Shimo.”

The “Honeymoon” Period

183

enemy. Driven by national security interests, China even abandoned its long-standing objection to the U.S.-Japan alliance and Japanese military power for defense purposes. Although China and Japan held a muchmoderated expectation of bilateral armed conflict, their security cooperation was seriously limited during this period. Japan’s reluctance to form a tight military alliance with China that might seem provocative to the Soviet Union and China’s deep-rooted suspicion of Japan derived from bitter war memories stood out as the major obstacles to solid security cooperation. Strategic Incentives for Sino-Japanese Cooperation With the sharp escalation of Sino-Soviet confrontation from the end of the 1960s, for the first time in postwar history China’s security interests converged with those of Japan, which also saw Moscow as the biggest national security threat. China and Japan would have felt less incentive to join hands, however, if they had unwavering American support to their national defense. As Victor Cha argues in his quasi-alliance model, two states facing a common threat may not form a tight alignment if their shared ally maintains a strong commitment to collective defense, because their security needs have been met, whereas additional commitments of mutual defense would increase the danger of entrapment.25 But the East-West d´etente in the 1970s did not seem very reassuring to Beijing. Mao reportedly complained to Kissinger that the United States had been ineffective in resisting Soviet expansionism.26 Beijing did not take American security support for granted but sought to bring more countries into the anti-Soviet struggle. To this end, Beijing resorted to the old United Front strategy that had been left in obscurity during the Cultural Revolution. In a classified CCP report on the international situation presented in December 1971, Zhou Enlai stated that China should cooperate with two “intermediate zones,” the first including Asia, Africa, and Latin America and the second including Western Europe, Japan, Canada, and Oceania. He further advocated that China scale down ideological attacks on countries of the second intermediate zone and develop a relationship with members of the capitalist ruling class so that China would have fewer enemies and more allies.27 Therefore, the strategic goal

25

26 27

Cha, “Abandonment, Entrapment, and Realism,” 265–70, and Alignment despite Antagonism, 48–50. Ogata, Normalization with China, 36. Zhou, “Shu¯ Onlai Kokusai Josei ni kansuru Himitsu Ensetsu,” 163–69. ¯

184

The Search for Reconciliation

of building a broad international United Front motivated China to seek early diplomatic normalization with Japan. In addition, shortly before Tanaka visited Beijing to finalize the normalization terms, the CCP Central Committee issued an internal document on the significance of the upcoming negotiation with Tanaka. It called the negotiation “an important strategic step of Chairman Mao and the party central committee” because it would first of all “contribute to the struggle against American and Soviet hegemony, especially Soviet revisionism,” and it would also be useful in fighting Japanese militarism, liberating Taiwan, and mitigating tension in Asia.28 In fact, Beijing insisted on inserting an antihegemony clause in the text of the Sino-Japanese Joint Declaration of September 1972, giving bilateral normalization a clear strategic connotation. Beijing’s objective to turn Tokyo into a security partner against Moscow is also reflected in the dramatic shift in its attitude toward Japanese rearmament and the U.S.-Japan alliance. During the SinoAmerican secret talks on rapprochement, Beijing persistently opposed Japanese military buildup and demanded American troops’ withdrawal from Japan. Kissinger took pains to reassure Beijing that Japanese rearmament was in response to the Soviet threat in the region rather than to threaten China and that the U.S. presence in Japan actually corked Japanese militarism rather than encourage it.29 In an interview with The New York Times journalist James Reston shortly after Kissinger’s first visit in July 1971, Zhou again expressed serious concerns about Japanese economic strength and the size of its defense budget, and he blamed the United States for propping up Japanese power and sending it on an expansionist trajectory again.30 To placate Chinese fear, Nixon on his visit to China stressed that it was in the common interest of China and the United States to maintain the American military presence in Japan. “If we were to leave Japan naked and defenseless,” Nixon warned Zhou, “they would have to turn to others for help or build the capability to defend themselves. If we had no defense arrangement with Japan, we would have no influence where they were concerned.”31 28 29

30

31

Mao, Jianguo Yilai Mao Zedong Wengao, 13: 316. See recollections of John Holdridge, who accompanied Kissinger to Beijing in July 1971, quoted in Christensen, “Troubled Triangle,” 33–34. “Official Transcript of the Wide-Ranging Interview with Premier Chou in Peking,” New York Times, August 10, 1971. I thank Allen Whiting for bringing this news report to my attention. Nixon, RN, 567.

The “Honeymoon” Period

185

What Nixon alluded to was a potential Japanese-Soviet collusion or the unrestrained development of Japan’s independent military power – both fears that struck Beijing’s sensitive nerve. In fact, almost immediately after the Sino-Japanese normalization, Moscow openly protested to Tokyo regarding the antihegemony clause in the Joint Declaration. In ¯ response, Foreign Minister Ohira flew to Moscow in October to explain to the Soviets that the clause did not signify the creation of an anti-Soviet mutual defense pact. To further appease Moscow, the Tanaka government began in 1973 to negotiate Japanese-Soviet diplomatic normalization. It was rather disturbing to Beijing that in the negotiation Moscow tried to persuade Tokyo to support an Asian collective security system, which in Beijing’s eyes was a conspiracy to encircle China. Nixon’s argument on Japan’s importance for balancing the Soviet threat and the fear that Japan might opt for neutrality persuaded Beijing to accept the U.S.-Japan security alliance. To back up the American argument in favor of the alliance, the head of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), Nakasone, presented a map to Zhou during January 17–19, 1973, showing that the majority of Japanese military power was concentrated in Hokkaido to guard against the Soviet Union rather than China.32 Nakasone’s map might have indeed impressed Zhou, for he told visiting Dietman Kimura Takeo on January 18, “It has to be admitted that the U.S.-Japan security treaty is necessary for Japan, so is the American nuclear umbrella to counterbalance the Soviet Union.”33 In October, Chinese Foreign Minister Ji Pengfei reconfirmed to the Japanese that China could understand the alliance because, he said, “[It] needs to be maintained in order to protect yourself from Soviet threat . . . . I think that Japan has to depend on the United States to a certain extent.”34 Likewise, Beijing endorsed and sometimes even encouraged Japanese defense buildup. Deng, who was temporarily brought back to politics in 1974 after being purged by the political radicals, told an LDP delegation, “It is necessary for China and Japan to join hands to be prepared for the ‘North.’” In 1977 he told the Japanese that he “supports the strengthening of Japanese self-defense power.”35 In November 1978, after the ChinaJapan Peace and Friendship Treaty (PFT) was signed, Liao Chengzhi reiterated the Chinese position that the U.S.-Japan alliance was now useful in

32 33 34 35

Zhou, “Shu¯ Onlai Kokusai Josei ni kansuru Himitsu Ensetsu,” 174. ¯ ¯ u, ¯ 455–56. Kazankai, Nitchu¯ Kankei Kihon Shiryosh ¯ 242–43. Tanaka, Anzen Hosho, Ito, Gunji Teikei no Jittai da,” 164. ¯ “Kore ga Beichunichi ¯

186

The Search for Reconciliation

light of Soviet expansion and that Japan needed more self-defense power. Liao also openly disagreed with China’s long-time political friend, the JSP, by claiming that China had never supported the unarmed neutrality of Japan since 1952.36 Perhaps Beijing’s most straightforward call for Japanese defense buildup was conveyed by deputy chief of staff of the PLA Wu Xiuquan in April 1978 to a delegation of Japanese military reporters: The SDF’s [Self-Defense Forces’] role has two aspects of both oppressing the people and defending independence. [We] should emphasize the second aspect and must not treat the SDF as an enemy. As far as China is concerned, we hope that the SDF would strengthen its capabilities and become a military that can defend Japan’s independence. We must oppose it if the SDF becomes militaristic, but I do not think it is turning militaristic.37

As far as Japanese leaders are concerned, in the early 1970s, SinoJapanese relations became a critical issue of contention in Japanese domestic politics. Tanaka was able to win support from multiple factions in the LDP presidential election in July 1972 precisely because he vowed to pursue normalization with China as his top priority.38 But the urgency of the issue for Japan actually originated in the profound shift in the structural environment, not domestic politics. Nixon’s announcement in July 1971 that he would visit China the next year came as a shock to Japan. In the past, Japan had preferred a formal relationship with China but was checked by the United States. Now, the United States quietly turned around but kept Japan in the dark about it. The Japanese feared losing another opportunity to assert an autonomous foreign policy if they again acted too slowly and simply followed in the steps of America. This explained the unusual swiftness with which Tokyo normalized relations with Beijing. Additionally, doubts about the American commitment to Asian defense also compelled Tokyo to embrace Beijing. The Nixon Doctrine issued in July 1969, which essentially urged American allies to assume a greater responsibility for defending themselves, raised Japanese concerns about American retrenchment in Asia. The subsequent Nixon Shock further alarmed the Japanese, raising fears that their national interests might be neglected in political deals among big powers. Perceiving that it was now caught in the narrow valley (tanima) of the U.S.-China-USSR triangle, 36 37 38

Bedeski, Fragile Entente, 101. Ito, Gunji Teikei no Jittai da,” 165. ¯ “Kore ga Beichunichi ¯ Furukawa, Nitchu¯ Sengo Kankei Shi, 360–62; Ogata, Normalization with China, 50.

The “Honeymoon” Period

187

Japan found it an urgent task to improve relations with China lest it be isolated and become “an orphan of Asia.”39 Sino-Japanese diplomatic normalization in 1972 led to a dramatic lessening of mutual expectations of war between the two countries. The Joint Delaration not only terminated the state of war but also enunciated the principles of mutual nonaggression and peaceful resolution of all disputes without resorting to the use or threat of force. Thereafter, both sides held an optimistic outlook for future peace and friendship. The LDP issued a statement on the day the Joint Declaration was signed, praising it as “an epoch-making document in postwar Japanese diplomatic history” that “laid down the foundation for lasting friendship between the two countries in the future.” It explicitly acknowledged that diplomatic normalization “not only has great significance to enhancing Sino-Japanese mutual understanding and cooperation but also contributes tremendously to peace and prosperity in Asia and the whole world.”40 The next day, the People’s Daily published an editorial claiming that despite their different social systems, the two countries could solve various problems between them and peacefully coexist “as long as they refer to the spirit of mutual understanding and seek common ground on major issues while accepting existing minor differences.”41 After diplomatic normalization, the negotiation of the Sino-Japanese PFT was also closely linked to the strategic interests of the two countries. The talks dragged on for four years after 1974, mainly because of a stalemate over the antihegemony clause. China demanded such a clause, but Japan resisted it because of its anti-Soviet connotation. In September 1975, Foreign Minister Miyazawa proposed “Miyazawa’s Four Principles” denying that an antihegemony clause was aimed at a third country or implied any Sino-Japanese common action.42 Unready to negotiate a “third-country clause” when domestic radicals were still in power, Beijing recalled its ambassador from Japan to express its displeasure. It was not until 1977, after Deng returned to power and AmericanSoviet relations severely deteriorated, that the PFT negotiation regained 39

40 41 42

For a typical example of this line of argument, see Shinohara, “Beichu¯ Sekkin to Nihon no Boei,” 149. ¯ See Tian, Zhanhou Zhongri Guanxi Wenxianji, 2: 117–18. ¯ u, ¯ 446–48. Ibid., 2: 115–16; Kazankai, Nitchu¯ Kankei Kihon Shiryosh Miyazawa’s Four Principles include the following: (1) Hegemony will be opposed not only in the Asia-Pacific region but also anywhere else, (2) antihegemony is not directed against a specific third party, (3) antihegemony does not mean any common action by Japan and China, and (4) a principle that is in contradiction to the spirit of the United Nations Charter cannot be accepted. See Soeya, Japan’s Economic Diplomacy, 141.

188

The Search for Reconciliation

momentum. The Carter administration began to nurture the Chinese connection to counterbalance the Soviet Union. During the Carter-Fukuda summit in March 1977 and Brzezinski’s visit to Asia in May 1978, Washington explicitly urged Fukuda to conclude the PFT with China as quickly as possible.43 In the meantime, Japan’s efforts since 1972 to settle territorial disputes with the Soviet Union had gone nowhere. Japan also remained doubtful about the U.S. security commitment because the Carter administration considered withdrawing American troops from South Korea and kept U.S. involvement in Asia a low priority.44 Thus, Japan was left with few choices other than forming a strategic alignment with China as the United States had wished. Although Japanese reservations about the strategic alignment still existed, lest Moscow perceive it as a Sino-Japanese alliance, the inclusion of the antihegemony clause embodied an unmistakably anti-Soviet theme. In 1979, when conflict between China and Soviet-supported Vietnam intensified, China used the antihegemony clause of the PFT to justify its request for political backup from Japan. The “demonstrable effect” of the PFT was so compelling that even the Vietnamese media sounded the alarm about the rising “BeijingWashington-Tokyo axis.”45 The PFT further promised to reduce the risk of militarized disputes. It reiterated the principles of nonaggression and settling bilateral conflicts by peaceful means, and through it the two countries vowed to develop durable relations of peace and friendship. The congratulatory article in People’s Daily expressed the wish that the friendship between the two countries would “last generation after generation.”46 With the signing of the treaty, the postwar Sino-Japanese relationship reached its peak of friendly relations in 1978.47 Amid such a warm atmosphere, China and Japan no longer viewed each other as the imaginary enemy. At a Diet committee hearing in 1973, Tanaka stated that since coming back from Beijing, he believed that Chinese nuclear weapons were not a threat to Japan.48 Meanwhile, previous concerns about monolithic Communist expansion basically

43 44 45 46

47 48

Ogata, Normalization with China, 95. Cha, Alignment despite Antagonism, 144–54. Soeya, Japan’s Economic Diplomacy, 142. ¯ u, ¯ 516–18; Tian, Zhanhou Zhongri Guanxi Kazankai, Nitchu¯ Kankei Kihon Shiryosh Wenxianji, 2: 230–32. Wan, Sino-Japanese Relations, 22. National Diet Library of Japan, Kokkai Kaigiroku, Cabinet Committee of the House of Representatives, June 26, 1973.

The “Honeymoon” Period

189

disappeared from Japanese strategic analyses published in defense-related journals. These journals continued to monitor Chinese military doctrines and defense postures closely, but mostly under the assumption that China’s main target was the Soviet Union.49 To assuage Japan’s remaining doubts, Deng assured Japanese Foreign Minister Sonoda Sunao in 1978 that the Sino-Soviet alliance treaty that targeted Japan existed only in name, and China would terminate the treaty in accordance with the treaty provisions.50 And on April 3, 1979, Beijing announced that it would terminate the 1950 Sino-Soviet alliance treaty. China also held a much more relaxed assessment of possible security conflicts with Japan than it had before. This was evident in its support of the U.S.-Japan alliance and its strengthening of Japan’s self-defense capabilities, as mentioned previously. Since 1974, China had also invited a number of groups of active and retired SDF officers to visit, and PLA Deputy Chief of the General Staff Zhang Caiqian and Chinese Vice Defense Minister Su Yu visited Japan in 1978 and 1979, respectively. Beijing actively promoted military-to-military contacts with Japan because they would not only enhance the symbolic meaning of the Sino-Japanese strategic alignment but also benefit China’s military modernization.51 Limits of Sino-Japanese Security Cooperation Despite a cozy relationship between Beijing and Tokyo in the 1970s, it would be a mistake to believe that they developed any significant security cooperation. Whereas China tried to pull Japan closer through military contacts, Japan was much more cautious, afraid that these contacts would not bring additional security benefits but would only increase the danger of Japan’s entrapment in a future Sino-Soviet conflict. Trying to implement an omnidirectional diplomacy at the time, Japan was also concerned that close collaboration with the Chinese military would strain its relations with Southeast Asian countries.52 Throughout this period, the Japan Defense Agency refrained from establishing formal, regular contacts with the PLA, and Tokyo refused to provide economic aid to China for mili¯ tary purposes. In December 1979, when the Ohira government unveiled the first yen loan package for China, it announced three principles of 49

50 51 52

For some examples of Japanese defense analyses of Chinese military organizations and policies during this period, see Hiramatsu, “Chugoku no Gunji Rosen ni kansuru Ichi ¯ Kosatsu,” and Kawashima, “Chugoku Jinmin Kaihogun no Gunchu¯ Iinkai Seido.” ¯ ¯ ¯ Nagano, Tenno¯ to To¯ Shohei no Akushu, 286–87. Bedeski, Fragile Entente, 98–99; Tow, “Sino-Japanese Security Cooperation,” 62–63. Tow, “Sino-Japanese Security Cooperation,” 63.

190

The Search for Reconciliation

economic aid to China, one of which denied any form of military assistance. Sino-Japanese military cooperation was kept at such a low level that some believed it “in the true sense of the word [did] not exist.”53 The tortuous process of negotiating the PFT also attested to Japanese reluctance to be tied to China’s security policy, which often frustrated Beijing. Although Tokyo eventually accepted the antihegemony clause, Beijing had to agree to the inclusion in the treaty of the “third-country clause” implied by Miyazawa’s Four Principles. The two countries hardly took joint actions to counter their common enemy. In much of the 1970s, Beijing was suspicious that Tokyo might strike a deal with Moscow that would damage its interests, whereas Tokyo was afraid that Beijing would try to drag it into a major power conflict. The transient and tenuous nature of the Sino-Japanese honeymoon in the 1970s made it merely a “fragile entente.”54 In addition to Japan’s unwillingness to draw too close to China strategically, another major obstacle to forging a truly stable and trustful relationship was the shadow of history. The memory of past Japanese aggression still reminded the Chinese that Japan was always a potential threat, even though the immediate danger of conflict was low. As discussed previously, witnesses of Sino-U.S. secret diplomacy for rapprochement testified to the deeply entrenched mistrust and panic that Chinese leaders had toward a remilitarized Japan, to mitigate which the Americans resorted to the even bigger and more imminent Soviet threat. After Sino-Japanese normalization, China’s attitude toward Japan did not shift from outright hostility all the way to wholehearted embrace, but rather to guarded acceptance. From early 1972, the Chinese media campaign to condemn Japanese militarist revival abated, but alertness to potential Japanese militarism remained alive among Chinese political elites and was brought up every now and then, even amid media adulation of the bilateral friendship. In October 1972, Liao Chengzhi reminded a delegation of the JapanChina Friendship Association that Japanese right-wing power led by such people as Kishi Nobusuke and Kaya Okinori still existed, and he expressed caution about residual Japanese militarism.55 Zhang Xiangshan, the vice chair of the China-Japan Friendship Association, openly 53 54 55

Glaubitz, “Japan,” 230. Bedeski, Fragile Entente. Tian, Zhanhou Zhongri Guanxi Wenxianji, 2: 122–25.

The “Honeymoon” Period

191

warned of the potential Japanese threat in a formal policy statement in 1973: We are by no means optimistic about the current world situation. While digging trenches to get ready for surprise attacks by the Soviet Revisionism, we are considering the worst scenario wherein it is possible for four enemies to attack us: Soviet Revisionism from the north, American imperialism from the south, Indian reactionaries from the west, and reviving Japanese militarism from Qingdao and Shanghai.56

The paradoxical attitude among Chinese leaders toward Japanese military power was crystallized in Zhou’s internal party report in March 1973: “If it [Japan] becomes completely reliant on America’s military protection, it is clear that America will hold the economic throat of Japan. Therefore, Japan has no choice but to develop its own military power. But with military buildup there is the worry that Japan may walk down the old path of militarism! This is what Japan is being discomforted with.”57 Here, Zhou appreciated Japan’s national interest in remilitarization while at the same time worrying that Japanese militarist history would replay itself once Japan had more power. Although persuaded by the immediate security need to accept the U.S.-Japan alliance and a certain degree of Japanese military buildup, Chinese elites did not forgo their old suspicions regarding Japan’s intentions, and these suspicions would quickly surface once the Japanese textbook controversy erupted in the next period. Problems of National Recognition In the 1950s and 1960s, Japan’s recognition of Taiwan was the biggest structural hurdle to Sino-Japanese normalization. Fortunately, the SinoAmerican rapprochement removed the external constraints that had kept Tokyo from recognizing the Beijing regime. Meanwhile, China’s top priority now was to draw Japan into the anti-Soviet United Front, for the sake of which it wished to quickly deal with bilateral sovereignty controversies, including Taiwan and offshore islands. Because of the obstruction of the pro-Taiwan faction in Japan and Beijing’s willingness to make concessions to Tokyo in order to facilitate a quick normalization, however, the two governments failed to permanently resolve sovereignty controversies, reaching only a temporary compromise. To fulfill immediate strategic 56 57

Muno, “Pikin de Kangaeta Nihon to Chugoku no Danso,” ¯ ¯ 216. Zhou, “Shu¯ Onlai Kokusai Josei ni Kansuru Himitsu Ensetsu,” 174. ¯

192

The Search for Reconciliation

interests, they also missed an opportune moment to settle their historical accounts. Partial Settlement of Sovereignty Rights Issues At the beginning of the normalization negotiation, Beijing’s bottom line was that the Joint Declaration should include the Three Principles for the Restoration of Relations and declare the termination of the state of war.58 Unlike in the past, when China’s insistence on the Taiwan issue always created deadlock in the Japanese decision-making process, this time Tokyo moved quickly to a rare internal consensus. At the end of July, the LDP Conference of Sino-Japanese Diplomatic Normalization (Nitchu¯ Kokko¯ Seijoka Kyogikai) under the direct supervision of the ¯ ¯ party president passed the proposal to push for normalization with a big margin. In August, Gaimusho¯ announced the official position that Japan would be unable to continue diplomatic relations with the Republic of China (ROC) once normalization with the PRC was realized. When asked ¯ to give further explanation, Tanaka and Ohira used the thesis of “natural termination”: that the Japan-ROC peace treaty would have to lapse, and the two countries’ diplomatic relationship would end accordingly.59 However, the 1972 diplomatic normalization failed to resolve bilateral sovereignty controversies conclusively. Although overruled in the decision of whether to abandon the formal relationship with Taiwan, the Taiwan lobby in Japan pressured the government to retain nonofficial contacts with Taiwan and reject further concessions regarding Taiwan’s legal status. In September 1972, shortly before the normalization, Tokyo sent two delegations led by Furui and Kosaka Zantaro, ¯ ¯ chairman of the Nitchu¯ Kokko¯ Seijoka Kyogikai, to appeal for Beijing’s understanding of the ¯ ¯ difficulties in Japanese domestic politics. Zhou agreed that the Joint Declaration would not directly comment on Taiwan’s legal status or mention the termination of the Japan-ROC treaty. But the two sides still could not agree on the point of “the end of the state of war” because Japan insisted that it had been declared in the Japan-ROC treaty. Zhou told the Furui delegation not to worry because he would use “good wisdom” to solve this problem. Later, when Tanaka visited China, the two sides quickly

58

59

The three principles demanded that Tokyo acknowledge that (1) the PRC is the sole legitimate government representing China, (2) Taiwan is a province of China and an inalienable part of Chinese territories, and (3) the Japan-ROC treaty is unlawful and should be abolished. Furukawa, Nitchu¯ Sengo Kankei Shi, 375–77.

The “Honeymoon” Period

193

agreed to use “the end of an abnormal state” as a tactical solution. Some suspected that Zhou had been ready to make the concession when he met Furui.60 After all, Beijing wanted to waste no time on complicated legalistic problems when it was eager to form an anti-Soviet strategic alignment with Tokyo. In the end, the Joint Declaration adopted in full only China’s first principle of restoring relations, whereas it made indirect reference to the other two principles.61 So Japan actually avoided taking a clear-cut position on the Taiwan issue and reserved political leeway in maintaining contacts with Taiwan. Thus, semiofficial contacts between Taiwan and Japan carried on. Immediately after the Joint Declaration was announced, the LDP’s proTaiwan faction formed the Japan-ROC Parliamentarian League, which sent a large delegation of seventy-four incumbent and former Diet members to Taiwan in fall 1973. From then on, the league sent delegations to Taiwan on an annual basis, and many influential conservative politicians visited Taiwan, including former Prime Ministers Sato¯ and Kishi, former Speakers of the House of Representatives Ishii Mitsujiro¯ and Funada Naka, and former Vice President of the LDP Shiina Etsuzaburo. ¯ Meanwhile, high-ranking ROC officials were often invited to Japan, and the Legislative Yuan, Control Yuan, and National Assembly Council all sent delegations to Japan annually, as did various semiofficial organizations and institutions maintaining more informal connections.62 These Japan-Taiwan contacts did not cause serious political problems in Sino-Japanese relations. The ROC’s chief diplomat in Japan, Ma Shuli, testified that during the twelve years of his mission since 1973 Japan never rejected the entry visas of high-ranking ROC officials, a phenomenon that often took place in the 1990s.63 Nevertheless, the Chinese government abhorred close Japan-Taiwan contacts; they generated mistrust between Japan and China and sowed the seeds for future disputes. 60 61

62 63

Ibid., 379–86. The communiqu´e reaffirmed the stand of the Chinese government that “Taiwan is an inalienable part of the territory of the People’s Republic of China,” followed by Japan’s understanding and respect for this stand and its promise to comply with Article 8 of the Potsdam Proclamation, which stipulated that Japan should return all the territories taken from China. The communiqu´e also did not mention the 1952 Japan-ROC peace ¯ treaty. Only in a press conference did Ohira state, “The Japanese government’s stand is that as a result of normalization with China the treaty ceased to be significant and came to an end,” implying that the treaty had been valid prior to that. See Soeya, Japan’s Economic Diplomacy, 111. Lin, Ume to Sakura, 602–5; Ma, Shiri 12 Nian, ch. 5. Ma, Shiri 12 Nian, 162.

194

The Search for Reconciliation

Another sovereignty issue temporarily set aside in the 1970s was the territorial dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands. Ceded to Japan along with Taiwan after the first Sino-Japanese War in 1894–95, these islands were controlled by the United States after World War II. When the 1971 Okinawa reversion agreement transferred to Tokyo the administration of the islands, Beijing protested the transfer and claimed its sovereign right over them. Gaimusho¯ issued an official statement in March 1972 to rebut China’s claim. Yet this issue fell secondary to the more urgent task of diplomatic normalization. As Zhou told Takeiri Yoshikazu at the preparatory talks for normalization in July 1972, “There is no need to mention the Diaoyu Islands. It does not count a problem of any sort compared to recovering normal relations [between the two countries].”64 Later, when negotiating the PFT, Beijing again set aside island disputes to focus on strategic priorities. In 1974, Deng told the Japanese side that China wanted to eliminate as early as possible all barriers to concluding the PFT and suggested that the island issue be shelved because settling it might take several years or more. After the PFT was signed, Deng proposed to Japan that China and Japan might jointly explore the oil resources surrounding the disputed islands without touching on the sovereignty issue, and Japan was expected to contribute in the technological aspect.65 Thus, Beijing shelved a controversial issue that potentially could have paralyzed the newly established Sino-Japanese strategic alignment. But the problem was never resolved, and several times it sparked diplomatic friction in 1979–81.66 Historical Burden Brushed Aside As discussed previously, the gap between Chinese and Japanese war narratives did not close up in this period, because of the continuity of old myths. In the 1970s, China and Japan did not seize the favorable international environment to carry out joint history research and war restitution measures, as West Germany and Poland did during the d´etente years. Instead, 64

65

66

For the text of the Zhou-Takeiri meeting memo of July 27–29, 1972, see Tian, Zhanhou ¯ u, ¯ 410– Zhongri Guanxi Wenxianji, 2: 89–96; Kazankai, Nitchu¯ Kankei Kihon Shiryosh 18. “Vice Premier Deng’s Remarks to Member of the House of Representatives Suzuki Zenko¯ on China’s Borrowing from Japan’s Modernization Experience and Joint Exploration of the Diaoyu Islands without Involving the Sovereignty Issue, May 31, 1979,” in Tian, Zhanhou Zhongri Guanxi Wenxianji, 2: 266–67. Tow, “Sino-Japanese Security Cooperation,” 71.

The “Honeymoon” Period

195

they used diplomatic tactics to cover up mutual disagreement on war historiography, lest it hamper their smooth strategic cooperation. Before becoming prime minister, Tanaka claimed that Japan’s heartfelt apology for its past wrongdoings to China was the foremost precondition for a breakthrough in the Sino-Japanese relationship.67 Besides, one of Japan’s objectives for the normalization diplomacy was to bring closure to the nations’ bilateral historical legacy. When in Beijing to sign the Joint Declaration, Tanaka spoke of the “unfortunate period” in their bilateral history, for which he expressed “deep reflection.” But he never offered a formal apology to China. Back in Japan, Tanaka said at a 1973 Diet session that whether the war with China was aggressive or not had to wait for future evaluation.68 Yet Premier Zhou offered to forgo war reparations claims at the first of the three preparatory talks before normalization with Takeiri. Beijing also accepted Tanaka’s ambiguous apology in exchange for early diplomatic recognition. Conflict on war history did arise during Tanaka’s visit. According to an article that he published in 1984, the Chinese raised the reparations issue on September 25, right before the signing of the Joint Declaration, which took the Japanese side by surprise. When Japanese chief negotiator Takashima Masuro¯ replied that this issue had been settled by the San Francisco Treaty, Zhou reacted by calling Takashima a “legal bandit” (fafei). The Chinese side was so furious that it informed Japan, “If it is such a delegation, we would like it to go home immediately.” Because Beijing never accepted the San Francisco system that contained the JapanROC treaty, it took Takashima’s statement as an outright challenge to the PRC’s international legitimacy. It was Japan’s failure to refute the legitimacy of the Taiwan regime, rather than its refusal to pay reparations, however, that was the real cause of Chinese anger.69 In the end, China agreed to renounce war reparations in the Joint Declaration “for the sake of the friendship between the two nations,” which was an even softer statement than that in the Takeiri Memo, which stated that China was to renounce “the right for war reparation claims” (italics added). Following that memo, the official position of the two governments was that China waived all reparation claims to Japan upon normalization. Later, when Chinese popular demands for Japanese 67 68

69

Hayasaka, Seijika Tanaka Kakuei, 400–401. ¯ Quoted in Wakamiya, Postwar Conservative View, 179; Yoshida, Nihonjin no Sensokan, 138–40. Furukawa, Nitchu¯ Sengo Kankei Shi, 388; Ishii, “Chugoku ni Otta Mugen no Baisho,” ¯ ¯ 170–71.

196

The Search for Reconciliation

war reparations surged, the formal diplomatic documents signed at this point would become insurmountable political and legal hurdles to either country’s responding to these demands. An opportunity for historical settlement did come in the late 1970s ¯ when the Ohira government decided to extend low-interest yen loans to China. Although Japanese economic aid was to some extent seen as compensation for its war debts to China, other political and economic interests ¯ were actually more important in influencing Ohira’s decision, as I discuss later. Moreover, no official statement was ever made to explicitly link the aid programs to war reparations. Consequently, the Chinese public never considered that Japan had tried to compensate Chinese victims. Economic Cooperation Economic Interaction Promoted by Strategic and Economic Interests Once the normalization talks were underway, past political restrictions on bilateral commercial ties crumbled rapidly. In July 1972, MITI lifted the official ban on export credits in the China trade, signaling the end of the Seikei Bunri policy.70 After normalization, the two countries began to develop long-term, officially sanctioned trade ties of a sort they had not had since the end of the war, including the first intergovernmental trade agreement signed in January 1974 and the Long-Term Trade Agreement signed in February 1978. The prospect was so bright that a “China fever” swept Japanese business circles. The period of 1972–81 saw a ninefold increase in the absolute value of Sino-Japanese trade. China’s plant imports from Japan in 1973–82 totaled 6.7 billion dollars, far exceeding any other major industrial countries.71 Japanese Official Development Aid to China was also launched dur¯ ing this period. In December 1979, Ohira visited China and extended the first yen loan package, mainly to assist the Chinese energy industry and infrastructure improvement. Japanese economic assistance to China could not be viewed as simply a moral gesture to atone for past aggression, as it had more important strategic and economic motivations. After the oil crisis in the early 1970s, Japan sought to reduce oil dependence on the Middle East and major oil consortiums. Assisting the Chinese energy industry and purchasing Chinese natural energy resources was an important step in Japan’s “resource diplomacy” to diversify oil imports. 70 71

Furukawa, Nitchu¯ Sengo Kankei Shi, 375. Soeya, Japan’s Economic Diplomacy, 157.

The “Honeymoon” Period

197

Not only buying Chinese crude oil produced onshore, Japan later became directly involved in offshore oil exploration projects in China, providing substantial technical and financial support.72 Additionally, assisting the Chinese modernization program would make China a more attractive trading partner for Japan and eventually foster their common economic interests. Politically, China’s economic power would benefit the overall ¯ strength of the Western camp vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. As Ohira indi` cated to high-ranking Gaimusho¯ officials before leaving for Beijing, aid to China served Japan’s own interests: “[China’s] pragmatic line of advancing modernization fits the convenience of Western powers and Japan. In order to encourage China to continue this pragmatic line, our country will continue to provide yen loans to China.”73 At the time, China was also eager to obtain advanced Western technology to accelerate industrial modernization, to pay for which it needed a large amount of hard currency that could be earned by selling natural resources, at least in the short term. Limits of Economic Interdependence Despite the remarkable expansion of Sino-Japanese commercial ties in the 1970s, significant limitations existed. First, bilateral economic dependence was highly uneven. Trade with Japan increased to more than 20 percent of China’s world trade by 1980, but China’s share in Japan’s total trade never exceeded 5 percent throughout this period (see Figure 4.1). Besides, Japanese foreign direct investment in China was negligible during this period. Strategic interdependence between the two economies remained low, such that a rupture of their trade relationship would not cause major damage to their economies. Historically, Japan has heavily relied on overseas supply for four categories of commodities, including foodstuffs, crude and raw oils, coal, and iron ores.74 China was a significant supplier of these commodities to Japan before the war ended. After SinoJapanese normalization, China once again became a potential source of natural resources for Japan. But the breakdown of Japan’s import goods 72

73 74

For a detailed treatment of Japanese involvement in China’s oil development and the oil trade between them in the 1970s, see Lee, China and Japan, ch. 3. Tanaka, Nitchu¯ Kankei, 111–12. Data from 1976 show that Japanese dependence on such imported goods as crude oil, iron ore, wheat, and cotton was as high as more than 96 percent. See Baba, “1985 Nen goro ni okeru Waga Kuni Shuyo¯ Shigen no Saitei Shoyo¯ Yunyury ¯ o¯ ni tsuite,” 82. The situation has remained largely unchanged up to the present day.

The Search for Reconciliation

198

percent 30 25 20 15 10 5

19

72 19 76 19 80 19 85 19 90 19 95 20 00 20 02 20 04

0

China’s share of Japan trade

Japan’s share of China trade

figure 4.1. Share of Sino-Japanese Trade in Each Other’s Total Trade, 1972– 2004. Source: Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Statistical Office, United Nations, International Trade Statistics Yearbook.

by country shows that its reliance on imports from China for foodstuffs, oil, and coal was always lower than 5 percent during the 1970s, and China never again supplied iron ore to Japan (see Table 4.1). As for China, the bulk of its imports from Japan were comprised of machinery and other industrial products but excluded any strategically important goods and technology. China was quite interested in getting Japanese military technology to upgrade its defense capabilities. In 1975, a Chinese machinery inspection team handed to the major companies of the Japanese defense industry a list of modern weapons that China wished to purchase, including antitank weaponry, air-to-air and table 4.1. China’s Share in Japan’s Total Imports of Natural Resources, 1972–2000 (percent)

1972 1975 1979 1985 1990 1995 2000

Foodstuffs

Crude and Partly Refined Oil

Coal

Iron Ore

3.4 2.3 3.0 6.0 6.3 9.2 12.7

0 3.8 3.0 6.4 7.2 5.1 0

0 0.5 1.9 3.5 4.2 6.9 10.9

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Source: Japan Ministry of International Trade and Industry, ¯ o¯ Hakusho. Tsush

The “Honeymoon” Period

199

air-to-surface missiles, tanks, fighter jets, antisubmarine patrol planes, ground-based radars, and communication equipment. China also showed great interest in cooperating with Japan in space and nuclear technology. But these requests received a cold shoulder in Japan because transferring weapons or militarily sensitive technology would have violated Japan’s official ban on weapon exports and contradicted the Coordinating Committee (CoCom) restrictions that remained effective at the time.75 So even though China received more plant and technology contracts from Japan than any other foreign country in the 1970s, bilateral trade in strategic areas was virtually absent. Various factors account for the limitations in bilateral economic relations during this period. The CoCom restrictions on Japan’s trade with socialist countries were an obvious reason, and Japan’s fear of entanglement in Sino-Soviet conflict also hampered the strategic dimension of economic cooperation with China. Additionally, Japan was concerned about excessive dependence on one specific source of strategic goods. Collaboration with China’s energy industry was just one of its many efforts to diversify energy sources so that Japan would not be put at the mercy of only a few suppliers.76 Still another important restraining factor was people’s emotional bias tracing back to the unresolved historical legacy that spoiled the atmosphere for bilateral economic interaction. The first problem was Chinese aversion to the center-periphery relationship that had dominated SinoJapanese trade from the colonial era. To the Chinese, foreign commodity dumping, resource drain, and foreign investment were not merely the oppressive characteristics of imperialism but also symbols of China’s history of foreign humiliation. In the 1950s and 1960s, China tolerated and even encouraged such a trading style to nurture nonofficial channels of communication with Japan when formal diplomatic links were impossible. But, the Chinese attitude changed once normalization was obtained. After 1971, major Japanese corporations all desired to enter China, with special interest in the Chinese market and natural resources. Although welcoming them to China, the representative of the China Committee

75

76

Ito, Gunji Teikei no Jittai da,” 168–69; Tow, “Sino-Japanese ¯ “Kore ga Beichunichi ¯ Security Cooperation,” 69–70. Other Japanese energy development plans under consideration at the time included projects to develop North Sea oil with Britain, explore natural resources in Africa with France, and cooperate with the Soviet Union in developing Siberian oil resources. See Curtis, “Tyumen Oil Development Project,” 148–54.

200

The Search for Reconciliation

for the Promotion of International Trade, Liu Xiwen, informed the Mitsubishi delegation in late 1972 that China would not become a market for a large quantity of consumer goods or a country of natural resource supply, nor would China allow the entry of foreign capital.77 Chinese oil export to Japan in exchange for technology, plants, and machinery was actually a short-term, expedient policy pursued out of necessity rather than choice. Fearing a recurrence of Western exploitation, China did not legalize foreign investment until a new constitution was promulgated in 1982. Such a policy was justified by both Leninist ideology and nationalist sentiments. Complaints about the dumping of Japanese goods were muted in the 1970s because trade volume was still small, not because China did not care about it. When bilateral trade rapidly expanded in the 1980s, Chinese resentment about the trade deficit soared, as I discuss in the next chapter. Signs of a Chinese sense of historical entitlement that would seriously strain bilateral economic relations in the later period also appeared in the honeymoon years. Chinese officials in charge of economic diplomacy were inclined to believe that Japan should make concessions in negotiating cooperation terms because of the two countries’ war history. Chae-jin Lee observed in his seminal study of the Baoshan Steel project, a symbol of Sino-Japanese economic cooperation from the late 1970s, that anti-Japanese bias was prevalent among China’s top economists and high-ranking economic bureaucrats. Whereas the Chinese side was sensitive to any signs of Japanese arrogance and dishonesty, the Japanese side tended to hold the newly opened China to a high standard and was overly critical of China’s inconsistent economic policy and inefficient performance.78 When China unilaterally decided to postpone Baoshan Steel’s second-phase construction and canceled all relevant contracts in late 1980, Japan angrily criticized what it saw as China’s lack of respect for international business customs, and Chinese officials reacted with equally bitter repulsion. Later, the Japanese government gave in, putting together a loan package to keep the project going. Although the primary cause of the Baoshan incident lay in China’s fiscal policy readjustment, which required dramatic shrinking of foreign plant purchases, the emotionally charged mutual criticism in the course of the event left both sides psychologically bruised, an ominous prelude to more politicized economic friction later. 77 78

Maeda, “Bei-So-Chu¯ to Nihon no Keizai Kankei,” 103. Lee, China and Japan, 57, 74–75.

The “Honeymoon” Period

201

19 78 19 8 19 1 84 19 87 19 90 19 93 19 96 19 99 20 02 20 0 20 5 07

percent 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Feel Close to China

Feel Not Close to China

figure 4.2. Japanese Public Feelings of Closeness toward China, 1978–2007. Source: Annual Polls by the Public Relations Office, Cabinet Secretariat of ¯ Nenkan. Japanese Prime Minister, Seron Chosa

Popular Relations From 1972, popular relations between the two countries warmed up considerably, largely from the favorable strategic environment. The annual opinion polls conducted by the Office of the Prime Minister show that previous Japanese antipathy to Communist China was replaced by feelings of closeness and affection (see Figure 4.2). This change was accompanied by a significant drop in popular concerns about the Chinese threat. In a 1969 survey, China was rated as the second largest security threat to Japan (15.6 percent) after the USSR (20.4 percent).79 But a survey in April 1972 showed that the percentage of Japanese people who saw China as the most threatening country (9 percent) fell far behind those who felt the same way about the USSR (34.3 percent) and even the United States (16.6 percent).80 This indicates that the Japanese public clearly viewed China as standing on the same side as Japan and sharing a common interest in checking the Soviet threat. Chinese public polls from the 1970s are lacking, but because the official media was devoted to praising Sino-Japanese 79

80

Yomiuri Shimbun survey on public perceptions of the U.S.-Japan alliance, June 1969, ¯ in Public Relations Office, Cabinet Secretariat of Japanese Prime Minister, Seron Chosa Nenkan, 1970, 492. National survey on Japanese attitudes toward the United States and China and approval rates of cabinet and political parties by the Japan Association for Public Opinion, April 1972, in ibid, 1973, 395.

202

The Search for Reconciliation

friendship in this period, it seems to be the case that Chinese feeling about Japan turned quite friendly.81 A steady increase in bilateral cultural and social exchanges also testified to the impact of positive structural conditions. In the past, the Japanese government restricted societal contacts with China because of security concerns and objections from the United States and Taiwan. As soon as normalization was realized, however, previous travel restrictions were scrapped, and bilateral personnel exchanges increased rapidly. An important symbol of free societal contacts was the agreement on civil aviation reached in 1974. In the negotiation, China accepted the future continuation of commercial flights between Japan and Taiwan, whereas Japan promised to treat these flights as nonofficial exchanges and disapprove any national signs on them.82 So the regular exchange of commercial flights between Tokyo and Beijing began in September 1974. Two types of grassroots exchange activities were also notable in this period. One was the widespread youth exchange program. In the form of “youth ships” or “youth wings,” numerous locally initiated Japanese youth groups visited China, and Chinese youth groups also paid return visits. The other type was the program of friendship cities. By May 1980, friendly exchange relations had been established between fifteen pairs of sister cities.83 Other highlights of societal ties included the 1980 itinerant exhibition in China of the statue of Master Jianzhen, or Kanjin in Japanese, originally placed in Nara,84 and the Chinese government’s presentation of two giant pandas as a gift to the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo right after normalization. The two pandas particularly caused a sensation in Japan, inspiring such cultural hits as Miyazaki Hayato’s famous animation movie Panda, Go Panda. The Japanese enthusiasm about pandas and their affection toward China associated with this gift were dubbed the “Panda Fever.” 81

82

83

84

Author interview with a leading Chinese scholar on postwar Sino-Japanese relations, May 17, 2006. See the excerpt of the speech of Japanese ambassador to China Ogawa Heishiro¯ after the signing of the civil aviation agreement on April 19, 1974, in Furukawa, Nitchu¯ Sengo Kankei Shi, 401. ¯ o¯ Undo National Headquarters of the Japan-China Friendship Association, Nitchu¯ Yuk Shi, 186, 222–26. Jianzhen, an eminent Buddhist monk in the Tang Dynasty, succeeded in crossing the sea to Japan after six failed attempts and became a highly revered Buddhist leader in Japan. During his visit to Japan in 1978, Deng Xiaoping arranged for Jianzhen’s statue to be exhibited in China two years later. See Xu, Zhongri Guangxi Sanshi Nian, 190–94.

The “Honeymoon” Period

203

table 4.2. Japan’s Societal Contacts with China, Taiwan, and South Korea, 1972–1980 China

Taiwan

South Korea

Year

Chinese Visitors to Japan

Japanese Visitors to China

Taiwanese Visitors to Japan

Japanese Visitors to Taiwan

South Korean Visitors to Japan

Japanese Visitors to South Korea

1972 1975 1977 1979 1980

994 4,441 2,266 9,406 15,328

8,052 16,655 23,445 54,074 71,473

47,536 77,091 74,525 148,249 217,087

204,939 358,621 482,832 618,538 584,641

85,757 129,186 46,803 61,858 67,919

180,220 319,984 447,519 526,327 428,008

¯ Source: Immigration Bureau of the Ministry of Justice, Japan Ministry of Justice, Shutsunyukoku ¯ ¯ Kanri Tokei Nenpo.

When assessing the exact degree of amicableness between the two nations during the honeymoon period, however, one cannot help holding an impression of uncertainty. The shortage of Chinese opinion data and absence of free public discourse make it difficult to determine whether ordinary Chinese people indeed let go of personal negative emotions toward Japan in this honeymoon period. Evidence is insufficient to disprove the alternative view that the Chinese public merely kept such emotions to themselves in the face of the sweeping government propaganda in favor of bilateral cooperation.85 One thing is certain: Despite many highprofile gestures of goodwill and the feverish air of friendship, genuine mutual understanding was still lacking. One reason is that direct, free access to information about the other society did not exist. Japanese visitors to China did introduce their experiences in China by publishing trip reports, but they did so without realizing that their Chinese hosts often carefully selected the sites of their visits so that they could see only what Beijing wanted them to see. The overall level of societal contacts remained low, moreover, and lagged far behind what Japan had with Taiwan and South Korea (see Table 4.2). Ordinary Chinese people had even fewer opportunities than the Japanese people for direct contacts with foreign countries. So their warm 85

Ming Wan documents that Zhou Enlai revised in person an “Internal Propaganda Outline for Receiving Japanese Prime Minister Tanaka to China” drafted by the Chinese Foreign Ministry in August 1972, and had it circulated to the party organizations above the county level and verbally explained to every family in about twenty cities before or shortly after Tanaka’s visit. Wan, Sino-Japanese Relations, 100.

204

The Search for Reconciliation

feelings about Japan, if any, were likely built upon imagination and the manipulation of government propaganda rather than personal judgment. A more serious shortcoming in bilateral societal contacts was the lack of any historians’ dialogue regarding war history. Narrowly focusing on the practical interest of strategic alignment, the two governments covered up bilateral historiographic divergence with national mythmaking at home and superficial, hasty settlement of historical burden on the diplomatic stage. All the bilateral cultural events and exchange programs made merely a pretense of reconciliation and friendship without ever touching on historical settlement.

conclusions and implications The profound strategic environment change in East Asia in the 1970s for the first time since WWII produced a common security interest between China and Japan and propelled bilateral diplomatic normalization and economic and social interactions. Bilateral official cooperation was still limited in many ways, however, and the seemingly warm popular relations between the two nations were rather fragile and superficial because they were not a natural result of genuine mutual understanding. Japan’s fear of war entanglement and the continuing domestic struggle between the pro-China and pro-Taiwan factions obviously obstructed closer SinoJapanese political cooperation. Additionally, the two governments simply brushed aside their historiographic disagreements to clear the way for meeting their more immediate strategic needs. Because of the lack of substantive efforts toward historical settlement, normalization failed to heal the physical and psychological wounds left behind by the war. Thus, historically derived negative emotions and a sense of suspicion between the two countries remained deeply rooted and set the limit for their reconciliation progress. A combination of positive structural conditions with still quasi-convergent historical narratives brought about a shallow reconciliation–rapprochement type of relationship that was generally warm and cooperative but fell short of true deep reconciliation. Sino-Japanese relations in the 1970s indicate that if driven by the strategic imperative to counter a common threat, former enemy states can quickly turn around and form a collaborative relationship, even without eliminating their pernicious national myths. Without government commitment to a serious process of historical settlement, however, structural imperatives alone are not powerful enough to create the genuine mutual trust and feelings of amity central to interstate reconciliation.

The “Honeymoon” Period

205

This is not to argue that historical settlement can be easily accomplished once there is such a commitment, but rather that favorable structural conditions do make it easier for governments to take the initiative to bring about historical settlement of the sort that is unrealistic in situations of strategic confrontation. West Germany and Poland took up the opportunity offered by East-West d´etente to begin to address their history, an effort that continued for several decades afterward. But the opportunity was lost in the Asian case because the Chinese and Japanese governments, for the sake of fulfilling their immediate strategic interests, chose to set aside history rather than to face it. This decision was path dependent: Developments from the 1980s onward show that not only did the historical wounds of the two nations remain open but also the earlier, hasty government policies to conclude the history issue laid down difficult political and legal obstacles to its subsequent settlement.

5 An Old Feud Comes Back Sino-Japanese Relations in the 1980s

Over the course of the 1980s, Sino-Japanese relations degraded.1 The overall cordial atmosphere in the 1970s was replaced by frequent intergovernmental disputes and simmering mutual antipathy at the popular level – both typical features of the shallow reconciliation–friction stage of interstate reconciliation. International structural conditions fail to explain this relationship downturn, as China and Japan still shared a common strategic interest to balance the Soviet threat. Instead, it was mainly the changing pattern of national mythmaking in China and Japan that accounted for the setback in bilateral reconciliation. From the early 1980s, the national memory of both countries entered a stage of renegotiation and reconstruction wherein the mainstream national myths were challenged and reshaped by both top-down moves of the ruling elites to adapt to their new political needs and bottom-up trends from social groups and the public. In Japan, conservative elites perpetuated self-glorifying and self-whitewashing myths, in part to shake off the war stigma and justify a more muscular international strategy, but the mainstream conservative historiography encountered stronger domestic and international objections. In China, domestic political needs to enhance regime legitimacy and facilitate social mobilization drove the government to promote victim consciousness and other-maligning myths regarding war history. These changes shattered the previous memory

1

Ming Wan describes the post-normalization Sino-Japanese relationship as “dispute-prone, cyclical, and downward trending politically,” with the 1970s being the “period of ups,” the 1980s having “more downs than ups,” and the period since the mid-1990s seeing only brief ups but strong and persistent disputes. Wan, Sino-Japanese Relations, 2, 18.

206

An Old Feud Comes Back

207

quasi-convergence between China and Japan and caused their history disputes to heat up. A close examination of the various aspects of the bilateral relationship during this period suggests that the emotional and psychological effects of these history disputes exacerbated mutual perceptions of threat, poisoned popular relations, and stimulated public opposition to diplomatic compromises during a period of bilateral sovereignty and economic friction. First, perceptions of hostile intention derived from historical memory heightened the Chinese elites’ distrust of Japan despite the two nations’ common goal of balancing the Soviet threat. Second, the emotions of historical grievances and resentment were an important source of China’s largely negative climate of opinion regarding Japan and the deteriorating Japanese popular perception of China during this period. Third, because of their divergent historical memories, the Chinese demanded Japanese concessions because of their sense of historical entitlement toward Japan, whereas the Japanese side disagreed that history mandated Japanese compromise. Such conflicting perspectives not only hardened the elites’ position but also motivated hawkish public opinion that strongly constrained government policy options in both countries. As a result, bilateral disputes frequently escalated and remained difficult to resolve.

the international system: continuity in triangular relations and the sino-japanese strategic posture Although the Sino-American strategic alignment against the common Soviet threat remained largely unchanged from the late 1970s, Beijing began to resent Washington’s continued military commitment to Taiwan, displayed through arms sales to Taiwan and the Taiwan Relations Act, enacted in April 1979. Beijing’s reassessment of the strategic environment at the time pointed out that the American-Soviet strategic balance had tilted toward the United States, and Reagan’s increasingly confrontational policy had the potential to entangle China in superpower conflicts.2 To distance itself from Washington, Beijing formally endorsed the so-called independent foreign policy at the Twelfth Party Congress in September 1982. Shortly afterward, Beijing resumed normalization talks with Moscow, and a “slow but steady process” of Sino-Soviet rapprochement began.3 2 3

Harding, Fragile Relationship, 121–23; Shambaugh, “Patterns of Interaction,” 204. Su, “Sino-Soviet Relations.”

208

The Search for Reconciliation

The independent foreign policy was less an immediate change of international strategy than a rhetoric to express Beijing’s displeasure with Washington’s Taiwan policy as well as to appease CCP hard-liners who opposed Westernized reform domestically. Beijing might have envisioned adopting a neutral stance between the two superpowers eventually, but it could not be truly independent of American strategic support in the 1980s because the USSR remained the principal threat to China. Beijing particularly demanded the removal by the USSR of “three obstacles” before it would consider Sino-Soviet rapprochement: the massive Soviet military deployment in Mongolia and along the Sino-Soviet border, Soviet support for Vietnam’s occupation of Cambodia, and Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan. Even after Gorbachev made the Vladivostok speech in July 1986 signaling the Soviet desire to establish cooperative ties with China, Deng expressed only a “cautious welcome.”4 The Soviet threat did not begin to recede until 1988, when Gorbachev agreed to withdraw from Afghanistan, encouraged Vietnam to leave Cambodia, and reduced the Soviet military presence in the Far East and Central Asia. Therefore, strategic cooperation with the United States remained indispensable to Chinese national security until the late 1980s. Sino-American relations actually warmed up beginning in 1983, after the two nations temporarily addressed American arms sales to Taiwan and a few other controversial issues. Bilateral high-level official consultations were held regularly, and the two militaries established working-level exchanges. The Reagan administration also loosened high-tech export control to China and allowed it to buy sophisticated American weapons with federal financing. Such cooperation developed so remarkably during the second half of the 1980s that these were considered the “Golden Years” of the Sino-American relationship.5 Given the continuity in China-U.S.-USSR triangular relations, realist theory would predict that the common Soviet threat should have produced strategic solidarity between Japan and China, both American allies in Asia, formally or informally. Such positive structural conditions ought to have brought about Sino-Japanese deep reconciliation, for a number of reasons. First, not only would the two nations perceive there to be little danger of bilateral war, but China should also have continued to 4

5

“Replies to the American Correspondent Mike Wallace, September 2, 1986,” in Deng, Deng Xiaoping Wenxuan, 1982–1992, 167–75. Harding, Fragile Relationship, 165–69; Mann, About Face, 136.

An Old Feud Comes Back

209

support Japanese military buildup to strengthen the anti-Soviet strategic alignment. Second, the favorable structural environment should have facilitated a permanent settlement of sovereignty disputes and ensured smooth economic interaction. Third, mutual popular feelings should have remained warm and close because of the countries’ shared security interests, and the nations’ citizens should not have held war history against their former enemies, given their current bilateral ties.

historical memories: mixture of conflictual and combative narratives Elite Mythmaking and Japanese Memory Contestation By the beginning of the 1980s, Japan had become an economic giant. It now sought to promote international political influence commensurate with its economic power. In the view of the conservative elites, however, Japan’s younger generation lacked a strong sense of national purpose to support this new diplomatic agenda, because of the aftereffects of the nation’s humiliating defeat in World War II and seven years of foreign occupation afterward.6 Prime Minister Nakasone particularly blamed the Tokyo War Crimes Trial for “spread[ing] throughout Japan a selftorturing belief that our country was to blame for everything.”7 To lift the Japanese people out of the shadow of the past and reorient national purpose toward a new internationalism, Nakasone proposed to ¯ “settle all accounts on postwar political issues” (sengo seiji no sokessan). Aside from a series of reforms of the administrative, taxation, and education systems, as well as efforts to strengthen Japan’s military commit¯ ment to the U.S.-Japan alliance, a big part of the sengo seiji no sokessan was to restore national confidence and pride through a reinterpretation of history.8 Nakasone’s official worship at the Yasukuni Shrine on August 15, 1985, exemplified this strategy. His predecessors never visited there in an official capacity on the anniversary day of the end of the war. Shortly before the worship service, Nakasone remarked, “It is the people who inevitably either bask in glory or are exposed to disgrace, because they are the people. Casting disgrace aside, advancing forward in the

6 7 8

Pyle, Japanese Question, 94–95. Quoted in Wakamiya, Postwar Conservative View, 171. For a lengthy discussion of Nakasone-era domestic and external policies under the agenda ¯ ¯ of sengo seiji sokessan, see Gotoda, Naikaku Kanbo¯ Chokan, ch. 6. ¯

210

The Search for Reconciliation

pursuit of glory – this is the essence of the nation and of the people.”9 For him, official worship at the shrine was a symbolic gesture to encourage the Japanese people to part with the legacy of a disgraceful war and embrace a positive national identity. ¯ To be sure, Nakasone’s proposal for sengo seiji no sokessan was not simply about self-glorification. As a realistic politician, he believed Japan’s quest for great power status would succeed only when it had mitigated the mistrust of Japan’s victim countries. He indeed spoke out at Diet sessions in 1986 to argue that the Sino-Japanese War was “a war of aggression” – the first use of this direct phrase to describe the war by a Japanese prime minister.10 Nevertheless, Nakasone shunned further actions of historical settlement. Unlike German Social Democratic Party politicians who made long-lasting efforts to express remorse and pursue the issue of war guilt, Japanese conservative leaders were quick to claim to be done with apology. The history policy of the Japanese governments in the 1980s was no different from that of their predecessors in terms of discouraging truth-telling about Japanese war atrocities and minimizing the payment of war reparations to foreign victims. Moreover, some conservative politicians openly glossed over the nation’s past in repeated “slips of the tongue” (shitsugen), such as the remarks of the Mombusho¯ Minister Fujio Masayuki in 1986 justifying Japan’s colonization of Korea and of the director general of the National Land Agency, Okuno Seisuke, in 1988 whitewashing the invasion of China. Even Prime Minister Takeshita Noboru said in February 1989, shortly after Emperor Hirohito died, that it was “up to historians” to determine whether Japan had been the aggressor in WWII.11 Although self-glorifying and self-whitewashing myths remained the mainstream in Japanese war memory, they were exposed to greater domestic and international scrutiny during this period. First, the citizen campaigns that started in the 1970s to tell ordinary people’s war stories now began to record not just Japanese suffering but also the war responsibility of the Japanese people. From the mid-1970s to the mid1980s, Sokagakkai, a Buddhist organization, sponsored the publication ¯ of two series of the war experience records of its members, including many

9 10 11

Quoted in Wakamiya, Postwar Conservative View, 171. ¯ Yoshida, Nihonjin no Sensokan, 169–70. Two weeks later, Takeshita reversed himself, saying Japan had been guilty of “aggression by militarism.” See “Takeshita Now Admits World War II Aggression,” New York Times, March 7, 1989.

An Old Feud Comes Back

211

personal reminiscences of Japanese war crimes in China.12 A more influential narrative was “The War,” a series of readers’ letters published in Asahi Shimbun in 1986 and 1987. Many letters testified to Japanese war atrocities.13 Also appearing were truth-telling campaigns featuring testimonies of war experiences by not only the Japanese people but also their Asian victims. A noted example was the campaign of the Osaka-based Association of Remembering and Sympathizing with the War Victims in the Asian Pacific Region, which held public hearings on Japanese war atrocities throughout East Asia and published thirteen volumes of hearing records during 1987–2000.14 Second, the Japanese progressive and conservative forces fought intensely over the content of history textbooks. In the so-called Biased Textbooks Campaign (Henko¯ Kyokasho Kyanpein) that started around ¯ 1980, Japanese conservative elites attacked the moderate increase in textbook coverage of the Asian peoples’ war suffering that had been brought about by the leftist influence since the 1970s, and they sought to tighten control over the textbook authorization process. In January 1982, the LDP issued a statement that school education should “cultivate the Japanese spirit and foster national pride.” Education Minister Tanaka Tatsuo even explicitly told textbook writers and publishers who were preparing textbooks for the 1983–86 triennium to “soften their approach to Japan’s excesses during World War II” and place more stress on patriotism.15 This was the prelude to the 1982 textbook incident. Wary of government attempts to distort history, Japanese liberal intellectuals closely monitored the textbook screening process in 1982. At the end of June, the Japanese media reported that Mombusho¯ had issued instructions for historical whitewashing in textbooks, such as replacing the term shinryaku (invasion) by shinshutsu (advance) in references to the Sino-Japanese war. Although subsequent investigations discovered that the word change did not really take place that year and that some original drafts before the textbook screening already contained shinryaku, the news started a political storm in Japan. Subsequently, Beijing and Seoul also intervened, and the incident escalated into a major international controversy.

12 13 14

15

¯ Takahashi, “Senki Mono” o Yomu, 125–26; Yoshida, Nihonjin no Sensokan, 157. ¯ Asahi Shimbun Teema Danwashitsu, Senso. Association of Remembering and Sympathizing with the War Victims in the Asian Pacific Region, Ajia no Koe. Rose, Interpreting History, 68–71.

212

The Search for Reconciliation

The Textbook Controversy, China’s Official Nationalism, and the Changing Chinese War Narrative After the death of Mao and the end of the Cultural Revolution, the CCP’s policy focus shifted from class struggle to economic modernization. The immediate political goals of the new leader, Deng Xiaoping, were to restore the people’s trust in the party after the disastrous Cultural Revolution and to weed out Mao’s legacy and consolidate Deng’s own power base within the party, both crucial to implementing his overall strategy of economic reform and his open-door policy. But these goals met with challenges from elements within both Chinese society and the CCP. From late 1978, a Democracy Wall campaign appeared in Beijing, in which, through street posters and sometimes underground journals, the public shared its experiences of suffering during the Cultural Revolution and criticized the Communist leaders. The campaign soon escalated to bold demands for democracy and political freedom. The movement had the potential to gain enormous public resonance, given the widespread social discontent exemplified in the complaints about unemployment on the part of “sent down” youths, the petitions by hundreds of thousands for redress of their grievances, and the increasing urban violence triggered by the petitions.16 Deng initially tolerated the democracy movement, but when it began to question the legitimacy of the reformers like Deng himself, he took a hard line toward the “Rightist agitation.”17 But the crackdown on democratic activists did not mollify public resentment about many socioeconomic problems that had emerged since the reform, including inflation, official corruption, increasing crime, and industrial pollution. The dismal situation was captured in the remarks of CCP General Secretary Hu Yaobang, who admitted in February 1980 that the party confronted a threefold crisis of faith, belief, and trust in its relations with the Chinese people. Indeed, when the Polish Solidarity movement erupted that year, Beijing was so worried about similar labor unrest in China that Deng called for effective measures to forestall possible mass protests and “ensure stability and unity.”18 Coinciding with the growing social instability and declining public faith in the CCP, the intraparty split between the reformists like Deng 16

17 18

More than one hundred thousand out-of-towners came to Beijing and Shanghai to petition for their cases in 1979 alone, and many demonstrations were staged in Beijing and other cities. Baum, Burying Mao, 76–78. Ibid., 79–84. Ibid., 91, 112.

An Old Feud Comes Back

213

and conservatives deepened in the early 1980s. The former sought further economic reform and openness to the West. Deng himself was keen to reform the military to shed those senior commanders with “ossifying thinking.” He also desired to uproot the leftist residual from the Mao era represented by Hua Guofeng, Mao’s anointed successor, and to consolidate his own authority. But a cohort of veteran cadres, senior military leaders, and conservative ideologues loathed the reform policies. Economic conservatives like Chen Yun advocated caution in introducing a free market, private sectors, and foreign direct investment.19 Politically, the party’s old guard blamed the reformists’ laxity in ideological indoctrination for permitting the infiltration of dangerous Western liberal ideas. The aforementioned democracy movement, social disorder, and worsening economic situation all gave the conservatives ammunition for attacking the reform program. In February 1982, a conservative ideologue, Wang Renzhong, even proposed to declare war on bourgeois influences spread by the open-door policy.20 To build a broad reform coalition, Deng had to gingerly walk a fine line between the two rival factions.21 He needed support from the conservatives, including Chen Yun for the economic program, General Ye Jianying for removing Hua and retiring old military commanders, and the old guard’s tolerance of the open-door policy. Therefore, although adhering to economic reform, Deng conceded considerable ground to the conservatives on political and ideological fronts, such as propagating a moderate evaluation of the Cultural Revolution and Mao’s legacy and sanctioning several ideological campaigns to combat bourgeois liberalism from the early to mid-1980s.22 Deng’s strategic ambiguity was manifest at the Twelfth Party Congress in September 1982, when he called for the further opening up of China but warned of “corrosion by decadent ideas from abroad” and placed equal emphasis on economic construction and political and ideological education.23

19

20 21 22

23

On the intraparty split regarding economic reform strategies in the 1980s, see Harding, China’s Second Revolution, 77–90. Baum, Burying Mao, 142. Harding, China’s Second Revolution, 90–93. From spring 1981, the PLA and party elders waged several political campaigns against outspoken liberal intellectuals, including the 1981–82 attacks on “bourgeois liberalization,” the 1983–84 campaign against capitalist “spiritual pollution,” and the 1986–87 renewed campaign against “bourgeois liberalization.” Baum, Burying Mao, 143–49.

214

The Search for Reconciliation

Such was China’s domestic political background when the Japanese textbook controversy erupted. International media quickly took up the news, and in late July and early August the Chinese and South Korean governments formally protested to Tokyo regarding its alleged attempt to distort history in textbook authorization. Beijing’s reaction was not impulsive; the Chinese media waited nearly a month after the initial outbreak of the controversy to start bashing Japan. As noted previously, in 1982 Deng was under great pressure as a result of the mounting social crisis and domestic political disunity. Moreover, this occurred shortly before the Twelfth Party Congress, when Deng would make a compromise with the conservatives in exchange for their endorsement of reform and the open-door policy. To show “softness” in relation to Japan, which China placed in the category of Western countries, in the textbook controversy would lay him open to even more vigorous attacks from the conservatives and endanger his reform agenda. Despite the dearth of information on Beijing’s policy deliberation in July, one can logically infer from the domestic situation and the reaction in the Chinese media that Deng very likely saw the textbook incident as a good opportunity to shore up his own and the party’s prestige and also prepare for the upcoming Party Congress. A tough stance on Japan could show his determination to fend off inimical foreign influence as well as to check the pro-West wing of the reformist faction represented by Hu Yaobang, who was also sympathetic to the liberal intellectuals’ quest for political freedom.24 This stance could appease party hard-liners who were alarmed by the thriving democratic movement that had resulted from economic reform. Beijing’s diplomacy toward Japan over the history issue can therefore be seen as a product of the power struggle between different party factions because Deng did not enjoy Mao’s dictatorial charisma and relied more on the support of veteran political and military leaders. Besides, by adopting a harsh position on the Japanese history issue, Beijing conveyed to the public that it would not compromise with Western countries to hurt national interests. After the textbook incident, the intraparty factional politics in China continued, and the reform policy drew complaints from a large part of the population that was adversely affected.25 With the inexorable decline 24

25

On Hu’s connections with the liberal intellectual movement from the late 1970s to the 1980s, see Goldman, Seeds of Democracy, ch. 2. Among those most dissatisfied with the economic reform were urban workers, who felt that reforms had generated highly unequal opportunities for them. See Walder, “Urban Industrial Workers.”

An Old Feud Comes Back

215

of Communism, the government resorted to a new ideological framework, nationalism, to enhance internal consolidation and strengthen the regime’s legitimacy. From the mid-1980s, Beijing began to foster a mixture of what Michel Oksenberg calls “confident nationalism” and “assertive nationalism.”26 It was moderate in the economic sphere, acknowledging the importance of Western technology and investment, but rigid and muscular in the ideological and cultural spheres, often using the “othering” of the Western out-group to glorify the Chinese in-group. The dual nature of official nationalism aimed at raising the national spirit while retaining the economic benefits of the open-door policy. A country that had invaded and humiliated China in the past and whose perceived historical amnesia was notorious, Japan became an easy target of China’s assertive nationalism. Beijing strongly protested Prime Minister Nakasone’s official worship at the Yasukuni Shrine in 1985 and in a second textbook controversy in 1986 pressured the Nakasone government to revise a nationalistic history textbook and fire Mombusho¯ Minister Fujio, who had opposed the revision. While emphasizing the historical conflict between the Chinese nation and foreigners, Beijing’s history propaganda redefined the image of the KMT. Because the official nationalism extolled a national cause of overcoming foreign humiliation and restoring national glory, unification with Taiwan, a province ceded to Japan by an unequal treaty in 1895, became a significant issue of national pride. In 1981, Marshal Ye Jianying published “Nine Principles for Peaceful Reunification,” and in July 1982 Liao Chengzhi sent an open letter to Chiang Ching-kuo, the son of Chiang Kai-shek, appealing for the KMT and CCP to “jointly overcome previous alienation and complete the great undertaking of national unification.”27 Adjusting to the new political agenda on cross-Taiwan Strait relations, Beijing jettisoned the old narrative on the CCP-KMT class struggle during the anti-Japanese war. It claimed instead that the two parties had shared the common goal of defeating Japanese aggression. Textbooks published on the basis of the 1986 Teaching Guidelines for the first time provided limited coverage of the resistance battles fought by the Nationalist troops at Taierzhuang and Shanghai in 1938.28 Meanwhile, new war movies replaced negative stereotyping with a more realistic approach to describing the KMT, including Xian Shibian (The Xi’an Incident) made in 1980 26 27 28

Oksenberg, “China’s Confident Nationalism.” See Tie, Liao Chengzhi Zhuan, 578–87. MST 6, vol. 4, 95–96.

216

The Search for Reconciliation

and Xuezhan Taierzhuang (The Bloody Battle of Taierzhuang) in 1986. Xuezhan Taierzhuang in particular broke the taboo on the subject of the Nationalist resistance campaign. Official commemoration of the war also portrayed the KMT in a more positive light. In 1987, a high-profile memorial institution, the War of Resistance Museum, was opened in a Beijing suburb. Although it eulogized the role of the CCP, the exhibition also praised the Nationalist government showing that it “did in the political, economic, cultural and foreign relations fields carry out some effective policies relating to resistance to Japan and the establishment of reforms.”29 Local governments also received budgets to build or refurbish memorial sites dedicated to major battles fought by the KMT army, such as the memorial hall of the Taierzhuang battle and the tombs of KMT generals killed during the war, including Generals Tong Linge, Zhang Zizhong, and Zhao Dengyu, who were called “martyrs,” a phrase that had previously been reserved for the Communists.30 Those taking the KMT’s place as the worst villain in the new narrative were the “vicious Japanese imperialist aggressors.” War movies made since the 1980s graphically depicted Japanese acts of brutality, such as the Nanjing Massacre and the germ warfare conducted by Japanese Unit 731.31 This trend would have been unthinkable in the past, when revolutionary heroism dominated propaganda and artworks reflecting national suffering were denounced as preaching defeatism or bourgeois humanitarianism.32 The official restrictions on historical investigation of Japanese war crimes also relaxed, allowing historians, archivists, and museum staff in Nanjing to compile and publish several volumes of historical documents on the Nanjing Massacre in 1985–87.33 Meanwhile, war commemoration brought Japanese atrocities to the center of national memory. The memorial for the Nanjing Massacre, 29 30

31

32

33

Mitter, “Behind the Scenes,” 284. See “Yizhi, Jiuzhi, Jinian Sheshi” (Ruins, Old Sites, and Memorial Facilities), in Zhang, Zhongguo Kangri Zhangzheng Dacidian. These include the documentary film Nanjing Datusha (Nanjing Massacre), released in August 1982, and the feature film Tucheng Xuezheng (Bloody Testimony of Massacre in a Captured City), produced in 1987. The Chinese government also subsidized the production of a horror film around 1988, Hei Taiyang 731 (Black Sun 731), on the crimes of Japanese Unit 731. For attacks on the previous propaganda line by Chinese film critics, see Luo Yijun, “Fan Faxisi Dianying Fasilu” (Reflecting on Antifascism Films), and Hong Qi, “Shijie Fan Faxisi Ticai Dianying Yantaohui Zai Nanjin Juxing” (Conference on World Antifascism Movies Held in Nanjing), in China Film Association, Zhongguo Dianying Nianjian, 1996, 230–36, 325–26. See Yang, “Convergence or Divergence?” 847.

An Old Feud Comes Back

217

the icon of Chinese war victimhood, was completed in August 1985. The name of the building was in Deng’s handwriting. On display were numerous photographs, written documents, eyewitness testimonies, and even human skeletons. The inscription on its front wall declared “victims 300,000,” whereas the inscription on the inner wall instructed visitors to, “Never forget national humiliation” (wuwang guochi). In the same year, the Museum of the Criminal Evidence of Unit 731 Bacteria Troop was built in Haerbin. These museums were soon designated as bases for patriotic education. Mythmaking was evident in the new narrative. Although reversing the previous cover-up of Japanese atrocities, the new myths went to the other extreme of arousing a sense of Chinese victimhood and demonizing Japan. They failed to strike a balance between the relatively peaceful SinoJapanese interactions in their earlier history, the nations’ later conflicts, and post-normalization cooperation. After all, wartime Sino-Japanese history was far more complicated than a black-and-white struggle between Japanese invaders and Chinese patriots: Secret diplomacy, puppet governments, and numerous petty Chinese collaborators existed under the Japanese occupation.34 To be sure, the two governments in the 1980s still agreed on the aggressive nature of the war and maintained the old myth of the military clique. But this quasi-convergence of war memory was falling apart at the societal level. Japan’s progressive forces strongly urged the Japanese people to admit collective responsibility for victimizing other Asian people, whereas the conservatives went out of their way to deny or whitewash Japanese aggression and any war guilt. In China, the elite mythmaking centered on Japan achieved great success in stimulating public resonance. The Chinese were receptive to information about Japanese war atrocities, of which they had some knowledge but which had never been officially documented. A book produced by a PLA publisher in 1987, The Great Nanjing Massacre, sold 150,000 copies in the first month and was reprinted time and again to meet the market demand.35 Since then, numerous such books have appeared, often on the initiative of local governments or individual publishers. This shows that not only the state but also the nonofficial mass media enthusiastically took up the subject

34

35

For historical studies of wartime Sino-Japanese political collaboration and life under Japanese occupation, see Brook, Collaboration; Eastman, “Facets of Ambivalent Relationship;” Eykholt, Living the Limits of Occupation; and Liu, Nitchu¯ Senso¯ Ka no ¯ Gaiko. Xu, Nanjin Datusha.

218

The Search for Reconciliation

of patriotism. The public was so preoccupied with Chinese victimhood that it refused to distinguish Japanese militarists and ordinary Japanese people. As a result of such memory contestation and renegotiation in both countries, the areas of their memory disagreement, especially regarding Japanese war crimes, Chinese victimization, and the role of the Japanese military during the war, became widely publicized and repeatedly sparked bilateral political disputes. Therefore, their war narratives remained conflictual in official rhetoric but turned combative in the popular sphere, especially when it came to Chinese public attitudes toward Japan. National mythmaking theory suggests that the greater historiographic divergence in this period should have worsened the bilateral relationship from rapprochement in the 1970s to friction within the same stage of shallow reconciliation. Specifically, divergent historical memories should have increased the elites’ expectation of mutual war and toughened their position on bilateral disputes. Second Chinese grievances due to Japan’s lack of remorse should have increased, as should Japanese disgust and resentment about China’s historical self-indulgence and criticism of Japan. These emotions should have turned the climate of opinion in each nation regarding the other in a more negative direction. Third, in times of bilateral sovereignty and economic disputes, the negative climate of opinion should have constrained conciliatory governmental policy options. The public pressure should have escalated and perpetuated these disputes, regardless of how much significant national strategic or economic interest was at stake. The section that follows tests the accuracy of these predictions.

sino-japanese relations in 1982–1989 The Cooling Down of Bilateral Security Cooperation Realists would expect that the common Soviet threat should have given rise to a high degree of mutual trust between China and Japan and should have boosted their security cooperation. In reality, however, SinoJapanese rhetoric about strategic solidarity considerably cooled down in the 1980s compared to the 1970s, and their limited military cooperation was further scaled back. In September 1982, Prime Minister Suzuki visited Beijing to commemorate the tenth anniversary of diplomatic normalization. When meeting with Suzuki, Premier Zhao Ziyang stressed

An Old Feud Comes Back

219

three principles of bilateral relations – peace and friendship, equality and mutual benefit, and long-term stability – but without mentioning the antihegemonism that was the focus of Chinese diplomacy toward Japan in the 1970s.36 From the second half of 1982, the number of groups of Japanese military personnel visiting China decreased sharply.37 When Nakasone proposed to the visiting Hu Yaobang in November 1983 that the two countries should exchange information on the Soviet SS-20 missiles deployed in the Far East and jointly press Moscow to reduce them, he got no response.38 Additionally, a sense of uncertainty and caution about bilateral power redistribution began to emerge, especially among Chinese elites.39 First, Chinese official statements retracted support for the U.S.-Japan alliance. In late 1982, two CCP Politburo members told Japanese politicians, “China has never opposed nor supported the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty.”40 Second, reversing its earlier encouragement for Japan to strengthen its defense, Beijing now voiced concerns about a militarily strong Japan. In February 1983, shortly after Nakasone stated on his trip to Washington that Japan should serve as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” in close military cooperation with the United States, Chinese Foreign Minister Wu Xueqian told a special envoy of Nakasone: “As an independent, sovereign state, Japan is entitled to maintain an armed force for defense against external threats. But such an armed force should be defense-oriented and of appropriate size, so it would not constitute a threat to its friendly neighbors.”41 From then on, China increasingly questioned Japan’s defense buildup programs. When Nakasone announced the decision to break the 1 percent GNP ceiling for annual defense spending in fiscal year 1987, the Chinese media responded with

36 37 38 39

40 41

Tian, Zhanhou Zhongri Guanxi Wenxianji, 2: 384–85. Glaubitz, “Japan,” 231. Cheng, “China’s Japan Policy,” 96. Most Japanese military analysts admitted in the 1980s that Chinese budgetary priority had shifted from defense spending to domestic economic reinvigoration and generally refrained from speculating on the impact of Chinese military modernization on Japan’s national security. See Hiramatsu, “Daigoki Zenjindai Daisankai Kaigi kara Mita Chugoku no Gunji Mondai” and “Saikin no Chugoku Gunji Jijo¯ kara Chugokugun no ¯ ¯ ¯ Heiryoku Hyakuman Sakugen,” and Takahashi, “Saikin no Chugoku Gunji Josei to ¯ ¯ Taibei Taiso Kankei.” Cheng, “China’s Japan Policy,” 96. “Foreign Minister Wu Xueqian’s Remarks to Special Envoy Susumu Nikaido, ¯ February 18–19, 1983,” in Tian, Zhanhou Zhongri Guanxi Wenxianji, 2: 408–9; also translated in Glaubitz, “Japan,” 231.

220

The Search for Reconciliation

a flurry of warnings that Japan was seeking the status of a military great power.42 China’s rhetorical detachment from an anti-Soviet alignment with Japan can be largely ascribed to its independent foreign policy. But its open objection to Japanese defense buildup during the 1980s is puzzling because, when facing the common Soviet threat, Japan’s power should have been seen as a help to China itself. Neither was such an objection justified by any major redistribution of power between China and Japan. Nakasone’s advocacy of active sea-lane defense and the breakthrough of the 1 percent GNP ceiling were mainly for symbolic purposes – to establish a great power image of Japan and show strategic solidarity with America. Japanese military capabilities increased only incrementally in the 1980s and were particularly restrained in offensive weapons and strategic power projection.43 This is not to dispute the Self-Defense Forces’ superiority over the PLA in naval and air power, if not ground power. But this superiority did not first emerge in the 1980s; it had taken hold by the 1970s, when the Nixon Doctrine forced Japan to share more of its self-defense burden and Japan’s economic miracle permitted a fast increase of defense spending even below the 1 percent GNP ceiling.44 But China began to complain about Japanese military power starting in the early 1980s. A close look at the perception of Japan by Chinese elites during this period indicates their considerable apprehension about the security implications of the perceived Japanese denial of war responsibility, which suggests the effect of the mechanism of intention activated by memory conflict. When the 1982 textbook controversy erupted, the Chinese official media explicitly linked Japan’s war memory with the possibility that its past militarism might resurrect.45 Although the official rhetoric in 42

43

44

45

Yasuda, “Boei no Hanno,” ¯ Yosanan ‘Tai GNP Hi 1% Toppa’ ni taisuru Chugoku-gawa ¯ 97. On the incremental nature of Japanese defense budget growth and emphasis on defensive strategy, see Keddell, Politics of Defense, ch. 1. Japanese procurement of advanced air defense and naval weapon systems expanded particularly fast in the late 1970s. The Miki cabinet decided at the end of 1976 to acquire F-15 interceptor aircraft. Subsequently, the Mid-Term Planning Estimate of 1978 stipulated the procurement of seventy-seven F-15s, thirty-seven P-3Cs antisubmarine patrol aircraft, and many escort and minesweeping ships, submarines, and antisubmarine and minesweeping helicopters. In the year 1978 alone, Japan ordered twenty-three F-15s and eight P-3Cs as part of a proactive weapons procurement plan that the Mid-Term Planning Estimate formulated in 1978. ibid., 67–70. For examples, see the PLA Daily editorial on August 3 titled “Be on Guard against the Militarist Logic” and the article published in Hongqi [Red Flag], the CCP’s mouthpiece, in September 1982 titled “Be on Guard against the Danger of Militarist Revival,” in Tian, Zhanhou Zhongri Guanxi Wenxianji, 2: 357–58, 371–75.

An Old Feud Comes Back

221

summer 1982 might have been highly manipulated, subsequent Chinese strategic analyses of Japan demonstrated a genuine disapproval of Japan’s historiography and engendered serious reservations about Japan’s future trends.46 The Chinese elites’ first concern was that a wrongheaded historical consciousness might have a negative impact on the national self-image of Japan’s younger generation. Wen Jieruo, a famous Chinese writer, once reported her encounter with Japanese youth in 1985. At a discussion forum following the showing of a revisionist documentary film on the Tokyo Trial, several young Japanese concurred with the film’s attempt to normalize Japan’s aggression and called the trial “victor’s justice.” Wen worried that young Japanese were being subjected to a kind of nationalistic brainwashing similar to that of the prewar period and that they were failing to form a correct understanding of Japan’s victimization of Asia in modern history.47 Wen’s concern was shared by China’s international specialists who were more nervous about the strategic ramifications of Japanese historiography. In their view, if the truth about Japan’s past aggression was not passed on to the younger generation, as time went by, Japan would once again embrace a militaristic international strategy. Such worry was exemplified in a statement by He Fang, former director of the Institute of Japanese Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in 1987: There has been a flood of great-nation chauvinist sentiments in Japan, reflected in the denial of responsibility for the aggressive war, reversion of the historical verdict, and even revival of the old dream of [a] “Great Japan Empire,” such as to think that Japan is superior and look[s] down upon other countries, especially Asian neighbors, and to be extremely overbearing owing to great wealth . . . . This trend, if allowed to continue, will not only hamper Sino-Japanese friendship and peace in Asia and damage Japan’s international image but also bring Japan down the road of militarism, the danger of which has been testified to in the past.48

The fact that Japan’s pursuit of greater international influence since the Nakasone years was accompanied by a trend to deny or whitewash the 46

47 48

In Mao-era China, foreign policy was made by only a few top leaders. But from the 1980s, international relations research was invigorated in think tanks and academic institutions, and more specialists both within and outside the government began to influence Chinese foreign policy deliberation. On the influence of think tanks and intellectuals in Chinese foreign policy, see Glaser and Saunders, “Chinese Research Institutes”; Shambaugh, “China’s Think Tanks”; and Zhao, “Impact of Intellectuals.” Wen, “Yingpian ‘Dongjing Shenpan’ Ji Qita.” He, “Zhongri Guanxi yu Yazhou Heping,” 6.

222

The Search for Reconciliation

country’s past aggression seemed particularly worrisome to Chinese international analysts. They did see the American factor behind Japan’s international assertiveness, and they admitted that Japan’s current military capability did not yet qualify it as a great military power.49 But in the meantime, they felt extremely uneasy about the Japanese conservative attempt to shatter the postwar political framework that had constrained its remilitarization, a move they saw as interrelated with the rise of neonationalist historiography and signaling Japan’s desire for great power status and even the revival of militarism.50 Increased Popular Estrangement The first negative turn in the Sino-Japanese climate of opinion occurred in the mid-1980s, which contradicts the realist prediction that the common Soviet threat should have sustained popular harmony. The percentage of Japanese people who felt close to China dropped conspicuously around 1986 (see Figure 4.2). In China, anti-Japanese student demonstrations in 1985–87 marked the beginning of public venting of dislike for Japan and dissolving of the fac¸ade of Sino-Japanese friendship. Subsequently, antiJapanese mass demonstrations routinely became a political concern on anniversary days of the war or in times of bilateral diplomatic disputes. Can this negative turn in mutual popular image be explained by the public’s reduced sense of bilateral solidarity resulting from the perceived retreat of the Soviet threat after Gorbachev took power? The answer is no. Although trying to mitigate the East-West security dilemma from 1985, Gorbachev’s new foreign policy did not accomplish a real breakthrough until December 1987, when he and Reagan signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. And Soviet military pressure on the Far East eased up only since 1988, when its pullout from Afghanistan and Mongolia began. Not only the Chinese worried about the aforementioned three obstacles to Sino-Soviet normalization during most of the 1980s: Japan’s political mainstream and general public also treated the Soviet Union as an evil, dangerous state and viewed its conciliatory moves with a high degree of skepticism. A multinational poll held by the Asahi Shimbun at the end of 1987 showed that Japanese trust in the Soviets (at 34 percent)

49

50

Liu, “Lun Riben Duiwai Zhanlue de Fazhan”; Pan, “Riben Hui Chengwei Junshi Daguo Ma?” See Ge, “Riben Fangwu Zhengce he Fangwei Liliang de Fazhan Bianhua,” and Wan, “Youguan Junguo Zhuyi, Riben Junguo Zhuyi de Jige Wenti.”

An Old Feud Comes Back

223

was far lower than that of the West Germans (73 percent), British (66 percent), and Americans (51 percent). At that time, Japanese-Soviet relations were strained by their territorial disputes and heavy Soviet military deployment in the Far East, including the medium range SS-20 nuclear missiles that could reach Japan. Japanese public opinion about the Soviet Union improved only slightly in late 1988.51 Instead, this change in Sino-Japanese mutual popular feeling is better explained by the mechanism of emotion resulting from divergent historical memories. Whereas the Chinese public was increasingly bitter about its war suffering at the hands of Japanese aggressors, the Japanese people remembered the war as a miserable experience for the Japanese nation itself, and largely filtering out the memory of Japan’s wrongdoings to other Asian peoples. In an opinion poll conducted in 1985, Japanese respondents were asked what they usually talked about when the subject of WWII was brought up. The most-selected answers, including “shortage of food and other goods” (51.6 percent), “atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki” (47.1 percent), “the misery of war” (37.6 percent), and the “experience of [Allied] air raids” (24.2 percent), all reflected Japan’s own experiences of war suffering. Choices involving Japan’s war crimes or other nations’ suffering, such as “the brutality of the Japanese military” (14.3 percent), “war responsibility of the leadership” (14.2 percent), “war responsibility of Japanese citizens” (5.6 percent), and “the sacrifices of other nations” (9.5 percent), received much less attention.52 This significant memory gap was driven home on the fortieth anniversary of the end of the war in 1985. In the summer of that year, the Chinese government launched a proactive media campaign centered on Japanese aggression and Chinese victimhood to promote patriotism, whereas Nakasone paid his Yasukuni visit to bolster Japanese national pride regarding its own history. Although Chinese mass protests against Nakasone’s shrine visit soon erupted on September 18, the anniversary day of the Manchuria incident, the Japanese public had a very different view about the Yasukuni issue. In an Asahi Shimbun poll conducted in October, half of Japanese respondents thought the worship was good, and only 23 percent found it questionable.53 So these history disputes 51 52

53

Rozman, Japan’s Response, 98–135. “Survey on the Society and People’s Life in Postwar 40 Years,” NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute, July 1985, in Public Relations Office, Cabinet Secretariat of ¯ Nenkan, 1986, 564. Japanese Prime Minister, Seron Chosa “Survey on News Reports, Politics of the Nakasone Cabinet, ‘Hi no Maru, Kimi ga Yo,’” by Asahi Shimbun, October 1985, in ibid., 492.

224

The Search for Reconciliation

only increased Japanese public frustration with China. Allen Whiting suggested the occurrence of an “action-reaction syndrome” between the two nations, where the decline in favorable Japanese attitudes toward China between June 1985 and October 1986, after five years of steady improvement, was evidence of Japanese resentment of the anti-Japanese student demonstrations and Beijing’s Japan-bashing campaign.54 Rekindled Sovereignty Disputes and Economic Friction Sino-Japanese diplomatic normalization in 1972 embodied partial national recognition, where sovereignty controversies over Taiwan and offshore islands were simply shelved rather than settled. From the mid1980s, the sovereignty controversy was rekindled. In 1986, a Japanese local court ruled that a dormitory building in Tokyo purchased by the KMT regime in Taiwan in 1952, Kokary o, ¯ ¯ should not be turned over to Beijing because the switch of diplomatic recognition should not affect the ownership of nondiplomatic assets. This judgment was approved by a higher court in February 1987, triggering a bitter war of words between Beijing and Tokyo regarding the legitimacy of the Taiwan regime.55 Bilateral economic interaction developed considerably during this period. The three principles for bilateral relations proposed by Premier Zhao in June 1982 set the stage for close economic cooperation. Then Prime Ministers Suzuki and Nakasone each brought to Beijing a generous yen loan package, in 1982 and 1984, respectively, to assist China’s infrastructure construction and energy production. Meanwhile, Japan’s advanced technology entered China, and Chinese personnel also went to Japan to receive technical training in various fields. And, the total volume of bilateral trade doubled in just three years from 1982–85. However prosperous they were, the bilateral economic relationship was not smooth but showed great fluctuation, especially in the second half of the 1980s (see Figure 5.1). One source of the fluctuation was trade friction. From 1985, Beijing lashed out at Tokyo for China’s soaring trade deficit vis-a-vis Japan. The head of the Chinese delegation to the fourth ` bilateral cabinet meeting in July 1985, Gu Mu, claimed that the trade deficit “obstructs normal development of the bilateral relationship.”56 54 55 56

Whiting, China Eyes Japan, 196. Ijiri, “Sino-Japanese Controversy.” Tanaka, Nitchu¯ Kankei, 135–37.

An Old Feud Comes Back

225

14000 12000 10000 8000 6000 4000 2000

89 19

88 19

87 19

86 19

85 19

84 19

83 19

82 19

19

81

0 Japanese Imports from China Japanese Exports to China figure 5.1. China-Japan Trade, 1981–1989. Source: Japan Ministry of Interna¯ o¯ Hakusho. tional Trade and Industry, Tsush

Another problem was the Chinese accusation that Japan was interested only in selling finished products, often of shoddy quality, but was rather reluctant to increase capital investments and technology transfers to China. All these economic problems were accorded political importance, which strained bilateral relations. In a rather controversial conversation with a Japanese politician on June 4, 1987, Deng criticized Japan for the trade friction and admonished it to assist Chinese economic development in view of the two countries’ war history. As we will see, this statement triggered a serious diplomatic row between Beijing and Tokyo. Shortly following this event was the Toshiba incident, wherein the Japanese government stopped the Toshiba Machine Company, which had violated CoCom rules in transferring militarily related technology to the Soviet Union, from exporting civil machines to China. This act vindicated Chinese complaints about the Japanese delay in technology transfer and

226

The Search for Reconciliation

eliciting angry protests from Beijing. To make things worse, college students staged demonstrations in several Chinese cities in 1985–87 to protest the renewed Japanese “economic invasion” of China, mainly referring to Japanese dumping of cheap commodities in the Chinese market. The escalation of the Taiwan controversy runs counter to the realist predication that the common Soviet threat should have compelled the two countries to put aside their disagreements over secondary issues in favor of strategic cooperation. The politicization of economic friction was also perplexing from a realist perspective when economic cooperation with Japan was crucial to strengthening China’s national power to balance against the Soviet threat. The real cause of this friction again lies in conflicting historical perspectives, which gave rise to Chinese expectations of Japanese concessions and Japanese resistance to such demands. Taiwan, ceded to Japan by the 1895 Sino-Japanese Treaty of Shimonoseki and never properly restored to the motherland, was a present, bitter reminder of China’s national humiliation, especially when the vigorous propaganda campaign to promote patriotism inspired a Chinese sense of both national accomplishments and victimhood. In the 1980s, unification with Taiwan was regarded as one of China’s three national tasks.57 Diplomatically, Beijing insisted that Taiwan was part of China and that the cross-strait political separation was only temporary. In March 1982, the Foreign Ministry sent a memo to all foreign embassies in Beijing resolutely opposing any foreign countries acknowledging the official character of Taiwan’s economic, intelligence, or science and technology agencies in their countries or allowing their official activities.58 In June 1983, Beijing urged foreign diplomatic institutions in Taiwan not to issue entry visas to Chinese people living in Taiwan or allow Taiwan’s diplomatic agencies in those countries to issue visas to their citizens.59 Policy flexibility was particularly limited when problems regarding Taiwan arose between China and Japan because China held Japan responsible for Taiwan’s severance from the motherland. President Jiang told Ku Chen-fu, chairman of the Strait Exchange Foundation of Taiwan, in their talks in October 1998: “The idea of using Taiwan as an unsinkable

57

58 59

The other two major tasks were opposition to hegemonism and economic modernization. See Deng, Deng Xiaoping Wenxuan 1975–1982, 204. Ishii, “‘Mitsu no Chugoku’ to ‘Hitotsu no Soren,’” 144. ¯ Lin, Ume to Sakura, 636–38.

An Old Feud Comes Back

227

aircraft was first contrived by Japan and taken over by the United States. It can be said that it was initially Japan who put Taiwan in its current position, and it was the United States which has maintained it.”60 China felt that Japan’s aggression history obligated it to assist the Chinese cause of national reunification, and it tended to view Japanese actions contradictory to this expectation with suspicion and anger. Although Beijing had tolerated semiofficial links between Japan and Taiwan in the 1970s, this soft approach now ended. The trigger was a Japanese delegation to Taiwan in July 1982 led by the LDP president’s special envoy, Esaki Masumi. It coincided with the Japanese textbook controversy. The combination of Sino-Japanese history disputes and Japan-Taiwan political contacts brought about considerable uneasiness and suspicion in China. The Chinese media leveled sharp criticism against the Ezaki visit.61 Chinese strategic analysts also treated Japan’s policy toward Taiwan as an indicator of its “great-nation chauvinism” or even as evidence of the revival of militarism. They believed those in Japan who refused to admit the aggression history were exactly those who pushed for active diplomacy toward Taiwan and tried to separate Taiwan from the motherland.62 Beijing’s exceptionally harsh attitude on the Kokary o¯ case attests to ¯ this historical perspective. After the Kokary o¯ verdict favoring the Taiwan ¯ side was delivered on February 26, 1987, the Chinese press continuously attacked Tokyo for months, and several Chinese leaders spoke out, saying that Japan’s action was tantamount to shirking its historical responsibility toward China. Deng explicitly invoked the subject of Japanese militarist revival in connection with the Kokary o¯ case at a meeting with a Japanese ¯ parliamentarian in May.63 One may argue, alternatively, that Beijing did not genuinely believe the connection between history and the current disputes but rather used history as a card to press for Japanese concessions. If this were the case, we should expect the two nations’ war history to have been raised more often during disputes than at other times and to have been conveyed in channels that were aimed mainly at the Japanese audience. The evidence is mixed. 60

61

62

63

“Daily Reports Jiang Zemin Has ‘Anti-Japanese Sentiment,’” Sankei Shimbun, December 9, 1998, in FBIS. <>. People’s Daily, July 23, 1982. Also see the Xinhua editorial, August 6, 1982, in Tian, Zhanhou Zhongri Guanxi Wenxianji, 2: 359–60. He, “Zhongri Guanxi yu Yazhou Heping,” 5. Also see Xi, “Dui Riben Cong ‘Jingji Daguo’ Zouxiang ‘Zhengzhi Daguo’ Wenti de Tantao,” 37. Tian, Zhanhou Zhongri Guanxi Wenxianji, 2: 642.

228

The Search for Reconciliation

Chinese leaders indeed brought up Japan’s past aggression only during bilateral disputes, and the message was clearly transmitted to the Japanese side through the official media. But China’s international affairs experts emphasized the role of historical attitudes in Japan’s China policy in both eventful and relatively tranquil times. Besides, their works were published in academic and policy-oriented journals meant to advise Chinese policy makers, not the Japanese government. Because these experts had a certain influence on Chinese government policy making, the evidence supports the independent political effect of the history factor, although history seems also to have been used as a bargaining chip vis-a-vis Japan. ` Chinese historical beliefs also played a big role in politicizing economic friction with Japan. Objectively speaking, China’s trade deficit with Japan in the 1980s primarily originated in the structural difference between two economies trading primary products for manufactured goods. The problem was certainly exacerbated by Japan’s trade barriers in general and China’s overheated demands for foreign products and certain operational deficiencies. Likewise, the causes of stagnating Japanese technology transfers and investments to China in the 1980s were manifold.64 Although it was not easy to determine who to blame when friction arose, the Chinese side showed a strong penchant to blame Japan only. Such a biased attitude was not simply a bargaining tactic because it was widely shared by not just high-ranking government officials directly negotiating with Japan but also the general public. This was the case because Japan, having devastated the Chinese economy during the war, was expected by the Chinese to generously assist its economic modernization, and the self-interest of the Japanese businessmen providing the assistance was considered to be a secondary consideration. Deng Xiaoping’s remarks on June 4, 1987, provided telling evidence of this Chinese mentality. After pointing out the dissatisfying aspects in Sino-Japanese economic relations, including China’s trade deficit and Japan’s inactiveness in transferring technology, Deng went on to bring the past into the present:

64

At the time, the CoCom still restricted the transfer of high-tech Japanese facilities to China. Japanese companies also took into account applicability, cost calculation, and payment means when considering technology transfer. Japanese foreign direct investment to China stayed low because the investment environment there was problematic, and China held the rather unreasonable expectation that foreign investors should be altruistic. Not until 1986 did widespread complaints among foreign businessmen prompt Chinese leaders to admit publicly that foreign investments should not only benefit the Chinese but also allow foreign investors to “make real money.” See Whiting, China Eyes Japan, 110, 112.

An Old Feud Comes Back

229

If viewed in light of history, Japan ought to do much more in order to help China’s development. Frankly speaking, among all the countries in the world, I think Japan is the one that is most indebted to China. At the time of Sino-Japanese diplomatic normalization, we did not raise the demand for war reparations . . . . From the Japanese perspective that values reason, I think Japan should contribute even more to assist China’s development. To be honest, I have resentment in this respect.65

Explicitly linking war reparations with the demand for Japanese economic assistance, Deng’s remarks reflected the Chinese inclination to take Japanese aid for granted and to blame Japan for bilateral economic friction on historical grounds. Dissatisfaction particularly targeted the large inflow of Japanese goods (rihuo), which the Chinese felt was a serious threat to domestic manufacturers, shutting down Chinese factories and driving up the unemployment rate. Therefore, slogans like “Boycott Rihuo!” “Down with Japanese Militarism!” and “Oppose Japanese Economic Invasion!” became common in the anti-Japanese student demonstrations.66 The Chinese sense of historical entitlement not only exacerbated elites’ negative perceptions of Japan but also generated strong public preferences for hard-line policy options on bilateral disputes. Whenever there was a conflict of interest with Japan, the Chinese people always expected Japan to make concessions because it owed China so much historically. When the Chinese government wanted to compromise to make an ad hoc settlement, public anger would quickly turn against the “traitorous” government. During the anti-Japanese demonstrations in the mid-1980s, Chinese students frequently shifted the target of their condemnation between “Japanese economic aggression” and “those in power” who tried to augment private interests at the expense of the populace. To avert the student quest for democracy as a fundamental solution to social-economic problems, Beijing had to co-opt their demand by maintaining a tough position on Japan. The public pressure could be felt in Deng’s remarks on the Kokary o¯ case that “[because] the case had caused strong repercussions ¯ among the Chinese public, especially the young people, the Chinese side must handle it carefully lest the people object.”67 One may doubt whether Chinese popular sentiment was truly an independent force because it could either have been premeditated or simply 65 66

67

¯ u, ¯ 707. For excerpts of this conversation, see Kazankai, Nitchu¯ Kankei Kihon Shiryosh Slogans during the anti-Japanese demonstrations in 1985 are cited in Tanaka, Nitchu¯ Kankei 1945–1990, 143–44. Ibid., 159.

230

The Search for Reconciliation

utilized by the government as a diplomatic card to bargain with Japan. But serious observers of Chinese student movements in the post-Mao era would agree on the spontaneity of the student demonstrations and the genuineness of their emotions. To prove the opposite, the Chinese government would have to have been a unitary actor, impervious to public opinion. Such was not the case during this period. Considering Beijing’s enthusiasm after the normalization to recruit Japan as a major player in Chinese modernization, the abrupt shift to a harsh policy toward Japan in the mid-1980s would not have been possible if public pressure had not significantly reshaped the balance of power between the moderate Hu Yaobang and his conservative opponents. Having staked his political career heavily on harmonious Sino-Japanese ties and even developed a personal friendship with Nakasone, Hu’s leadership in the party suffered a severe setback when the public reacted furiously to Nakasone’s shrine visit in 1985. Nakasone later told the Japanese press that he had to cancel the plan to visit Yasukuni in 1986 because of the clear risk that it would worsen Hu’s political predicament.68 By that time, party conservatives had attacked Hu’s liberal propensity regarding his political reform programs. The public challenge to the pro-Japan policy that Hu had spearheaded rendered him even more politically vulnerable. The deeper cause of Hu’s downfall in 1987 lay in the ideological struggles within the party, but the student demonstrations indeed undermined his pro-Japan faction and prevented a more conciliatory policy toward Japan.69 This case suggests that in times of Sino-Japanese disputes, public opinion could become an effective tool in the Chinese elites’ struggle. Fewsmith and Rosen believe that Chinese public opinion tends to matter more when the elites are split and external relations are contentious because the elites will mobilize public opinion, often in the name of patriotism, to 68

69

In a press interview in 1991, Nakasone said he asked Yoshihiro Inayama, then president of the Keidanren, to consult with Hu in Beijing about whether he could continue to visit the shrine. Someone close to Hu told Inayama that “resuming the visits will have an undesirable effect, so make sure that Nakasone does not.” Nakasone says, “From about that time, reports began to reach us that Hu was in a precarious situation . . . . That person came to see Inayama out of concern that my continuing to worship at Yasukuni Shrine regardless of these warnings would be risky for Hu and people close to him because of relations with conservatives . . . . Under the circumstances, it was better to give up, so I decided to stop worshipping at Yasukuni.” Quoted in Wakamiya, Postwar Conservative View, 176. Hu was attacked by his adversaries for such pro-Japan actions as his invitation to three thousand Japanese youths to visit China in 1985 and his invitation to Nakasone to visit China in 1986. Neither invitation was issued with prior consultation with other Chinese leaders. See Ijiri, “Sino-Japanese Controversy,” 76.

An Old Feud Comes Back

231

support their own policy positions vis-a-vis their opponents.70 Although ` it is useful to strengthen elites’ domestic power, highly mobilized public opinion can significantly limit the diplomatic policy options available to the elites themselves. It is precisely because public opinion was such a double-edged sword that it could constrain government policy. Because the mainstream historiography in Japan minimized Japanese war responsibility vis-a-vis Asian victim countries, on the other hand, ` it seemed a far-fetched notion to the Japanese people that China was entitled to Japanese concessions in bilateral disputes just because of the past war. Although truly assertive Japanese diplomacy to China would not occur until the next period, Tokyo showed a resentful mood toward what it saw as China’s high-handedness justified by the war history, such as over the Kokary o¯ incident. Beijing insisted that the case was not a legal ¯ but a political problem. Deng’s controversial remarks on June 4, 1987, not only linked history with current economic friction but also urged Tokyo to handle the Kokary o¯ case appropriately. “Japan’s separation ¯ of three powers is different from that in the United States; I do not believe the Japanese government could do nothing about it,” said Deng. Apparently frustrated with what he saw as Chinese insensitivity to the concrete conditions in Japan, a Gaimusho¯ official openly called Deng “a man above the clouds” (kumo no ue no hito) and said, “Anyone who gets old becomes hard-headed.”71 Beijing immediately condemned this as a personal insult of a Chinese leader. In the end, Tokyo had to apologize for the “impolite expression,” and the two sides agreed to move ahead with the scheduled ministerial meeting. But on the eve of the meeting, a monument in Kyodo inscribed with a poem by Zhou Enlai was found splashed with red paint, and handbills left there accused China of interfering with Japan’s domestic affairs.72

conclusions and implications The history of Sino-Japanese relations in the 1980s suggests that a common security threat alone is insufficient to promote interstate reconciliation if the two sides differ significantly in their memories of past conflict. Such disagreement had existed in China and Japan from the end of the war

70 71 72

Fewsmith and Rosen, “Domestic Context.” Ijiri, “Sino-Japanese Controversy,” 74. “Kyoto Monument to Zhou Enlai ‘Desecrated,’” Tokyo Kyodo, June 25, 1987, in FBIS (Northeast Asia: Japan, A1).

232

The Search for Reconciliation

but did not become a focal point of Sino-Japanese political contention for about two decades. It was only in the early 1980s that Japanese and Chinese elites stepped up nationalistic mythmaking for domestic and international goals and the war history became a politically profitable issue for elites to exploit. Beijing’s move in the textbook incident was evidently based on a rational calculation that the tasks of enhancing internal cohesion and boosting regime legitimacy were more pressing than maintaining harmonious relations with the West. The diplomatic context at the time that allowed Beijing to exploit the history issue was its adoption of an independent foreign policy between the two superpowers. Although the continuing Soviet threat prevented China from staying truly independent of American strategic support, at least rhetorically, Beijing began to pull back from the West. The process of elite manipulation of history is rarely linear and coherent when actually implemented, however. Although trying to reap political gains from historical reinterpretation, neither government deliberately wished for its domestic nationalist campaigns to spill over across the border. But the elites were subject to the “blowback” of national mythmaking, and they were not unitary actors: They had to grapple with intraelite division and bottom-up pressure from the public, which was agitated by elite mythmaking. Hence, they could not fully isolate the political repercussions of history propaganda within the country. To be sure, Sino-Japanese diplomacy struck an upbeat tone at the beginning of the 1980s with Zhao Ziyang’s proposal of three principles of bilateral relations, Japan’s extension of generous yen loans to China, and the development of intimate personal ties between Hu Yaobang and Nakasone. Yet this positive momentum was quickly offset by the negative emotional and perceptual impact of bilateral history disputes starting with the 1982 textbook controversy and growing increasingly worse in the mid-1980s. The illusory fac¸ade of popular friendship of the 1970s began to fall in the face of Chinese mass demonstrations and Japanese resentment against China’s playing the history card. And elite mistrust and public pressure against compromise motivated a self-centered, hardline position with abrasive finger-pointing during bilateral disputes. Much of this was the unintended result of elite mythmaking. Although it downgraded from the previous rapprochement to friction within the stage of shallow reconciliation, the general atmosphere of Sino-Japanese relations did not turn decisively negative in the 1980s. Whiting suggests that at the time the Chinese perception of Japan was a dual image of an “economic role model” and a “ruthless aggressor.”

An Old Feud Comes Back

233

Chinese polls held in 1988 show that 50.6 percent of Chinese respondents and 64.4 percent of Japanese respondents thought the current bilateral relationship was “very good” or “good.”73 It would take the end of the Cold War and another round of acrimonious history disputes starting in the mid-1990s to push the relationship into a downward spiral. If we compare Sino-Japanese relations with West German–Polish relations in the 1980s, it was a period of memory renegotiation and reconstruction in both dyads. Unlike in West Germany, where significant public debates on war memory forged a national consensus centered on Germany’s role as perpetrator during WWII, memory contestation in Japan from the 1980s, albeit no less intense than in Germany, made Japanese public views about the war history only more contentious and polarized. The desire of the Chinese government to use history to promote their domestic political agenda also elicited greater popular animosity toward Japan. Such Chinese animosity was exacerbated by the evasive attitude of the Japanese conservative government toward war responsibility, which was contrary to the European case, where German contrition since the 1970s had the significant effect of soothing Polish fear and antipathy. Whereas West Germany and Poland came out of the 1980s with less mythification of their own national memories and a narrowed historiographic gap between the two countries, Chinese and Japanese historical memories became much more divergent. The contrasting modes of historical narratives offer a powerful explanation of why the SinoJapanese relationship deteriorated despite positive structural conditions, whereas West Germany and Poland, even with a generally negative security environment and a brief setback following the Solidarity movement, sustained more or less the same level of cooperation.

73

Jiang, “Zhongri Lianhe Jinxing de Shehui Yulun Diaocha Jieguo Shuomin le Shenme,” 23.

6 Volatility and Downward Spiral Sino-Japanese Relations from the 1990s to the Present

Sino-Japanese relations enjoyed temporary serenity in the early 1990s only to deteriorate again from the mid-1990s, marked by renewed sovereignty disputes over Taiwan, offshore islands, and maritime rights, and the politicization of Japanese aid policy to China as well as a downward spiral in popular image. So the relationship stagnated at the shallow reconciliation–friction stage. Structural conditions correctly predict the increased bilateral tension resulting from the end of the Cold War. What remains unexplained is the four- to five-year time lag between the dissipation of the common Soviet threat at the end of the 1980s and the sharp increase of Sino-Japanese tension in the mid-1990s. Also, realist theory only partially explains the intensity of the bilateral friction and alienation during this period because a major shift in the Sino-Japanese balance of power was lacking, and none of their political and economic disputes involved vital national interests. Historical memory provides a strong explanation for the temporary harmony in the early 1990s as well as for the escalation of bilateral tension four to five years later. From the 1990s, Japan’s conservative ruling elites perpetuated old national myths not only to justify an assertive diplomatic agenda but also to use the memory tool to mobilize public support for their electoral strategy and domestic reform programs. In the meantime, the goals of enhancing internal cohesion and boosting regime legitimacy motivated the Chinese government to employ a twofold strategy of launching a patriotic history education campaign at home and attacking Japan’s attitude toward history in the diplomatic arena. Besides, Japan’s ambiguous attitude toward its war responsibility simply reinforced anti-Japanese myths in Chinese propaganda and exacerbated 234

Volatility and Downward Spiral

235

popular demands in China to settle historical accounts. Consequently, the bilateral memory gap continued to widen, and political disputes over history repeatedly erupted. China’s history polemics temporarily relaxed in the early 1990s, when it sought Japan’s help to break out of its postTiananmen international isolation, but they intensified anew in the mid1990s, causing great strain to bilateral political relations.

the international system: an uncertain structure in the post–cold war era The Cold War bipolar structure ended at the beginning of the 1990s with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The United States became the only superpower in the world, although it failed to establish a Pax Americana.1 This systemic change caused a deep transformation in the East Asian international structure. With the end of superpower confrontation, many argue that the traditional form of strategic interaction – the balance of power between regional powers in a multipolar setting – has resumed dominance in East Asia.2 Two new phenomena from the 1990s appeared to reinforce the SinoJapanese conflict of interest. One was the strikingly uneven growth of the Chinese and Japanese economies. China’s real GDP growth jumped to a double-digit rate during 1992–95 and has remained close to double digits to the present. But Japan’s economy entered a recession after the bubble economy failed around 1990. Although in the past China had lagged far behind Japan economically, now it approaches being Japan’s peer competitor. Another phenomenon was both countries’ assertiveness in military and international affairs. China’s military modernization in the 1990s boasted a double-digit annual increase in defense spending and the acquisition of advanced weapons from Russia.3 China also sought to upgrade its nuclear arsenal by conducting eleven nuclear tests in 1990–96, the test of May 1992 being its largest underground test to date. Meanwhile, Japan jettisoned the low-key attitude toward international security affairs it had 1

2

3

For academic debates on the durability and legitimacy of post–Cold War American hegemony, see Ikenberry, America Unrivaled. Friedberg, “Ripe for Rivalry.” For works published in the early 1990s with a generally pessimistic outlook on East Asian international relations, also see Betts, “Wealth, Power, and Instability”; Buzan and Segal, “Rethinking East Asian Security”; and Roy, “Hegemon on the Horizon.” Christensen, “China,” 43–45; Gallagher, “China’s Illusory Threat,” 174.

236

The Search for Reconciliation

held during the Cold War. It began in 1992 to send SDF units overseas on a wide range of peacekeeping missions. From the mid-1990s, Japan strengthened its alliance with the United States and began to weigh in more actively on regional security issues, such as those in the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan Strait. After the eruption of the War on Terror, Japan enacted the Anti-Terrorism Special Measures Law, which authorized the deployment of the SDF to conflict-ridden Iraq, and the Diet passed three emergency bills to strengthen the defense establishment in case of external military attack.4 These new developments indeed raised realpolitik concerns regarding Sino-Japanese power redistribution, the two countries’ willingness to use force, and the possibility of their military expansionism. However, they did not warrant a straightforward strategic confrontation, only a sense of potential rivalry. First, the rise of China fell short of challenging the status quo of international balance of power or Japanese superiority in either economic prowess or air and naval power.5 As for Japan, its post-Yoshida grand strategy maintained a dual focus of acting more assertively in international affairs with American support and fostering stable relations with its Asian neighbors.6 Japan did not enlarge the army or build up its power projection capability, flex its military muscles overseas freely, or go nuclear, although it had the capacity to do so. Furthermore, Japan and China had many shared interests, such as economic complementariness,7 a wish to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, and a common desire for a peaceful Pacific Rim to ensure sea-lane safety and overseas market access. Considerable room for bilateral cooperation also existed over various global issues “ranging from energy security, environmental protection, climate change, [and] prevention and control of diseases to counter-terrorism, combating 4

5

6 7

For Japan’s security policy changes since the 1990s to strengthen its regional and global roles, see Hughes, “Japanese Military Modernization.” For some recent studies that cautioned of overstating Chinese military power despite rapid development, see Betts and Christensen, “China”; Gill and O’Hanlon, “China’s Hollow Military”; and Shambaugh, Modernizing China’s Military. For the argument supporting Japan’s security confidence in the face of the rise of China, see Green, “Managing Chinese Power”; He, “Ripe for Cooperation”; Pyle and Heginbotham, “Japan,” 97–100; and Twomey, “Japan, a Circumscribed Balancer,” 185–93. Samuels, “Japan’s Goldilocks Strategy.” In bilateral economic relations, Japan enjoyed great comparative advantage in component manufacture, whereas China was strong in the assembly of products. See Japan Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Japan White Paper 2004, 219–20.

Volatility and Downward Spiral

237

transnational crimes and the prevention of proliferation of weapons of massive destruction.”8 Therefore, I consider the international structural conditions for SinoJapanese relations since the 1990s as neutral, given that the common Soviet threat no longer existed and their mutual threat had emerged but was not yet an immediate concern. Under such circumstances, bilateral relations should be expected to maintain shallow reconciliation, most likely in the substage of friction: Worry about bilateral armed conflict should have increased after the collapse of the Soviet Union; disputes over important sovereignty rights, defined as those crucial to national security or economic interests, should have intensified; and relative gains concerns should have complicated economic cooperation. At the same time, mutual popular feelings should have deteriorated when bilateral solidarity against the Soviet threat was replaced by concerns about the two states’ potential rivalry.

historical memories: an ever-widening historiographic gap Japanese Conservative Mythmaking and Continued Memory Struggle In the 1990s, Japan’s international strategy emphasized more active participation in international affairs. Particularly after the Gulf War, in which Japan’s generous financial contributions received little international appreciation, the conservative elites felt Japan had to substantially increase its logistical and personnel support internationally to win the respect of the rest of the world. In the words of Ozawa Ichiro, ¯ an outspoken conservative politician, it was time for Japan to become a normal nation that “would naturally fulfill its own responsibility to do what is considered natural by the international society.”9 The idea of a “normal nation” is often interpreted to be “a nation that can go to war.”10 To this end, conservative elites pushed for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), passed legislation on SDF participation in international peacekeeping operations, and lobbied for

8

9 10

Quoted from Chinese premier Wen Jiaobao’s speech at the Japanese Diet, April 12, 2007, available at <>. Ozawa, Nihon Kaizo¯ Keikaku, 104. Samuels, Securing Japan, 111.

238

The Search for Reconciliation

constitutional reinterpretation or even revision to obtain collective security rights. Additionally, in the new international context, mainstream Japanese leaders, including Ozawa, Miyazawa Kiichi, Kono Yohei, ¯ ¯ Koizumi Junichiro, ¯ and Abe Shinzo, ¯ were determined to tie the country’s grand strategy to the U.S.-Japan alliance.11 To facilitate smooth collaboration with American global strategy, they felt they had to undo the postwar legal and political constraints on the use of Japanese military power. Still, they faced an uphill battle domestically to reach these objectives, given the deep-rooted antimilitarism of the Japanese people, who feared that a stronger military could threaten peace and democracy, as it had in the past.12 In this sense, the political tactic of glossing over Japan’s history of aggression was highly useful to improve the SDF’s image and win public endorsement of its overseas deployment for “international ¯ contribution” (kokusai koken). National mythmaking could not only justify a more muscular international strategy but also facilitate the domestic political agenda of Japanese conservative politicians. The so-called lost decade of the 1990s saw not only the worst economic recession in postwar Japan but also a dramatic fall in national morale and social vitality as the nation was haunted by a series of thorny problems, including rampant political corruption, public disasters, an aging society, surging crime and suicide rates, a widening income gap, and declining living standards. More and more Japanese felt a lack of “moral security,” pessimism and dissatisfaction about life, and a low sense of identification with the nation and society.13 All these problems shook the LDP’s foundation of legitimacy. The party was voted out in 1993 for the first time since it formed in 1955. It managed to return to power in 1994, but only in a ruling coalition with smaller parties, and from the late 1990s its control of the Diet further weakened because of the rise of a powerful opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan. The year 1995 was particularly eventful: Japan experienced the Hanshin earthquake in January and the Aum Shinrikyo gas attack in Tokyo in March. Additionally, throughout the 1990s, any attempts by the 11

12 13

These conservative leaders fall into the categories of “normal nationalists” and “middle power internationalists” in Samuels’s terms. Aside from their common preference for the alliance with the United States, the two groups disagreed on how much Japan should improve its own military power and whether it needed to balance the alliance with relationships with Asian neighbors. Ibid., 109–31. Berger, Cultures of Antimilitarism. Kotler, “Chinese and Japanese Public Opinion.”

Volatility and Downward Spiral

239

government to carry out bold economic and political reforms encountered formidable domestic resistance. Hence, the conservative ruling bloc faced many unprecedented political challenges in this period. When Koizumi came to power in 2001, “Japan was literally bankrupt, in currency and in spirit,” and “the ruling LDP was desperate for a savior.”14 Because cynicism toward election politics was widespread in Japan,15 it was a time when party identification among the public had declined, and the personal image of leaders became more important to attracting votes.16 Koizumi emerged as a maverick yet charismatic and popular leader of a type rarely seen in postwar Japanese politics. He defied domestic pressure by introducing daring reform measures, such as to clean up the Japanese banking system, privatize the postal system, and centralize power within the government and the LDP. Externally, he adopted a muscular foreign policy to strengthen security cooperation with the United States, employ constant pressure on North Korea, and vie with China for regional leadership. None of these goals was easy to attain, yet Koizumi was able to push through most of them using a strategy combining “populism and bullheadedness.”17 His insistence on visiting Yasukuni every year was one tool of his electoral strategy and populist politics. Never having been to the shrine before, Koizumi promised Nihon Izokukai on the eve of the LDP presidential race in 2001 to pay visits after entering office, therefore gaining the support of this powerful political group to defeat his rival Hashimoto, who declined to make such a promise.18 Although strongly protested by Asian governments and criticized domestically, his uncompromising position on visiting Yasukuni every year won him considerable public admiration.19 The result of elite manipulation of history in this period was that the Japanese government offered apologies in small doses and often with double-dealing and ambiguity. In August 1993, Prime Minister 14 15 16 17

18 19

“Honest Abe,” Wall Street Journal, August 29, 2006. Masumi, “Year of the Boar.” Curtis, Logic of Japanese Politics, 225. “Koizumi’s Success Charts the Path to Japan’s Future,” Wall Street Journal, April 28, 2006. “Japanese Public Survey on Yasukuni,” Japan Times, May 28, 2005. The Japanese public attitude on the shrine visits was at best divided in polls, but those critical of the visits often ended up supporting his government because being resolute before foreign pressure is the aspect of Koizumi’s style that has won him the respect of many Japanese.

240

The Search for Reconciliation

Hosokawa used Nakasone’s words, “a war of aggression,” to describe the Japanese war history in his inaugural press conference. But he was soon under domestic pressure to change the wording to “acts of aggression.”20 Moreover, shortly before the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war, Murayama Tomiichi, Japan’s first socialist prime minister in forty-seven years, introduced a Diet resolution to end Japan’s historical burden with an apology. But the initiative was adamantly opposed by the conservatives, who organized nationwide petitions against any clear acknowledgement of or apology for Japanese aggression. As a compromise, the resolution placed Japanese colonialism and aggression in the larger context of the “modern history” of imperialism and used the phrase “deep remorse” rather than “apology.” When voting on the resolution, half of the Diet members abstained because they either wanted a stronger apology or felt the statement apologized too much. The case of the 1995 Diet resolution crystallized the absence of Japanese national consensus on coming to terms with the past or striving for genuine reconciliation with other Asian countries.21 As for war redress, Tokyo maintained the position that all war reparations issues had been resolved by postwar international treaties. When the “comfort women” bombshell embarrassed Japan before the world in the early 1990s, Tokyo had to admit direct wartime government involvement in the forced recruitment of sex slaves from Asian countries, but it refused to officially apologize to the comfort women or provide state compensation.22 It held the same position when dealing with lawsuits filed by foreign victims of other Japanese war crimes. Japanese textbooks since the mid-1980s gradually increased their treatment of other Asian people’s wartime suffering and Japanese atrocities. Despite these positive changes, the Japanese textbook screening authority

20

21

22

Wakamiya, Postwar Conservative View of Asia, 179–80; Yoshida, Nihonjin no ¯ Sensokan, 2–5. For the text and analysis of the Diet resolution, Murayama’s statement, and Japanese right-wing and left-wing media reactions to the Diet resolution in 1995, see Dower, “Japan Addresses Its War Responsibility.” In 1995, the Murayama government established the Asian Women’s Fund to compensate surviving comfort women in the name of the Japanese people, not the government. A letter from the prime minister of Japan to express “heartfelt reflection” was delivered to individual victims with money, but it is qualitatively different from an open, official apology. Precisely because the fund was ambiguous about the war responsibility of the Japanese government, many former comfort women refused to accept compensation ¯ through the fund. For more on the Asian Women’s Fund, see Onuma, “Ianfu” Mondai to Ajia Josei Kikin.

Volatility and Downward Spiral

241

and publishers managed to dilute statements about Japanese war responsibility. A closer look at Japanese textbook treatment of the Nanjing Massacre in the 1990s, for example, reveals that language was intentionally manipulated so the Japanese soldiers were not shown as perpetrators, to shift the objects of criticism from individual soldiers to the entire organization of the Japanese army or even the incident itself, and to separate those who committed atrocities from the Japanese people so that the majority of the Japanese nation were spared the guilt. In fact, the old Pacific War view of history was still upheld in textbooks.23 For this reason, the battle over textbook content between Japan’s progressive and conservative forces continued unabated. Besides the textbook struggles, nongovernmental organizations inside and outside Japan also pushed Tokyo to offer redress to war victims. By 1999, some fifty-nine class-action lawsuits had been filed in Japanese courts to demand a Japanese official apology and compensation. The plaintiffs included Allied POWs, slave laborers, comfort women, victims of biochemical warfare and financial exploitation, and Taiwanese and Korean soldiers of the imperial military.24 In December 1999 and December 2000, respectively, the International Citizen’s Forum on War Crimes and Redress and the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery were held in Tokyo. On both occasions, foreign victims or their families, were joined by a large cohort of liberal politicians, intellectuals, and social activists across the world as they condemned Japanese war atrocities and pressured Tokyo to take action. These domestic and international efforts to debunk Japanese conservative myths about the war indeed generated some degree of victimizer’s consciousness and a sense of collective responsibility in Japanese society. But they also provoked a revisionist backlash from the Right, which accused the government of capitulating to foreign pressure and denounced progressive historians for spreading masochistic views among young people. Japanese neonationalists fundamentally refuted the aggressive nature of the war. People like Hayashi Fusao held such a radical position from as early as the 1960s.25 With the sudden interest in reassessing the Tokyo War Crimes Trial surging in the 1980s, Hayashi’s view was revived in Japan. The neonationalists called the trial “victor’s justice” and claimed 23 24 25

Barnard, “Isolating Knowledge.” See a tabulated summary of these lawsuits in Tawara, “Sengo Hosho¯ Saiban Ichiranhyo.” ¯ ¯ Senso¯ Koteiron. ¯ Hayashi, Daitoa

242

The Search for Reconciliation

that Japan should not be singled out from other Western imperialist powers.26 In the 1990s, historical revisionism had a new surge in Japan’s public sphere. Various conservative organizations tried to advance the view by organizing symposiums, publishing cartoons and popular readings, and even preparing textbooks of their own, including the controversial New History Textbook compiled by a neonationalist organization formed in 1996, the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform (abbreviated Tsukuru Kai).27 Such rightist campaigns put the Japanese government on the defensive; under this pressure, Mombusho¯ retreated from its earlier concession to the progressives. Textbooks approved in the year 2000 markedly deleted or watered down descriptions of Japanese military atrocities.28 Many of these changes were not made with the “voluntary restraint” of textbook publishers but were actually the result of political coercion by Mombusho¯ and the Office of the Prime Minister.29 In 2001, Mombusho¯ also approved the controversial textbook by the Tsukuru Kai, which has received a low but steadily increasing rate of school endorsement ever since. Further, the rise of historical revisionism was intimately connected with conservative politics. During the aforementioned struggle over the Diet war resolution in 1995, those who opposed a war apology formed the National Committee for the Fiftieth Anniversary of the War, which included such influential figures as former Prime Minister Fukuda, LDP politicians Okuno Seisuke and Nagano Shigeto, chairman of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inaba Kosaku, and chairman of the Japanese Federation of Employers Nagano Takeshi. Also in 1995, the History Examination Committee of the LDP published lectures given by well-known historical revisionists, including Tanaka Masaaki, who published a series of books denying the Nanjing Massacre, and Nishio Kanji, who would later head the Tsukuru Kai. In fact, a number of LDP politicians at the national and local levels, such as Machimura Nobutaka, who was a former minister of the Mombusho¯ (under Prime Minister Hashimoto) and Gaimusho¯ (under Prime Minister Koizumi), became members of the Tsukuru Kai.30 Although not many Japanese people truly subscribed to historical revisionism, its intertwinement with conservative 26 27 28 29 30

¯ ¯ o¯ Saiban kara Sengo Sekinin no Shiso¯ e, 17–66. Onuma, Toky McCormack, “Japanese Movement to ‘Correct’ History.” Asahi Shimbun, September 10, 2000; April 5, 2001. Tawara, “Junior High School History Textbooks.” For a more comprehensive study of the close links between Japanese historical revisionism and conservative politics, see Saaler, Politics, Memory and Public Opinion, 69–89.

Volatility and Downward Spiral

243

political heavyweights often had disproportionately strong repercussions both domestically and internationally, which became a highly provocative factor in Japan’s relations with China. China’s Patriotic Education Campaign, History Polemics with Japan, and the Rise of Anti-Japanese Popular Sentiment The provocation from Japanese neonationalists was only one reason for the rekindling of Sino-Japanese history disputes in the 1990s. Another major reason was that China redoubled its efforts to promote a nationalist ideology to address the power insecurity of the ruling elites and the nation’s serious internal instability and disunity. After the violent crackdown on the 1989 democratic movement, the CCP’s prestige tumbled, and Communism as the official ideology quickly lost credibility and popularity in China. A poll in October 1990 showed that among the minority of Beijing college students who were interested in joining the party, only one of six truly believed in Communism, whereas the others were all motivated by the desire to seek better career opportunities. Party hardliner Wang Zhen also openly bemoaned in 1991 that the party’s grip on the countryside was being eroded by the influence of Western religion, capitalism, and feudalistic forces.31 This ideological crisis was sharpened by the political turmoil in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe that eventually toppled their Communist governments by the early 1990s, in some cases violently. The external challenges of post-Tiananmen Western sanctions accentuated a siege mentality for the Chinese ruling class. The CCP conservative faction was particularly alarmed by the so-called peaceful evolution, through which “some reactionary forces at home and abroad” were attempting to subvert the socialist system in China. The conservatives pushed for a hostile posture against the West, fiercely attacked Deng Xiaoping’s reform and open-door policy, and cried for the strengthening of socialism. Qiushi, the principal CCP theoretical journal, charged: After China opened her door and carried out a policy of opening to the outside world, the capitalist-corrupted ideas and ways of life kept pouring in through various channels in large quantity. . . . The question of “which will win out,” socialism or capitalism, is still not really solved. Therefore, we must . . . build a strong wall ideologically, effectively resist and overcome capitalist ideas.32 31 32

Baum, Burying Mao, 331; Lam, “Wang Zhen Decries Loss.” Whiting, “Chinese Nationalism,” 301–2.

244

The Search for Reconciliation

The few years after the Tiananmen incident comprised one of the most intense periods of factional struggle in CCP history. The schism ran deep between the octogenarians of the Central Advisory Committee – such as Chen Yun, Wang Zhen, and Li Xiannian – hard-liners like Li Peng, and leftist theorists like Deng Liqun on one hand and the proreform faction, including Deng Xiaoping, Wan Li, and Li Ruihuan, on the other hand.33 As national morale fell and Communist ideology became increasingly irrelevant, the government again tried to supplement Communism with nationalist propaganda to maintain public support. The nationalism card could also mediate elite politics and prevent a serious split within the party because all factions claimed to be defending the national interest. In September 1989, the new party general secretary, Jiang Zemin, spoke of “patriotism and the self-reliant spirit” as the fundamental source of strength for the nation and stated that “patriotism and socialism are essentially united.”34 Jiang recapitulated the theme in May 1990 and urged “extensive and deep-going patriotic education,” including the teaching of Chinese traditional culture as well as the “history of patriotic struggle” against foreign imperialism since the Opium War.35 From this year, the State Education Commission instructed schools to “integrate patriotism education and education of the condition of our country [guoqin] with the education of loving socialism and loving the CCP.” In summer 1991, the CCP Central Propaganda Department issued the first official document on patriotic education, a “Circular on Fully Using Cultural Relics to Conduct Education in Patriotism and Revolutionary Traditions.”36 The patriotic education campaign was not immediately implemented, however, possibly because of a lack of consensus at the top. Whereas the conservatives tried to turn the campaign into a full-scale offensive against the “peaceful evolution” by the capitalist West, the proreform leaders wanted to limit the campaign to youth education on patriotism and traditional culture.37 Deng’s foreign strategy at the time was to lay low and avoid provocative rhetoric while quietly mending the fence with the

33

34

35 36

37

For some lengthy studies of post-Tiananmen intraparty factional politics, see Baum, Burying Mao, chs. 12–16, and Whiting, “Chinese Nationalism.” “The Basic Conclusion of the Forty Years History of the New China, September 29, 1989,” in Jiang, Jiang Zemin Wenxuan, 1: 67–69. “Patriotism and the Mission of the Chinese Intellectuals, May 3, 1990,” in ibid., 120–33. For the making of the patriotic education program after Tiananmen, see Jones, “Politics and History Curriculum,” 559–62; Pu, Aiguo Zhuyi yu Minzu Jingshen, 79–81; Wang, “National Humiliation”; and Zhao, “State-Led Nationalism.” Zhao, “State-Led Nationalism,” 292.

Volatility and Downward Spiral

245

West. Before the factional politics sorted itself out, a stalemate over policy persisted. Additionally, the chief sponsor of the patriotic education campaign, Jiang Zemin, held too weak a power base at the time to call for a significant propaganda crusade. Several new incentives to drive the campaign appeared around 1993. One was that the reformists had prevailed in the factional struggle, forging a party consensus regarding the content and direction of patriotic propaganda. Meanwhile, the power of the older leaders had waned because of age or death, enabling Jiang to consolidate power within the party and military. Yet Jiang’s position was still threatened by Qiao Shi, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, widely viewed as Jiang’s competitor for paramount leadership – not to mention the internal resentment toward the rapid ascendance of Jiang’s Shanghai faction to the top of the ruling echelon.38 Observers of Chinese politics suggest that “Jiang’s appeals to nationalism were geared toward raising his own stature. . . . Like Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and Chairman Mao, Jiang laid claim to being the embodiment of the guohun, or the country’s soul.”39 Also in 1993, China simultaneously faced an economic boom and the intensification of a range of socioeconomic problems. The GDP grew almost 14 percent that year, but the inflation rate also rose to a post1988 peak of 15.7 percent in the first quarter of 1993 and reached 24.8 percent a year later. Unemployment had hit nearly one-third of China’s total workforce by March 1993, including millions of laid-off workers, mostly from failing state-owned enterprises, and even more numerous migrant workers coming from the countryside. Social wending (stability) was in serious danger as the crime rate surged and rural disturbances and urban labor unrest erupted both frequently and on a large scale. Official corruption and economic crime were so rampant that they prompted Jiang and Deng to issue warning messages in the People’s Daily in July and October 1993, respectively.40 Such widespread social dissatisfaction and disorder created profound centrifugal forces undercutting the support base of the CCP regime. Thus, Jiang felt an urgent need to resort to “love for the motherland,” the lowest common denominator in the deeply divided society, to glue it together. 38

39 40

For more on the struggle between the Shanghai faction and its opponents within the Chinese government, see Lam, Era of Jiang Zemin, 18–32. Ibid., 53. Baum, Burying Mao, 377–82. Also see Bonnin, “Perspectives on Social Stability”; Lu, ¨ Cadres and Corruption, ch. 6; and Perry, “Crime, Corruption, and Contention.”

246

The Search for Reconciliation

The external environment that motivated Jiang to cross Deng’s cautious line on political rhetoric was a mixture of China’s improved international confidence after Western sanctions ended and the perceived Western attempt to contain China. In October 1992, Jiang declared that China’s international influence and status were “rising unceasingly” and that its relations with neighboring countries were the best they had been since 1949.41 Meanwhile, Beijing believed that the West was continuing to show an unfavorable attitude toward China, particularly reflected in the American Congress’s annual deliberation on the extension of Most Favored Nation trade status toward China, the insult of the Yinhe incident,42 the obstruction of Beijing’s bid to host the 2000 Olympic Games and its entry to the World Trade Organization, and new American sanctions in 1993 instituted against China’s sale of missiles to Pakistan. Although President Clinton proclaimed an official policy of engagement with China, Beijing viewed it with heavy skepticism and resentment. Thus, both China’s economic and diplomatic successes and its perceived unfair treatment by the West encouraged Beijing to discard its low-key posture after Tiananmen and instead to boast, to assert itself, and to vent. The situation around 1993 was in some ways similar to 1982, when the adoption of the assertive independent foreign policy removed Chinese leaders’ concerns about the diplomatic repercussions of nationalist propaganda at home. In January 1993, the State Education Commission officially set patriotism as a guiding principle of China’s educational reform. In November, the government issued a circular requiring primary and secondary school students nationwide to watch patriotic films recommended by the commission. Patriotic education was further energized in 1994 by a few more official directives, most notably the “Outline for Conducting Patriotic Education” issued by the CCP Central Committee.43 41

42

43

“Accelerating the Pace of Reform and Open Policy and Modernization Construction, Striving for Greater Victory of a Socialist Cause with Chinese Characteristics, October 12, 1992,” in Jiang, Jiang Zemin Wenxuan, 1: 210–54. In summer 1993, the U.S. government insisted on stopping and searching the Chinese ship Yinhe Hao on international waters, citing CIA intelligence that it was carrying chemical weapon materials to Iran. The search did not find the alleged materials on the ship. Zhao, “State-Led Nationalism,” 292–93. The text of the “Outline for Conducting Patriotic Education” is available in Documents Research Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, Shisida Yilai Zhongyao Wenxian Xuanbian, 1: 919–51.

Volatility and Downward Spiral

247

To be sure, this nationalist campaign was not intended to provoke anti-West xenophobia that would have damaged the Chinese economy, which was so interdependent with the West. Excessive public animosity against foreigners might also have undermined political stability, which had happened in both the May Fourth movement of 1919 and the Xi’an incident of 1936, when anti-Japanese mass demonstrations rapidly turned into antigovernment movements.44 To signal the domestic orientation of the campaign, the official discourse preferred the term aiguo zhuyi (patriotism) to minzu zhuyi (nationalism) because the latter had narrow, antiforeign connotations. Nevertheless, the campaign emphasized China’s history of resisting foreign aggression as a collective experience of suffering, struggle, and glory. Schools were told to use history learning to make students “remember historical lessons, and not to forget imperialist invasion and Chinese people’s heroic resistance.”45 It is notable that the new history education highlighted the 1937–45 Sino-Japanese War, which had previously been treated as merely one of many episodes in Chinese revolutionary history. Now the war was singled out as the most important military and political conflict in modern Chinese history because in this war “China could claim its first complete victory against foreign invaders.”46 In 1995, Beijing launched a vigorous commemorative campaign for the fiftieth anniversary of China’s war victory, which brought the patriotic education to a climax. The official media published numerous historical documents, interviews, and editorials on the war, and secondary schools nationwide organized pupils to learn 100 patriotic songs, watch 100 patriotic films, and read 100 patriotic books selected by the State Education Commission.47 The official description of the KMT’s role in the war turned even more benign than before. By the 1990s, the pro-independent Democratic Progressive Party had gained great influence in Taiwan. The KMT, now representing the anti-independent constituency in Taiwan, became Beijing’s potential ally. Textbooks now detailed the military campaigns fought

44

45

46

47

The Chinese government’s fear of anti-Japanese nationalism turning into an antigovernment movement is discussed in Christensen, “China and the Security Dilemma,” 54–55. Editorial Department of Zhongguo Jiaoyu Nianjian, Zhongguo Jiaoyu Nianjian, 1990, 103. See “Jiang Zemin’s Speech at the Veterans’ Symposium, August 25, 1995,” in Tian, Zhanhou Zhongri Guanxi Wenxianji, 2: 939. Editorial Department of Zhongguo Jiaoyu Nianjian, Zhongguo Jiaoyu Nianjian, 1996, 957–64.

248

The Search for Reconciliation

by the Nationalist army against Japan.48 In the meantime, coverage of Japanese war atrocities expanded considerably, providing concrete figures of fatalities, gruesome photos, and even names of villages and individuals that had fallen victim to the aggression.49 More war museums were built or renovated, including the September 18 Historical Museum in Shenyang, originally built in 1991 and reopened in 1999 after renovation; the memorial to the Nanjing Massacre, which was significantly expanded in 1995; and a new phase of the building of the War of Resistance Museum in Beijing that began in 1997. Although concentrating its attacks on Japanese aggression toward China, the official historiography remained impervious to dissenting views that would question any inglorious aspects of Chinese modern history. In the words of Chinese Historian Yuan Weishi, Chinese kids are fed with “wolf milk,” meaning that they are taught a nationalistic history that scapegoats foreigners and glorifies China. In 2006, when Yuan published a magazine article criticizing the self-glorifying myths about the Boxer Uprising in Chinese textbooks, the government suspended the magazine and fired the editors.50 Although appeals to patriotism can help boost national morale, placing too much emphasis on it may engender a mass ideology of extreme selfglorification and antiforeignism. When patriotism became the buzzword in Chinese public discourse, more people wanted to proclaim their uncritical love for China and their desire to defend it from aggressive foreigners. According to the social comparison theory, we should expect in such an environment that group members would compete among themselves to act out socially desirable values. If everyone wants to be an ardent patriot lest they lose social status and respect, extreme opinions tend to prevail, whereas the more moderate and balanced views will fall out of favor.51 Hence, the idealization of patriotic warriors in China generated visceral anti-Western sentiments, of which Japan was the main target. The official history still maintained that Japanese militarists had to be differentiated 48

49 50 51

HST4, vol. 2; MST 7, vol. 4. Besides, MST 8, grade 8, vol. 2 (published in 1996 by Shanghai Education Press), includes several photos and vivid description of Nationalist resistance battles in the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, 8–13 Defense of Shanghai, Defense of Nanjing, Taierzhuang Battle, Battle of Wuhan, Battle of Zaoyi (May 1940), and expedition campaign in Burma, and MST 9, grade 8, vol. 1, covers the battles at Marco Polo Bridge and Taierzhuang and provides maps. HST 5, vol. 2, covers the battles at Marco Polo Bridge, Shanghai, Xinkou (October 1937), Taierzhuang, and Zaoyi. Ibid. Friedman, “Raising Sheep on Wolf Milk;”Author 2007. Wetherell, “Social Identity and Group Polarization.”

Volatility and Downward Spiral

249

from the ordinary Japanese, but the public was too preoccupied with Chinese victimhood to recognize this fine distinction. Best-selling books, Internet chat rooms, and private discussion forums on Japan and war history commonly condemned the entire Japanese nation as evil.52 One may argue, alternatively, that the rise of anti-Japanese sentiment during this period was not from deliberate elite mythmaking but came about because a more open Chinese society enabled freer expression of preexisting Chinese hatred of Japan. After all, compared to other imperialist powers, Japanese aggression in China was the freshest, bloodiest, and most harmful.53 Indeed, the patriotic education campaign was successful largely because its content was highly credible to a captive audience whose private memories of war aggression and genuine resentment toward Japan had previously been masked by class hatred. The fact that young Chinese, who had no personal memory of the war, appeared to hate Japan more than the older generation, however, testifies to the function of government manipulation through education, media, and other propaganda means. More importantly, although tapping into deeply embedded Chinese cultural images about Japan, the government banished to oblivion the history of other external conflicts that did not fit its needs.54 So elite mythmaking indeed relies on history, but it does so only selectively. Incidentally, the patriotic propaganda was reinforced by what the Chinese saw as Japan’s egregious attempt to evade war responsibility. Chinese student demonstrations in the mid-1980s were provoked largely by the Japanese textbook controversy and Nakasone’s Yasukuni visit. From then on, any signs of Japanese ambiguity or resistance to admitting its war guilt would validate the Chinese belief that Japan was the ultimate enemy and China was the victim, and that to combat anything related to Japan was quintessential patriotism. So the more Japan appeared unrepentant about the past, the more the Chinese public felt unwilling to forget the war and the more it demanded Japanese contrition. Take war reparations for an example. Officially, Beijing waived reparations claims at the time of diplomatic normalization. But since the

52

53 54

For a lengthy discussion of the radicalization of Chinese public opinion about Japan since the 1990s, see He, “Remembering and Forgetting.” Suzuki, “The Importance of ‘Othering,’” 38. For example, from the 1990s, the Chinese government systematically deleted the 1980s war against Vietnam from public memory. Textbooks omitted the war, war heroes disappeared from public view, artists stopped featuring the war, and even relevant library materials were removed. See “Was the War Pointless? China Shows How to Bury It,” New York Times, March 1, 2005.

250

The Search for Reconciliation

outbreak of bilateral history disputes in the 1980s, this issue had resurfaced. In 1987, an overseas Chinese journal published an article by Fang Lizhi, an influential political dissident, which voiced disapproval of the Chinese government policy. “After the war, Japan ought to have paid China war reparations in hundreds of billions of dollars,” he said, “but with the consent of Premier Zhou [the debt] was canceled by one single stroke of writing.”55 Entering the 1990s, more Chinese people openly sympathized with the war victims. Some even organized a grassroots war redress movement, and representatives of this movement began to appeal to the Chinese National People’s Congress. A survey conducted among Chinese university students in September 1992 shows that some 58.6 percent of respondents believed the 1972 decision to drop war compensation claims had damaged Chinese interests, and 89.1 percent supported raising compensation claims with Japan.56 Student demands resonated so much among not only the general public but also state officials that even journals of government think tanks published articles sympathetic to individual demands for war compensation.57 Under growing societal pressure, in March 1995, Foreign Minister Qian Qichen acknowledged individual claims of war compensation to Japan as the right of the Chinese people, which the government would neither obstruct nor intervene in.58 Permitted by the government and riding the tide of the war redress movement propelled by international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), Chinese war victims began filing lawsuits in Japanese courts.59 In the early 1990s, Beijing actually held diplomatic fire against Japan because Japan was the first Western country to rebuild ties with China after Tiananmen. Friendship organizations began mutual visits from September 1989, and high-ranking Chinese officials visited Japan by 1990. In August 1991, Prime Minister Kaifu paid an official visit to Beijing, becoming the first Western leader to do so after June 4, and

55

56

57

58 59

The article was actually written back in November 1981 but was not published until 1987. For a Japanese translation of the article, see Fang, “Nihonjin no Senzai no Sensokan ni tsuite.” ¯ “Students Demand Japanese War Reparations,” Tokyo Kyodo, September 23, 1992, in FBIS-CHI-92–186, September 24, 1992. Jiang, “Yazhou Geguo Erzhan Shouhaizhe Peichang Susong Fenqi de Fenxi”; Zhang, “Riben Jiejue dui Wo Minjian Peichang Wenti Ciqi Shi Ye.” An, “Riben Qiye de Zhanzhen Zeren ji Minjian Peichang Wenti,” 194. For a chronology of the society-based Chinese war reparations movement, see Xu and Fine, “Memory Movement.”

Volatility and Downward Spiral

251

agreed to resume Japanese Official Development Aid to China. Thereafter, the bilateral relationship warmed up, culminating in the exchange of visits by President Jiang and Emperor Akihito in 1992. These highprofile political contacts with Japan were critically important for Beijing to shake off the post-Tiananmen stigma and return to the good graces of international society. Naturally, by 1993, Beijing’s diplomacy toward Japan emphasized friendship and cooperation and suspended the history quarrel.60 Because this friendship diplomacy was driven by expediency rather than a long-term goal of reconciliation, however, little progress toward historical settlement was actually made. The emperor’s visit to China, intended as a symbol of bilateral harmony, barely concealed the sharp memory conflict between the two sides. When in Beijing, Akihito said, “In the long history of relations between our two countries, there was a tragic period when my country caused great suffering for the people of China,” for which the Japanese nation felt “deep sorrow.” Yet he stopped short of giving a formal apology.61 Back in Japan, conservative and right-wing forces strongly opposed the emperor’s visit and his issuing of an apology.62 The short interval of harmony soon ended, not only because Beijing’s attitude to the West grew more assertive overall after 1993 but also because of the occurrence of a few provocative events in Japan, including the problematic war resolution passed in the Diet in 1995 and Prime Minister Hashimoto’s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine in 1996, which supplied Beijing with ammunition to attack Japan. Hence, a new wave of bilateral history disputes surged. It peaked during Jiang’s formal visit to Tokyo in November 1998, in which he harshly criticized Japan’s wartime history and demanded Japanese contrition. After the Japan-bashing strategy turned out to be counterproductive, Chinese leaders softened their historical rhetoric.63 But a ceasefire over the history issue was shortly broken, this time by Prime Minister Koizumi, who started annual worship at Yasukuni from October 2001. In protest, Beijing suspended mutual state visits and again pressured Japan to adopt “a correct historical view.” 60 61

62

63

Rozman, “China’s Changing Images.” Emperor Akihito’s speech at a welcome banquet in Beijing on October 23, 1992, can ¯ u, ¯ 794–95, and Tian, Zhanhou be found in Kazankai, Nitchu¯ Kankei Kihon Shiryosh Zhongri Guanxi Wenxianji, 2: 849–50. Japanese domestic reactions to the emperor’s China trip are discussed in Nakajima, “Tenno Hoch ¯ u¯ to Nihon Gaiko.” ¯ Rozman, “China’s Changing Images.”

252

The Search for Reconciliation

In general, from the 1990s, Sino-Japanese memories about war history have displayed a mixture of conflictual narratives in the official discourse and combative narratives in popular expressions. The widening memory gap between the two sides was manifest in two Sino-Japanese joint polls conducted by Asahi Shimbun and a Chinese polling center in 1997 and 2002. In 1997, majorities of both the Chinese (86 percent) and Japanese (58 percent) public considered Japan’s war compensation to China as inadequate. When asked what the Japanese government should do regarding history, however, 74 percent of Chinese respondents, compared to only 35 percent of the Japanese, believed that the Japanese should show contrition by offering a “heartfelt apology” and “monetary compensation” or by “enhancing history education,” whereas only 20 percent of the Chinese, compared to 61 percent of the Japanese, chose “constructing a new cooperative relationship unconstrained by the past.” Five years later, 87 percent of the Chinese but only 44 percent of the Japanese respondents still agreed that Japanese compensation was insufficient. Regarding government policy, Chinese respondents demanding Japanese contrition increased to 85 percent, whereas those Japanese advocating new cooperation increased to 67 percent.64 According to national mythmaking theory, China and Japan’s temporary ceasefire over the history issue in the early 1990s should have allowed a short-lived smooth relationship between China and Japan; however, because of the rise of anti-Japanese popular sentiment in China, this short history d´etente would only replicate the honeymoon of the 1970s at the official level but failed to mitigate public animosity. Moreover, the increased historiographic divergence during this period should have caused a new escalation of various bilateral disputes, regardless of whether they pertained to important national interests. The result should have been a general downward and volatile trend in Sino-Japanese relations.

sino-japanese relations from the 1990s to the present Heightened Expectations of War The Mixed Effects of the Changing External Material Threat The end of the Cold War did not bring about an immediate deterioration in mutual strategic perception in the early 1990s. The Japanese perceived that China’s national security focus had expanded beyond the purely 64

Japan-China Society of Media Studies, Zhongri Xianghu Yishi yu Chuanmei de Zuoyong.

Volatility and Downward Spiral

253

military arena to include the goals of upholding domestic stability and steady economic growth.65 They also argued that the PLA did not possess the capabilities for an overseas campaign, and any potential Chinese threat to Japan would likely be a large-scale refugee exodus rather than a military attack.66 It was only around 1994 that Japanese strategic elites and the defense establishment embraced an explicit sense of security caution vis-a-vis China, which was shared by many high` ranking Japanese officials and politicians.67 This lagged four to five years behind the post–Cold War structural change, which is the first puzzle for realists. Yuken Hironaka, then director of the Institute of Defense Research, argued in 1994 that China’s military power and its marked progress toward modernization constituted one of the three unstable factors in regional security.68 In his visit to China in January 1994, Japanese Foreign Minister Hata Tsutomu expressed concern about China’s defense budget increase and demanded more transparency, making him the first Japanese government official to raise this issue diplomatically.69 An influential book detailing Japanese perceptions of the Chinese military threat, ¯ Chugoku Gunjiron (On China’s Military), was also published that year. In this systematic study of Chinese military organization, doctrines, and weapon programs, author Kayahara Ikuo, a former uniformed officer and then research fellow of the Institute of Defense Research, pointed to China’s lack of transparency in military spending, assertive naval strategy, and unrestrained arms export as constituting a security threat to Japan and the region.70 Japan’s Defense White Paper also listed a Chinese defense budget jump and naval and air force modernization as potential problems in Japan’s security environment from 1994, the problem of Chinese nuclear tests from 1995, and the instability caused by Chinese missile exercises in the Taiwan Strait from 1996. Japan particularly reacted to the 1995–96 Taiwan Strait Crisis with poignant anxiety. Its chairman of the Joint Staff, General Tetsuya Nishimoto, openly expressed concerns over Chinese missile exercises surrounding Taiwan.71 The well-regarded annual review published by the Research Institute for Peace and Security, Asian Security, called Chinese missile exercises in 65 66 67 68 69 70 71

Kasahara, “Chugoku ni totte Atarashii Anzen Hosho,” ¯ ¯ 47. Tsukamoto, “Kyokuto¯ no Gunji Josei to Kyoi ¯ ¯ no Yos ¯ o,” ¯ 38–39. Ueki, Rise of “China Threat” Arguments, 352–54. Hironaka, “Higashi Ajia Taiheiyo¯ Chiiki no Anzen Hosho¯ ni tsuite.” Ueki, Rise of “China Threat” Arguments, 352. ¯ Kayahara, Chugoku Gunjiron. Green and Self, “Japan’s Changing China Policy,” 36.

254

The Search for Reconciliation

the Taiwan Strait “blatant interference in Taiwan’s domestic politics” through military intimidation and concluded that they indicated a significant departure from the conciliatory approach in Chinese foreign policy since 1989.72 Although Japan increasingly applied what Green and Self called “reluctant realism” in its China policy,73 China was also disturbed by Japan’s active participation in regional and international security affairs after the Cold War. Yet in the early 1990s, Beijing’s criticism of Japan was restrained. When Japan passed the Peacekeeping Operations Bill in September 1992, Beijing conspicuously kept quiet about it. From the mid-1990s, however, Beijing expressed objections to Japan’s international activism, particularly its possible military involvement in future cross–Taiwan Strait conflict through the U.S.-Japan alliance.74 A leading Chinese expert on Japan warned that if the readjusted U.S.-Japan alliance allowed Japan to interfere with regional affairs via military means, the nature of the alliance would become one of an “international police in the Asia-Pacific region.”75 From then on, China warily watched Japan’s escalating role in international security affairs. In 1997, the official Beijing Review alarmed readers regarding Japan’s defense buildup, doctrinal changes, and attempt to boost its international influence through the U.S.-Japan alliance and the “so-called UN-centrism.”76 China’s National Defense White Papers published every two years in 1998–2006 frequently mentioned U.S.Japan collaboration over missile defense and intention to intervene in the Taiwan Strait, Japan’s overseas military activities, and its attempt to exercise collective security through constitutional revision as complicated security factors in the region.77 Chinese strategic analysts also saw Japan’s active support of the U.S. War on Terror as a signal of an “all-out transformation” (quanmian zhuanxing) in its military doctrine from exclusive defense toward a more “outwardly directed posture” 72 73 74

75 76

77

Research Institute for Peace and Security, Japan, Asian Security 1996–97, 12, 14. Green and Self, “Japan’s Changing China Policy.” Although worrying that a tighter U.S.-Japan alliance might encourage Japanese military intervention in Taiwan, Chinese elites were also afraid that a weak alliance might fail to restrain the Japanese trend of remilitarization. On the Chinese psychological dilemma over the U.S.-Japan alliance, see Christensen, “Security Dilemma in East Asia.” Liu, “Zhongri Guanxi de Tiaozheng he Fazhan.” “Article Views Japan after Cold War,” Beijing Review 9, March 3–9, 1997, in FBISCHI-97–066, March 7, 1997. China’s National Defense White Papers are available at << http://english.gov.cn/official/ 2005-08/17/content_24165.htm#2006>>.

Volatility and Downward Spiral

255

(waixiang xing).78 Some even claimed that Japan’s SDF was changing from a force of “territorial defense” (bentu fangwei xing) into a force of “regional intervention” (diqu ganyu xing) with the ability for “preemptive strike” (xianfa zhiren).79 The second puzzle for realists is that such Chinese and Japanese mutual security concerns were not based on pure military capabilities. Asian Security pointed out in 2004: “Given China’s GDP is only 1/4 of that of Japan, the gap in our military powers is huge. Even though China’s launching of a manned spacecraft in October 2003 greatly boosted its prestige, it has not suddenly changed the Japan-China balance of power.”80 Even ardent advocates of the “China threat” noted the PLA’s lack of power projection capability, poor quality of weapons, and low comprehensive combat potential as its ostensible weaknesses.81 Likewise, Chinese international specialists were largely confident about China’s power advantage over Japan, and some even believed that China was capable of completely wiping out Japan in the absence of U.S. intervention.82 Yet Japan was agonized by Chinese military adventurism, whereas China constantly warned that Japan would flex its military muscle externally and damage China’s national interests. This phenomenon suggests that some nonstructural factors also mattered in how the Chinese and Japanese saw each other. Next, I discuss how their mutual perception was susceptible to the significant influence of their divergent historical memories. China: Japanese Unrepentance and Possible Militarist Revival The pattern by which Chinese elites linked Japan’s past behavior to its future intentions that was notable in the 1980s continued during this period. In a typical example from August 1995, the Beijing Review carried a lengthy article, “Unforgettable Aggression,” to commemorate the 78

79

80

81

82

China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, Guoji Zhanlue yu Anquan Xingshi Pinggu, 102–4; Hu, “Riben Junshi Daguohua de Xingdongxiang”; “Japan Seeks to Become Major Military Power,” PLA Daily, May 13, 2002, in FBIS-CHI-2002–0514; Li, Guoji Zhanlue Baogao, 447–48. Li, “Lengzhan Jieshuhou Riben Junshi Zhanlue Tiaozheng de Lujing Fenxi,” 66–67; Wang, “Meijun Quanqiu Bushu Tiaozheng yu Riben Mianlin de Jueze,” 61. Research Institute for Peace and Security, Japan, Ajia no Anzen Hosho¯ (Asian Security) 2004–5, 157. Kayahara, “Chugoku no Kokubo¯ Kindaika to Ajia no Kincho.” ¯ ¯ Also see Takamine, “New Dynamism,” 443. Author interviews with twenty Chinese government officials, diplomats, think-tank analysts, and academics specializing in international relations and Japan studies in Beijing and Shanghai, May 2006. For obvious reasons, the identities of the interviewees cannot be revealed.

The Search for Reconciliation

256

number of publications 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 figure 6.1. Chinese Strategic Studies of Japan that made superficial (prejudiced and/or simplistic), Historical Analogies 1990–1997.

war and cited Chinese academics to send a warning message to Japan: “Japan remains the only country in Asia capable of threatening its neighbors. The country’s history, combined with its performance after the war, necessitates its neighboring nations to remain keenly vigilant.”83 A survey of more than four hundred analytical articles and books by Chinese international experts published during 1990–97 shows that more than half mentioned Sino-Japanese war history when discussing Japan’s current policy and future trends. The tendency to perceive Japan through a historical lens was weaker in the early 1990s, when the state’s history polemics were suspended, but from 1995, when China escalated patriotic education and history bashing against Japan, the history factor figured prominently in Chinese strategic analyses of Japan (see Figure 6.1).84 The escalation of bilateral history disputes under the Koizumi government (2001–6) also heightened Chinese security concerns vis-a-vis Japan. ` In July 2003, a People’s Daily editorial raised the sharp question, “Is 83

84

“Article Views Memory of Two Wars with Japan,” Beijing Review, August 21–27, 1995, in FBIS-CHI-95–161, August 21, 1995. He, “Effect of Historical Memory.”

Volatility and Downward Spiral

257

Japan’s seeking the status of a big military power a normal pursuit?” The author answered: First, in the past Japan has launched many wars of aggression, causing extremely big disasters and harm. Up to now, it has refused to admit and show remorse for its crimes in the war of aggression against China. . . . Second, Japan’s military strength has exceeded its defense needs. Japan’s foreign security policy has gradually exceeded the boundary of “for defense only.” . . . How can it be possible that people are not worried about a Japan which has refused to show remorse for its war of aggression, which is wantonly developing its military power, which has abandoned the policy of “for defense only,” and which is planning to revise its constitution of peace?85

Articles published in academic and policy-oriented journals echoed the official media. For example, one author opined, “While its military power increase does not necessarily mean Japan would be entangled in military conflict, such risk should not be ignored. . . . And if one considers the rising Japanese nationalist thoughts that lack correct understanding of history, one may argue that Japan would become the biggest factor of instability in Asia.”86 Other Chinese analysts believed that Japan would not have increased its military power in the first place if it had truly come to terms with its past. One author claimed that the same nationalist and militarist thoughts that had caused Japanese aggression in the past remained influential in Japan, which could justify its historical amnesia, eliminate its sense of national shame, and remove the psychological obstacles keeping the country from becoming a great military power.87 A keyword search in the China Academic Journals database shows that the vast majority of the total of sixty-seven analytical articles within the military category of “Japan” published in 2004–5 warned of fastincreasing Japanese military power and Japan’s strategic assertiveness. Of them, thirty-four articles explicitly argued that these new trends in the Japanese military were particularly dangerous because of a surge in Japanese nationalism related to the nation’s history.88 The same pattern appeared in my interviews with Chinese elites, where fourteen of twenty interviewees expressed concerns about Japan’s strategic intent as a result 85

86 87 88

“Article Views ‘Obstacles’ to Sino-Japanese Relations,” People’s Daily, July 22, 2003, in FBIS-CHI-2003–0722. Li, “Lengzhan Jieshuhou Riben Junshi Zhanlue Tiaozheng de Lujing Fenxi,” 68. Lu, ¨ “Riben Chuantong Wenhua yu Junshi Guannian.” The rest simply described Japan’s military power increase without speculating about its motivations or future ambitions, although this does not mean they would disagree on the history connection.

258

The Search for Reconciliation

of its failure to face the past.89 The data suggest that a significant proportion of Chinese analysts were influenced by historical memory. Such Chinese criticism of Japanese policies in connection with war history resembles its media bashing of reviving Japanese militarism in the 1960s. But major differences exist. First, the earlier media campaign was primarily for propaganda purposes, but materials published in research venues now to a large extent reflect the elites’ true opinions.90 Second, in the 1960s, Beijing cited history to press Tokyo to change its political policy toward China rather than its historical interpretations. But now, China demanded not only restraint in Japan’s international behaviors but also its sincere contrition and serious reform of history education. The logic being that because Japan lacked contrition for the bad things it did in the past, it might repeat them in the future. Japan: Historiographic Gap and the Fear of an Assertive China From the Chinese perspective, its “hundred-year humiliation” under foreign imperialist aggression justified not only Chinese indignation toward the Japanese distortion of history but also China’s assertiveness in foreign and defense affairs, as history showed that China would only suffer if it was weak and docile. But the Chinese perspective did not impress the Japanese, who interpreted their shared history quite differently. In a ¯ Chu¯ o¯ Koron article in 1995, two conservative Japanese intellectuals tried to normalize Japan’s war of aggression by arguing that it was just one of many wars in world history, and Japan should not be singled out for blame; they also stressed that the issue of war reparations had been long concluded by postwar peace treaties, so it was just a matter of course 89

90

Author’s interviews, May 2006. Few Chinese analysts believed that Japan’s wrong historical views automatically meant Japanese militarist revival. Some interviewees seriously worried that Japan might embark on a militarist path again, whereas others dismissed such a possibility. Yet even those optimistic interviewees admitted that Japan’s historical revisionism, even if originally not targeted at China, would “inflame Japanese nationalism that would inevitably clash with China” or “encourage more hostile policy to China”; they also believed that Japan intentionally created trouble over history so that China could not concentrate on economic development and a peaceful rise. Overall, with only a few exceptions, the interviewees said they could not trust Japan because of its flawed historical memory. Shambaugh argues that by the 1990s, the works of Chinese international relations experts had “become more variegated, sophisticated and occasionally theoretical.” See “International Relations Think Tanks,” 579. A leading Japan scholar said to the author (interview in Beijing, May 11, 2006), “We are not yuyong wenren [literati at the service of the emperor], and we don’t just explain policy, though the government and we do oftentimes think alike.”

Volatility and Downward Spiral

259

for Japan to refuse to deal with it.91 In a special series published in the conservative magazine Shokun in February 2006, “History Lectures: If Told by China Like That, Respond Like This!” about thirty Japanese scholars and intellectuals each penned a rebuttal to the Chinese view on a different historical event, including the Manchuria incident, the Nanjing Massacre, and the Japanese colonization of Taiwan. Even those who admitted to Japanese aggression generally rejected China’s history bashing, as they believed Japan had been a peaceful country after the war and had made considerable efforts to atone for its guilt. Kitaoka Shinichi, deputy ambassador to the UN and professor at the University of Tokyo, argued that China itself renounced war compensation for political reasons, but Japan had apologized to China many times and provided China with economic aid. Admitting that Japanese apologies were not as forthright as Germany’s, Kitaoka claimed that Japanese war crimes were no comparison to the genocidal Holocaust. He also criticized the history distortion in China’s own textbooks and defended Koizumi’s shrine visits and Japanese textbooks as not glorifying aggression.92 If China’s assertive attitude was unjustifiable in the historical and present contexts, Japanese elites believed that China was developing a dangerous nationalist trend in seeking to shake off national humiliation through the resurrection of a “greater Chinese empire.” Although it might be far-fetched to think that China would immediately come after Japan in a revanchist move, they were afraid that China would act more aggressively in the region and threaten the interests of its neighbors. From the mid-1990s, the Asian Security series repeatedly warned that “with dreams of empire,” China took for granted that it should dominate the region that was traditionally its sphere of influence; moreover, China tended to defy international criticism because memory of past national trauma made it highly sensitive to “foreign meddling” in its internal affairs.93 The director of the Research Institute for Peace and Security, Watanabe Akio, suggested in a 2004 article that by emphasizing the “hundredyear humiliation” history and eulogizing the “glorious resurrection of the Chinese nation,” China’s thesis of a peaceful rise actually betrayed its deep-seated resentment and sense of inferiority, and it raised the

91 92

93

Ito¯ and Sato, ¯ “Ano Senso¯ to wa nani datta no ka.” Kitaoka, “Jonin Rijikoku Hairi wa Nihon ga Hatasu beki Sekinin de aru” and “Anpori ¯ Kaikaku to Chugoku Mondai.” ¯ Research Institute for Peace and Security, Japan, Asian Security 1993–94, 7, 95; Asian Security 1994–95, 6–7.

260

The Search for Reconciliation

suspicion that China was attempting to rebuild the old dream of the “China Order.”94 Furthermore, Japanese elites felt that China intentionally used the history card either to scapegoat Japan for domestic political reasons or to seize the high moral ground and relegate Japan to a subordinate position in the overall bilateral relationship. As a Japanese expert on international affairs said: Although Japanese people usually have deeply understood the nation’s negative legacy vis-a-vis China, the way China raises the issue of “historical conscious` ness” often tries to make a generalization out of exceptional cases, which sometimes makes people feel that China tries to interfere with Japan’s internal affairs. Moreover, one begins to suspect that China is using the issue of “historical consciousness” as a diplomatic means to impose a morally upper-and-lower pattern on Sino-Japanese relations and get Japanese public acceptance that Japan should be submissive to China.95

Kitaoka was frustrated that China had cited history in denying Japan a greater role in the new world order, by thwarting the Japanese bid for UNSC permanent membership, and by blowing the whistle on Japanese militarism whenever the SDF went overseas to make an “international contribution.”96 Several other hawkish elites, like Nakajima Mineo and Noda Nobuo, bluntly claimed the relationship with China was not mutually beneficial because China still thought of East Asia as the “tributary international order,” and its harsh bashing of Japan on the history issue was just one link in building this order. They urged the Japanese government to reject the “diplomacy of atonement” (shokuzai) or the ¯ and to instead take “diplomacy of being outranked” (kuraimake gaiko) ¯ or showdown (taiketsu) toward China.97 a strategy of opposition (taiko) To be fair, not all Japanese elites held such hard-line views. Some moderates argued that many history problems occurred because Japan had provoked first, and Japan could have apologized to China more thoroughly to resolve the history issue. But even they attributed the anti-Japanese popular nationalism in China to the Chinese government’s 94 95

96 97

Watanabe, “Higashi Ajia Kyot o Mezasu Nagai Reesu ga Hajimatta,” 35–36. ¯ otai ¯ Miyamoto, “‘Nichi-bei-chu-ro’ Shijus On,” 145. On the belief among ¯ ¯ o¯ no Fu Kyowa ¯ Japanese elites about Beijing’s use of the history card vis-a-vis Japan, also see Yang, ` “Mirror for the Future.” Kitaoka, “Jonin Rijikoku Hairi wa Nihon ga Hatasu beki Sekinin de aru.” ¯ Nakajima, “ODA o Toriyame/Taichugoku Gaiko¯ no Arikata mo Minaose”; Noda, ¯ “Chugoku ‘Teikoku Chitsujo Kochiku’ ni Nihon wa Taiko¯ Senryaku o Mochiuru no ¯ ¯ ka?”

Volatility and Downward Spiral

261

patriotic education, which gave rise to a stereotyped image of Japan.98 Others disagreed that Beijing intentionally used anti-Japanese patriotic education to promote national cohesion but still expressed deep concerns about the radical emotions among Chinese young people, who misperceived the present Japan as militaristic and wanted all Japanese to be eliminated.99 Thus, even the moderate elites worried that Chinese nationalism derived from history could spin out of control and propel antagonistic Chinese actions toward Japan. In short, similar to the way it caused Chinese suspicion of Japanese militarist ambition, the elites’ disapproval of the ways in which China handled the war history was also an important factor, if not the only factor, in stimulating Japanese concerns about Chinese intentions. Furthermore, both sides felt self-righteous about their own behavior without realizing that it might appear provocative and even threatening to the other country. Such mutual misperception is a classic recipe for security dilemmas. So the memory-derived mechanism of intention can complement realist theory in explaining the timing and intensity of the heightened Chinese and Japanese expectation of mutual conflict during this period. Simmering Popular Animosity Sporadic public polls began to be conducted in China from the late 1980s that indicated an ever-deteriorating Chinese popular image of Japan. In 1988, a poll showed that 53.6 percent of Chinese respondents felt close to Japan, whereas 38.6 percent felt not close. But, in the previously mentioned joint polls conducted by the Asahi Shimbun, only 10 percent of Chinese liked Japan, whereas those who disliked Japan increased from 34 percent in 1997 to 53 percent in 2002.100 As for Japanese popular perceptions of China, there were three drops in Japanese feeling of closeness to China: after the June Fourth incident in 1989, in the mid-1990s, and from 2001 (see Figure 4.2). After the June Fourth incident, there appeared a profound Japanese disenchantment with China’s promise of social stability and political democracy. Compared to Tiananmen, the structural factor of the end of the Cold War had 98

99 100

Okamoto and Tanaka, “Hu Jintao Seiken o Yurugasu ‘Aikoku’ Bos ¯ o¯ to Sekai no Shisen”; Tanaka, “Senso¯ no Gekigen Shita Sekai de ‘Senso¯ no Rekishi’ to Do¯ Mukiau ka,” 38. Endo, ¯ “Hu Jintao mo Te o Yaku ‘Funsei’ no Jittai.” Jiang, “Zhongri Lianhe Jinxing de Shehui Yulun Diaocha Jieguo Shuomin le Shenme.”

262

The Search for Reconciliation

a relatively weak influence because public feelings of closeness to China rose again in the early 1990s, although not quite to the pre-1989 level, once Beijing reentered international society. The other two drops were to a large extent because of Japanese emotions of frustration in response to what they saw as the Chinese obsession with war history and a stubborn anti-Japanese attitude.101 Although it is true that other factors also contributed to Japanese negative views of China during this period, such as the crimes committed by illegal Chinese immigrants in Japan and the end of the Japanese public’s previously romanticized image of China resulting from more realistic media reporting, historical memory was certainly a significant exacerbating force in the deterioration of the bilateral popular relationship. Even rapidly expanding societal contacts failed to foster a sense of affinity or mutual trust, mainly because the two sides neglected to bridge the gap between their national memories, as will be discussed later. Emotions, Suspicion of Japanese Militarism, and Negative Chinese Public Opinion The significant impact of historically derived emotions and perceptions of intentions on public opinion was first crystallized by the fact that painful recollections of Japanese war crimes and the Chinese people’s suffering were commonly invoked when ordinary Chinese people were asked to describe their national image of Japan. For example, in a joint survey by Yomiuri Shimbun and Gallup in summer 1999, when asked what they thought about when hearing the word “Japan,” 39.2 percent of Chinese respondents answered “war of aggression/war of resistance against Japan,” which topped the list of all choices; an additional 16.4 percent gave answers like “the Nanjing Massacre,” “aggressor,” “barbarian,” “militarism,” and “hatred,” all closely related to the war.102 The largely negative popular image of Japan in China can be ascribed not just to Chinese grievances about past suffering but also to a deep contempt for Japan, which in Chinese eyes had failed to conduct sincere, thorough soul-searching about the war. In a survey carried out on the 101

102

Even the 1989 downturn in Japanese public perception of China can be indirectly linked to memory because, after Tiananmen, Japanese feelings of guilt and sense of moral inferiority vis-a-vis China diminished rapidly: The Japanese people no longer ` felt China had the right to criticize Japan’s past if its own actions were not impeccable, either. For a discussion of this subtle change in Japanese feeling about China after 1989, see Wan, Sino-Japanese Relations, 119. Yomiuri Shimbun, September 30, 1999.

Volatility and Downward Spiral

263

campus of Beijing Aerospace University in 1997, more than 80 percent of the respondents believed that Japan never had engaged in conscientious self-examination but had instead connived at the right-wing view of history.103 In a 2004 poll by the Institute of Japanese Studies (IJS) of the CASS, only 6.3 percent of the respondents felt “close” or “very close” to Japan, whereas 53.6 percent felt “not close”; when asked why they felt not close to Japan, the most-selected answers were “Japan has not done real self-reflection on its history of aggression against China” (61.7 percent) and “Japan invaded China in modern history” (26 percent); by contrast, only a few (6.9 percent) selected the answer “because Japan formed a military alliance with the United States and posed a security threat to China.”104 These surveys suggest that it was really historical memory, rather than realpolitik factors, that accounted for Chinese public animosity toward Japan. The memory of the war also caused a high degree of Chinese public mistrust for Japanese international assertiveness. Ordinary Chinese people displayed a common impulse to condemn Japan’s lack of repentance about the war history and jump to conclusions about its renewed militarist ambition. A 1996 Chinese best-selling book, China That Can Say No, claimed that Japan was untrustworthy because of its wrong historical view and urged Japan to exercise self-restraint in constitutional revision, defense buildup, and its bid for UNSC permanent membership. One eyecatching headline in the book reads, “In some sense, to do nothing is exactly Japan’s contribution to the world!”105 The previously mentioned IJS poll also reported that 54.8 percent of Chinese respondents worried about Japan’s embarking on a militarist path again, compared to 30.9 percent who felt the opposite. As a result, 57 percent of respondents opposed Japan’s permanent seat on the UNSC, whereas only 11.8 percent gave their support or conditional support. It is worth noting that even Beijing and Tokyo’s friendship diplomacy in the early 1990s failed to improve the Chinese popular perception of Japan. The Japanese emperor’s visit to China in October 1992 stirred up only bitter Chinese emotions about Japanese aggression.106 Shortly before his arrival, university students in Beijing launched a citywide signature campaign, and student representatives attempted to deliver an open letter

103 104 105 106

Daxue Sheng, July 10, 1997, No. 7, in FBIS-CHI-97–287, October 14, 1997. Jiang, “Zhongguo Minzhong dui Riben de Buqinjingan Xianzhu Zengqiang.” Song, Zhongguo Keyi Shuobu, 115–19. “Akihito Visit Stirring Bitterness among Chinese,” New York Times, October 23, 1992.

264

The Search for Reconciliation

to the Japanese Embassy demanding the emperor’s public apology for Japanese war crimes, unconditional offer of war reparations, and return of the Diaoyu Islands. Only by a strict official ban and the employment of armed police was the government able to forestall a massive antiJapanese campaign during the emperor’s visit.107 So an official cover-up of the history problem to create a friendly atmosphere, a tactic used in the 1970s, now proved much less successful, given that Chinese society was increasingly open and vibrant, and public opinion had become more difficult to manipulate. Japanese Rejection of Chinese Grievances and Sense of Disgust and Frustration Focusing on Japan’s own victimhood in the war, ordinary Japanese people were sorry for what Japan had done to other Asian nations in the past – but not to the extent that would call for substantial measures of restitution. The Japanese public also felt disgusted and frustrated by the Chinese view that restitution should be the single most important precondition of bilateral cooperation in the present. The “action-reaction syndrome” of the 1980s again set in from the mid-1990s when Sino-Japanese history disputes were rekindled, causing Japanese public feelings about China to degrade significantly. The Japanese response to Chinese President Jiang’s 1998 visit to Tokyo particularly manifested this syndrome. Jiang harshly criticized Japan’s historical attitude during the visit, mainly because Tokyo would not give him the same formal apology that it had just given South Korean President Kim Dae-jung in the Japan–Republic of Korea (ROK) Joint Declaration. It turned out that the declaration was possible because Kim proposed to offer a statement of forgiveness in return for Japan’s written apology, whereas Beijing refused to include a similar statement. Japan said no to Jiang out of fear that Japan would remain in the shadow of history even after offering a written apology.108 This again drives home the emotional clash between the two countries: The Chinese side was angry about Japan’s lack of contrition, but the Japanese side was dismayed by the prospect that China would forever hold history against Japan. 107

108

“Student Campaign for Japanese War Reparations,” Hong Kong AFP, September 24, 1992, in FBIS-CHI-92–187, September 25, 1992; “Indemnity Claims during Emperor’s Visit Discouraged,” Hong Kong Ming Pao, October 2, 1992, in FBIS-CHI-92–192, October 2, 1992. Interview, March 2001, with a Japanese diplomat who took part in the negotiation of the Japanese–South Korean Joint Declaration before Kim’s visit to Tokyo. Also see Tahara, “President Jiang Zemin’s Visit.”

Volatility and Downward Spiral

265

Jiang’s Japan-bashing trip enraged many Japanese inside and outside the government. A professor of international affairs lashed out that “Jiang Zemin failed to discern even the minimal level of diplomatic decorum and persistently maintained an attitude which could only be categorized as that of a ‘slob.’”109 A poll in August 1999 showed Japanese public dissatisfaction with the Chinese government’s way of handling the history problem. Among a number of policy recommendations for Beijing to improve bilateral relations, the most-selected choice was to “put an end to the ‘history issue’ with Japan” (34.8 percent).110 The next downturn in the Japanese feeling of closeness to China happened when 2001, Koizumi came to power and began to pay annual visits to the Yasukuni Shrine. With much anger, Beijing refused to hold summit meetings with Koizumi, and Chinese mass protests against Japan repeatedly erupted, first through Internet petitions and later culminating in large-scale anti-Japanese demonstrations. But whereas the Chinese protested with ever-growing bitterness, the Japanese were fed up with the seemingly endless Chinese criticism. According to a Yomiuri poll after the anti-Japanese demonstrations in China in April 2005, 92 percent of Japanese respondents were unhappy with how Beijing handled the incident.111 Even in a poll of the Japan Junior Chamber, whose members did business in China and South Korea and were active in citizenlevel diplomacy, 69 percent of the more than three thousand respondents believed that “the cause [of anti-Japanese protests] does not lie on the Japanese side.” When asked to suggest ways to maintain amicable relations, 79 percent answered “not to listen to the Chinese and ROK demands,” and 72 percent criticized the Japanese government for “failing to take a firm stance.”112 Societal Contacts Failed to Bring about Deep Mutual Understanding One obvious puzzle in Sino-Japanese popular relations during this period is that the countries’ mutual image deteriorated despite the boom in mutual contacts. The number of Japanese visitors to China grew especially fast in the 1990s (see Figure 6.2). In 1997, mainland China surpassed Hong Kong to become the second-most-visited destination of the Japanese in Asia, after South Korea. 109 110

111 112

Takubo, “Come to Think of It.” Yomiuri national survey, August 1999, in Public Relations Office, Cabinet Secretariat ¯ Nenkan, 2000, 492. of Japanese Prime Minister, Seron Chosa Smith, “Japanese Public Opinion.” “Japan: Poll of JCs Shows 69% Think Japan Not to Blame for Protests in PRC, ROK,” Sankei Shimbun, April 18, 2005, in FBIS. <>.

The Search for Reconciliation

266

Number of people traveling 1400000 1200000 1000000 800000 600000 400000 200000

19 8 19 1 82 19 8 19 3 84 19 8 19 5 86 19 8 19 7 88 19 8 19 9 90 19 9 19 1 92 19 9 19 3 9 19 4 9 19 5 96 19 9 19 7 9 19 8 99

0

China to Japan

Japan to China

figure 6.2. China-Japan Mutual Contacts, 1981–1999. Source: Immigration ¯ ¯ ¯ Bureau of the Japan Ministry of Justice, Shutsunyukoku Kanri Tokei Nenpo.

Although rapidly increasing, Sino-Japanese societal contacts in this period still had many limitations. First, the two societies interacted in an asymmetric pattern, with far more Japanese people than Chinese people visiting the other country. Many Chinese could not afford overseas travel, and the Japanese Ministry of Justice had also long prohibited Chinese from entering Japan via tourist packages sponsored by travel agencies.113 ¯ The application procedures for Chinese kenshusei, or students of technical training, also remained complicated. Tokyo was reluctant to relax regulations for fear of encouraging illegal stays, despite the fact that those who stayed in Japan illegally were less than 1 percent of total Chinese ¯ kenshusei during 1989–96.114 Beijing also placed its own restrictions on bilateral contacts. Only from the early 1990s were ordinary Chinese citizens allowed to travel abroad. But even that does not mean that Chinese people could now interact freely with foreigners. An outstanding problem in China’s external exchange 113

114

The ban was finally lifted in September 2000, but with extra regulations imposed on Japanese travel agencies that organized tourist groups from China. Asahi Shimbun, August 24, 2000. ¯ u¯ no Shihanseki, 97–98. Amako and Sonoda, Nitchu¯ Kory

Volatility and Downward Spiral

267

programs was the absence of true NGOs. Often, Chinese participants in these programs could not breach the official lines to engage in free communication with their Japanese counterparts. A similar problem, albeit to a lesser degree, also existed in Japan, as Japanese NGOs were often small in size and financially poor, and their activities were heavily constrained by the state. By 1999, when the new Nonprofit Organization Law came into effect, Japanese NGOs could rarely obtain legal status and so were unable to rent offices, lease telephone lines, or open bank accounts. The old Nonprofit Organization Law also limited nonstate activity to so-called ¯ ¯ koeki hojin (public benefit judicial persons), the establishment of which required the passing of a time-consuming, hardly standardized, and stringent approval process by the “competent governmental agency.” Even though this process was simplified by the new law, thousands of Japanese NGOs still would rather not apply for legal status to avoid complicated state regulation.115 The critical shortfall in these bilateral exchange programs, however, was that they failed to promote a shared memory of war history. Unlike German-Polish contacts, which put great emphasis on joint history research, Sino-Japanese societal exchanges were primarily concerned with economic and cultural areas. The 1982 textbook controversy did trigger a number of joint history research and education exchange activities between East Asian countries. One example is the Symposium of East Asia History Education, sponsored by the Association of Comparative History and Comparative History Education, an NGO of Japan’s liberal academics. From 1984 through the 1990s, the symposium convened four times and invited historians and history educators from Asian countries like Japan, China, and South Korea. However, these meetings tended to cover broad topics ranging from introducing each country’s history education system to comparing Asian and Western perspectives on modern history, rather than facilitating joint investigation of specific historical events or producing concrete recommendations for textbook improvement like the German-Polish Textbook Commission did during the 1970s.116 What directly addressed textbooks was the exchange program between the China Education Union and the left-wing Japan Teachers’ Union.

115 116

Horvat, “Strong State,” 223–25. Presentations and discussions from the first three conferences were published by 2000. See Association of Comparative History and Comparative History Education, Ajia no ¯ ¯ ‘Kindai’ to Rekishi Kyoiku, Jikokushi to Sekaishi, and Kurosen to Nissei Senso.

268

The Search for Reconciliation

After the 1982 textbook controversy, the two organizations began to hold meetings to examine each country’s history textbooks.117 Furthermore, since 1988, Chinese historians at the Institute of Curriculum and Teaching Materials Research of the People’s Education Press and Japan’s International Society for Educational Information have made mutual textbook surveys and discussed textbook contents.118 More recently, in response to the Mombusho’s ¯ approval of a textbook compiled by the Tsukuru Kai, historians from China, Japan, and South Korea launched a textbook cooperation project in 2002 that eventually led to the simultaneous publication in the three countries of a volume of supplementary teaching materials on the contemporary history of the three countries.119 Because they sprung up mainly in reaction to textbook controversies in Japan, however, these exchange programs served Chinese historians and progressive Japanese historians as a venue to attack the Mombusho¯ and Japanese right-wingers; their criticism or self-criticism of historical myths in Chinese textbooks was much more lenient. Elsewhere, I have argued that modern Chinese history contained many taboo topics, and trying to reinterpret them from a more objective and self-critical point of view remained a politically sensitive or even dangerous task.120 Additionally, Chinese historians were unable to transcend their own biases, partly because of personal anti-Japanese emotions but also because of official restrictions on their dialogue with foreign historians. Japanese historians who participated in these history dialogues lamented that their Chinese counterparts were not speaking their minds but advocating the official position. For this reason, a textbook exchange program organized by the Japan Teachers Union in the early 1990s with Chinese historians even had to be suspended.121

117

118 119

120 121

For a report on the exchange program between the two organizations, see Hitaka, ¯ Nihon to Chugoku. Wang, “Zhongri Lishi Jiaokeshu de Jiaoliu.” For Chinese and Japanese editions of the book, see Joint Compilation Committee of Dongya Sanguo de Jinxiandai Shi, Dongya Sanguo de Jinxiandai Shi, and Nitchukan ¯ Sankoku Kyots Iinkai, Mirai o Hiraku Rekishi. ¯ u¯ Rekishi Kyozai ¯ He, “Remembering and Forgetting,” 65–66. Author’s interviews with Japanese historian Kimijima Kazuhiko on October 25, 2000, and South Korean scholar Han Do Hyun on June 9, 2005. Japanese historian Sakai Toshiki made similar comments in his presentation on history textbook exchange activities between Chinese, Japanese, and Korean scholars at an international academic conference held in April 1995. For a Chinese translation of his speech, see Sakai, “Zhongguo Ying Zhuyi Riben Minzhong de Zhanzheng Zeren.”

Volatility and Downward Spiral

269

Government enthusiasm in support of historians’ dialogues was also long absent. It was only when Murayama took power in 1994 that Tokyo began official sponsorship of research cooperation with Asian historians regarding the history of Japanese aggression and colonialism. Under the umbrella program called the Peace and Friendship Exchange Plan, several research institutions were established, such as the Japan Center for Asian Historical Records, the Center for Chinese History Research, and the Center for Japan–South Korean Historical Records.122 But Murayama’s proposal was unattractive to Beijing, which held that the first and foremost solution to bilateral history disputes was for Japan to admit war responsibility. The Chinese side explicitly stated that the time was not yet ripe for joint history research and it would support historians’ meetings only if the topic were about Japanese self-reflection. Following this policy, the CCP Propaganda Department, State Education Commission, and CASS reportedly issued a secret directive in fall 1995 to ban Chinese research institutes or scholars from cooperating with research projects sponsored by Japan’s Center for Chinese History Research. Incidentally, the Japanese media obtained this information and broadcast it to the public, and Beijing was forced to take back the directive. After that, Beijing informed Japan that “free exchanges with Chinese research institutes or scholars are not acceptable” and required scholars from the two countries to conduct their research separately and exchange opinions only via CASS.123 In this way, Beijing ensured that no Chinese historians could independently participate in joint history projects with Japan and that these projects would comply with China’s official lines. After Abe succeeded Koizumi to be the new prime minister in 2006, Beijing and Tokyo launched a joint study of history involving historians from both sides. This is a significant step forward from the previous sporadic historians’ dialogues that lacked official endorsement. It does not mean, however, that the two sides will quickly reach a consensus on every aspect of their war history, especially after quarreling for decades over the

122

123

For Prime Minister Murayama’s speech on August 31, 1994, and the mandate of the Peace and Friendship Exchange Plan formulated following this speech, see the Web site of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs at <>. ¯ u¯ no Shihanseki, 122–26. The previously mentioned Amako and Sonoda, Nitchu¯ Kory common textbook project among China, Japan, and South Korea was carried out in China precisely through the CASS channel and published by the Social Sciences Academic Press of the CASS.

270

The Search for Reconciliation

issue.124 The joint history project still faces two old challenges. One is the difficulty of not just criticizing the biases and distortions in the other country’s history textbooks but also conducting serious self-criticism regarding the national myths in one’s own nation’s history writing. The other is the problem of official intervention, which tends to create political barriers for rigorous, candid joint investigation into historical events by professional historians.125 Intensifying Sovereignty Disputes and Troubled Economic Interaction The Incomplete Explanation by Material Threat During this period, Beijing protested Japan’s alleged interference with the Taiwan issue whenever it saw increased Japanese political contacts with Taiwan or the application of the U.S.-Japan security treaty to Taiwan; Tokyo also voiced the concern that Beijing might use force against Taiwan, which would destabilize the region and damage Japan’s interests. Thus, bilateral disputes over the Taiwan issue flared up repeatedly, including in the 1994 Asian Games incident;126 the 1995–96 Taiwan Strait Crisis; the 1997 U.S.-Japan Defense Guidelines, which were ambiguous about whether their defense perimeter included Taiwan; former Taiwan President Lee Ten-hui’s visits to Japan in 2001 and 2004; and the U.S.-Japan joint statement in February 2005, which declared the peaceful resolution of the Taiwan issue as a “common strategic objective” for their alliance.127 Bilateral island disputes also resurfaced. In 1990, the right-wing Japan Youth Federation petitioned the Japanese government to recognize its lighthouse on the islands. This provoked anti-Japanese demonstrations in 124

125

126

127

“Japan, China Agree to Conduct Joint Study of Wartime History,” Japan Times, November 17, 2006. The Chinese team was headed by the Modern History Research Center of the CASS. By the end of the second round of the joint study, the two sides had decided not to cowrite the final report but to have each side separately write its own versions of bilateral history texts and exchange written comments if they disagreed on controversial points. See “No Common History View with China,” Japan Times, March 21, 2007. Author’s separate interviews with two Chinese participants in the joint study, Beijing, June 4, 2007. On September 12, 1994, the Japanese government issued a visa for the vice president of the ROC’s Executive Yuan to attend the opening ceremony of the Asian Games in Japan, regardless of China’s strong opposition. “China Accuses U.S. and Japan of Interfering on Taiwan,” New York Times, February 21, 2005.

Volatility and Downward Spiral

271

Taiwan and Hong Kong and student agitation on the mainland. Although Beijing and Tokyo soon managed to shelve the issue, problems arose again when the Chinese National People’s Congress passed the Territorial Sea Law in 1992, which included the islands in Chinese territorial waters. Moreover, Prime Minister Hashimoto declared in May 1996 that the islands were sovereign Japanese territories and part of Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone. In September 1996, the Japan Youth Federation returned to the islands to repair its lighthouse, triggering a monthlong diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo. After this crisis, tensions continued in the waters surrounding these islands. Protesters aboard ships from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the mainland frequently confronted the Japanese Coast Guard, becoming a source of constant irritation for the Sino-Japanese political relationship.128 Closely intertwined with the island disputes was the conflict over maritime resources in the East China Sea, where China insisted on the principle of the continental shelf, whereas Japan used the midpoint to delimit their Exclusive Economic Zone boundaries. At stake are territorial sovereignty, fishery resources, and seabed petroleum reserves in this area. Tension particularly heightened in 2004–5 when Chinese exploration of Chunxiao, a gas field near the median line, triggered stern Japanese protests and even instances of military standoff in the disputed sea area.129 Diplomatic negotiations, repeatedly held during the following years, made no progress. Only very recently, after a warm-up in the bilateral relationship under Prime Minister Fukuda and President Hu Jingtao, did the two sides finally agree on the principle to jointly explore East China Sea gas fields, although still without resolving the delimitation of their exclusive economic zones.130 But the details of the joint project are still vague, and the deal has met considerable resistance within China because Hu apparently pushed it through without securing a wide consensus internally. Chinese Internet chat rooms have since been flooded with criticisms of the government concession, and even many policy elites expressed that they could not understand why the government had to 128

129

130

“Japan, China Clash over Senkaku,” BBC News, January 16, 2004; “China Tells Japan to Release 7 Arrested on Disputed Island,” New York Times, March 26, 2004; “China Slams Blocking of Activists,” Japan Times, October 31, 2007. “Chinese Warships Make Show of Force at Protested Gas Rig,” Japan Times, September 10, 2005; “Chinese Warship Pointed Gun at MSDF Plane,” Japan Times, October 2, 2005. “Japan, China Agree on Gas Exploration in East China Sea,” Japan Times, June 16, 2008.

272

The Search for Reconciliation

compromise so much and so quickly.131 Whether this controversial deal can be successfully implemented remains a question. The escalation of sovereignty disputes since the 1990s matches the realist prediction that the disappearance of the common Soviet threat should have made Sino-Japanese compromise on issues involving conflict of interest more difficult. What is puzzling, however, is that the intensity of such tension is not justified by the strategic importance of these issues alone. On the Taiwan problem, after the PRC took over the ROC’s UN seat and the United States withdrew troops from Taiwan and pledged the “One China” policy in the 1970s, Taiwan was no longer a matter of national survival or regime legitimacy for Beijing. Neither was the issue an immediate security concern to Japan because China lacked the military capability to conquer Taiwan in the short term and tip the balance of power in the West Pacific.132 Although Beijing’s and Tokyo’s preferences for Taiwan’s legal status differed, both took a strong interest in a stable, peaceful Pacific Rim. Similarly, the disputed islands are merely barren and windswept rocks that lack significant economic or strategic value. Reports about potential oil reserves near the islands have appeared since the late 1960s, but hard evidence of oil has yet to be found. Estimates of the oil and gas reserves in the East China Sea contain great discrepancies and are largely “speculative.”133 The much-disputed Chunxiao gas field was estimated to have 36.9 million tons worth of crude oil, equivalent to one month’s worth of Japan’s natural gas consumption.134 In September 2004, the United States’ Unocal and Royal Dutch/Shell pulled out of the gas field development project for “commercial reasons,” which reflected their lack of confidence in the profitability of the gas field for international oil majors.135 Realists may contend that even though the East China Sea has limited proven resources, China’s immediate energy shortage (particularly in large population centers and industrial bases on the East Coast like 131

132

133 134

135

“China Defends ‘Interim’ Japan Gas Deal amid Online Criticism,” BBC Worldwide Monitoring, June 19, 2008; “Gas Field Deal Signals China’s PR Challenge,” The Nikkei Weekly, July 7, 2008. Glosny, “Strangulation from the Sea”; O’Hanlon, “Why China Cannot Conquer Taiwan.” Harrison, “Seabed Petroleum,” 5. “Chunxiao Gas Field in East China Sea – China Estimates 36.9 Million Barrels of Deposits,” Sankei Shimbun, February 4, 2005, in FBIS. <>. “Unocal, Royal Dutch Petroleum withdraw from Chinese natural gas Project,” AP News, September 29, 2004. I thank Llewelyn Hughes for providing this news story.

Volatility and Downward Spiral

273

Shanghai) and long-term energy demand to meet its economic needs prompted Beijing to not only quickly explore the gas fields but also maintain the sovereignty claim to a vast area in the East China Sea in case more resources are found later. But the natural gas shortage in Chinese coastal cities was not a problem of energy security, and East China Sea gas could not provide a steady supply to relieve the shortage.136 As for the longterm significance, both countries had access to alternative, more easily available, and even cheaper sources elsewhere in the world. Chinese elite opinions were divided on the long-term national interest in the East China Sea. Whereas some believed there was a huge amount of resources, others dismissed this notion as a myth and argued that the symbolic meaning of sovereignty integrity, rather than the actual resources, mattered more in the Chinese position.137 Besides, it is clear that not all sovereignty rights were sacred for Beijing, as it made substantial compromises from the 1990s to settle long-standing territorial disputes with Russia as well as with Southeast Asian and Central Asian neighbors.138 Beijing also recently began joint exploration of oil near the disputed Spratly Islands with Vietnam and the Philippines.139 So what made the East China Sea so special that it prevented China and Japan from making constructive progress toward a mutually beneficial solution? To answer this question, more complex reasons beyond pure material interest, like national pride and public opinion pressure that are related to war memory, need to be considered. In terms of their commercial relations, after a decline from trade friction in the mid-1980s and post-Tiananmen economic sanctions, bilateral trade regained momentum starting in the 1990s. Japan was China’s top trading partner during 1993–2003, and China surpassed the United States 136

137 138 139

Shanghai’s natural gas problem was actually caused by overconfidence in the xiqi dongsong (western gas sent east) project, which brought about a hasty policy to switch the fuel that residential and large enterprises (like Baoshan Steel) use in Shanghai from coal gas to natural gas. It turned out that xiqi dongsong not only went to Shanghai but also had to supply Beijing and other coastal areas. The gas supply from the East China Sea, initially large, soon turned unstable and could not be a viable solution. But Shanghai still had the option of resorting to the less clean but cheaper coal gas, which was used to meet local demands when natural gas supply was low. Author’s interviews with a formal Shell senior strategist specializing in China energy projects, May 10, 2006, and an official from the state-owned Shenergy Group, the largest gas and electricity supplier for Shanghai, May 24, 2006. Author’s interviews with Chinese international specialists, May 2006. Fravel, “Regime Insecurity.” “Asia: As Demand Rises, East Asia Learning to Cooperate over Oil,” Asahi.com, January 11, 2006.

274

The Search for Reconciliation

to become Japan’s top partner in 2004, which mitigated the former problem of asymmetric dependence. Despite the mutually beneficial relationship, since 1995 Tokyo shifted to a tougher economic diplomacy toward China, freezing grant aid, considering scaling back yen loans, and employing punitive measures to curb the inflow of cheap Chinese goods,140 all unprecedented steps in post-normalization bilateral relations. Some may suggest that bilateral economic interactions could well resist political interference, given the so-called cold politics–hot economy (seirei-keinetsu) paradox during the Koizumi years, when Sino-Japanese political relations were “the most difficult” since diplomatic normalization in 1972,141 but the boom in bilateral economic interaction seemed unaffected by the political trouble. Yet, many Chinese elites disagreed that the economy was still hot, given the relatively slow growth of bilateral trade compared to China’s trade with other Western countries and the stagnation of large cooperative projects, and they believed it would turn cold sooner or later if the political relations continued to deteriorate.142 Additionally, regardless of whether the economy and politics were separate, it was political tension that dominated bilateral relations, and commercial interests failed to moderate the diplomacy, failing, for example, to restrain Koizumi from visiting Yasukuni or to motivate Chinese leaders to resume summit meetings with Koizumi. Was this change “from commercial liberalism to reluctant realism” in Sino-Japanese economic relations caused by the structural uncertainty after the Cold War?143 The answer is a partial yes. The fact that Tokyo slapped its first unilateral economic sanction on Beijing in 1995 to protest its nuclear test testifies to a strong security motivation. Tokyo’s decision to overhaul economic aid policy to China also reveals its realpolitik calculations. Those Japanese who advocated the reduction of Official Development Aid to China warned of the aid’s role in shifting the bilateral balance of power in the long run. An expert on the Chinese military, 140

141

142

143

In 2001, Japan imposed emergency tariffs on imports of Chinese agricultural products. In retaliation, China levied 100 percent extra tariffs on imports of automobiles, mobile phones, and air conditioners from Japan, pushing the two countries to the verge of a trade war. See Business Week Online, July 9, 2001; Asahi Shimbun, November 9, 2001. Quoted from the remarks of Chinese state councilor and former foreign minister Tang Jiaxuan in Japan Times, December 12, 2005. This was the majority view in the author’s interviews with twenty Chinese policy elites in May 2006. Also see Liu, Zhongguo yu Riben, 19–20, 86–91. For a representative expression of the opposite view that politics and economy were indeed separate, see Liu Junhong, “Will Political Chill Dampen Economic Ties?” People’s Daily, March 28, 2006. Green and Self, “Japan’s Changing China Policy.”

Volatility and Downward Spiral

275

Hiramatsu Shigeo, suggested that some of the projects that the Japanese government had assisted were for “military-civilian dual use” and that Japanese funding also helped China explore the rich resources in desolate areas for defense purposes.144 Former diplomat Okazaki Hisahiko and journalist Komori Yoshihisa argued that the railroads, airports, and highways paid for with Japanese money would enable China to transport troops rapidly in wartime, and Japanese money might have been used directly on military spending.145 In May 2000, Japanese Foreign Minister Kono told his Chinese coun¯ terpart that Japan would be “reviewing” its economic aid to China, citing China’s rapid economic growth as the reason. Whereas Tokyo was deliberating on the issue, reports about the unauthorized activities of Chinese research vessels in Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone swept the Japanese media in August, which instantly touched off distrust of China in Japan’s political circles. Takemi Keizo, an LDP member of the upper house, stated, “Japan values Sino-Japanese cooperation and takes care to avoid unnecessary confrontation, but no matter how you look at it, Japan is the only one cooperating. Isn’t this hegemonism on China’s part?” Another member of the lower house and chairman of the LDP Foreign Affairs Division, Shiozaki Yasuhisa, cried out: “Chinese ships are entering our waters at will; their naval vessels have cruised around Japan. It’s the same as if the Japanese people are under attack. We should not have such a relationship.”146 Thereafter, consensus quickly emerged within the government that the question was not whether Official Development Aid to China should be cut but by how much. From 2001, yen loans to China dropped each year, and their amount was determined annually rather than in a lump-sum package covering several years and was based not on past records but on the adding up of individual projects. In 2004, Japanese Official Development Aid to China was less than half of the year 2000 level.147 In 2005, Tokyo decided to phase out new loans to China by 2008. This analysis indicates that Japan’s realpolitik concerns regarding China’s military power and assertive behaviors in surrounding areas were indeed behind the significant changes in Japanese economic policy toward China. However, the puzzle is that like the watershed in the Japanese 144 145 146

147

Hiramatsu, “Chugokugun o Tsuyoku suru ODA.” ¯ Okazaki and Komori, “‘No’ to Ieru Nitchu¯ Kankei ni Mukete,” 70–71. Takuro Noguchi, “Is ODA to China Japan’s ‘Insurance?’ Pros and Cons of Continuing Aid to China,” AERA, October 9, 2000, in FBIS. <>. See Japan ODA White Papers since 2001 at <>.

276

The Search for Reconciliation

strategic perceptions of China, the Japanese economic policy shift did not occur immediately after the Cold War ended but several years later, in the mid-1990s. Again, this four- to five-year time lag suggests some additional factors must have arisen around the mid-1990s that turned on Japanese concerns about the adverse relative gains in economic ties with China. In fact, the increased memory divergence between China and Japan in this period complements the realpolitik explanation about the timing and intensity of bilateral disputes. Because of the patriotic education campaign, the Chinese people embraced the glorious cause of national revival and a sense of entitlement to compromise from foreign countries, especially those that had invaded and victimized China in the past, on issues deemed important to this cause, including sovereignty rights and national economic development. Japan’s failure to live up to this expectation would validate its evil ambition in the eyes of the Chinese and reinforce the Chinese inclination to adopt a tough position vis-a-vis ` Japan. From the Japanese perspective, however, Japan had done enough to address its past aggression, and the Chinese demand for Japan to concede because of its historical debts did not hold. So the Japanese side increasingly resisted China’s demand as a manifestation of its arrogant bullying of Japan. Such conflicting historical perspectives affected both the elite views and popular perceptions of each country toward the other, which contributed significantly to the frequent politicization of bilateral disputes during this period. China: Sense of Historical Entitlement, Hawkish Public Opinion, and Constraints on Policy toward Japan Mobilized by a vigorous patriotic history education that mixed myths of national victimhood with the glorification of Chinese accomplishments, the Chinese nation was keen on recovering territories “lost” because of unequal treaties with imperialist powers – territories such as Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan – as symbols of national resurrection. Foreign support to the Taiwan regime was seen as one of the biggest obstacles to its ultimate unification with the mainland. In fact, Beijing was quite disappointed at the unabated semiofficial relations between Tokyo and Taipei in the 1990s.148

148

A comprehensive Chinese study of Sino-Japanese relations published in 1995 included a lengthy analysis of the political significance of these contacts in 1990–95, such as the mutual visits by high-ranking officials and leading politicians and flourishing exchanges between the Japanese Diet and the Taiwanese Legislative Yuan. See Liu, Kuashiji de Riben, 544–67.

Volatility and Downward Spiral

277

In the early 1990s, however, Beijing refrained from bashing Tokyo over the Taiwan issue because its diplomatic focus was to repair relationships with the West after the Tiananmen incident. Only in the mid-1990s, when Beijing had regained diplomatic confidence and stepped up patriotic propaganda to boost regime legitimacy, did it resume pressure on Tokyo. In reaction to the 1994 Asian Games incident, a Xinhua editorial revisited the history of the Shimonoseki Treaty and then stated angrily, “Japan is the originator (shizuoyongzhe) of the Taiwan Problem, and the psychological scar that it left in the hearts of hundreds of millions of Chinese people has not healed even today. But now, the Japanese government unexpectedly took such an action that broke faith with the Chinese government and people, and once again hurt Chinese people’s feelings.” A People’s Daily article also accused Tokyo of “breaking a promise and ignoring its historical responsibility,” and it claimed the incident was not an isolated coincidence but revealing of Japan’s desire to use the Taiwan issue to seek great power status.149 Similarly, the escalation since the mid-1990s of bilateral disputes over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, lost to Japan together with Taiwan after Shimonoseki, was accompanied by Chinese media attacks on “Japanese militarism.”150 Chinese distrust of Japan because of memory conflict considerably amplified the political importance of Chinese interest in these islands, which were otherwise far from vital. China’s sense of historical entitlement was also evident in its response to Japan’s move to attach political conditions to the aid program. In aid negotiations since 1994, Japan had pressed China to stop nuclear tests. China rejected Japan’s demands as an undisguised insult to Chinese national pride or even a policy of economic coercion. The Chinese position was clear: China deserved Japanese aid because of Japan’s historical debts, and Japan had no right to use aid to bargain for political concessions. When the Diet passed a resolution in August 1995 to protest China’s new nuclear test and the government suspended grant assistance to Beijing that year, the Chinese Foreign Ministry made the following statement explicitly evoking history: We deeply regret the Japanese government’s decision to freeze most grant aid to China for the remainder of the 1995 fiscal year. . . . This year marks the 50th anniversary of the world’s victory in the anti-fascist war and China’s War of 149 150

Tian, Zhanhou Zhongri Guanxi Wenxianji, 2: 901–3. “Beware of Militarism,” China Daily, September 6, 1996, in FBIS-CHI-96–174; “We Will Never Allow Encroachment of Chinese Territory,” Central People’s Radio Network (Beijing), September 9, 1996, in FBIS-CHI-96–176.

278

The Search for Reconciliation

Resistance against Japanese Aggression. The Japanese government should engage in deep introspection of previous war crimes and conscientiously draw lessons from history. Instead, the Japanese government is attempting to create a major issue concerning China’s nuclear testing program. Therefore, one cannot help but wonder about the true political motives of their move, a move that could very possibly be detrimental to the sound development of Sino-Japanese relations.151

Premier Li Peng further pointed out that Japanese economic aid, highly appreciated by the Chinese people, also boosted the Japanese economy and, even if considered as a form of war compensation, could never fully compensate for the great losses to China inflicted by the Japanese militarists.152 Beijing probably made the basic decision to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in late 1995. But until China declared a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing after two more tests in 1996, the Foreign Ministry kept on rebutting Japanese protests so as to convey the message that China could be reasonable and flexible, but “economic coercion” was simply unacceptable.153 This sense of historical entitlement not only hardened the Chinese elites’ attitude toward Japan but also generated a strong public preference for hard-line policies. With the rapid opening up of Chinese society in the 1990s, media commercialization and diversification ended the state monopoly on information supply and enabled freer expression of divergent opinions, including those on foreign affairs. With regard to Japan, news that might provoke anti-Japanese feelings, such as a Japanese prime minister’s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, could be obtained through plenty of alternative information sources, if not from the official mouthpieces. The public was also better informed about diplomatic negotiations than before, making it more difficult for governments to strike under-the-table compromises. Moreover, the commercial incentives to seek sensationalism in the mass media, and the Chinese public receptivity to negative news or even rumors about Japan, tended to incite anti-Japanese popular sentiment.154 151 152 153

154

Beijing Review, September 18–24, 1995, 9. Beijing Review, October 16–22, 1995, 22. Johnston’s study of Chinese policy shifts regarding the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty around the mid-1990s shows that it was not Chinese fear of foreign sanctions but rather decision makers’ sensitivity to China’s international image as a responsible major power that was a critical driver in their decision to sign the treaty. See Johnston, “Social Effects of International Institutions.” For an analysis of various anti-Japanese rumors that circulated widely in Chinese society, see “Blossoms and Fruits of False Information: An analysis of Xi’an Anti-Japanese Unrest,” New International Survey, November 23, 2003, available at << http://www .china–week/html/1962.htm >>.

Volatility and Downward Spiral

279

Besides spreading malicious rumors, the newly opened-up Chinese media also allowed radical subelites to spearhead popular nationalism. Like ordinary people, Chinese intellectuals also endorsed patriotism as the consensual national ideology, not only because it was the social fashion but also because the harsh state repression of liberal discourse after 1989. Because patriotism was the officially sanctioned rhetoric, speaking patriotically was a safe, effective way for intellectuals to advance their own political agendas.155 If the state was capable of suppressing liberal opinions in the mass media, the fact that it did not censor nationalist opinions raises the question of whether it was intentionally manipulating anti-Japanese sentiment. Studies show that negative reporting about Japan has exceeded favorable coverage in the Chinese media since the late 1990s, but such official mouthpieces as the People’s Daily have a much lower rate of negative reporting than nonpropaganda newspapers.156 Also, there is no evidence to suggest that Beijing issued propaganda guidance for the commercial mass media to carry negative reports about Japan. The extreme anti-Japanese nationalism in Chinese society was distinct from the state propaganda. Radical “patriots” did not represent the entire Chinese population. But the fact that they were far more vocal than moderate citizens and set the tone for policy debate on the Internet, the most open and dynamic public space of discourse in China, made them a particularly powerful constituency supporting anti-Japanese policies in authoritarian China.157 In recent years, China’s attentive public has actively pushed for confrontation with Japan through two forms of policy advocacy: Internet signature campaigns and mass demonstrations. In 2003, for example, tens of thousands of Chinese “netizens” joined a petition to oppose the choice of Japanese Shinkansen technology for the Beijing-Shanghai highspeed rail link, blaming Japan’s denial of war guilt. In the previously mentioned large-scale campaign in spring 2005, tens of millions of Chinese around the world signed Internet petitions to oppose Japan’s bid for permanent membership in the UNSC, again citing World War II 155

156 157

For an in-depth study of different schools of Chinese nationalist subelites and their social and political agendas, see Xu, “Chinese Populist Nationalism.” Reilly and Yang, “Memory and Reconciliation,” 20–23. China’s emerging middle class tends to be more moderate about world affairs. But it is only a small fraction of the Chinese population, and its views are not yet articulated given the current political environment in China. See Johnston, “Chinese Middle Class Attitudes.” On the power of radical nationalist opinion dominating the policy debates on Japan, see Gries, “China’s New Thinking.”

280

The Search for Reconciliation

history as the basis for their opposition. In April, this campaign triggered the largest anti-Japanese demonstrations seen in China since the mid-1980s.158 When the public was agitated, the government faced a dilemma. On one hand, Beijing wanted to restrain such popular sentiments when they jeopardized important national interests, such as economic cooperation with Japan. On the other hand, crude clamping down on popular nationalism would incur criticism against the “soft-kneed” government diplomacy and weaken its patriotic credentials. But to what extent were Chinese policy makers actually constrained by hawkish public opinion toward Japan? Students of Chinese public opinion believe its power has increased significantly over the past decade.159 One sign is the growing attention that Chinese policy makers have paid to public opinion on foreign affairs, presumably to avoid going against the general tide of public sentiment. Government agencies now run bulletin boards on the Internet to directly observe and moderate public policy debates. The Strong Nation Forum (Qiangguo Luntan) run by the People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of party propaganda, and the China Diplomacy Forum (Zhongguo Waijiao Luntan) run by the Foreign Ministry frequently invite government officials as well as foreign affairs scholars and analysts to exchange views with netizens. In these discussions, netizens have raised questions on such sensitive issues as the Yasukuni Shrine, island disputes, and the East China Sea conflict, and then explicitly demanded that the Chinese government make no concessions to Japan.160 After the anti-Japanese demonstrations in April 2005, Beijing assembled a number of foreign affairs experts, including the moderate former diplomat Wu Jianmin, to give a series of lectures at universities to guide the “patriotic enthusiasm” of young students.161 A Foreign Ministry official claimed government policy must follow national interest rather than public opinion, yet he also admitted public opinion needed guidance lest it “disturb our work.”162 158

159 160

161 162

“As China Grows More Powerful, Regional Rivalries Take New Turn,” Chicago Tribune, April 12, 2005. Fewsmith and Rosen, “Domestic Context.” See, for instance, transcripts of online discussions between netizens and assistant to foreign minister Shen Guofang in July 2004 and vice foreign minister Wu Dawei in January 2005. Accessed on February 24, 2006, at <>. Also see Hong, “Internet and China’s Foreign Policy,” and Lu, “Ministry of Foreign Affairs.” Author interview, May 14, 2006. Author interview, May 11, 2006.

Volatility and Downward Spiral

281

This indicates that Chinese policy makers indeed felt public pressure when making decisions. This anti-Japanese climate could also promote hard-line elites while isolating or weakening the domestic position of the moderates, therefore indirectly swaying government policy toward Japan. During 2000– 2002, high-ranking officials like Premier Zhu Rongji and Zeng Qinghong emphasized bilateral friendship and downplayed the history issue in diplomatic settings. Foreign media saw these gestures as signs of a “New Thinking,” meaning that Beijing might be willing to transcend the history burden when dealing with Japan. But users of Chinese Internet chat rooms fiercely attacked Zhu for “accommodating the Japanese too much.”163 The Chinese Foreign Ministry also received complaints from the public calling Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan “a traitor who gives way to Japan.”164 When fourth-generation leader Hu Jintao took power in 2002, he and the Foreign Ministry were eager to seek a breakthrough in Sino-Japanese relations. But their plan was soon stranded because of the rejection of New Thinking in both popular and elite debates during 2002–3.165 Vowing to “keep intimate with the people” and construct a “harmonious society,” Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao openly committed to listening to public voices when making policies. Careful observers of Chinese politics argue that Hu and Wen’s propeople gesture was aimed at preventing major social crises in China, but it also meant that they could not defy the prevailing public opinion. They certainly drew lessons from the “mistake” of Hu Yaobang, who had to step down for being “too pro-Japan.”166 Additionally, during his first few years in office, Hu Jintao needed support from Jiang to consolidate power, forcing him to uphold his predecessor’s policy lines, including the explicit linkage between the halt of visits to the Yasukuni Shrine and the resumption of state visits.167 Therefore, 163

164

165

166

167

Zaobao.com, October 23, 2001. Accessed on February 16, 2006, at <>. “Release on Internet of Translated Version of Japanese Articles Annoys Beijing,” Sankei Shimbun, September 7, 2000, in FBIS. <>. Author’s interview with a well-informed Chinese international affairs analyst in Beijing, May 14, 2006. For an example of such an argument, see Okamoto and Tanaka, “Hu Jintao Seiken o Yurugasu ‘Aikoku’ Bos ¯ o¯ to Sekai no Shisen,” 35. Author’s interviews with a Chinese diplomat and an international analyst from the PLA, May 11 and May 17, 2006. This also explains Hu’s agreeing to hold a summit meeting with Prime Minister Abe in fall 2006. Hu now felt less constrained by Jiang’s policy not only because Abe avoided provoking Beijing by shunning the shrine but also

282

The Search for Reconciliation

as in the mid-1980s, the combination of factional politics and public opinion compelled the new Chinese leaders to toughen their attitude toward Japan. The next question is, How much did Chinese public pressure translate into specific policy changes over bilateral disputes? A precise measurement would be difficult to formulate, as the Chinese policy-making process remains opaque. Nevertheless, the role of public pressure in shaping Beijing’s policy can be recognized in a number of concrete cases, including the Baodiao (Defending Diaoyu) movement in mainland China and the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railroad project.168 My interviews with Chinese policy elites in May 2006 revealed that public opinion also limited policy options toward Japan over the East China Sea dispute. Although differing over the strategic or economic importance of East China Sea natural resources, almost everyone interviewed felt the government could not really challenge the predominantly hawkish public opinion to make a substantial compromise. In addition, the majority of interviewees expressed caution about what they could say in public regarding policy toward Japan, lest they personally become targets of popular nationalism. This indicates that a certain degree of public censorship existed in China, setting limits for elite policy debates on Japan. This does not mean that the government could not take ad hoc measures to temporarily deescalate a dispute to avert a serious crisis; however, concerns about public opposition still effectively precluded bold government efforts toward cooperation. Japan: Rejecting China’s Arrogance and the “History Card” In contrast to the Chinese sense of entitlement in times of bilateral disputes, the Japanese side perceived China as an arrogant and unreasonable country because it showed disrespect for other countries’ security needs and economic interests. The Japanese also frequently criticized China’s hypocrisy for playing the history card to demand illegitimate sovereignty rights or extort Japanese economic aid. Whereas in the 1980s Japan frequently gave in to Chinese pressure, beginning in the 1990s, as Japanese

168

because Hu gained ground in domestic politics after turning his proposal to “build a harmonious socialist society” into official policy at the annual plenary of the CCP Central Committee in October 2006. For more regarding the public constraint on the Baodiao and high-speed railroad cases, see He, “History, Chinese Nationalism.” Also see Deans, “Contending Nationalisms.”

Volatility and Downward Spiral

283

public feeling about China sharply deteriorated, such “kowtow diplomacy” to China suffered greater domestic criticism. Regarding economic relations, for instance, from the 1970s, economic aid was always a useful foreign policy tool for Japan to foster political harmony with and ensure market access to China. Guilty feelings did play a role in Official Development Aid decision making but did not amount to subordinating Japan’s self-interest to moral obligations. This perspective led to Japan’s intolerance of the seemingly endless Chinese carping despite the profuse flow of Japanese capital and technology to China.169 In 1995, Jiang Zemin reminded Murayama, “China adopted an extremely generous attitude to the question of war reparations claims at the time of bilateral diplomatic normalization.”170 Because these remarks coincided with Japanese economic sanctions in response to China’s nuclear tests, Japanese resentment of China’s “historical extortion” loomed large. Perceiving China as ungrateful, overbearing, and manipulative, Japan adopted an increasingly tough position on bilateral economic affairs. One indication was Japanese official demands since the late 1990s for China to publicize the Official Development Aid more and give a frank “expression of appreciation” to Japan.171 Still, Chinese newspapers preferred the expression of “joint cooperation” when referring to aid from Japan. In some cases, when Beijing seemed to concede ground, it continued to urge Japan to remember history. For example, when addressing Japanese reporters shortly before his visit to Japan in October 2000, Premier Zhu praised the role of Japanese assistance in Chinese economic development and admitted that China’s PR efforts regarding this issue had been inadequate, but he went on to remind Japan that the “special history factor is involved in the aid programs, and they do not benefit the Chinese side only.”172 Beijing’s half-hearted measures incurred new complaints from Tokyo. LDP Secretary-General Taku Yamazaki said on his trip to Southeast Asia in August 2001, “I am sure that people in this region were grateful [to Japan,] but China is different, where I’m not sure if Japanese Official Development Aid had been understood well by the people.”173 As a result, more and more Japanese believed the continuation of a large 169 170 171 172 173

Komori, “Machigai darake no Chugoku Enjo.” ¯ Tomoda, “Taichu¯ Senryaku Sairyo¯ no Shinario Saiaku no Shinario,” 56–57. Komori, “Machigai darake no Chugoku Enjo.” ¯ Asahi Shimbun, October 9, 2000. Asahi.com, August 23, 2001.

284

The Search for Reconciliation

quantity of aid to China not only hurt Japan’s national pride but also was a self-defeating strategic policy.174 The shift in Japanese foreign aid policy to China also reflected Japan’s popular mood. In a Japanese poll conducted in October 1995, 90 percent of the respondents said they felt angry about recent Chinese and French nuclear tests; when asked about the government decision to freeze some Japanese economic aid to China, 45 percent supported it, 44 percent complained it was too soft, and only 3 percent said the policy was too harsh on China.175 The Japanese public questioned their political representatives regarding Japanese taxpayers’ money being given to a country that they disliked. As the public debates on aid to China heated up, LDP parliamentarians eager to please the public advocated an overhaul of the government policy. The Japanese public also supported an uncompromising position vis-a-vis China over the island disputes. According to a poll conducted ` shortly after the 1996 dispute, 45.6 percent of respondents thought the government’s attitude concerning territorial problems was lukewarm and weak-kneed, compared to 26.8 percent who thought the status quo was fine and only 7 percent who believed Japan should make concessions.176 In early April 2005, Mombusho¯ approved a contentious history book criticized for whitewashing Japan’s wartime aggression and claiming that the Senkaku and Takeshima (also claimed by South Korea) Islands belonged to Japan. Although this textbook, on top of the Yasukuni issue, soon spurred large-scale anti-Japanese demonstrations in China, polling data show that most Japanese people (57 percent) supported its description of the islands.177 The aforementioned poll of Japan Junior Chamber members also shows that even those interested in promoting Sino-Japanese friendship and business links wanted the government to say no to China. 174

175

176

177

“ODA to China: Bold Review Based on Guidelines Necessary,” Sankei Shimbun, May 12, 2000, in FBIS. <>. “Survey on Chinese and French Nuclear Tests, Gun-Possessing Society, the U.S.-Japan Alliance and Problem of Military Bases,” by Asahi Shimbun, October 1995, in Public ¯ Nenkan, Relations Office, Cabinet Secretariat of Japanese Prime Minister, Seron Chosa 1996, 495. ¯ Nenkan, 1997, National survey by Jiji Tsushin Sha in November 1996, in Seron Chosa 562. Another poll conducted by Jiji Tsushin Sha in December 1997 yielded similar ¯ Nenkan, 1998, 573–74. results. See Seron Chosa “Sankei Poll: 57 Percent Support Description of Takeshima, Senkaku in Textbooks,” Sankei Shimbun, April 11, 2005, in FBIS. <>.

Volatility and Downward Spiral

285

So the Japanese popular antipathy to China generated strong public opposition to conciliatory policy on bilateral disputes.178 As John Emmerson says, “The voice of public opinion being louder in Japan than in most democracies, the Japanese leadership was never insensitive to the effect on the public of its decisions and actions.”179 Besides the pressure for political accountability, a strong cultural norm of consensus building in Japan also encourages the government to accommodate various views rather than to practice a “tyranny of the majority.”180 Moreover, with the reform of the electoral system and increased electoral competition since the mid-1990s, members of the Diet (whose political status was determined by election) became more cautious when handling foreign policy issues that received a high level of attention in the press and among the citizenry, such as the island, East China Sea disputes, and aid policy. They even held direct policy dialogues with the electorate to ensure that their policy advocacy would reflect the public’s views. Japanese Diet debates are a relatively transparent channel through which the public, especially those members attentive to political issues, can directly advocate policy and scrutinize policy implementation.181 In addition, the enhanced ¯ policy-making capability of the LDP (diplomacy tribe) gaiko-zoku and its members’ close connection with the Gaimusho¯ officials also enabled parliamentarians to influence foreign policy making.182 Another way in which public opinion constrains Japanese foreign policy is, similar to the China case, by affecting elite politics. In Japan, strong opinion majorities can bolster certain popular leaders whereas weakening

178

179 180

181

182

To be sure, how public opinion affects policy in a participatory democracy is different from that under an authoritarian regime, but similarities also exist. Unlike in an authoritarian country, it is concerns mainly about elections, not about regime legitimacy, that drive elites’ attention to public opinion. But in both systems, elites are tempted to mobilize public opinion to defeat their domestic enemies, be they factional rivals or electoral adversaries. Quoted in Fukui, “Studies in Policymaking,” 45. Pempel, “Japanese Democracy and Political Culture,” 11; Risse-Kappen, “Public Opinion in Liberal Democracies,” 509; Watanabe, “Foreign Policy Making, Japanese Style,” 80. Another direct channel for Japanese public opinion to influence government policy is the town meetings set up during the Koizumi administration to allow voters to exchange views with government officials on various policy issues. But a recent report disclosed that two-thirds of these meetings were “shows” staged by the government, with people paid to ask planted questions favorable to the government. See “Japan’s Leaders Rigged Voter Forums, a Government Report Says,” New York Times, December 14, 2006. Takamine, “Domestic Determinants.”

286

The Search for Reconciliation

others who lose public favor.183 Prime Minister Koizumi was one of the most popular leaders in the nation’s postwar history. The Japanese public’s love for him was based less on his policy performance than on his reformist orientation, decisive personality, and determination to resist foreign pressure.184 Other hawkish leaders in the Koizumi government, such as Abe, also enjoyed high popularity. Abe had been known for his tough position on North Korea when appointed Koizumi’s chief cabinet secretary in 2005. He was also one of the most vocal supporters of Koizumi’s controversial shrine visits.185 Abe’s hard-line image won him a clear advantage over his more experienced but moderate rival, Fukuda Yasuo, during the LDP presidential race in September 2006. Another hawk was the head of the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry, Nakagawa Shoichi. Also a hard-core nationalist and close aide to Abe, ¯ Nakagawa favored a confrontational position vis-a-vis China and played ` a big role in stirring up the East China Sea disputes. By the time these hard-line leaders ascended, the older generation of pro-China politicians like Nonaka Hiromu had faded from the scene. The moderate “China School” within the Gaimusho¯ also suffered a clear power decline.186 In addition to the overall negative tone in public opinion and the mass media concerning China, in recent years pro-Chinese voices in academia, the press, and policy circles have been muted. So when sensitive bilateral disputes erupted, media highlighting and hard-liners’ open bashing of China’s “misconduct” could quickly incite Japanese public sentiment against China, and the public pressure in turn would empower the hard-liners to push for a confrontational policy. Elsewhere, I have illustrated the interactive process between hard-line Japanese leaders, the mass media, and public opinion during the climax of the East China Sea disputes in 2004–5.187 In this case, sensational

183 184

185

186

187

Midford, Japanese Public Opinion, 9. It is a consistent pattern in Japanese polls that when asked why they supported the Koizumi cabinet, more pollsters would cite his “political posture” and “trustwor¯ Nenkan, thiness” than his “policies” or “actual accomplishments.” See Seron Chosa 2002–4. “AFP: Japanese Government Spokesman Abe Criticizes China over Talks Boycott,” January 8, 2006. In FBIS. <>. A Gaimusho¯ official said his ministry was the moderate minority in Japan on China policy but sometimes had to follow domestic public opinion or it would lose credibility; so in the future if something happened between the two countries, Gaimusho¯ would be in a difficult position. Author’s interview, November 17, 2004. Also see Murata, “Domestic Sources of Japanese Policy,” 45–46; Wan, Sino-Japanese Relations, 142–46. He, “Ripe for Cooperation,” 183–85.

Volatility and Downward Spiral

287

reports and inflammatory speeches of the media and politicians, especially Nakagawa, dramatized a foreign policy issue and quickly aroused an upsurge of nationalistic public mood. The powerful tide of public opinion then motivated actors across the political spectrum to push for a resolute stance over the issue. Leading the boisterous chorus of “defending national interest” and “going tough against China,” the hawks gained both personal fame and political clout, which they applied to heavely influence government policy deliberation. Although it is true that not all Japanese politicians called for confrontation with China, the hawks gained the upper hand over the moderates. The Gaimusho, ¯ constantly prodded by the media and Nakagawa and fearing more damage to its credibility, could not afford to show any sign of “softness.” As its Chinese counterpart faced a similar plight at home, reaching a diplomatic compromise was out of the question, despite repeated negotiations.

conclusions and implications Since the 1990s, the disappearance of a common Soviet threat indeed engendered a more negative external environment for Sino-Japanese reconciliation. Yet the history factor is useful to explain why the SinoJapanese relationship initially stayed relatively positive but degraded from the mid-1990s. This is because after the Tiananmen incident in 1989, China and Japan had a temporary ceasefire over the history issue. But from 1994, the Chinese government fully implemented a patriotic education campaign, which coincided with the active manipulation of historical interpretation by Japanese conservative leaders for political purposes. These acrimonious history disputes resulting from elite mythmaking on both sides reinforced their mutual strategic concerns in a less favorable international structure. Sino-Japanese relations during this period revealed that national myths could act as a double-edged sword in international relations. On one hand, ruling elites constructed and purveyed national myths to serve practical political needs. On the other hand, however, negative emotions and perceptions of intention arising from sharp disagreement on war history interpretation could be genuinely embraced by the general public and also widely shared within the elite circle; they could not be turned off at will when the government agenda shifted. So there existed a fundamental dilemma between the official desire to instrumentally manipulate history interpretation and the fear of an inability to control the resultant

288

The Search for Reconciliation

enormous public agitation that would seriously limit government policy choices. A question worth considering here is whether reconciliation can be accomplished through merely diplomatic tactics without making efforts to tackle national myths. Admittedly, Beijing and Tokyo compromised on the history issue before the 1980s, after the June Fourth incident until the mid-1990s, and during 1998–2001. Although positive official relations could be restored to some extent in each interval, popular relations kept deteriorating precisely because national myths remained entrenched, and popular hatred ignited by conflicting memories exerted heavy pressure on the government and constrained its policy options toward the other country. To improve the poor state of bilateral relations during the Koizumi era, in recent years the two governments again took a series of diplomatic steps, including most notably Prime Minister Abe’s ice-breaking (pobing) visit to China in October 2006, Premier Wen’s ice-melting (rongbing) visit to Japan in April 2007, Prime Minister Fukuda’s spring-welcoming (yingchun) trip to China in December 2007, and President Hu’s warmspring (nuanchun) visit to Japan in May 2008. Although these official gestures have considerably warmed up the bilateral atmosphere and dispelled the pessimistic forecast of an imminent confrontation, to what extent they can push Sino-Japanese reconciliation beyond a shallow stage hinges on efforts to resolve their fundamental clash over the remembering and forgetting of war history. The Sino-Japanese joint history project since 2006 has not appeared particularly promising, suggesting that a settlement of the enduring historical legacy is unlikely to happen quickly. German-Polish textbook cooperation has been going on for more than three decades since its inception in the 1970s. If China and Japan are to follow the German-Polish example, they will have to exercise patience and resilience on this matter. Even after the joint report is due in 2008, consistent, long-term dialogue between Chinese and Japanese historians should continue.

Conclusion

In the aftermath of traumatic conflict, erstwhile adversaries Germany and Poland have made significant progress toward deep reconciliation, whereas China and Japan remain politically and emotionally alienated. Having examined these two cases with different reconciliation outcomes, this book concludes that a history of conflict does not doom states to future conflict. Instead, how the memory of the conflict is constructed and manipulated largely shapes the likelihood of reconciliation. Elite mythmaking of national history to fulfill immediate practical goals can bring about substantial divergence between the memories of former adversaries and spur both mutual perception of hostile intentions and virulent popular emotions. Although international structural incentives are instrumental in scrapping certain barriers to intergovernmental cooperation, without curbing pernicious historical myths and fostering bilateral historiographic convergence, a state of deep trust and harmony between former combatant governments and their corresponding societies will not truly arise. This conclusion is borne out by the testing of realist theory and national mythmaking theory against the cases of post–WWII Sino-Japanese and German-Polish relations in the previous chapters. As illustrated in Table 7.1, the predictions of realist theory fit the reconciliation outcomes in only half of the total of eight subcases. It is true that a certain degree of compatibility between states’ security interests is useful to enable the reconciliation process. Even in the European case, the trend of historical settlement did not appear until East-West d´etente created a more relaxed external environment for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and Poland to develop formal contacts. The weakness of realist theory lies 289

290

table 7.1. Summary of Theory Tests Predictions

China-Japan

(I) Realist Theory of External Material Threat

(II) National Mythmaking Theory

1950s–71 1972–81

Nonreconciliation Deep reconciliation

1982–89

Deep reconciliation

1990s–present

Shallow reconciliation

Shallow reconciliation Nonreconciliation Shallow reconciliation Shallow reconciliation – rapprochement Shallow reconciliation Shallow reconciliation – friction Shallow reconciliation Shallow reconciliation – friction

Germany-Poland 1950s–mid-60s late 1960s–late 70s 1980s 1990s–present

Nonreconciliation Shallow reconciliation Nonreconciliation Shallow reconciliation

Nonreconciliation Shallow reconciliation Shallow reconciliation Deep reconciliation

Outcomes

Nonreconciliation Shallow reconciliation Shallow reconciliation Deep reconciliation

Theory Assessment Theory I fit Theory II fit Theory II fit Theory I partial fit; Theory II fit Both theories fit Both theories fit Theory II fit Theory II fit

Conclusion

291

mainly in the limited government ability to dictate popular relations, as demonstrated in Sino-Japanese relations in the 1970s. Overall, both crosscase and within-case investigations show that a common threat defined in a material sense is neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition for interstate reconciliation. In contrast, national mythmaking theory explains all but one subcase, which is Sino-Japanese nonreconciliation in the 1950s–60s. The case studies also show that historical myths are not totally penetrated by the international power structure. Besides national security interests, such internal goals as consolidating the ruling power to counter political opponents, constructing a certain type of national identity, or mobilizing public support for government political and economic policies also significantly shaped the main parameters of national myths. In addition, historical myths, once constructed and internalized by a nation, can take on a life of their own and sway the policy-making equation. In other words, historical ideas are not totally auxiliary to material interests but have independent power in international relations.

comparing the east asian and european cases Why did Germans and Poles finally approach deep reconciliation whereas the Chinese and Japanese failed in this cause? Why did the two perpetrator countries, Germany and Japan, handle the negative legacy in their national histories so differently? The same question exists for the two victim countries: Why has a trend of national demythification emerged in Poland since the 1970s but not in China? One may dispute the thesis that Germans are more contrite than the Japanese about their war history. After all, the majority of Japanese people admit Japan’s past aggression, whereas many Germans, such as some conservative politicians, do not genuinely feel guilty about the Nazi past, regardless of what they say publicly, and Germany’s cultural biases against Eastern Europeans remain strong even today. Several qualitative differences exist between Germany and Japan, however. First, the authoritative narrative of national history, mostly embodied in school textbooks, is much more forthright in Germany than in Japan when it comes to treatment of the nation’s past wrongdoings toward others.1 1

It is true that many Japanese teachers influenced by the left-wing teachers’ union deviate from the textbooks and try to teach a progressive historical view to students. But the fact that WWII history is excluded from the testing scope of college entrance examination

292

The Search for Reconciliation

Second, the German state put down on record its remorse through repeated, unequivocal official apologies, payment of compensation, and memorial services, all of which send a powerful reassuring signal to the victims; mere private expressions of contrition cannot accomplish this. The contrast between German and Japanese official positions is evident if one compares the typical visits by German leaders to Nazi concentration camps on war anniversaries with Japanese leaders’ worship at the highly nationalistic Yasukuni Shrine on similar occasions. Third, today both German and Japanese memories of WWII history are multifaceted, and political controversies over memory frequently erupt. But in Germany, the Holocaust-centered interpretation remains the culturally dominant memory regime, supported and internalized by the vast majority of the people, whereas the “denial school” on Nazi crimes is largely marginalized in German politics, academia, and society.2 In contrast, historical revisionism in Japan, because of its intimate connection with the dominant conservative politics, still enjoys a prominent status in the political establishment and public sphere. This book resists any simple judgment that Germany should be treated as a moral model for Japan or that the Japanese nation is intrinsically incapable of contrition. Franziska Seraphim says, “It is certainly not true that Japanese have no sense of guilt, that theirs is a culture of amnesia, or that they are politically immature. Rather, war memory developed together with – and as a part of – particular and divergent approaches to postwar democracy in the aftermath of war.”3 This book argues that the different attitudes of Germany and Japan toward history and their neighbors have their origins in a multitude of deep sociopolitical and ideational factors that merit serious investigation and reflection. The trajectories of postwar German-Polish and Sino-Japanese relationships initially ran in parallel. In the 1950s and 1960s, the negative structural conditions of the Cold War determined that the two ideologically and strategically antagonistic dyads would be stuck in the stage of nonreconciliation. The patterns of elite mythmaking were also similar: Conservative ruling elites in both Japan and West Germany encouraged national amnesia about their aggression and war crimes against other countries whereas they emphasized their own collective suffering; the

2 3

in Japan diminishes students’ interest to study it and generates an astonishinly ignorant younger generation concerning this part of history. Langenbacher, “Importance of Memory.” Seraphim, War Memory and Social Politics, 4.

Conclusion

293

Communist governments in China and Poland promoted self-glorifying national myths to celebrate their heroic resistance against aggression and, especially in Poland, play up national victimhood. However similar they were in these respects, the two cases differed notably in terms of domestic political structure. The postwar political institutions in West Germany were less implicated in war guilt than those in Japan, so government leaders, at least, had little personal stake in exposing the Nazi history. In Germany, the Allies consistently favored “German politicians with clear anti- or at least non-Nazi credentials” to run postwar German politics while prosecuting or purging a large number of ex-Nazis.4 Members of the new ruling class were predominantly recruited from the democratic parties of the Weimar Republic, many of whom had been in prisons or concentration camps or excluded by the Nazi regime. Although quite a few Nazi sympathizers later were depurged and even returned to public office, the German government was staunchly anti-Nazi, and no mainstream politicians would deny Nazi crimes.5 External pressure also compelled Bonn to apologize and pay reparations to Israel, which put on record German acknowledgement of the Holocaust. In Japan, the purge of militarists was less strict than the denazification campaign in Germany. The occupation authorities screened about 21.7 percent of the German population in the U.S. occupation zone alone, compared to 3.2 percent of the total Japanese population. The screening procedures for Germans were also more intensive and rigorous, as the questionnaire contained 150 items (compared to 23 in Japan), and on average each occupation official screened only 16.5 Germans compared to 770 Japanese.6 Moreover, after the “reverse course” began in Japan, the United States abandoned the morally cleaner political Left to support the conservatives, who had deep connections with the wartime government. This allowed many militarist sympathizers and even supporters, such as war criminals Shigemitsu Mamoru (convicted by the Tokyo Trial as a Class A war criminal but later appointed foreign minister under Prime Minister Hatoyama) and Kishi Nobusuke (a Class A war criminal suspect who was never tried), to return to political prominence after the occupation ended. Naturally, this conservative government was ambiguous about Japanese war crimes. Moreover, the Japanese emperor was 4 5 6

Herf, “Post-Totalitarian Narratives, ”165. Ibid.; Katzenstein, World of Regions, 86–87. Shibata, Japan and Germany, 68.

294

The Search for Reconciliation

exonerated of war responsibility, and the monarchy system was kept intact, which ensured the postwar continuity of the Kokutai, a nationalistic ideology centered on emperor reverence. The Kokutai ideology encouraged the Japanese people to take pride in their national history and tolerate the right-wing view that glorified a war fought in the name of the emperor. Another institutional legacy of the early postwar years was the structure of the education system. Although history education in both countries was conservative in the initial period, the Allies retained the prewar federalist education system in the FRG to thwart any renewed totalitarian control of education, whereas in Japan the Supreme Command for the Allied Powers (SCAP) failed in its attempt to decentralize the education system.7 Therefore, the central government in the FRG – no matter how conservative it was – had little influence over school education, and from the 1960s progressive education reform was able to emerge in a few German states and later successfully spread to other states. Such localized reform was impossible under the centralized textbook certification system in Japan. Additionally, being the majority of textbook authors, German teachers had heavy input in education contents; but in Japan, the teachers were largely excluded from the decision-making institutions regarding textbooks and curricula because of the distrust of both the SCAP and Japanese elites in the ability or democratic consciousness of the teachers as well as their ideological suspicion of the teachers’ unions.8 Whereas the younger generation of the FRG’s teacher force played a significant role in shifting the German historical perspective from the 1970s, structural constraints made it much harder for progressive teachers in Japan to push for education reform from the bottom up. The turning point in the two dyadic relationships came from the end of the 1960s. Propelled by profound changes in the structural environment, both dyads normalized diplomatic relations, partially settled sovereignty disputes, and developed moderate economic interaction and societal contacts. But important divergence appeared at this time in how they addressed the historical burden. The FRG government issued open, unambiguous apologies to Poland for Nazi crimes, and from then on German and Polish historians began their long-term cooperation to narrow the gap in textbook treatment of the traumatic history of bilateral interaction. Thus, a trend of historical settlement was set in motion 7 8

Levy and Dierkes, “Institutionalising the Past”; Tent, “Mission on the Rhine.” Becker, “Textbooks and the Political System,” 254; Shibata, Japan and Germany, 85.

Conclusion

295

between the two nations that has continued until the present day, sustained even in an environment of adverse strategic pressure in the 1980s. In contrast, China and Japan failed to use the opportunity of a positive structural environment in the 1970s (an even more favorable structural environment than that in the European case because China and Japan were quasi-allies against the USSR, whereas West Germany and Poland remained Cold War adversaries) to settle their historical legacy. Why? Three conditions enabled the German-Polish historical settlement trend from the 1970s. First, the goal of national reunification was consensual among German elites across the political spectrum and constituted the core of postwar German national identity. This goal motivated the FRG to take goodwill gestures to the Eastern bloc countries so that they would tolerate closer connections between the two Germanys. Second, more than political gestures, a big segment of German elites, mostly the Social Democrats, pushed for a politics of reconciliation toward Eastern Europe. Germans did so not just to win trust and respect from their neighbors and mitigate the security threat from the East: From the end of the war, the Social Democrats had argued that confrontation with the past was essential to building a solid moral foundation for German democracy, as opposed to the conservative view that democratic stability and electoral success required saying little about the past. After the Social Democratic Party defeated the Christian Democratic Union in the 1969 election and took government power, the Left was able to implement a politics of reconciliation as the moral dimension of the Ostpolitik. Third, nonstate actors in Germany, including Catholic churches, private foundations, and youth exchange NGOs, functioned “as catalysts, complements, conduits, or competitors” to the state efforts of reconciliation with Poland.9 These three conditions were lacking in Japan. Japan was never compelled by a national unification goal to seek reconciliation with other Asian countries, and its national survival was by and large ensured by alliance with the United States. Even during the 1970s, when Japan and China faced the common Soviet enemy, Japan never depended on China for national security. In terms of domestic politics, Japan had a political Left equivalent to the Social Democrats in West Germany, but its influence on national memory diminished as the JSP and Japan Communist Party repeatedly lost in the power struggle against the conservative LDP. After

9

Horvat, “Strong State,” 217.

296

The Search for Reconciliation

the end of the Cold War, the JSP largely atrophied, and the largest opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan, was not only substantially weaker than the LDP but also seriously divided over issues of memory and war responsibility. Postwar Japan had no shortage of political and legal battles between the leftists and conservatives, but profound public ¨ debates about the nation’s disgraceful past like the Verjahrungsdebatten and Historikerstreit in West Germany never occurred in Japan. Overall, Japan’s left wing lacked a distinctive, consistent moral agenda, nor did it have strong leadership to garner wide public support for its power bid. In addition, Japanese civil society was rather weak compared to that in Germany because of the overwhelming strength of the Japanese state. Japanese NGOs also did not consciously strive for reconciliation, as did their German counterparts. Faith-based activities for promoting goodwill were very limited in East Asia, and efforts by only a few private foundations, such as the Asian Women’s Fund, ended up exacerbating rather than mollifying the anger of Asian victim countries.10 These three conditions, coupled with the different institutional legacies of Allied occupation mentioned earlier, largely accounted for the contrasting attitudes of West Germany and Japan regarding war history. These conditions were path dependent – not in the sense that they locked future reconciliation development into a predestined path, but rather that they shaped a long-lasting, often self-reinforcing institutional setting that blocked backward movement to overturn earlier commitments to and positions on reconciliation. In the 1980s, even though West German– Polish relations suffered an initial setback after the collapse of d´etente, the enduring impact of Ostpolitik had planted deep roots of morality, justice, and reconciliation in the mainstream German psyche so that even the conservative ruling party could not resume pernicious mythmaking or withdraw from the policy of restitution to Poland. In contrast, lacking a prior foundation for historical settlement, China and Japan easily escalated nationalist mythmaking and engaged in acrimonious history disputes once such disputes seemed politically profitable in a new domestic context. In addition to these path-dependent institutional settings during the Cold War, two new, positive conditions from the 1990s also contributed to the deep reconciliation between the unified Germany and Poland. One is that Germany spearheaded the expansion of the European community to include Eastern Europe. The deep-rooted antimilitarism and 10

Ibid.

Conclusion

297

multilateralism in German political-military culture and its tradition of legalism motivated Germany’s strong commitment to multilateral institutions based on formal legal rules and democratic norms and values.11 Poland’s integration with the European community greatly facilitated its institutionalized security cooperation and economic interdependence with Germany, fostered a regional identity, and diminished the prospect of their military conflict. Compared to European integration, the Asian regional order remained fragmented. Historically, either with the Fukuda Doctrine to build a “heart-to-heart relationship” with Southeast Asian countries or through massive investment and Official Development Aid to the region, Japan advocated a weakly institutionalized Asian regionalism that emphasized informal mechanisms and rhetoric rather than substantial policy measures. Asian collective identity, if it existed, was largely “fluid and ephemeral,” in Katzenstein’s words.12 In the past decade, the Asian community-building process has gained momentum thanks to the increasing role of ASEAN and China’s more positive attitude toward regional institutions.13 But this process has been impeded by the failure of major players like China and Japan to resolve their disagreements over the scope and format of the regional framework as well as their WWII historical memory.14 It appears that regional integration cannot be completely separated from historical memory. European integration would not have expanded smoothly to Eastern Europe if Germany had not been so forthright about its war guilt. So instead of counting on a regional community to facilitate a shared memory, in Asia it requires a shared memory for a regional community to consolidate. Another new phenomenon after the Cold War was the democratization of Poland. Chinese politics from the 1980s onward combined weak regime legitimacy, internal disunity and social unrest, and a highly manipulated marketplace of information and ideas. This political system provided a fertile soil for nationalistic propaganda to thrive and 11

12 13

14

Berger, Cultures of Antimilitarism; Duffield, “Political Culture and State Behavior”; Katzenstein, World of Regions. Katzenstein, World of Regions, 85. Acharya, “Asia’s Past”; Gill, “China’s Evolving Strategy”; Johnston and Evans, “China’s Engagement.” The history barrier to Sino-Japanese concerted efforts to promote regional community was exemplified by Chinese leaders’ refusal to meet with Koizumi at the ASEAN+3 Conference and the first East Asia Summit held in December 2005 because of his Yasukuni visits. For more on the Sino-Japanese rift over Asian community building, see “Asia/Asian Community Remains Distant Goal,” Asahi.com, March 8, 2006.

298

The Search for Reconciliation

spark international disputes over history. Compared to China, Poland’s democratic regime no longer relied on national mythmaking but tried to unify and mobilize the nation with liberal values and pragmatic reforms. As Vachudova and Snyder comment, “The democratic redefinition of the state, which took place under the aegis of former dissidents, granted state institutions a new legitimacy and marginalized extreme nationalism.”15 But democratization was not the only explanation for the triumph of cosmopolitan, liberal views of self-image and relationships with other nations in Poland. After WWII, the Polish nation cried for retribution for the enormous historical injustices inflicted by Germany. As Polish historian Jedlicki says, “It is difficult to imagine more intense feelings of hatred than those that the Poles (no less than the Jews) harbored for the Germans in the wake of the Nazi occupation.”16 Yet starting from the 1970s, German leaders and historians reached out to Poles to express genuine remorse and provide material compensation, which had the effect of healing wounds, soothing emotions, reassuring minds, and rehabilitating the dignity of the Polish nation. German politics of reconciliation considerably neutralized Poles’ obsession with their victimhood and encouraged them to reflect on their own wrongdoing toward other nations and the Jews of their own nation. In contrast to Germany, Japan’s failure to face up to its past continued to add insult to injury in Chinese feeling and greatly reinforced Chinese national myths “othering” Japan; elite mythmaking in turn drove a vicious cycle of mutual hatred and mistrust, constantly straining bilateral relations. Last but not least, the philosophic and moral inclinations of political entrepreneurs regarding historical issues can play a critical role in steering national collective memory and policy toward former enemy countries. Empirical evidence suggests that some government leaders, such as Mao, Adenauer, and Koizumi, presided over national mythmaking with little concern about historical truth and ignored the moral and international political consequences of national myths. However, other political elites, Chancellor Willy Brandt and President Richard von Weizsacker being the ¨ prime examples, attached great importance to presenting an honest history, upholding justice, fulfilling the moral responsibility of their nation, and pursuing reconciliation. The difference between these two types of elites may be ascribed to their individual personalities (narcissist versus 15 16

Vachudova and Snyder, “Are Transitions Transitory,” 7. Jedlicki, “Historical Memory,” 226.

Conclusion

299

modest leaders), moral principles (such as regarding the philosophy of ends and means), ideologies for nation building (self-centered ideology as opposed to cosmopolitan, liberal ideas), and worldviews (valuing shortterm gains or long-term peace and stability).

future research In this book, I tested realist theory and national mythmaking theory against two postconflict dyads that first faced a similarly negative systemic context but eventually arrived at shallow reconciliation and deep reconciliation, respectively. My argument regarding the significant influence of historical ideas in shaping interstate reconciliation may be extended to two more categories of cases. The first category includes cases where the systemic environment is consistently favorable to reconciliation, such as postwar Japanese–South Korean and Greco-Turkish relations. The second are cases in which former enemies remain in a state resembling nonreconciliation, such as Israeli-Palestinian and Indian-Pakistani relations. In addition, I consider a third category of cases, with which my argument does not show an obvious fit. These include postcolonial/postconflict relations, such as U.S.-Philippine, U.S.-Vietnamese, and U.K.-Indian relations. Here, memory of the traumatic past has not caused deep interstate friction; the victim nations all seem to have let the past go, despite historical amnesia and a lack of serious atonement on the part of the perpetrators. By examining these counterexamples, I want to demonstrate better the scope of applicability of my argument. Although acknowledging that area-specific knowledge and language skills are needed for an in-depth study, I offer a preliminary probe of these additional categories of cases. The Japanese–South Korean relationship is an example case from the first category. In the wake of thirty-six years of brutal Japanese colonization, the Korean nation regained independence but soon split into two countries. Like Japan, South Korea also joined the Western bloc through a security alliance with the United States. Yet Japan and South Korea failed to establish a normal diplomatic relationship until the mid-1960s. And for several decades after that, their intergovernmental ties were highly volatile, and popular relations barely improved from pre-normalization animosity. Only since the early 1990s did the twilight of reconciliation appear. The high degree of political tension between these two U.S. allies would be hard to explain without taking into account elite mythmaking in both countries. In the 1950s, the dictatorial Rhee Syngman government

300

The Search for Reconciliation

of the Republic of Korea (ROK) hinged its regime legitimacy and nationbuilding strategy on fanning anti-Japanese nationalism. South Korean history textbooks and media propaganda consistently accentuated Japanese brutality and Korean suffering in the colonial history and purveyed negative stereotypes about Japan.17 In Japan, the conservative elites sponsored national amnesia regarding the colonial history in Korea, and Japanese society had nothing but ignorance of and contempt for Korea. Even the Japanese leftists failed to reflect on the historical trauma that Japan inflicted on the Korean nation.18 Thus, the history issue became a major stumbling block in the initial normalization negotiation.19 It was not until 1965, after the Park Chung Hee government of South Korea made concessions on Korea’s property claims to Japan and Japanese Foreign Minister Shiina Etsusaburo¯ issued an apology speech in Seoul, that the two countries finally normalized relations. All these measures were taken in a tactical manner, without a genuine historical settlement. Until the beginning of 1990s, South Korean textbook coverage of Japan still centered on the colonial period, and Japanese textbooks also tried to justify Japan’s colonization of Korea.20 Japanese official apologies were vague, and its financial packages to South Korea were extended in the name of aid rather than compensation.21 Their historical narratives remained so divergent that when the Japanese textbook controversy erupted in 1982, it quickly escalated into a major diplomatic dispute between Seoul and Tokyo.22 The momentum for Japan-ROK reconciliation from the 1990s was primarily nonstructural because the Cold War had ended. The common North Korean threat was also a weak explanation, given that 17

18 19 20 21

22

¯ ¯ 56–58; Nakajima, “Sengo Kankoku Chishikijin no Nihon Kimijima, Kyokasho no Shiso, Ninshiki.” Nishioka, “Zasshi ‘Sekai’ wa Chosen o do¯ Mita ka?” ¯ Kim, Kannichi no Wakai, 3–95; Takasaki, Kensho¯ Nikkan Kaidan, 1–64. Kimijima, “Rekishi Kyokasho o Meguru Nihon-Kankoku no Taiwa.” ¯ Japanese official apologies to South Korea in the 1970s and 1980s were largely modeled on a sentence that Shiina said in 1965: “We feel great regret and deep remorse over the unhappy phase in the long history of relations between the two countries.” This statement conspicuously left out who caused the “unhappy phase” and what happened during that phase. When Emperor Showa apologized to visiting South Korean president Chun Doohwan in September 1984, he used an almost identical expression, except that he dropped the word “remorse.” In his statement on the following day, Prime Minister Nakasone clearly specified that it was Japan that caused “great suffering” to South Korea. But even his statement failed to include the word “remorse” or “apology.” See Wakamiya, Postwar Conservative View, ch. 14. Cha, Alignment despite Antagonism, 185–96; Lee, Japan and Korea, 141–51.

Conclusion

301

U.S. military deterrence against North Korea persisted and the ROK actively attempted inter-Korea reconciliation through its “sunshine policy.”23 Instead, converging historical memory accounted for the Japanese–South Korean reconciliation progress. The democratization of South Korea greatly dampened the domestic political motivation for xenophobic national mythmaking. President Kim Dae-jung in particular strongly believed that early reconciliation with Japan was in the long-term interest of the Korean nation. Kim’s personal enthusiasm and charismatic leadership captured the imagination of the two nations and largely weakened stubborn opposition to reconciliation on both sides. The milestone in bilateral friendship was the signing of the Japan–South Korea Joint Declaration in 1998, when Prime Minister Obuchi Keizo expressed “deep remorse and heartfelt apology,” and President Kim Daejung accepted this apology with a future-oriented vision about their relationship. Outside the government, since the end of 1980s, historians of the two countries have held multiple workshop series on history textbook cooperation. Whereas the earlier dialogues focused on examining the weak points in Japanese textbook coverage of colonial history, since the late 1990s, these projects extended to mutual critiquing of history textbooks. In recent years, historians from Japan and South Korea have jointly produced reference books for secondary school history teachers.24 Also, since 2002, the two governments have officially sponsored joint history research aiming at narrowing their historiographic gap.25 This emerging trend of historical settlement has yet to resolve all issues of contention in the Japanese–South Korean historical legacy. In recent years, Japanese–South Korean popular friendship has declined because of frequent disputes over Japanese history textbooks, the lack of an official Japanese apology to former Korean sex slaves, Koizumi’s shrine visits, and sovereignty disputes over the Dokdo/Takeshima Islets in the Sea of Japan. If handled poorly, the history issue may again hinder the bilateral reconciliation process.

23

24

25

On the ROK’s sunshine policy, see Scalapino, “Inter-Korean Rapprochement,” and Lee, “Sunset for Kim Dae-jung’s Sunshine Policy?” Author’s interviews with Japanese historians Takasaki Soji ¯ (October 11, 2000), Yoshida Yutaka (October 19, 2000), and Kimijima Kazuhiko (October 25, 2000). Also see Kimijima, “Kyokasho Kokusai Kory ¯ ¯ u¯ no Keiken Kara Mita ‘Kokumin no Rekishi.’” When the first stage of the project ended in 2005, the two sides remained widely apart in their interpretations of the colonial period. The two sides began the second stage of the project from 2007. For meeting reports and participants information, see <>

302

The Search for Reconciliation

As for the second category of cases, the Israeli-Palestinian relationship is a classic example of chronic nonreconciliation.26 After the traumatic 1948 war, a state of war persisted between the Arabs and Israelis, erupting into open hostilities in 1956, 1967, and 1973. Moreover, for several decades, the Israelis and Palestinians rejected each other’s national survival rights. Until the Oslo Accords were signed, the Palestinians did not recognize the Israeli state, and Israel insisted that the Palestinians should be absorbed into the existing Arab states. After the signing of the 1978 Camp David Accords, large-scale Arab-Israeli wars were absent, but conflicts between the Israelis and Palestinians did not end. Palestinian uprisings in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1987–91 and again in 2000–2005 are recent indicators of a total lack of reconciliation. The Israeli-Palestinian rivalry is first and foremost a territorial struggle regarding who should have more or even full control of the land of Palestine. The interference of great powers and other Arabic states did not create but only complicated or exacerbated their conflicts.27 But elite manipulation of historiography, undoubtedly an instrumental tool supporting the territorial struggle between the two sides, fed the perception of war danger and prevented them from accepting each other’s national existence. After the 1948 war, the Israeli Zionists promoted “an extremely one-sided and narrow-minded ideology in order to mobilize the forces necessary for its [Zionism’s] fulfillment, consequently distorting the perceptions and ethos of the younger generation of Israelis.”28 Palestinian political leaders also incited anti-Israeli nationalism to mobilize and sustain the resistance campaign. The school education and media propaganda of both sides purveyed flagrant historical myths glorifying their own peace-loving national character and military victories, blaming the other for provoking violence and blocking the peace process, and whitewashing their own atrocities. Negative stereotypes prevailed in their portrayal of each other’s national image. Israeli and Palestinian textbooks 26

27

28

Although the Palestinians did not win self-rule until the Palestinian National Authority was inaugurated in 1993 according to the Oslo Accords, I treat Palestine as a national entity whose identity had been in construction over a long period of time but certainly greatly solidified after it was defeated in the 1948 Israeli War of Independence. See Khalidi, Palestinian Identity. The superpowers had much less success in building a clear-cut, stable alliance structure in the Middle East than in Asia and Europe, and the balance of power among the Arabic countries themselves had a high degree of fluidity. A systematic study of the Middle East alliance system during the Cold War can be found in Walt, Origins of Alliances, chs. 3–4. Bar-On, “Historiography,” 23.

Conclusion

303

refused to apply the term of “state” to the governments and territories of the other nation and routinely used a hostile language that named the other “victimizer,” “gangs,” “terrorists,” and “incited mobs.”29 Such combative narratives bred deep-seated mutual hatred and mistrust that not only poisoned popular relations but also constrained the conciliatory policy options of both governments even if offered a reasonable settlement arrangement of their territorial struggle.30 Efforts to restrain historical mythmaking have been attempted in the recent decade, including the New Historians debate in Israel and joint textbook research between Israeli and Palestinian historians. The New Historians is a group of young Israeli historians and social scientists who from the late 1980s have criticized Zionist propaganda for instilling arrogance, prejudice, and hatred against the Arabs. They advocated an objective and self-critical reassessment of the Israeli historical experience.31 Besides, since 1990, the Georg Eckert Institute has organized symposiums and seminars for Israeli and Palestinian historians to meet and discuss how to bridge the gap between their textbook treatments of past conflicts.32 The prospect of Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation will depend largely on the resolution of the territorial issue, but a common understanding of history would contribute to an atmosphere of mutual trust and tolerance that is critical for constructive diplomacy to take place and lead to a final territorial settlement. Whereas the first two categories of cases largely confirm the validity of national mythmaking theory, cases from the third category appear to be counterexamples. In the 1899–1902 Philippine-American War, American forces killed at least two hundred thousand Filipinos and caused nearly a million Filipino casualties in pacification campaigns and collateral damage.33 The Americans, believing that they brought Western 29

30

31

32 33

For an overview of pernicious historical myths in Israeli and Palestinian national collective memories, see Podeh, “History and Memory,” and Van Evera, “Memory and Israel-Palestinian Conflict.” For a comprehensive study of Israeli and Palestinian textbook content (both Jordanian and Egyptian textbooks for use in the occupied territories and the new textbooks published by the Ministry of Education of the PNA), pedagogical issues, and curricular development in the past decade, see Firer and Adwan, “IsraeliPalestinian Conflict,” and Pingel, “Contested Past, Disputed Present.” On the notion that each side’s victim consciousness demands violent revenge in IsraeliPalestinian relations, see Humphreys, Between Memory and Desire, 46–59. For more on the recent debate between the old and new historians in Israel, see Bar-On, “Historiography”; Ben-Josef Hirsch, “From Taboo to the Negotiable”; and Brunner, “Pride and Memory.” See the editorial note of Firer and Adwan, “Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.” San Juan, After Postcolonialism, 82.

304

The Search for Reconciliation

civilization to a “savage” people, have largely forgotten the extremely barbaric atrocities they committed against the Filipinos.34 Yet when the Philippines finally gained national independence from American colonization in 1946, the country was willing to put history behind it; the two governments quickly cemented a special relationship with trade agreements, the introduction of American military bases to the Philippines, and a Mutual Defense Treaty. American troops left the Philippines in 1991, only to return there following a Visiting Forces Agreement in 1999. Their special relationship has been reinvigorated especially since 2001, when Manila became one of America’s closest allies in the global campaign against terrorism.35 Similarly, since the nearly two hundred years of rule of the British Raj in India ended in 1947, the two countries have maintained a generally smooth relationship. Indian nationalist leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, despite their long-term denunciation of the British Empire during the independence struggle, supported India’s decision to remain in the British Commonwealth after 1947. London has hardly apologized for British imperialist atrocities in India, such as the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh incident, in which the British army fired on unarmed Indian protesters and killed at least 379.36 Yet India has not tried to hold history against Britain when handling bilateral relations. In another case, the United States and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam normalized relations in 1995, twenty years after the conclusion of the traumatic Vietnam War, called the American War by the Vietnamese. Although America lost fifty-eight thousand soldiers, the Vietnamese clearly suffered much more: One million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians were killed, four hundred thousand were missing in action, millions became widows and orphans, and up to five hundred thousand children suffered from deformities caused by the Agent Orange used by the American military.37 When Bill Clinton visited Hanoi in 2000, he spoke of the “shared suffering” but stopped short of offering any expressions of

34 35

36

37

Jacobson, “Imperial Amnesia.” Banlaoi, “Role of Philippine-American Relations”; Cruz De Castro, “Revitalized Philippine-U.S. Security Relations.” One exception is made by British foreign secretary Jack Straw, who visited a memorial for the Jallianwala Bagh in 2005 and wrote in the visitor’s book, “This was a terrible occasion in which so many innocents were slaughtered, for which I feel shame and sorrow.” See Panthic Weekly, February 27, 2005. Rydstrom, “Proximity and Distance,” 27.

Conclusion

305

remorse. Yet Clinton has since had many admirers among the Vietnamese people.38 Although these three dyads may not strictly qualify as instances of deep reconciliation as it is defined in this book, they do suggest that postconflict reconciliation might be accomplished without harmonization of memory. This shows that national mythmaking theory is a falsifiable, therefore scientific, theory. The reason that the theory does not fit here is mainly because ruling elites did not find the “othering” of the former enemy country through national mythmaking to be a particularly useful political strategy. This is in fact consistent with earlier findings in this book that elites will avoid politicizing memory conflict if doing so hinders other, more pressing domestic or international goals. Manila became a natural ally of the United States because it relied on American military aid to suppress the widespread rural discontent against the landowning, oligarchic ruling elites, exemplified in the Huk movement during 1946–53 and Marxist rebellions in the 1970s. The great landlords also profited from exporting agricultural products to the American market. In exchange for such “unremitting American patronage,” and also fearing the links between Communist infiltration from the outside and internal insurgency, the Philippine oligarchy followed closely in American footsteps in waging the Cold War in Southeast Asia.39 For the postcolonial Indian government, maintaining a connection with the British Commonwealth promised to help India to smooth institutional transitions after independence and retain economic access to the European market. Strategically speaking, India felt an imminent military threat not from the West but from Pakistan and later, increasingly, from a powerful China immediately bordering India. Thus, national mythmaking targeted at Britain would neither justify its security policy nor promote the political and economic welfare of the nascent Indian state. In the case of Vietnam, in the mid-1980s, the government, facing a failing economy and international isolation because of its invasion of Cambodia, launched the economic reform program, Doi Moi. To obtain 38

39

A 2000 poll by a state-run Vietnamese magazine found President Clinton more popular than the then Vietnamese prime minister Phan Van Khai. When Clinton returned to Vietnam in 2006, he received extraordinarily warm greetings there. See “Vietnam’s Generation Split,” Asia Times Online, June 23, 2007, and “Admirers Swarm Bill Clinton in Hanoi,” Washingtonpost.com, December 6, 2006. Kratoska and Batson, “Nationalism and Modernist Reform”; Turnbull, “Regionalism and Nationalism.”

306

The Search for Reconciliation

Western capital and technology to facilitate Doi Moi, Hanoi was willing to sweep the war legacy under the rug. Take Vietnam’s tourism for an example: To attract more foreign visitors, the state-run tourist industry sponsored the sweetening of national history. In anticipation of the visits of many Vietnam War veterans from America, the government closed the American Rooms of the War Crimes Museum, played down the tension between the defeater and defeated, and turned Vietnam War–era historic sites into tourist attractions. In general, the tourist version of Vietnam history “offers to travelers its Asian exoticism and its mystique, as well as a muted and angerless history.”40 Moreover, I have argued earlier that elite mythmaking tends to selectively use historical memories that can win the most public resonance rather than to adopt all memories. In these three cases, national myths about the former enemies were not chosen because they would not have captured the national imagination. Because Philippine independence was conceded by America rather than won after the defeat and expulsion of the colonizer, as in Japanese–South Korean relations, nationalism could not really serve as a unifying ideology for the Philippine nation or a symbolic weapon in the elites’ power struggle.41 In postcolonial India, however, the Congress Party did win supreme political prestige and influence for having led the nationalist struggle against the British Empire. Still, many Congress elites were so indebted to English intellectual traditions and political philosophy that they were in no mood to fan anti-British xenophobia. The Cambridge-educated Nehru even claimed himself to be “the last Englishman to rule in India.”42 Additionally, the disastrous partition of India in 1947 cut a fresh, harrowing wound in the Indian national psyche. Compared to anti-British nationalism, myths regarding Indian-Pakistani conflict were much more appealing to both the elites and the general public, who strongly felt victimized by the partition.43 In Communist Vietnam, the state constructed an ethnocultural, xenophobic national identity largely in opposition to the neighboring power, China, which had ruled Vietnam for ten centuries in history. Vietnamese culture was defined by rejecting Chinese influence, and patriotism was 40 41 42 43

Kennedy and Williams, “Past without the Pain.” Kratoska and Batson, “Nationalism and Modernist Reform,” 265. Nanda, “Nehru and the British,” 478. In fact, both Indian and Pakistani school textbooks have purveyed pernicious national myths against each other, fanning much hatred and mistrust that reinforced their structural conflict. See Dorschner and Sherlock, “Role of History Textbooks,” and Lall, “Educate to Hate.”

Conclusion

307

inspired by recounting centuries-old legends and myths about national heroes in anti-Chinese resistance.44 This ancient “Chinese Other” could elicit a stronger emotional echo than the American enemy among Vietnamese people. After the 1979 war with China erupted over the Cambodia issue, China was explicitly called the “enemy of the Vietnamese people and nation.” Even after the two countries normalized relations in 1991, anti-Chinese sentiment continued to simmer in Vietnamese society.45 Finally, although in these cases history did not obstruct the restoration of normal diplomatic relations and, sometimes, intimate policy coordination between former enemies, this does not mean the historical legacy was insignificant in foreign policy. The American military pullout from the Subic Bay and Clark airfields in the early 1990s in the face of the strong anti-base sentiment in the Philippines shows the power of colonial memory and nationalism. Even though Manila has agreed to the return of American troops, such delicate and potentially divisive issues as sovereignty and national pride will still haunt future security relations between the United States and the Philippines.46 In India, anticolonialism derived from the experience of British rule was a central ideology guiding postcolonial Indian foreign policy. Nehru promoted nonalignment with the conviction that newly independent countries must defend their independence and dignity, and by encouraging the decolonization movement widely in Asia and Africa he tried to push third world countries to the front ranks of international politics.47 Moreover, Indian colonial memory gave rise to a strong sense of victimhood, which makes Indians highly sensitive to any acts of Western condescension or discrimination. Some argue that a “post-imperial ideology” has significantly shaped Indian policy making over issues with international repercussions, such as its decision to test nuclear bombs in the late 1990s as a protest against the discriminatory “Nuclear Club” and a redemption of India’s national victimhood.48 For the Vietnamese, especially the generation that personally experienced the traumatic American War, to forgive the former enemy and

44 45

46

47 48

Salomon and Ket, “Doi Moi.” One example is the nationalist street demonstrations in Vietnam in December 2007 over the long-standing island dispute in the South China Sea with China. See “Vietnam Says Anti-China Protests ‘Spontaneous,’” BBC Worldwide Monitoring, December 11, 2007. I thank Edward Miller for research advice on Vietnam. Bacho, “U.S.-Philippine Relations”; Cruz De Castro, “Revitalized Philippine-U.S. Security Relations.” Fontera, “Anti-Colonialism”; Kumar, “Nonalignment”; Power, “Indian Foreign Policy.” See, for example, Miller, Scars of Empire.

308

The Search for Reconciliation

“look toward the future,” a slogan preached by the Vietnamese government, was not easy. Lewis Stern, former director for Indochina, Thailand, and Burma in the office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense, who participated in the negotiation with Vietnam in the 1990s, testified to the “bitter, mistrustful, uncooperative and generally unhelpful” attitude of Vietnamese officers with an American War background, which created difficulty in settling the major stumbling block to normalization, the POW/MIA issue.49 The young people were more willing to move on because of their exposure to government indoctrination that encouraged them to separate the American government from the American people and American commanders from ordinary soldiers.50 This approach is reminiscent of Chinese official propaganda about Japan before the 1980s; that propaganda proved fragile later, when the authoritarian government lost credibility among the people. Nevertheless, these three cases indeed indicate that the validity of national mythmaking theory has limits. Having analyzed the specific domestic and external circumstances preventing elite mythmaking from flourishing, I want to point out two structural similarities across these counterexample cases. One is that all three dyads are distant countries rather than neighbors; the other is they each comprise two countries of significant power disparity. Whether a certain degree of geographic proximity and power symmetry are necessary conditions to amplify the importance of historical trauma in postconflict interstate relations is a subject worthy of further research.

lessons for policy This book is the first comprehensive treatment of the understudied subject of interstate reconciliation. So far, the common approach to international peace has focused on terminating ongoing international conflicts through mediation, negotiation, and confidence-building measures. But this book emphasizes postconflict reconciliation as important to the prevention of recurring conflicts and the attainment of long-term peace. One policy implication of the book pertains to the question of whether democratization is a necessary condition for interstate reconciliation. This question has important practical implications because Western policy makers commonly believe that democracy can solve most problems of 49 50

Stern, Defense Relations, 237. Rydstrom, “Proximity and Distance.”

Conclusion

309

international conflict. But postwar history has seen the crude political manipulation of historical memory in both authoritarian countries and such liberal democracies as Japan and West Germany. Political liberalization indeed contributes to the decline of national myths, such as in Poland after the Solidarity Revolution. This does not mean, however, that nothing can be done about reconciliation before both sides have democratized. This book points out that many of the foundational works that the German Social Democrats laid down in the 1970s, when Poland was still an authoritarian country, significantly solidified the German national consensus on the importance of international reconciliation. If Germany and Poland had instead brushed aside their historical burden under d´etente and used political rhetoric to temporarily mend fences, as in the Asian case, their relationship would have regressed much more dramatically in the 1980s when the d´etente ended, and they would have had more difficulty forging deep reconciliation in the 1990s. So it is better to start joint research sooner than later because the legacies of earlier efforts, even if limited in academic depth and policy application, can prepare public opinion, build elite consensus, and create an institutional framework for the future efforts of reconciliation. The primary policy recommendation of this book for world leaders who are concerned with interstate reconciliation is that they should take historical memory seriously. Three lessons can be drawn from my case studies on transnational history cooperation. One is that joint history projects usually cannot proceed smoothly without government support, either financially or politically, but that the dialogue itself is best carried out not by government officials but by professional historians, whose respect for academic integrity make them relatively impervious to pressures toward the instrumental use of history. Second, these historians should not just criticize the biases in the other country’s history textbooks but also conduct serious self-criticism regarding the national myths in their own nation’s history writing. Finally, the findings of transnational historians’ dialogues should be incorporated into school curricula in each country so that a shared memory can be institutionalized across countries. Finally, this book highlights the importance of historical memory and nationalism in contemporary Sino-Japanese relations. It finds that the power of history was particularly strong since the 1980s, when the Chinese government resorted to pernicious national myths, including those that highlighted the conflict between the Chinese and Japanese nations, to achieve domestic political goals. This government mythmaking inadvertently stimulated an outburst of anti-Japanese public

310

The Search for Reconciliation

sentiment. Although popular nationalism was conducive to national cohesion to a certain extent, it constrained China’s foreign policy options by forcing the government to adopt a hard-line position toward the outside world. Some may take comfort in the generally weak influence of public opinion under an authoritarian regime. This view, however, overlooks the fact that China’s reform and open-door policy provided more public space for bottom-up emotional venting and policy advocacy, to which the government had to cater to ensure its public support. The public tendency to absorb information selectively with regard to Japan and the increasing influence of nationalist subelites also strengthened the power of a radically anti-Japanese popular nationalism. Meanwhile, the rise of the neonationalist, arrogant perspective on history and foreign relations in Japan constantly incited China and provoked popular demand for extreme responses. Therefore, to prevent historical memory from plaguing bilateral relations, Beijing and Tokyo should stop politicizing the history issue in state propaganda and the diplomatic arena. In fact, some Chinese elites have recommended that Beijing discard the counterproductive history card employed for winning diplomatic bargaining or catering to the domestic audience.51 Moreover, Japanese leaders should avoid such provocative actions as making visits to the Yasukuni Shrine and “slips of the tongue” glorifying Japan’s history of aggression. After Koizumi stepped down in 2006, Japanese prime ministers Abe’s and Fukuda’s refraining from visiting Yasukuni created a favorable atmosphere that allowed the two governments to repair diplomatic ties. In addition, the Japanese government should realize that it is time to come to terms with its past. Whereas the social democratic politicians in West Germany took the initiative in the 1970s to carry out a foreign policy of reconciliation toward Eastern European countries, foreign policy makers in Japan, another major perpetrator country in WWII, have largely shunned the country’s moral responsibility to compensate the former victim countries in Asia. With the spread of truth and

51

For example, one Chinese interlocutor from a People’s Liberation Army research institution strongly disagreed with Beijing’s policy of linking Japanese prime minister’s Yasukuni visits to a bilateral summit meeting, arguing that it was tantamount to putting critical national interest at the hostage of a minor, symbolic matter. Another Chinese academic concurred in a separate interview that because of its psychological obsession with history, Beijing’s diplomacy toward Japan lacked the same flexibility that it typically applied in its policy toward the United States or other Western countries. Both interviews were conducted on May 17, 2006.

Conclusion

311

reconciliation commissions and the concomitant diffusion of ideas about morality, justice, and reconciliation in world politics, however, Japan can no longer insulate itself from the international normative pressure. Such pressure is exacerbated by the widespread awakening of private memories in Asian countries of Japanese imperialist atrocities and the mounting public demands for Japanese war compensation. This awakening not only has brought Japan embarrassment and harmed its reputation, but also may damage Japan’s economic and strategic interests. Japan needs to socialize itself with the new international normative tide, or its national aspirations will be seriously imperiled.

appendix Chinese Secondary School History Textbooks Examined in this Book

substitute teaching material (stm) 1. Chuji Zhongxue Shiyong Zhandai Keben: Jinbainian Shihua, Xinhua Shudian, 1950 2. Chuji Zhongxue Benguo Jindaishi Keben, Xinhua Shudian, 1950 3. Zhongguo Xinminzhu Zhuyi Geming Shi: Chugao, People’s Education Press, 1956 (multiple editions were published in 1950– 56)

middle school textbooks (mst) 1. Chuji Zhongxue Keben: Zhongguo Lishi, People’s Education Press, 1952 (multiple editions were published in 1952–55) 2. Chuji Zhongxue Keben: Zhongguo Lishi, People’s Education Press, 1955 (multiple editions were published in 1955–67) 3. 9 Nian Yiguanzhi Shiyong Keben, Quanrizhi: Lishi, People’s Education Press, 1960 4. 12 Nian Zhi Xuexiao Chuji Zhongxue Keben: Zhongguo Lishi, Shijiaoben, People’s Education Press, 1962 (multiple editions were published in 1962–65) 5. Quanrizhi 10 Nian Zhi Xuexiao Chuzhong Keben Shiyongben: Zhongguo Lishi, People’s Education Press, 1978 (multiple editions were published in 1978–80) 6. Chuji Zhongxue Keben Zhongguo Lishi, People’s Education Press, 1983 (multiple editions were published in 1981–87) 313

314

Appendix

7. 9 Nian Yiwu Jiaoyu 3 Nian Zhi Chuji Zhongxue Jiaokeshu: Zhongguo Lishi, People’s Education Press, 1995 (multiple editions were published in 1992–95) 8. 9 Nian Zhi Yiwu Jiaoyu Keben: Lishi, Shanghai Education Press, 1996 9. Yiwu Jiaoyu Kechen Biaozhun Shiyan Jiaokeshu: Zhongguo Lishi, People’s Education Press, 2001 (authorized in 2001)

high school textbooks (hst) 1. Gaoji Zhongxue Keben Zhongguo Jindaishi, People’s Education Press, 1953 (multiple editions were published in 1953–55) 2. Gaoji Zhongxue Keben Zhongguo Lishi, People’s Education Press, 1957 (multiple editions were published in 1956–59) 3. Gaoji Zhongxue Keben Zhongguo Xiandaishi, People’s Education Press, 1965 (multiple editions were published in 1960–65) 4. Gaoji Zhongxue Keben Zhongguo Jindai Xiandai Shi, People’s Education Press, 1995 (multiple editions were published in 1992– 95) 5. Quanrizhi Putong Gaoji Zhongxue Jiaokeshu, Bixiu: Zhongguo Jindai Xiandai Shi, People’s Education Press, 2003 (authorized in 2002)

Bibliography

Newspapers, News Databases, and Magazines Asahi Shimbun Asia Times Online The Associated Press BBC Summary of World Broadcasts BBC Worldwide Monitoring Beijing Review Business Week Online China Youth Daily CTK National News Wire The Economist Far East Economic Review FBIS Daily Report Financial Times The Japan Times Newsweek The New York Times The Nikkei Weekly News International Survey The Panthic Weekly People’s Daily Sankei Shimbun The Wall Street Journal The Washington Post Yomiuri Shimbun Zaobao.com

315

316

Bibliography

Chinese Language Sources An, Ping. “Riben Qiye de Zhanzheng Zeren ji Minjian Peichang Wenti” [The War Responsibility of Japanese Firms and the Problem of Nongovernmental Claims of War Compensation]. Kangri Zhanzheng Yanjiu [Journal of Studies of China’s Resistance War against Japan], No. 1 (1998). Chen, Bo. “Genggao di Juqi Mao Zedong Sixiang Hongqi, Wei Chuangzuo Gengduo Genghao de Geming Junshi Ticai Yinpian er Nuli” [Lifting Higher the Red Flag of Mao Zedong’s Thoughts, Striving to Create More and Better Revolutionary Military Movies]. Dianying Yishu [Film Arts] (August 1960). China Film Association. Zhongguo Dianying Nianjian [China Film Yearbook] (Beijing: Zhongguo Dianying Nianjian She, 1981-). China Institute of Contemporary International Relations. Guoji Zhanlue yu Anquan Xingshi Pinggu 2005–2006 [Strategic and Security Review] (Beijing: Shishi Chubanshe, 2006). Chun, Si. “Zhuoyi Miaoxie Renwu de Dute Mingyun” [Concentrating on Describing the Distinctive Fate of Individual Characters]. Dianying Yishu [Film Arts] (April 1980). Compilation Committee of the Dangdai Zhongguo Series. Dangdai Zhongguo Dianying [Contemporary Chinese Films], Vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 1989). Deng, Xiaoping. Deng Xiaoping Wenxuan [Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping] 1975–1982 and 1982–1992 (Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 1983). Documents Research Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. Shisida Yilai Zhongyao Wenxian Xuanbian [Selected Important Documents since the 14th CCP National Congress] (Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 1995). Editorial Department of Zhongguo Jiaoyu Nianjian. Zhongguo Jiaoyu Nianjian [China Education Yearbook] (Beijing: Zhongguo Dabaike Quanshu Chubanshe, 1984-). Ge, Gengfu. “Riben Fangwu Zhengce he Fangwei Liliang de Fazhan Bianhua” [The Development and Changes in Japanese Defense Policy and Military Power]. Guoji Wenti Yanjiu [International Studies], No. 1, 1989. He, Fang. “Zhongri Guanxi yu Yazhou Heping” [Sino-Japanese Relations and Peace in Asia]. Riben Wenti [Japan Studies], No. 4 (1987). Hu, Rongzhong. “Riben Junshi Daguohua de Xingdongxiang” [Japan’s Becoming a Military Great Power: The New Trends]. Riben Xuekan [Journal of Japanese Studies], No. 5 (2004). Information Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China. Zhongguo de Renquan Zhuangkuang [White Paper of Human Rights in China] (Beijing: November 1991). Available at http://www.china.com.cn/chbook/crenquna/icrenquan.htm. Japan-China Society of Media Studies. Zhongri Xianghu Yishi yu Chuanmei de Zuoyong [Sino-Japanese Mutual Perceptions and the Role of the Media] (2005). Accessed on October 28, 2005, at http://www.jccnet.cn/ china/yth/2002/index.htm.

Bibliography

317

Jiang, Lifeng. “Zhongri Lianhe Jinxing de Shehui Yulun Diaocha Jieguo Shuoming le Shenme” [What Do the Results of the Sino-Japanese Joint Public Opinion Poll Indicate?]. Riben Wenti [Japan Studies], No. 2 (1989). . “Zhongguo Minzhong dui Riben de Buqinjingan Xianzhu Zengqiang” [The Evident Increase of Chinese Public Feeling of Not Close to Japan]. Riben Xuekan [Journal of Japanese Studies], No. 6 (2004). Jiang, Peizhu and Qiu Guohong. “Zhongri Guanxi Wutai shang de Huihuang Yuezhang” [A Brilliant Musical Chapter on the Sino-Japanese Diplomatic Stage]. In Pei, Jianzhang Yanjiu Zhou Enlai: Waijiao Sixiang yu Shijian [A Study of Zhou Enlai: Diplomatic Thoughts and Practice] (Beijing: Shijie Zhishi Chubanshe, 1989). Jiang, Weiyuan. “Yazhou Geguo Erzhan Shouhaizhe Peichang Susong Fenqi de Fenxi” [An Analysis of the Mushrooming of Compensation Lawsuits Filed by World War II Victims of Various Asian Countries]. Shijie Jingji yu Zhengzhi [World Economy and Politics], No. 6 (1995). Jiang, Zemin. Jiang Zemin Wenxuan [Selected Works of Jiang Zemin] (Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 2006). Jin, Yuan. Qiyuan: Yige Zhanfan Guanli Suozhang de Huiyi [Unusual Destiny: Reminiscences of a Director of War Criminal Prison] (Beijing: Remin Jiefangjun Chubanshe, 1999). Joint Compilation Committee of Dongya Sanguo de Jinxiandai Shi. Dongya Sanguo de Jinxiandai Shi [The Modern and Contemporary History of Three East Asian Countries] (Beijing: Shehui Kexue Wenxian Chubanshe, 2005). Li, Jianmin. “Lengzhan Jieshu hou de Riben Junshi Zhanlue Tiaozheng de Lujing Fenxi” [An Analysis of the Routes of Japanese Military Strategic Readjustment after the Cold War Ended]. Guoji Luntan [International Forum] 7, No. 3 (May 2005). Li, Shaojun, ed. Guoji Zhanlue Baogao [Reports on International Strategy] (Beijing: Zhonguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 2005). Liu, Jiangyong. “Lun Riben Duiwai Zhanlue de Fazhan” [A Study of the Development of Japan’s External Strategy]. Riben Wenti [Japan Studies], No. 1 (1986). , ed. Kuashiji de Riben: Zhengzhi Jingji Waijiao Xinqushi [Japan at the Turn of the Century: New Political, Economic, and Diplomatic Trends] (Beijing: Shishi Chubanshe, 1995). . “Zhongri Guanxi de Tiaozheng he Fazhan” [Readjustment and Development of Sino-Japanese Relations]. In Zhang Yunling ed., Zhuanbian Zhong de Zhongmeiri Guanxi [Sino-U.S.-Japanese Relations in Change] (Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 1997). . Zhongguo yu Riben: Bianhua Zhong de “Zhengleng Jingre” Guanxi [China and Japan: The “Cold Politics, Hot Economy” Relationship in Transformation] (Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 2007). Lu, ¨ Chuan. “Riben Chuantong Wenhua yu Junshi Guannian” [Japan’s Traditional Culture and Military Ideas]. Riben Xuekan [Journal of Japanese Studies], No. 5 (2004). Ma, Shuli. Shiri 12 Nian [12 Years of Diplomatic Missions to Japan] (Taipei: Lianjing Chuban Shiye, 1997).

318

Bibliography

Mao, Zedong. Jianguo Yilai Mao Zedong Wengao [The Manuscripts of Mao Zedong since the Founding of the Nation] (Beijing: Central Documents Publishing Company, 1987–90). Pan, Junfeng. “Riben Hui Chengwei Junshi Daguo Ma?” [Can Japan Become a Military Great Power?]. Riben Wenti [Japan Studies], No. 2 (1987). Pu, Weizhong et al. Aiguo Zhuyi yu Minzu Jingshen [Patriotism and National Spirit] (Beijing: Shehui Kexue Wenxian Chubanshe, 2000). Sakai, Toshiki. “Zhongguo Ying Zhuyi Riben Minzhong de Zhanzheng Zeren” [China Should Pay Attention to the War Responsibility of Japanese People]. Tansuo yu Zhengming [Exploration and Contention], No. 7 (1995). Song, Qiang et al. Zhongguo Keyi Shuo Bu [China Can Say No] (Beijing: Zhonghua Gongshang Lianhe Chubanshe, 1996). Tian, Huan, ed. Zhanhou Zhongri Guanxi Wenxianji [Documents on Postwar Sino-Japanese Relations], Vol. 1 (1945–70) and Vol. 2 (1971–95) (Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 1997). Tie, Zhuwei. Liao Chengzhi Zhuan [The Biography of Liao Chengzhi] (Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 1998). Wan, Feng. “Youguan Junguo Zhuyi, Riben Junguo Zhuyi de Jige Wenti” [A Few Questions Regarding Militarism and Japanese Militarism]. Riben Wenti [Japan Studies], No. 6 (1987). Wang, Chiming. “Meijun Quanqiu Bushu Tiaozheng yu Riben Mianlin de Jueze” [American Global Strategic Realignment and Japan’s Choices]. Taipingyang Xuebao [Pacific Journal], No. 1 (2005). Wang, Hongzhi. “Zhongri Lishi Jiaokeshu de Jiaoliu” [Sino-Japanese History Textbook Exchanges]. Lishi Jiaoxue [History Education], No. 1 (1999). Wen, Jieruo. “Yingpian ‘Dongjing Shenpan’ ji Qita” [The Film Tokyo Trial and More]. Riben Wenti [Japan Studies], No. 3 (1986). Xi, Louren. “Dui Riben cong ‘Jingji Daguo’ Zouxiang ‘Zhengzhi Daguo’ Wenti de Tantao” [Exploring the Question of Japan’s Moving from an Economic Great Power to a Political Great Power]. Guoji Wenti Yanjiu [International Studies], No. 4 (1987). Xu, Zhigeng. Nanjin Datusha [The Nanjing Massacre] (Beijing: Jiefangjun Wenyi Chubanshe, 1987). Xu, Zhixian, ed. Zhongri Guangxi San Shi Nian [Thirty Years of Sino-Japanese Relations] (Beijing: Shishi Chubanshe, 2002). Xue, Mouhong. Dangdai Zhongguo Waijiao [Contemporary Chinese Diplomacy] (Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 1988). Yang, Kuisong. Zhonggong yu Mosike de Guanxi [The CCP-Moscow Relations] (Taipei: Dongda Tushu, 1997). . “Guanyu Pingxingguan Zhandou de Shishi Chongjian Wenti” [Concerning the Reconstruction of the Historical Facts of the Pingxingguan Battle]. Available at http://www.yangkuisong.net/ztlw/sjyj/000223.htm. Ye, Liqun. “Huigu yu Sikao: Zhongxiaoxue Jiaocai Jianshe 40 Nian, 1949–1989” [Review and Reflection: 40 Years of Developing Secondary School Teaching Materials]. In Institute of Curriculum and Teaching Material Research, ed., Kechen Jiaocai Yanjiu 10 Nian [10 Years of Research on Curriculum and Teaching Materials] (Beijing: People’s Education Press, 1993).

Bibliography

319

Zhang, Aiping et al., eds. Zhongguo Renmin Jiefangjun [The Chinese People’s Liberation Army], Vol. 1 (Beijing: Dangdai Zhongguo Chubanshe, 1994). Zhang, Biqing. “Riben Jiejue dui Wo Minjian Peichang Wenti Ci Qi Shi Ye” [It Is Time for Japan to Settle the Problem of Nongovernmental Compensation with China]. Riben Wenti Ziliao [Materials of Japanese Affairs] (internal circulation), No. 5 (1994). Zhang, Donggang. “Zhongri Zhongxue Lishi Jiaokeshu Bijiao” [Comparison of Chinese and Japanese Middle School Textbooks]. Tianjin Jiaoyu Xueyuan Xuebao [Journal of Tianjin Education College], No. 3 (1992). Zhang, Shaosi et al., eds. Zhongguo Kangri Zhangzheng Dacidian [The Dictionary of the Chinese War of Resistance against Japan] (Wuhan: Wuhan Chubanshe, 1995). Zhang, Xiangshan. Zhongri Guanxi: Guankui yu Jianzheng [Sino-Japanese Relations: My Limited Views and Testimonies] (Beijing: Dangdai Shijie Chubanshe, 1998). Zhou, Enlai. Zhou Enlai Nianpu 1898–1949 [The Chronicle of Zhou Enlai’s Life] (Beijing: Central Documents Publishing Companies, 1998). Zhou, Hong and Kang Tong. “‘Yipan Wei Xiawan de Qi’ Juben Chuangzuo Shimo” [The Whole Story of the Script Production Process of An Unfinished Go Game]. Dianying Yishu [Film Arts] (November 1982). Japanese Language Sources ¯ u¯ no Shihanseki [A QuarAmako, Satoshi and Sonoda Shigeto, eds. Nitchu¯ Kory ter Century of Sino-Japanese Exchanges] (Tokyo: Toy ¯ o¯ Keizai Shinposha, ¯ 1998). ¯ Chi to Namida de Tsudutta Shogen ¯ Asahi Shimbun Teema Danwashitsu. Senso: [The War: Testimonies Composed with Blood and Tears] (Tokyo: Asahi Sonorama, 1987). Ashida, Hitoshi. Ashida Hitoshi Nikki [Diary of Ashida Hitoshi] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1986). Association of Comparative History and Comparative History Education. Jikokushi to Sekaishi [National History and World History] (Tokyo: Horupu Shuppan, 1985). ¯ . Ajia no “Kindai” to Rekishi Kyoiku [Asia’s “Modern Era” and History Education] (Tokyo: Miraisha, 1991). . Kurosen to Nissei Senso¯ [Black Ship and the First Sino-Japanese War] (Tokyo: Miraisha, 1996). Association of Remembering and Sympathizing with the War Victims in the Asian Pacific Region. Ajia no Koe [The Voices of Asia] book series (Tokyo: Toh ¯ o¯ Shuppan, 1987–2000). Awaya, Kentaro¯ et al. Senso¯ Sekinin & Sengo Sekinin [War Responsibility and Postwar Responsibility] (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbunsha, 1999). Baba, Takashi. “1985 Nen goro ni okeru Waga Kuni Shuyo¯ Shigen no Saitei Shoyo¯ Yunyury ¯ o¯ ni tsuite” [Minimum Import Amounts of Main Resources ¯ Ronshu¯ [Journal of National Defense] Required for Japan in 1985]. Shin Boei 7, No. 3 (January 1980).

320

Bibliography

Boei Jieitai Nenkan [Yearbook of the Self Defense Force] (Tokyo: ¯ Sangyo¯ Kyokai. ¯ Boei 1957). ¯ Nipposha, ¯ ¯ Chen, Zhao-bin. Sengo Nihon no Chugoku Seisaku: 1950 Nendai Higashi Ajia Kokusai Seiji no Bunmyaku [Japan’s Postwar China Policy in the Context of East Asian International Relations in the 1950s] (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 2000). ¯ Chung, Jaejeong. Kankoku to Nihon: Rekishi Kyoiku no Shiso¯ [South Korea and Japan: Thoughts of History Education] (Tokyo: Suzusawa Shoten, 1998). Endo, ¯ Homare. “Hu Jintao mo Te o Yaku ‘Funsei’ no Jittai” [The Truth of ¯ “Fenqing” that Also Burns Hu Jintao’s Hands]. Chu¯ o¯ Koron [Central Review] (August 2005). Fang, Lizhi. “Nihonjin no Senzai no Sensokan ni tsuite” [Regarding the Latent ¯ ¯ Koron ¯ War View of the Japanese People]. Chuo [Central Review] (August 1987). First Division of the Investigation Bureau of the Foreign Ministry, Japan. “Chuky ¯ o¯ no Genjo¯ to sono Shorai” [The Current Situation and Future Development of ¯ Communist China] (October 15, 1949). . “Chuky Enkaku, Seisaku-Hen” [The Trade of Communist ¯ o¯ no Boeki: ¯ China: History and Policy Part] (March 1951). Fujiwara, Kiichi. “Senso¯ no Kioku, Kokumin no Monokatari” [War Memories, ¯ Nation’s Stories]. Sobun (April 1999). ¯ unen ¯ Fukuda, Takeo. Kaiko Kyuj [Recollections of Ninety Years] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1995). Fukui, Haruhiro. Jiyuminshu-to¯ to Seisaku Kettei [Party in Power: The Japanese Liberal Democrats and Policy Making] (Tokyo: Fukumura Shuppan, 1969). Furukawa, Mantaro. ¯ Nitchu¯ Sengo Kankei Shi [History of Postwar Japan-China Relations] (Tokyo: Hara Shobo, ¯ 1981). ¯ Gotoda, Masaharu. Naikaku Kanbo¯ Chokan [The Chief Cabinet Secretary] ¯ (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1989). ¯ Hayasaka, Shigezo. ¯ Seijika Tanaka Kakuei [The Politician Tanaka Kakuei] (Tokyo: Shueisha, 1999). ¯ Senso¯ Koteiron ¯ Hayashi, Fusao. Daitoa [Affirming the Greater East Asian War] (Tokyo: Bancho Shobo, ¯ 1964). Hiramatsu, Shigeo. “Chugoku no Gunji Rosen ni kansuru Ichi Kosatsu” [China’s ¯ ¯ ¯ Ronshu¯ [Journal of National Defense] 4, Nos. Military Policy] 1–3. Shin Boei 3–4, and 5, No. 1 (December 1976–June 1977). . “Daigoki Zenjindai Daisankai Kaigi kara Mita Chugoku no Gunji ¯ Mondai” [Chinese Military Problems Viewed from the Third Session of the ¯ Ronshu¯ [Journal of National Fifth National People’s Congress]. Shin Boei Defense] 8, No. 4 (March 1981). . “Saikin no Chugoku Gunji Jijo¯ kara Chugokugun no Heiryoku Hyaku¯ ¯ man Sakugen” [On the One Million Reduction of the Chinese Armed Forces ¯ Ronshu¯ [Journal of National – Recent Chinese Military Affairs]. Shin Boei Defense] 13, No. 1 (July 1985). . “Chugokugun o Tsuyoku suru ODA” [Japan’s ODA Helps China’s Mil¯ itary Buildup]. Seiron (November 2000).

Bibliography

321

Hironaka, Yuken. “Higashi Ajia Taiheiyo¯ Chiiki no Anzen Hosho¯ ni tsuite” [On ¯ ¯ Ronshu¯ [Journal the Security of East Asia and the Pacific Region]. Shin Boei of National Defense] 21, No. 4 (March 1994). ¯ Hitaka, Rokuro. Wakamono tachi no Rekishi Ninshiki ¯ Nihon to Chugoku: [Japan and China: The Historical Views of the Youth] (Tokyo: Nashinokisha, 1995). ¯ Honda, Katsuichi. Chugoku no Tabi [The Journey in China] (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbunsha, 1994). ¯ u¯ 1945–97 [A Documentary Hosoya Chihiro, ed. Nichibei Kankei Shiryosh History of U.S.-Japanese Relations] (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1999). Ienaga, Saburo. ¯ Senso¯ Sekinin [War Responsibility] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2000). Igarashi, Takeshi. Sengo Nichibei Kankei no Keisei [The Formation of Postwar U.S.-Japan Relations] (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1995). ¯ ¯ Immigration Bureau of the Japan Ministry of Justice. Shutsunyukoku Kanri no Kaiko to Tenbo¯ [Retrospect and Prospect of Immigration Regulations] (Tokyo: 1981). ¯ Ishida, Takeshi. Kioku to Bokyaku no Seijigaku [The Politics of Remembering and Forgetting] (Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 2000). Ishii, Akira. “‘Mitsu no Chugoku’ to ‘Hitotsu no Soren’” [“Three Chinas” and ¯ ¯ Koron ¯ “One Soviet Union”]. Chuo [Central Review], No. 11 (1982). . “Taiwan ka Pekin ka” [Taiwan or Beijing?]. In Akio Watanabe ed., Sengo Nihon no Taigai Seisaku [Postwar Japan’s Foreign Policies] (Tokyo: Yuhikaku, ¯ 1985). Ishii, Akira. “Chugoku ni Otta Mugen no Baisho¯ [The Infinite Compensation ¯ ¯ Koron ¯ Owed to China]. Chuo [Central Review], No. 8 (1987). . “Nikka Heiwa Joyaku Teiketsu Kosh ¯ ¯ o¯ o Meguru Jakkan no Mondai” [Several Problems Concerning the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty Negotiations]. ¯ ogakka ¯ Kyoy Kiyo¯ [Journal of the College of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo], No. 21 (1988). Ishii, Osamu. “Taichu¯ Kinyu to Nihon no Keizai Jiritsu” [China Trade Embargo and Japan’s Economic Viability]. Kokusai Seiji [International Relations], No. 85 (May 1987). ¯ Nitchu¯ Kankei [Postwar Documents: Ishikawa, Tadao et al., eds. Sengo Shiryo: Japanese-Chinese Relations] (Tokyo: Nihon Hyoronsha, 1970). ¯ ¯ ¯ Itagaki, Tadashi. Yasukuni Koshiki Sanpai no Sokatsu [A Summary of Official Worship at the Yasukuni Shrine] (Tokyo: Tendensha, 2000). Ito, Gunji Teikei no Jittai da” [This Is the Reality ¯ Tadashi. “Kore ga Beichunichi ¯ ¯ of U.S.-China-Japan Military Cooperation]. Chu¯ o¯ Koron [Central Review], No. 10 (1978). Ito, ¯ Tadashi and Seizaburo¯ Sato. ¯ “Ano Senso¯ to wa nani datta no ka” [What ¯ Koron ¯ Actually Was that War?]. Chuo [Central Review], No. 1 (1995). ¯ o¯ Hakusho [White Japan Ministry of International Trade and Industry. Tsush ¯ o¯ Insatsukyoku, 1949-) Paper on International Trade, Japan] (Tokyo: Okurash ¯ ¯ Japan Ministry of Justice. Shutsunyukoku Kanri Tokei Nenpo¯ [Annual Report of ¯ Immigration Statistics] (Tokyo: Okurash o¯ Insatsukyoku, 1962-).

322

Bibliography

Kaga, Masayoshi. “Soren no Sekai Seisaku: Tai-Eisei Koku Seisaku” [The World ¯ Policy of the Soviet Union: Toward Its Satellite States]. Chu¯ o¯ Koron [Central Review] (April 1951). Kasahara, Masaaki. “Chugoku ni totte Atarashii Anzen Hosho” ¯ ¯ [China’s New ¯ Ronshu¯ [Journal of National Defense] 18, No. 3 Security Concept]. Shin Boei (December 1990). ¯ Kato, and Rokuro¯ Hidaka. Dojidaijin Maruyama Masao o Kataru [Con¯ Shuichi ¯ temporaries Tell about Maruyama Masao] (Yokohama: Seori Shobo, ¯ 1998). Kato, ¯ Takashi. Nanbara Shigeru (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1997). Kawashima, Koz Jinmin Kaihogun no Gunchu¯ Iinkai Seido” [Party ¯ o. ¯ “Chugoku ¯ ¯ ¯ Committee System of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army] 1–2. Shin Boei Ronshu¯ [Journal of National Defense] 1, No. 4, and 2, No. 2 (March 1974 and July 1974). ¯ Kayahara, Ikuo. Chugoku Gunjiron [On China’s Military] (Tokyo: Ashishobo, ¯ 1994). . “Chugoku no Kokubo¯ Kindaika to Ajia no Kincho” ¯ ¯ [China’s Defense ¯ Modernization and Tension in Asia]. Chu¯ o¯ Koron [Central Review] No. 5 (2005). ¯ u¯ [Basic Documents on JapaneseKazankai. Nitchu¯ Kankei Kihon Shiryosh Chinese Relations] (Tokyo: 1998). ¯ o¯ Juyo ¯ Nen no Kiroku [KoreaKim, Dong-Jo. Kannichi no Wakai: Nikkan Kosh Japan Reconciliation: Seoul’s Negotiator Recollects Normalization Talks] (Tokyo: Simul Press, 1993). Kimijima, Kazuhiko. “Rekishi Kyokasho o Meguru Nihon-Kankoku no Taiwa” ¯ [Japan-Korea Dialogues on History Textbooks]. Rekishigaku Kenkyu¯ [Journal of Historical Studies] 651 (October 1993, special edition). ¯ ¯ Nihon to Kankoku no Kingendaishi [Textbook . Kyokasho no Shiso: Thoughts: Modern and Contemporary History of Japan and Korea] (Tokyo: Suzusawa Shoten, 1996). . “Kyokasho Kokusai Kory ¯ ¯ u¯ no Keiken kara Mita ‘Kokumin no Rekishi’” [“The History of a Nation” Viewed from the Experience of International Textbook Exchange]. Kikan Senso¯ Sekinin Kenkyu¯ [Report on Japan’s War Responsibility] 29 (Fall 2000). Kitaoka, Shinichi. Jiminto¯ [The Liberal Democratic Party] (Tokyo: Yomiuri Shimbunsha, 1995). . “Jonin Rijikoku Hairi wa Nihon ga Hatasu beki Sekinin de aru” [Entering ¯ ¯ the UNSC Is a Responsibility that Japan Should Fulfill]. Chu¯ o¯ Koron [Central Review], No. 1 (2005). . “Anpori Kaikaku to Chugoku Mondai: Iwarenaki Nihon Hihan o ¯ Haisuru” [Security Council Reform and the China Issue: Rejecting the Unrea¯ sonable Criticism of Japan]. Chu¯ o¯ Koron [Central Review], No. 6 (2005). Kogo, Eiichi et al. “Soren wa Tsugi ni do¯ Deru ka?” [Whither the Soviet Union]. ¯ ¯ Chu¯ o¯ Koron [Central Review] (December 1950). Komori, Yoshihisa. “Machigai darake no Chugoku Enjo” [Japan’s China Aid ¯ ¯ Policy Is Full of Mistakes]. Chu¯ o¯ Koron [Central Review], No. 3 (2000). ¯ Kondo, Taiwa: Yooroppa ni Okeru ‘Kako’ ¯ Takahiro. Kokusai Rekishi Kyokasho no Saihen [International History Textbook Dialogue: Reorganizing the Past of Europe] (Tokyo: Chu¯ o¯ Shinsho, 1998).

Bibliography

323

Kuraishi, Takeshiro. no Mita Sengo no Nihon” [Postwar Japan in ¯ “Chugokujin ¯ ¯ the Eyes of the Chinese]. Chu¯ o¯ Koron [Central Review] No. 4 (1957). Lin, Kinkei. Ume to Sakura: Sengo no Nikka Kankei [Plum and Cherry: Postwar Japan-ROC Relations] (Tokyo: Sankei Shuppan, 1984). Liu, Jie. Nitchu¯ Senso¯ Ka no Gaiko¯ [Wartime Sino-Japanese Diplomacy] (Tokyo: Yoshigawa Hirobumi Kan, 1995). Kankan Saiban [Traitor Trials] (Tokyo: Chuo Shinsha, 2000). ¯ Koron ¯ Maeda, Toshio. “Bei-So-Chu¯ to Nihon no Keizai Kankei: 1972 Nen” [Economic Relations between U.S.-USSR-China and Japan: 1972].” Kokubo¯ [National Defense] 23, No. 1 (1974). Masumi, Junnosuke. Nihon Seijishi [History of Japanese Politics], Vol. 4 (Tokyo: Tokyo¯ Daigaku Shuppansha, 1988). ¯ Matsuura, Soz no Masukomi [Mass Media in Wartime and ¯ o. ¯ Senchu¯ Senryoka ¯ the Occupation Years] (Tokyo: Otsuki Shoten, 1984). Miyamoto, Nobuo. “‘Nichi-bei-chu-ro’ Shijus On” [A Dishar¯ ¯ o¯ no Fu Kyowa ¯ ¯ monious Note in the Japan-U.S.-China-Russia Quartet]. Chu¯ o¯ Koron [Central Review] No. 2 (1998). Muno, Takeji. “Pekin de Kangaeta Nihon to Chugoku no Danso” ¯ ¯ [The Dislo¯ cation between Japan and China Being Considered in Beijing]. Chu¯ o¯ Koron [Central Review] (July 1973). ¯ o¯ Nagano, Nobutoshi. Tenno¯ to To¯ Shohei no Akushu: Jitsuroku – Nitchu¯ Kosh Hishi [Shake-Hands by the Emperor and Deng Xiaoping: An Authentic Account of the Secret History of Japan-China Negotiations] (Tokyo: Gyosei ¯ Mondai Kenkyusho, 1983). ¯ Nakajima, Mineo. “Tenno Hoch ¯ u¯ to Nihon Gaiko” ¯ [The Emperor’s Visit to China ¯ and Japan’s Foreign Policy]. Chu¯ o¯ Koron [Central Review], No. 9 (1992). . “ODA o Toriyame/Taichugoku Gaiko¯ no Arikata mo Minaose” [Sus¯ ¯ pend ODA/Reexamine the Right Approach to China Diplomacy]. Chu¯ o¯ Koron [Central Review], No. 3 (2005). National Diet Library of Japan. Kokkai Kaigiroku [Proceedings of the National Diet of Japan]. Available at http://kokkai.ndl.go.jp. ¯ o¯ National Headquarters of the Japan-China Friendship Association. Nitchu¯ Yuk Undo Shi [The History of the Sino-Japanese Friendship Movement] (Tokyo: Seinen Shuppansha, 1980). Nishioka, Tsutomu. “Zasshi ‘Sekai’ wa Chosen o do¯ Mita ka?” [How Does ¯ ¯ the Journal Sekai View Korea?]. Chosen Kenkyu¯ [Korea Studies] 7, Nos. 1–3 (1980). . “Sengo Kankoku Chishikijin no Nihon Ninshiki” [Postwar Korean Intel¯ lectuals’ Perception of Japan]. Chosen Kenkyu¯ [Korea Studies] Nos. 231–35 (1983). Nitchukan Sankoku Kyots Iinkai. Mirai o Hiraku Rekishi: ¯ ¯ u¯ Rekishi Kyozai ¯ Higashi Ajia Sankoku no Kingendai Shi [A History that Opens to the Future: The Modern and Contemporary History of Three East Asian Countries] (Tokyo: Kobunken, 2005). ¯ Noda, Nobuo. “Chugoku ‘Teikoku Chitsujo Kochiku’ ni Nihon wa Taiko¯ Sen¯ ¯ ryaku o Mochiuru no ka?” [Does Japan Have an Opposing Strategy to ¯ China’s Construction of an “Imperial Order?”]. Chu¯ o¯ Koron [Central Review] (November 2004).

324

Bibliography

¯ Okabe, Tatsumi. Chugoku no Tainichi Seisaku [China’s Japan Policy] (Tokyo: Toky ¯ o¯ Daigaku Shuppansha, 1976). ¯ ¯ Okada, Akira. Mizudori Gaiko¯ Hiwa: Aru Gaikokan no Shogen [Secret Stories of Waterfowl Diplomacy: Testimony of a Diplomat] (Tokyo: Chuo ¯ Koronsha, ¯ 1983). Okamoto, Yukio and Tanaka Akihiko. “Hu Jintao Seiken o Yurugasu ‘Aikoku’ Bos ¯ o¯ to Sekai no Shisen” [Shaking the Hu Jintao Regime: The Rampant Patrio¯ tism and the View of the World]. Chu¯ o¯ Koron [Central Review], No. 6 (2005). Okazaki, Hisahiko and Komori Yoshihisa. “‘No’ to Ieru Nitchu¯ Kankei ni mukete Saraba ‘Kot Gaiko’” ¯ o/Shazai ¯ ¯ [Toward a Sino-Japanese Relations in which (Japan) Can Say “No”: Farewell to “Kowtow/Apology Diplomacy”]. Shokun, No. 8 (1999). ¯ ¯ o¯ Saiban kara Sengo Sekinin no Shiso¯ e [From the Tokyo Onuma, Yasuaki. Toky Trial to Postwar Thoughts on War Responsibility] (Tokyo: Toshind o, ¯ ¯ 1997). . “Ianfu” Mondai to Ajia Josei Kikin [“Comfort Women” and the Asian Women’s Fund] (Tokyo: Toshindo Publishing Co., Ltd., 1998). Ozawa, Ichiro. ¯ Nihon Kaizo¯ Keikaku [Blueprint for a New Japan] (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1993). ¯ Public Relations Office, Cabinet Secretariat of the Japanese Prime Minister. ¯ Nenkan: Zenkoku Seron Chosa ¯ no Genkyo¯ [Opinion Polls YearSeron Chosa book: Current Situation of the National Public Opinion Investigation] (Tokyo: ¯ Okurash o¯ Insatsukyoku, 1954-). ¯ o¯ Daikush ¯ u¯ [Tokyo Air Raid] (Tokyo: Iwanami Saotome, Katsumoto. Toky Shoten, 1998). Shinohara, Hiroshi. “Beichu¯ Sekkin to Nihon no Boei” [The Drawing Closer of ¯ ¯ China and the U.S. and the Implications for Japan’s Defense]. Chu¯ o¯ Koron [Central Review] (October 1971). Sumitani, Takeshi et al. “Toky ¯ o¯ Saiban, BC-kyu¯ Senso¯ Hanzai, Senso¯ Sekinin Kankei Juy ¯ o¯ Bunken Mokuroku” [Important Document Index on the Tokyo ¯ No. 719 Trial, BC-Class War Criminals, and War Responsibility]. Shiso, (1984). ¯ ¯ o¯ Zuisoroku ¯ Sun, Pinghua. Nihon to no 30 Nen: Chunichi Yuk [30 Years with Japan: Occasional Thoughts on Sino-Japanese Friendship] (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1987). ¯ o¯ Hiroku: Tagawa Nikki – 14-nen no Shogen ¯ Tagawa, Seiichi. Nitchu¯ Kosh [Secret Records of Japan-China Negotiations: Tagawa Diary – Testimony of Fourteen Years] (Tokyo: Mainichi Shimbunsha, 1973). Takahashi, Koichiro. Gunji Josei to Taibei Taiso Kankei” ¯ “Saikin no Chugoku ¯ ¯ [China’s Recent Military Affairs and Foreign Policy to the U.S. and the Soviet ¯ Ronshu¯ [Journal of National Defense] 10, No. 1 (June 1982). Union]. Shin Boei Takahashi, Saburo. ¯ “Senki Mono” o Yomu: Senso¯ to Sengo Nihon Shakai [A Reading of the Writings on Military History: War Experience and Postwar Japanese Society] (Kyodo: Academia Press, 1988). Takasaki, Soji. ¯ Kensho¯ Nikkan Kaidan [Investigating Japanese-Korean Negotiations] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1996). Tanaka, Akihiko. Nitchu¯ Kankei 1945–1990 [Sino-Japanese Relations: 1945– 1990] (Tokyo: Toky ¯ o¯ Daigaku Shuppansha, 1991).

Bibliography

325

¯ Sengo Gojunen no Mosaku [National Security: Groping . Anzen Hosho: in the Postwar 50 Years] (Tokyo: Yomiuri Shimbunsha, 1997). . “Senso¯ no Gekigen Shita Sekai de ‘Senso¯ no Rekishi’ to do¯ Mukiau ka” [How to Face “War History” in a World with a Sharp Decrease of Wars]. ¯ Chu¯ o¯ Koron [Central Review], No. 9 (2005). Tanaka, Nobumasa et al. Izoku to Sengo [War-Bereaved Families and Postwar] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1995). Tawara, Yoshibumi. “Sengo Hosho¯ Saiban Ichiranhyo” ¯ [A List of Postwar Reparation Lawsuits]. Distributed at the International Citizen’s Forum on War Crimes and Redress, Tokyo (December 19, 1999). Tomoda, Seki. “Taichu¯ Senryaku Sairyo¯ no Shinario Saiaku no Shinario” [The ¯ Best and Worst Scenarios of Strategy toward China]. Chu¯ o¯ Koron, [Central Review] No. 12 (1995). Tsukamoto, Katsuichi. “Kyokuto¯ no Gunji Josei to Kyoi ¯ ¯ no Yos ¯ o” ¯ [Military ¯ Ronshu¯ [Journal Situations in the Far East and Aspects of Threats]. Shin Boei of National Defense] 18, No. 2 (September 1990). Ubuki, Satoru. Heiwa Kinen Shikiten no Ayumi [The Steps of the Peace Memorial Ceremony] (Hiroshima: Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation, 1992). Wada, Hitoshi. “Chugoku no Nashonarizumu” [On Chinese Nationalism]. Chu¯ o¯ ¯ ¯ Koron [Central Review] (January 1951). Wakaizumi, Kei. “Chugoku no Kakubuso¯ to Nihon no Anzen Hosho” ¯ ¯ [Chinese ¯ Nuclear Arms and Japan’s National Security]. Chu¯ o¯ Koron [Central Review] (February 1966). Watanabe, Akio. “Sengo Nihon no Shuppatsuten” [The Departure Point of Postwar]. In Watanabe, ed., Sengo Nihon no Taigai Seisaku [Postwar Japan’s Foreign Policy] (Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 1985). ¯ . “Higashi Ajia Kyot ¯ otai ¯ o Mezasu Nagai Reesu ga Hajimatta” [The Long ¯ Race Aiming at an East Asian Community Has Started]. Chu¯ o¯ Koron [Central Review] (December 2004). ¯ Xiao, Xiangqian. Eien no Rinkoku to shite: Chunichi Kokko¯ no Kiroku [Good Neighbors Forever: The Normalization of China-Japan Relations] (Tokyo: Simul Press, 1997). Yamada, Eizo. ¯ Seiden: Sato¯ Eisaku [Authentic Biography: Sato¯ Eisaku], Vols. 1–2 (Tokyo: Shinchosha, 1988). ¯ Yasuda, Jun. “Boei ¯ Yosanan ‘Tai GNP Hi 1% Toppa’ ni taisuru Chugoku-gawa ¯ no Hanno” [China’s Reaction against FY 1987 Japan’s Defense Budget “Sur¯ Ronshu¯ passing the One Percent of GNP Defense Spending Limit”]. Shin Boei [Journal of National Defense] 15, No. 1 (June 1987). Yasuhara, Yoko. “Amerika no Tai-Kyosanken Kinyu Seisaku to Chugoku Boei ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ no Kinshi 1945–1950” [U.S. Economic Warfare and the Embargo on China 1945–1950]. Kokusai Seiji [International Relations], No. 70 (May 1982). ¯ Yin, Yanjun. Chunichi Senso¯ Baisho¯ Mondai [The Problem of Reparation for the Sino-Japanese War] (Tokyo: Ojanomizu Shobo, ¯ 1996). Yoshida, Shigeru. Kaiso¯ Junen [Recollections of Ten Years] (Tokyo: Shinchosha, ¯ 1957). ¯ Yoshida, Yutaka. Nihonjin no Sensokan [The Japanese Views of War] (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1998).

326

Bibliography

Zhou, Enlai. “Shu¯ Onlai Kokusai Josei ¯ ni kansuru Himitsu Ensetsu” [Zhou Enlai’s ¯ Secret Speeches on the Current International Situation]. Chu¯ o¯ Koron [Central Review] (November 1976). German Language Sources Lau, Karlheinz. “Durchbruch zum Diskurs: Drei Jahrzehnte Deutsch-Polnische Schulbuchkommission” [Breakthrough to Discussion: Three Decades of the German-Polish Schoolbook Commission]. Das Ostpreußenblatt (July 28, 2001). English Language Sources Acharya, Amitav. “Collective Identity and Conflict Management in Southeast Asia.” In Adler and Barnett, eds. . “Will Asia’s Past Be Its Future?” International Security 28, No. 3 (Winter 2003/04). Adler, Emanuel and Michael N. Barnett, eds. Security Communities (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Adler-Karlsson, Gunnar. Western Economic Warfare 1947–1967: A Case Study in Foreign Economic Policy (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1968). Ahonen, Pertti. “Domestic Constraints on West German Ostpolitik: The Role of the Expellee Organizations in the Adenauer Era.” Central European History 31, Nos. 1/2 (1998). . After the Expulsion: West Germany and Eastern Europe, 1945–1990 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2004). Akagi, Roy Hidemichi. “Japan’s Economic Relations with China.” Pacific Affairs 4, No. 6 (June 1931). Ambrosewicz-Jacobs, Jolanta. “Attitudes of Young Poles Toward Jews in Post1989 Poland.” East European Politics and Societies 14, No. 3 (2000). Art, David. The Politics of the Nazi Past in Germany and Austria (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006). Asmus, Ronald D. and Thomas S. Szayna. Polish National Security Thinking in a Changing Europe: A Conference Report (Santa Monica: Rand/UCLA Center for Soviet Studies, 1991). Bacho, Peter. “U.S.-Philippine Relations in Transition: The Issue of the Bases.” Asian Survey 28, No. 6 (June 1988). Banchoff, Thomas. “German Policy towards the European Union: The Effects of Historical Memory.” German Politics 6, No. 1 (April 1997). Banlaoi, Rommel C. “The Role of Philippine-American Relations in the Global Campaign against Terrorism: Implications for Regional Security.” Contemporary Southeast Asia 24, No. 2 (August 2002). Barbieri, Katherine. “Economic Interdependence: A Path to Peace or a Source of Interstate Conflict?” Journal of Peace Research 33, No. 1 (1996). Barbieri, Katherine and Jack Levy. “Sleeping with the Enemy: The Impact of War on Trade.” Journal of Peace Research 36, No. 4 (1999).

Bibliography

327

Barkan, Elazar. The Guilt of Nations: Restitution and Negotiating Historical Injustices (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000). Barkan, Elazar and Alexander Karn, eds. Taking Wrongs Seriously (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006). Barnard, Christopher. “Isolating Knowledge of the Unpleasant: The Rape of Nanking in Japanese High-School Textbooks.” British Journal of Sociology of Education 22, No. 4 (2001). Bar-On, Mordechai. “Historiography as an Educational Project: The Historians’ Debate in Israel and the Middle East Peace Process.” In Ilan Peleg, ed., The Middle East Peace Process: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998). Bar-Tal, Daniel. “From Intractable Conflict Through Conflict Resolution to Reconciliation: Psychological Analysis.” Political Psychology 21, No. 2 (2000). Bartov, Omer. “Defining Enemies, Making Victims: Germans, Jews, and the Holocaust.” American Historical Review 103, No. 3 (June 1998). Baum, Richard. Burying Mao: Chinese Politics in the Age of Deng Xiaoping (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994). Becker, Jorg ¨ J. R. “Textbooks and the Political System in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1945–1975.” School Review 86, No. 2 (February 1978). Bedeski, Robert E. The Fragile Entente (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1983). Benfell, Steven. Rich Nation, No Army: The Politics of Reconstructing National Identity in Postwar Japan. Ph.D. dissertation (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1997). Ben-Josef Hirsch, Michal. “From Taboo to the Negotiable: The Israeli New Historians and the Changing Representation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem.” Perspectives on Politics 5, No. 2 (June 2007). Berat, Lynn and Yossi Shain. “Retribution or Truth-Telling in South Africa? Legacies of the Transitional Phase.” Law and Social Inquiry 20, No. 1 (1995). Berger, Thomas U. Cultures of Antimilitarism: National Security in Germany and Japan (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998). . “The Power of Memory and Memories of Power: The Cultural Parameters of German Foreign Policy-Making since 1945.” In Jan-Werner Muller, ed. ¨ Berghahn, Volker Rolf and Hanna Schissler. Perceptions of History: International Textbook Research on Britain, Germany, and the United States (Leamington Spa, UK: Berg, 1987). Betts, Richard K. “Wealth, Power, and Instability: East Asia and the United States after the Cold War.” International Security 18, No. 3 (Winter 1993/94). Betts, Richard K. and Thomas J. Christensen. “China: Getting the Question Right.” The National Interest (Winter 2000/2001). Bix, Herbert P. “The Showa Emperor’s ‘Monologue’ and the Problem of War Responsibility.” Journal of Japanese Studies 18, No. 2 (1992). . “Inventing the ‘Symbol Monarchy’ in Japan, 1945–1952.” Journal of Japanese Studies 21, No. 2 (1995). . Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (New York: HarperCollins, 2000).

328

Bibliography

Bodnar, John E. Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992). Bonnin, Michel. “Perspectives on Social Stability after the Fifteenth Congress.” In Hung-Mao Tien and Yun-han Chu, eds., China under Jiang Zemin (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000). Borneman, John. Settling Accounts: Violence, Justice, and Accountability in Postsocialist Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997). Borries, Bodo von. “The Third Reich in German History Textbooks since 1945.” Journal of Contemporary History 38, No. 1 (January 2003). Boulding, Kenneth E. Stable Peace (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978). Braham, Randolph L. The Treatment of the Holocaust in Textbooks: The Federal Republic of Germany, Israel, the United States of America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987). Brandt, Willy. People and Politics: The Years 1960–1975 (London: Collins, 1978). Brecher, Michael and Jonathan Wilkenfeld. “International Crises and Global Instability: The Myth of the ‘Long Peace.’” In Charles W. Kegley Jr., ed., The Long Postwar Peace: Contending Explanations and Projections (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991). Brook, Timothy. Collaboration: Japanese Agents and Local Elites in Wartime China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005). Brooks, Stephen G. “Dueling Realisms.” International Organization 51, No. 3 (Summer 1997). Brown, Michael et al., eds. Debating the Democratic Peace (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996). Brunner, Jose. “Pride and Memory: Nationalism, Narcissism and the Historians’ Debates in Germany and Israel.” History and Memory 9, No. 1 (Spring/Summer 1997). Bryt, Andrzeu. “Political, Economic and Cultural Developments in PolishGerman Relations since 1989.” In Heinz-Jurgen Stuting et al., eds., Change ¨ ¨ Management in Transition Economies: Integrating Corporate Strategy, Structure, and Culture (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). Buruma, Ian. The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan (New York: Farrar, 1994). Buzan, Barry and Gerald Segal. “Rethinking East Asian Security.” Survival 36, No. 2 (Summer 1994). Callahan, William. Contingent States: Greater China and Transnational Relations (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004). Calvert, Hildegund M. Germany’s Nazi Past: A Critical Analysis of the Period in West German High School History Textbooks. Ph.D. dissertation (Muncie, IN: Ball State University, 1987). Carlson, Allen. Unifying China, Integrating with the World: Securing Chinese Sovereignty in the Reform Era (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005). Carr, E. H. What Is History? (New York: Knopf, 1962).

Bibliography

329

CBOS (Poland Centre for Public Opinion Research). Polish Public Opinion. Available at http://www.cbos.pl/PL/publikacje/publikacje.php Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland. German Crimes in Poland (New York: Howard Fertig, 1982). Cha, Victor. Alignment despite Antagonism: The United States-Korea-Japan Security Triangle (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999). . “Abandonment, Entrapment, and Neoclassical Realism in Asia: The United States, Japan, and Korea.” International Studies Quarterly 44, No. 2 (June 2000). Chen, Jian. China’s Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994). Cheng, Joseph Y. S. “China’s Japan Policy in the 1980s.” International Affairs 61, No. 1 (1984/85). . “Mao Zedong’s Perception of the World in 1968–1972: Rationale for the Sino-American Rapprochement.” Journal of American–East Asian Relations 7, Nos. 3/4 (Fall/Winter 1998). Christensen, Thomas J. “Chinese Realpolitik.” Foreign Affairs 75, No. 5 (September/October 1996). . Useful Adversaries: Grand Strategy, Domestic Mobilization, and SinoAmerican Conflict, 1947–1958 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996). . “China.” In Ellings and Friedberg, eds. . “A Troubled Triangle: US-Japan Relations and Chinese Security Perceptions.” Paper presented at the China-Japan-U.S. Triangular Relations Conference, Asia Center of Harvard University (1999). . “China, the U.S.-Japan Alliance, and the Security Dilemma in East Asia.” International Security 23, No. 4 (Spring 1999). Cohen, Paul A. History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997). Cohen, Warren I. “China in Japanese-American Relations.” In Akira Iriye and Warren I. Cohen, eds., The United States and Japan in the Postwar World (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1989). . America’s Response to China: A History of Sino-American Relations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990). Committee for the Compilation of Materials on Damage Caused by the Atomic Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Physical, Medical, and Social Effects of the Atomic Bombings (New York: Basic Books, 1981). Confidential U.S. State Department Special File. “Japan, 1947–1956.” (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Lamont Library) Congressional Quarterly, Inc. China and U.S. Far East Policy, 1945–1966 (Washington, DC, 1967). Cordell, Karl and Stefan Wolff. Germany’s Foreign Policy towards Poland and the Czech Republic: Ostpolitik Revisited (London: Routledge, 2005). Crawford, Neta. “The Passion of World Politics.” International Security 24, No. 4 (Spring 2000).

330

Bibliography

Cruz, Consuelo. “Identity and Persuasion: How Nations Remember Their Pasts and Make Their Futures.” World Politics 52 (April 2000). Cruz De Castro, Renato. “The Revitalized Philippine-U.S. Security Relations.” Asian Survey 43, No. 6 (2003). Cunningham, Michael. “Saying Sorry: The Politics of Apology.” Political Quarterly 70, No. 3 (July-September 1999). Curtis, Gerald L. “The Tyumen Oil Development Project and Japanese Foreign Policy Decision-Making.” In Scalapino, ed. .The Japanese Way of Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988). . The Logic of Japanese Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999). Dance, E. H. History the Betrayer: A Study in Bias (London: Hutchinson & Co., Ltd., 1960). Davies, Norman. God’s Playground: A History of Poland. Vol. II: 1795 to the Present (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982). .Rising ‘44: “The Battle for Warsaw” (London: Macmillan, 2003). Davis, Patricia. The Uses and Abuses of Economic Statecraft: West GermanPolish Relations 1969–1990. Ph.D. dissertation (College Park: University of Maryland, 1991). Deans, Phil. “Contending Nationalisms and the Diaoyutai/Senkaku Dispute.” Security Dialogue 31, No. 1 (2000). Demirel, Suleyman. “The Need for Dialogue: Turkey, Greece, and the Possibility of Reconciliation.” Harvard International Review 21, No. 1 (Winter 1998/99). Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Statistical Office, United Nations. Yearbook of international trade statistics, continued by International Trade Statistics Yearbook from 1985 (New York: 1950-). Deutsch, Karl W. Political Community and the North Atlantic Area: International Organization in the Light of Historical Experience (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957). Deutsch, Morton and Peter T. Coleman, eds. The Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000). Diehl, Paul F. and Gary Goertz. War and Peace in International Rivalry (Ann Arbor: University Of Michigan Press, 2000). Digeser, Peter. Political Forgiveness (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001). Dittmer, Lowell. “The Strategic Triangle: An Elementary Game-Theoretical Analysis.” World Politics 33, No. 4 (July 1981). Dorschner, Jon and Thomas Sherlock. “The Role of History Textbooks in Shaping Collective Identities in India and Pakistan.” In Elizabeth A. Cole, ed., Teaching the Violent Past: History Education and Reconciliation (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007). Dower, John W. Empire and Aftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the Japanese Experience, 1878–1954 (Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1979). . War without Mercy: Race & Power in the Pacific War (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986).

Bibliography

331

. “The Bombed: Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japanese Memory.” Diplomatic History 19, No. 2 (Spring 1995). . “Japan Addresses Its War Responsibility.” Journal of the International Institute (The University of Michigan), (Fall 1995). . Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York: W.W. Norton & Co./New Press, 1999). Doyle, Michael W. “Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 12, No. 4 (Fall 1983). Duffield, John S. “Political Culture and State Behavior: Why Germany Confounds Neorealism.” International Organization 53, No. 4 (Autumn 1999). Duke, Benjamin. “The Textbook Controversy.” Japan Quarterly 19, No. 3 (July– September 1972). Dziewanowski, M. K. Poland in the Twentieth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977). Eastman, Lloyd E. “Facets of An Ambivalent Relationship: Smuggling, Puppets, and Atrocities During the War, 1937–1945.” In Akira Iriye ed., The Chinese and the Japanese: Essays in Political and Cultural interactions (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980). . “Nationalist China during the Sino-Japanese War 1937–1945.” In Fairbank and Werker, eds. Eley, Geoff. “Ordinary Germans, Nazism, and Judeocide.” In Geoff Eley, ed., The “Goldhagen Effect”: History, Memory, Nazism – Facing the German Past (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000). Ellings, Richard J. and Aaron L. Friedberg, eds. Strategic Asia 2001–02: Power and Purpose (Seattle, WA: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2001). Ericson, Magnus. “Birds of a Feather? On the Intersections of Stable Peace and Democratic Research Programs.” In Kacowicz et al., eds. Eykholt, Mark S. Living the Limits of Occupation in Nanjing China, 1939–1945, Ph.D. dissertation in history (San Diego: University of California, San Diego, 1998). Fairbank, John K. and Albert Feuer Werker, eds. The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 13, Republican China 1912–1949, Pt. 2 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986). Fallenbuchl, Zbigniew M. East-West Technology Transfer: Study of Poland, 1971–1980 (Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation, 1983). Feldman, Lily Gardner. “The Principle and Practice of ‘Reconciliation’ in German Foreign Policy: Relations with France, Israel, Poland and the Czech Republic.” International Affairs 75, No. 2 (1999). Fewsmith, Joseph and Stanley Rosen. “The Domestic Context of Chinese Foreign Policy: Does ‘Public Opinion’ Matter?” In David M. Lampton, ed., The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy in the Era of Reform, 1978–2000 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001). Firer, Ruth and Sami Adwan. “The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in History and Civics Textbooks of Both Nations.” Studies in International Textbook Research (Georg Eckert Institute), Band 110/1 (2004).

332

Bibliography

Fish, Robert. “From the Manchurian Incident to Nagasaki in 20 Pages: The Pacific War as Seen in Postwar Japanese High School History Textbooks.” Unpublished manuscript, University of Hawaii, Manoa (2000). Fontera, Richard M. “Anti-Colonialism as a Basic Indian Foreign Policy.” Western Political Quarterly 13, No. 2 (June 1960). Fravel, M. Taylor. “Regime Insecurity and International Cooperation: Explaining China’s Compromises in Territorial Disputes.” International Security 30, No. 2 (Fall 2005). Freeman, Laurie Anne. Closing the Shop: Information Cartels and Japan’s Mass Media (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000). Frei, Norbert. Adenauer’s Germany and the Nazi Past: The Politics of Amnesty and Integration (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002). Friedberg, Aaron L. “Ripe for Rivalry: Prospects for Peace in a Multipolar Asia.” International Security 18, No. 3 (Winter 1993/94). Friedel, V. H. The German School as a War Nursery (New York: MacMillan, 1918). Friedman, Edward. “Preventing War between China and Japan.” In Edward Friedman and Barrett L. McCormick, eds., What If China Doesn’t Democratize? Implications for War and Peace (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2000). . “Raising Sheep on Wolf Milk: The Politics and Dangers of Misremembering the Past in China.” Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 9, Nos. 2/3 (June-September 2008). Friedman, Jonathan. “The Past in the Future: History and the Politics of Identity.” American Anthropologist 94, No. 4 (December 1992). Fuchs, Anne. “Towards an Ethics of Remembering: The Walser-Bubis Debate and the Other of Discourse.” German Quarterly 75, No. 3 (Summer 2002). Fukui, Haruhiro. “Studies in Policymaking: A Review of the Literature.” In T. J. Pempel, ed., Policymaking in Contemporary Japan (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977). Fuse, Toyomasa. “Student Radicalism in Japan: A ‘Cultural Revolution’?” Comparative Education Review 13, No. 3 (October 1969). Gallagher, Michael G. “China’s Illusory Threat to the South China Sea.” International Security 19, No. 1 (Summer 1994). Garthoff, Raymond L. D´etente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1994). Garton Ash, Timothy. The Uses of Adversity: Essays on the Fate of Central Europe (Cambridge, UK: Granta Books/Penguin Books, 1989). . In Europe’s Name: Germany and the Divided Continent (New York: Random House, 1993). George, Alexander. Foreword in Kacowicz et al., eds. George, Alexander and Timothy J. McKeown. “Case Studies and Theories of Organizational Decision Making.” In Robert F. Coulam and Richard A. Smith, eds., Advances in Information Processing in Organizations, Vol. 2 (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1985). Gill, Bates and Michael O’Hanlon. “China’s Hollow Military.” National Interest (Summer 1999).

Bibliography

333

. “China’s Evolving Regional Security Strategy.” In David Shambaugh, ed., Power Shift: China and Asia’s New Dynamics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005). Gillis, John R. Commemoration: The Politics of National Identity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994). Glaser, Bonnie S. and Phillip C. Saunders. “Chinese Civilian Foreign Policy Research Institutes: Evolving Roles and Increasing Influence.” China Quarterly 171 (September 2002). Glaser, Charles L. “Realists as Optimists: Cooperation as Self-Help.” International Security 19, No. 3 (Winter 1994/95). Glaubitz, Joachim. “Japan.” In Gerald Segal and William T. Tow, eds., Chinese Defense Policy (London: Macmillan, 1984). Glosny, Michael A. “Strangulation from the Sea? A PRC Submarine Blockade of Taiwan.” International Security 28, No. 4 (Spring 2004). Gluck, Carol. “The Past in the Present.” In Andrew Gordon, ed., Postwar Japan as History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). Gniazdowski, Mateusz. “The Problem of War Reparations—the Perspective of the Czech Republic.” The Polish Foreign Affairs Digest 4, No. 13 (2004). Goldhagen, Daniel J. Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996). Goldman, Merle. Sowing the Seeds of Democracy in China: Political Reform in the Deng Xiaoping Era (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994). Goldstein, Judith and Robert O. Keohane. “Ideas and Foreign Policy: An Analytical Framework.” In Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993). Goldstein, Steven M. “Nationalism and Internationalism: Sino-Soviet Relations.” In Robinson and Shambaugh, eds. Gordon, Andrew. Book review, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, by Herbert P. Bix. Japanese Journal of Political Science 2, No. 2 (2001). Gowa, Joanne S. Allies, Adversaries, and International Trade (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994). Grabbe, Hans-Jurgen. “Konrad Adenauer, John Foster Dulles, and West German¨ American Relations.” In Richard H. Immerman, ed., John Foster Dulles and the Diplomacy of the Cold War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990). Grabowski, Tymowski W. “The Party That Never Was: The Rise and Fall of the Solidarity Citizens’ Committees in Poland.” East European Politics and Societies 10, No. 2 (Spring 1996). Green, Michael. “Managing Chinese Power: The View from Japan.” In Johnston and Ross, eds. Green, Michael and Benjamin Self. “Japan’s Changing China Policy: From Commercial Liberalism to Reluctant Realism.” Survival 38, No. 2 (Summer 1996). Greenfeld, Liah and Daniel Chirot. “Nationalism and Aggression.” Theory and Society 23, No. 1 (February 1994). Greig, J. Michael. “Moments of Opportunity: Recognizing Conditions of Ripeness for International Mediation between Enduring Rivals.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 45, No. 6 (2001).

334

Bibliography

Grieco, Joseph M. “Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation: A Realist Critique of the Newest Liberal Institutionalism.” International Organization 42, No. 3 (Summer 1988). . Cooperation among Nations: Europe, America, and Non-tariff Barriers to Trade (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990). Gries, Peter. China’s New Nationalism: Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004). . “China’s ‘New Thinking’ on Japan.” China Quarterly, No. 184 (December 2005). Gross, Jan Tomasz. Polish Society under German Occupation: The General Gouvernement, 1939–1944 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979). . Revolution from Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of Poland’s Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988). . “A Tangled Web: Confronting Stereotypes Concerning Relations between Poles, Germans, Jews, and Communists.” In Istvan Deak et al., eds., The Politics of Retribution in Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000). . Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001). Habermas, Jurgen. “A Kind of Settlement of Damages: The Apologetic Tendencies in German History Writing” and “On the Public Use of History: The Official Self-Understanding of the Federal Republic Is Breaking Up.” In Knowlton and Cates, eds. Halbwachs, Maurice. On Collective Memory, translated by Lewis A. Coser (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). Hall, Peter A. The Political Power of Economic Ideas: Keynesianism across Nations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989). Hamada, Koichi. “Japan 1968: A Reflection Point during the Era of the Economic Miracle.” Center Discussion Paper Series, No. 764 (New Haven, CT: Economic Growth Center, Yale University). Available at http://www.econ. yale.edu/growth_pdf/cdp764.pdf. Handl, Vladimir. “Czech-German Declaration on Reconciliation.” German Politics 6, No. 2 (August 1997). Hao Yufan and Lin Su, eds. China’s Foreign Policy Making: Societal Force and Chinese American Policy (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005). Harding, Harry. China’s Second Revolution (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1987). . A Fragile Relationship: The United States and China since 1972 (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1992). Harrison, Selig S. Seabed Petroleum in Northeast Asia: Conflict or Cooperation? (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2005). He, Yinan. “The Effect of Historical Memory on China’s Strategic Perception of Japan.” Paper presented at the APSA Annual Meeting, Boston (September 1998). . “History, Chinese Nationalism and the Emerging Sino-Japanese Conflict.” Journal of Contemporary China 16, No. 50 (February 2007).

Bibliography

335

. “Remembering and Forgetting the War: Elite Mythmaking, Mass Reaction, and Sino-Japanese Relations, 1950–2006.” History and Memory 19, No. 2 (Fall 2007). . “Ripe for Cooperation or Rivalry? Commerce, Realpolitik, and War Memory in Contemporary Sino-Japanese Relations.” Asian Security 4, No. 2 (2008). Heilbrunn, Jacob. “Germany’s New Right.” Foreign Affairs (November/December 1996). Hein, Laura and Mark Selden. Censoring History: Citizenship and Memory in Japan, Germany, and the United States (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 2000). Herf, Jeffrey. Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997). . “Post-Totalitarian Narratives in Germany: Reflections on Two Dictatorships after 1945 and 1989.” Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 9, Nos. 2/3 (June-September 2008). Herrmann, Richard K. “Comparing World Views in East Europe: Contemporary Polish Perceptions.” In Ronald H. Linden, ed., The Foreign Policies of East Europe: New Approaches (New York: Praeger, 1980). Hofhansel, Claus. “The Diplomacy of Compensation for Eastern European Victims of Nazi Crimes.” German Politics 8, No. 3 (December 1999). Hong, Junhao. “The Internet and China’s Foreign Policy Making: The Impact of Online Public Opinions as a New Societal Force.” In Hao and Su, eds. Horvat, Andrew. “A Strong State, Weak Civil Society, and Cold War Geopolitics: Why Japan Lags behind Europe in Confronting a Negative Past.” In Gi-wook Shin et al., eds., Rethinking Historical Injustice and Reconciliation in Northeast Asia: The Korean Experience (London: Routledge, 2007). Howe, Christopher, ed. China and Japan: History, Trends, and Prospects (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press, 1996). Hoyer, Siegfried. “The Path to Academic Freedom: An East German Perspective.” In Reinhard Alter and Peter Monteath, eds., Rewriting the German Past: History and Identity in the New Germany (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1997). Hughes, Christopher W. “Japanese Military Modernization: In Search of a ‘Normal’ Security Role.” In Ashley J. Tellis and Michael Wills, eds., Strategic Asia 2005–06: Military Modernization in an Era of Uncertainty (Seattle, WA: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2005). Humphreys, R. Stephen. Between Memory and Desire: The Middle East in a Troubled Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). Hung, Wu. “Tiananmen Square: A Political History of Monuments.” Representations 35 (Summer 1991). Hunt, Michael. Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987). Huntington, Samuel. “The Lonely Superpower.” Foreign Affairs 78, No. 2 (March/April 1999). Ijiri, Hidenori. “Sino-Japanese Controversy since the 1972 Diplomatic Normalization.” In Howe, ed.

336

Bibliography

Ikenberry, G. John. America Unrivaled: The Future of the Balance of Power (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002). Jacobsen, C. G. “Myths, Politics and the Not-So-New World Order.” Journal of Peace Research 30, No. 3 (1993). Jacobson, Matthew F. “Imperial Amnesia: Teddy Roosevelt, the Philippines, and the Modern Art of Forgetting.” Radical History Review 73 (1999). Jain, Rajendra K. Germany, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 1949–1991 (London: Sangam Books, 1993). Japan Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Japan White Paper on International Economy and Trade (2004). Available at http://www.meti.go.jp/ english/report/data/gIT04maine.html Jarzabek, Wanda. “The Authorities of the Polish People’s Republic and the Problem of Reparations and Compensation from the Federal Republic of Germany 1953–1989.” Polish Foreign Affairs Digest 5, No. 4 (2005). Jedlicki, Jerzy. “Historical Memory as a Source of Conflicts in Eastern Europe.” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 32 (1999). . “East-European Historical Bequest en Route to an Integrated Europe.” In Klaus Eder and Willfried Spohn, eds., Collective Memory and European Identity: The Effects of Integration and Enlargement (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005). Jeong, Ho-Won. Peace and Conflict Studies: An Introduction (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2000). Jervis, Robert. “Cooperation under the Security Dilemma.” World Politics 30, No. 2 (January 1978). Johnson, A. Ross. “The Warsaw Pact: Soviet Military Policy in Eastern Europe.” In Sarah Meiklejohn Terry, ed., Soviet Policy in Eastern Europe (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984). Johnson, Chalmers. Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power: The Emergence of Revolutionary China, 1937–1945 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1962). . “The Patterns of Japanese Relations with China, 1952–1982.” Pacific Affairs 59, No. 3 (Autumn 1986). Johnston, Alastair I. “The Social Effects of International Institutions on Domestic (Foreign Policy) Actors?” In Daniel W. Drezner, ed., Locating the Proper Authorities: The Interaction of Domestic and International Institutions (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003). . “Chinese Middle Class Attitudes towards International Affairs: Nascent Liberalization?” China Quarterly, No. 179 (September, 2004). . “The Correlates of Nationalism In Beijing Public Opinion, 1998–2002,” RSIS Working Papers, No. 50 (2003). Johnston, Alastair I. and Paul Evans. “China’s Engagement with Multilateral Security Institutions.” In Johnston and Ross, eds. Johnston, Alastair I. and Robert Ross, eds. Engaging China: The Management of an Emerging Power (London: Routledge, 1999). Jones, Alisa. “Politics and History Curriculum Reform in Post-Mao China.” International Journal of Education Research 37, Nos. 6/7 (2003).

Bibliography

337

Judt, Tony. Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945 (New York: Penguin Press, 2005). Kacowicz, Arie M. and Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov. “Stable Peace: A Conceptual Framework.” In Kacowicz et al., eds. Kacowicz, Arie M. et al., eds. Stable Peace among Nations (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000). Katzenstein, Peter J. The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996). . Tamed Power: Germany in Europe (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997). . A World of Regions: Asia and Europe in the American Imperium (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005). Kaufman, Stuart. Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001). Keddell, Joseph P. The Politics of Defense in Japan: Managing Internal and External Pressures (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1993). Kelman, Herbert C. “Social-Psychological Dimensions of International Conflict.” In I. William Zartman and J. Lewis Rasmussen, eds., Peacemaking in International Conflict: Methods & Techniques (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1997). . “Transforming the Relationship between Former Enemies: A SocialPsychological Analysis.” In Rothstein, ed. Kennedy, Laurel B. and Mary Rose Williams. “The Past without the Pain: The Manufacture of Nostalgia in Vietnam’s Tourism Industry.” In Hue-Tam Ho Tai, ed., The Country of Memory Remaking the Past in Late Socialist Vietnam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). Keogh, Dermot and Michael H. Haltzel. Northern Ireland and the Politics of Reconciliation (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Khalidi, Rashid. Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997). Kiernan, Ben. “Myth, Nationalism and Genocide.” Journal of Genocide Research 3, No. 2 (2001). Kimijima, Kazuhiko. “The Continuing Legacy of Japanese Colonialism: The Japan-South Korea Joint Study Group on History Textbooks.” In Hein and Selden, eds. King, Gary et al. Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994). Knowlton, James and Truett Cates, eds. and trans. Forever in the Shadow of Hitler? Original Documents of the Historikerstreit, the Controversy Concerning the Singularity of the Holocaust (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1993). Knox, Colin and Padraic Quirk. Peace Building in Northern Ireland, Israel ´ and South Africa: Transition, Transformation and Reconciliation (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000). Kokubun, Ryosei. “The Shifting Nature of Japan-China Relations after the Cold War.” In Peng Er Lam, ed.

338

Bibliography

Korbonski, Andrzej. “Soviet Policy toward Poland.” In Sarah Meiklejohn Terry, ed., Soviet Policy in Eastern Europe (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984). Kotler, Mindy L. et al. “Chinese and Japanese Public Opinion: Searching for Moral Security.” Asian Perspective 31, No. 1 (2007). Kratoska, Paul and Ben Batson. “Nationalism and Modernist Reform.” In Nicholas Tarling, ed., The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Krauss, Ellis S. Broadcasting Politics in Japan: NHK and Television News (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000). Krepon, Michael and Amit Sevak. Crisis Prevention, Confidence Building, and Reconciliation in South Asia (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995). Kriesberg, Louis and Stuart J. Thorson. Timing the De-escalation of International Conflicts (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1991). Kristof, Nicholas D. “The Problem of Memory.” Foreign Affairs 77, No. 6 (November/December 1998). Krug, Mark M. “The Teaching of History at the Center of the Cold War: History Textbooks in East and West Germany.” School Review 69, No. 4 (Winter 1961). Kulski, W. W. Germany and Poland: From War to Peaceful Relations (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1976). Kumar, Satish. “Nonalignment: International Goals and National Interests.” Asian Survey 23, No. 4 (April 1983). Laffey, Mark and Jutta Weldes. “US Foreign Policy, Public Memory and Autism: Representing September 11 and May 4.” Cambridge Review of International Affairs 17, No. 2 (2004). Lake, David and Donald Rothchild. “Containing Fear: The Origins and Management of Ethnic Conflict.” International Security 21, No. 2 (Fall 1996). Lall, Marie. “Educate to Hate: The Use of Education in the Creation of Antagonistic National Identities in India and Pakistan.” Compare: A Journal of Comparative Education 38, No. 1 (January 2008). Lam, Willy Wo-Lap. “Wang Zhen Decries Loss of Party Influence.” In Lawrence R. Sullivan, ed., China since Tiananmen: Political, Economic, and Social Conflicts (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1995). . The Era of Jiang Zemin (New York: Prentice Hall, 1999). Langdon-Davies, John. Militarism in Education: A Contribution to Educational Reconstruction (London: Headley Bros., Ltd., 1919). Langenbacher, Eric. “Competing Interpretations of the Past in Contemporary Germany.” German Politics and Society 20, No. 1 (Spring 2002). . “The Importance of Memory for Public Opinion in Contemporary Germany: A Quantitative Analysis.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association (September 2002). . “Moralpolitik versus Moralpolitik: Recent Struggles over the Construction of Cultural Memory in Germany.” German Politics and Society 23, No. 3 (Fall 2005).

Bibliography

339

Lee, Chae-Jin. China and Japan: New Economic Diplomacy (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institute Press, 1984). Lee, Chong-Sik. Japan and Korea: The Political Dimension (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1985). Lee, Manwoo. “Sunset for Kim Dae-jung’s Sunshine Policy?” Current History 101, No. 654 (2002). Leng, Shao Chuan. Japan and Communist China (Kyoto: Doshisha University Press, 1958). Levy, Daniel and Julian Dierkes. “Institutionalising the Past: Shifting Memories of Nationhood in German Education and Immigration Legislation.” In JanWerner Muller, ed. ¨ Liao, Kuang-sheng. Antiforeignism and Modernization in China, 1860–1980 (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1986). Liberman, Peter. “Trading with the Enemy: Security and Relative Economic Gains.” International Security 21, No. 1 (Summer 1996). Linn, Ruth and Ilan Gur-Ze’v. “Holocaust as Metaphor: Arab and Israeli Use of the Same Symbol.” Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 11, No. 3 (1996). Lu, ¨ Xiaobo. Cadres and Corruption: The Organizational Involution of the Chinese Communist Party (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000). Lu, Xin-An (Lucian). “Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Age of Internet.” In Hao and Su, eds. Luban, David. “The Legacies of Nuremberg.” Social Research 51, No. 4 (Winter 1987). Lutomski, Pawel. “The Debate about a Center against Expulsions: An Unexpected Crisis in German-Polish Relations?” German Studies Review 27, No. 3 (October 2004). Lyman, Stanford M. NATO and Germany: A Study in the Sociology of Supranational Relations (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1995). Maier, Charles S. The Unmasterable Past: History, Holocaust, and German National Identity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988). Maier, Charles S. and Gunter Bischof. The Marshall Plan and Germany: West ¨ German Development within the Framework of the European Recovery Program (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991). Malachowski, Witold. “Polish-German Economic Relations in the 1990s: The Track Record and Its Implications.” In Heinz-Jurgen Stuting et al., eds., Change ¨ ¨ Management in Transition Economies: Integrating Corporate Strategy, Structure, and Culture (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). Mann, James. About Face: A History of America’s Curious Relationship with China, from Nixon to Clinton (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1999). Mansfield, Edward D. and Jack Snyder. “Democratization and the Danger of War.” International Security 20, No. 1 (Summer 1995). . Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005). Markovits, Andrei S. and Simon Reich. The German Predicament: Memory and Power in the New Europe (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997).

340

Bibliography

Martin, Dorothea A. L. The Making of a Sino-Marxist World View: Perceptions and Interpretations of World History in the People’s Republic of China (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1990). Mastny, Vojtech. “The Soviet Non-Invasion of Poland in 1980–1981 and the End of the Cold War.” Europe-Asia Studies 51, No. 2 (1999). Masumi, Ishikawa. “Voting in the Year of the Boar: The Confidence Crisis in Politics.” Japan Quarterly 42, No. 4 (October–December 1995). Mattheisen, Donald. “History and Political Education in West Germany.” The History Teacher 1, No. 3 (March 1968). McAllister, James. No Exit: America and the German Problem, 1943–1954 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002). McCormack, Gavan. “The Japanese Movement to ‘Correct’ History.” In Hein and Selden, eds. McCullough, Michael E. et al. “Interpersonal Forgiving in Close Relationships.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 73, No. 2 (1997). McFaul, Michael. “Are New Democracies War-Prone?” Journal of Democracy 18, No. 2 (April 2007). Meier, Christian. “Condemning and Comprehending.” In Knowlton and Cates, eds. Mendel, Douglas Heusted. The Japanese People and Foreign Policy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961). Mendeloff, David. Truth-Telling and Mythmaking in Post-Soviet Russia: Pernicious Historical Ideas, Mass Education, and Interests Conflict. Ph.D. dissertation (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2001). Midford, Paul. Japanese Public Opinion and the War on Terrorism: Implications for Japan’s Security Strategy, Policy Studies Series, No. 27 (Washington, DC: East-West Center, 2006). Miller, Benjamin. “The International, Regional, and Domestic Sources of Regional Peace.” In Kacowicz et al., eds. Miller, Manjari Chatterjee. Scars of Empire: Post-imperial Ideology, Victimization, and Foreign Policy. Ph.D. dissertation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 2007). Millett, Alison Therese. Neorealist Claims and Post-Cold War Realities: The Case of German-Polish Relations, 1989–1999. Ph.D. dissertation (Department of Government and Foreign Affairs, University of Virginia, 2000). Minear, Richard H. Victors’ Justice: The Tokyo War Crimes Trial (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971). Mitter, Rana. “Behind the Scenes at the Museum: Nationalism, History and Memory in the Beijing War of Resistance Museum, 1987–1997.” China Quarterly, No. 161 (March 2000). Morley, James W. Soviet and Communist Chinese Policies Toward Japan, 1950– 1957: A Comparison (New York: International Secretariat Institute of Pacific Relations, 1958). Muhle, Eduard. Germany and the European East in the Twentieth Century ¨ (Oxford, UK: Berg, 2003). Muller, Jan-Werner, ed. Memory and Power in Post-War Europe: Studies in the ¨ Presence of the Past (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

Bibliography

341

Muller, Michael G. “The Joint Polish-German Commission for the Revision of ¨ School Textbooks and Polish Views of German History.” German History 22, No. 3 (2004). Murata, Koji. “Domestic Sources of Japanese Policy toward China.” In Peng Er Lam, ed. Nadler Arie and Tamar Saguy. “Reconciliation between Nations: Overcoming Emotional Deterrents to Ending Conflicts between Groups.” In Harvey Langholtz and Chris Stout, eds., The Psychology of Diplomacy (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004). Nanda, B. R. “Nehru and the British.” Modern Asian Studies 30, No. 2 (May 1996). Nasalska, Ewa. “German-Polish Relations in the Historical Consciousness of Polish Youths.” International Education 11, No. 1 (2000). National Security Archive. “Recommendations with Respect to U.S. Policy toward Japan,” NSC 13/2 (October 7, 1948). . “United States Policy Regarding Trade with China,” NSC 41 (February 28, 1949). . “Economic Defense,” NSC 152/2 (July 31, 1953). Niven, William. Facing the Nazi Past: United Germany and the Legacy of the Third Reich (London: Routledge, 2002). Nixon, Richard. RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978). Nobles, Melissa. The Politics of Official Apologies (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008). Noelle, Elisabeth and Erich Peter Neumann, eds. The Germans: Public Opinion Polls 1947–1966 (Allensbach, Germany: Verlag fur ¨ Demoskopie, 1967). Noelle-Neumann, Elisabeth, ed. The Germans: Public Opinion Polls 1967–1980 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981). Nozaki, Yoshiko and Inokuchi Hiromitsu. “Japanese Education, Nationalism, and Ienaga Saburo’s Textbook Lawsuits.” In Hein and Selden, eds. Ogata, Sadako. “Japanese Attitude toward China.” Asian Survey V, No. 8 (August 1965). . “The Business Community and Japanese Foreign Policy: Normalization of Relations with the People’s Republic of China.” In Scalapino, ed. . Normalization with China: A Comparative Study of U.S. and Japanese Processes (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1988). O’Hanlon, Michael. “Why China Cannot Conquer Taiwan.” International Security 25, No. 2 (Fall 2000). Okabe, Tatsumi. “Historical Remembering and Forgetting in Sino-Japanese Relations.” In Gerrit W. Gong, ed., Memory and History in East and Southeast Asia: Issues of Identity in International Relations (Washington, DC: CSIS Press, 2001). Oksenberg, Michel. “China’s Confident Nationalism.” Foreign Affairs 65, No. 3 (1987).

342

Bibliography

Olick, Jeffrey K. and Daniel Levy. “Collective Memory and Cultural Constraint: Holocaust Myth and Rationality in German Politics.” American Sociology Review 62, No. 6 (December 1997). Olick, Jeffrey K. and Joyce Robbins. “Social Memory Studies: From ‘Collective Memory’ to the Historical Sociology of Mnemonic Practices.” Annual Review of Sociology 24 (August 1998). Oneal, John and Bruce Russett. “The Classical Liberals Were Right: Democracy, Interdependence, and Conflict, 1950–1985.” International Studies Quarterly 41, No. 2 (1997). O’Neill, Barry. Honor, Symbols, and War (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999). Orla-Bukowska, Annamaria. “New Threads on an Old Loom: National Memory and Social Identity in Postwar and Post-Communist Poland.” In Richard Ned Lebow et al., eds., The Politics of Memory in Postwar Europe (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006). Orr, James J. The Victim as Hero: Ideologies of Peace and National Identity in Postwar Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2001). Owen, John M. “How Liberalism Produces Democratic Peace.” International Security 19, No. 2 (Fall 1994). Pagaard, Stephen A. “German Schools and the Holocaust: A Focus on the Secondary School System of Nordrhein-Westfalen.” The History Teacher 28, No. 4 (August 1995). Papayaonou, Paul A. Power Ties: Economic Interdependence, Balancing and War (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999). Parker, Christine S. History Education Reform in Post-Communist Poland, 1989– 1999. Ph.D. dissertation (Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University. Pempel, T. J. “Japanese Democracy and Political Culture: A Comparative Perspective.” PS: Political Science and Politics 25, No. 1 (March 1992). Peng Er Lam, ed. Japan’s Relations with China: Facing a Rising Power (London: Routledge, 2004). Perry, Elizabeth. “Crime, Corruption, and Contention.” In Merle Goldman and Roderick MacFarquhar, eds., The Paradox of China’s Post-Mao Reforms (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). Petersen, Roger. Understanding Ethnic Violence: Fear, Hatred, and Resentment in Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Phillips, Ann L. “The Politics of Reconciliation: Germany in Central-East Europe.” German Politics 7, No. 2 (August 1998). . Power and Influence after the Cold War: Germany in East-Central Europe (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000). Piccigallo, Philip R. The Japanese on Trial: Allied War Crimes Operations in the East, 1945–1951 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979). Pingel, Falk, ed. “Contested Past, Disputed Present: Curricula and Teaching in Israeli and Palestinian Schools.” Studies in International Textbook Research, Band 110/2 (2003). Podeh, Elie. “History and Memory in the Israeli Educational System: The Portrayal of the Arab-Israeli Conflict in History Textbooks (1848–2000).” History and Memory 12, No. 1 (Spring/Summer 2000).

Bibliography

343

Poland Central Statistical Office. Concise Statistical Year Book of the Polish People’s Republic, continued by Concise Statistical Yearbook of Poland from 1962, and continued by Statistical Yearbook of the Republic of Poland from 1998 (Warsaw: 1959-). Pollack, Jonathan. “The Korean War and Sino-American Relations.” In Harry Harding and Ming Yuan, eds., Sino-American Relations, 1945–1955: A Joint Reassessment of a Critical Decade (Wilmington, DE: SR Books, 1989). Polonsky, Antony, ed. “My Brother’s Keeper?” Recent Polish Debates on the Holocaust (London: Routledge, 1990). Posen, Barry. “Nationalism, the Mass Army, and Military Power.” International Security 18, No. 2 (Fall 1993). Powell, Robert. “Absolute and Relative Gains in International Relations Theory.” American Political Science Review 85, No. 4 (December 1991). Power, Paul F. “Indian Foreign Policy: The Age of Nehru.” Review of Politics 26, No. 2 (April 1964). Pye, Lucian. “Memory, Imagination, and National Myths.” In Gerrit W. Gong, ed., Remembering and Forgetting: The Legacy of War and Peace in East Asia (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1996). Pyle, Kenneth B. The Japanese Question: Power and Purpose in a New Era (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 1996). Pyle, Kenneth B. and Eric Heginbotham. “Japan.” In Ellings and Friedberg, eds. Quillen, I. James. Textbook Improvement and International Understanding (Washington, DC: American Council on Education, 1948). Reilly, James and Daqing Yang. “Memory and Reconciliation in East Asia: Chinese Perspectives.” Unpublished manuscript, George Washington University (2005). Research Institute for Peace and Security, Japan. Asian Security (London: Brassy’s, ¯ from 1998— 1979- ) (continued by Japanese edition, Ajia no Anzen Hosho, 1999). Risse-Kappen, Thomas. “Public Opinion, Domestic Structure, and Foreign Policy in Liberal Democracies.” World Politics 43, No. 4 (July 1991). Robinson, Thomas W. “Restructuring Chinese Foreign Policy, 1958–1976.” In K. J. Holsti et al., eds., Why Nations Realign: Foreign Policy Restructuring in the Postwar World (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1982). Robinson, Thomas W. and David L. Shambaugh, eds. Chinese Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press, 1994). Rock, Stephen R. Why Peace Breaks Out: Great Power Rapprochement in Historical Perspective (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989). Rose, Caroline. Interpreting History in Sino-Japanese Relations: A Case Study in Political Decision-Making (London: Routledge, 1998). Rosenthal, Harry K. German and Pole: National Conflict and Modern Myth (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1976). Rothstein, Robert L., ed. After the Peace: Resistance and Reconciliation (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999). Roy, Denny. “Hegemon on the Horizon? China’s Threat to East Asian Security.” International Security 19, No. 1 (Summer 1994).

344

Bibliography

Rozman, Gilbert. Japan’s Response to the Gorbachev Era, 1985–1991: A Rising Superpower Views a Declining One (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992). . “China’s Changing Images of Japan, 1989–2001: The Struggle to Balance Partnership and Rivalry.” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 2 (2002). Ruge, Wolfgang. “Historiography in the German Democratic Republic: Rereading the History of National Socialism.” In Reinhard Alter and Peter Monteath, eds., Rewriting the German Past: History and Identity in the New Germany (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1997). Russett, Bruce M. Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post-Cold War World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993). Rydstrom, Helle. “Proximity and Distance: Vietnamese Memories of the War with the USA.” Anthropological Forum 17, No. 1 (March 2007). Saaler, Sven. Politics, Memory and Public Opinion: The History Textbook Controversy and Japanese Society (Munich: Iudicium Verlag GmbH, 2005). Salomon, Matthieu and Vu Doan Ket. “Doi Moi, Education and Identity Formation in Contemporary Vietnam.” Compare: A Journal of Comparative Education 37, No. 3 (June 2007). Samuels, Richard. “Kishi and Corruption: An Anatomy of the 1955 System.” JPRI Working Paper No. 83 (December 2001). . “Japan’s Goldilocks Strategy.” Washington Quarterly 29, No. 4 (2006). . Securing Japan: Tokyo’s Grand Strategy and the Future of East Asia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007). Sander, Richard P. “The Contribution of Post-World War II Schools in Poland in Forging a Negative Image of the Germans.” East European Quarterly 29, No. 2 (Summer 1995). San Juan, E. After Postcolonialism: Remapping Philippines-United States Confrontations (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000). Sarotte, M. E. Dealing with the Devil: East Germany, D´etente, and Ostpolitik, 1969–1973 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001). Scalapino, Robert A., ed. The Foreign Policy of Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977). . “Inter-Korean Rapprochement: Issues to Be Confronted.” American Foreign Policy Interests 23, No. 4 (August 2001). Schaller, Michael. The American Occupation of Japan: The Origins of the Cold War in Asia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985). Schatz, Jaff. The Generation: The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Communists of Poland (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991). Schwartz, Barry. “Commemoration and the Politics of Recognition: The Korean War Veterans Memorial.” American Behavioral Scientist 42, No. 6 (March 1999). Scott, Jonathan French. The Menace of Nationalism in Education (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1926). Seraphim, Franziska. War Memory and Social Politics in Japan, 1945–2005 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006).

Bibliography

345

Shambaugh, David. “Patterns of Interaction in Sino-American Relations.” In Robinson and Shambaugh, eds. . “China’s International Relations Think Tanks: Evolving Structure and Process.” China Quarterly 171 (September 2002). . Modernizing China’s Military: Progress, Problems, and Prospects (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). Shea, Dorothy C. The South African Truth Commission: The Politics of Reconciliation (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2000). Shibata, Masako. Japan and Germany under the U.S. Occupation: A Comparative Analysis of Post-War Education Reform (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005). Shillony, Ben-Ami. Book review, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, by Herbert P. Bix. Journal of Japanese Studies 28, No. 1 (Winter 2002). Shimbori, Michiya. “Zengakuren: A Japanese Case Study of a Student Political Movement.” Sociology of Education 37, No. 3 (Spring 1964). Shimizu, Sayuri. “Perennial Anxiety: Japan-U.S. Controversy over Recognition of the PRC, 1952–1958.” Journal of American–East Asian Relations 4, No. 3 (Fall 1995). Shore, Sean M. “No Fences Make Good Neighbors: The Development of the Canadian-US Security Community, 1871–1940.” In Emanuel Adler and Michael N. Barnett, eds. Shriver, Donald W., Jr. “The Long Road to Reconciliation: Some Moral Stepping Stones.” In Rothstein, ed. Skrypietz, Ingrid. “Militant Right-Wing Extremism in Germany.” German Politics 3, No. 1 (April 1994). Slyke, Lyman Van. “The Chinese Communist Movement during the SinoJapanese War 1937–1945.” In Fairbank and Werker, eds. Smith, Anthony D. Myths and Memories of the Nation (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1999). Smith, Sheila. “Japanese Public Opinion Reflects Growing Discontent with China.” East West Wire (May 19, 2005). Accessed on January 12, 2006, at http://www.eastwestcenter.org/events-en-detail.asp?news_ID=280. Snyder, Jack. Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991). . From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict (New York: Norton, 2000). Sobel, Richard. The Impact of Public Opinion on U.S. Foreign Policy since Vietnam: Constraining the Colossus (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). Soeya, Yoshihide. Japan’s Economic Diplomacy with China, 1945–1978 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1998). Soh, C. Sarah. “Japan’s National/Asian Women’s Fund for ‘Comfort Women’.” Pacific Affairs 76, No. 2 (Summer 2003). Soysal, Yasemin Nuhoglu. “Identity and Transnationalization in German School Textbooks.” In Hein and Selden, eds. Spence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China (New York: W.W. Norton, 1990).

346

Bibliography

Spillman, Lyn. Nation and Commemoration: Creating National Identities in the United States and Australia (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Stachura, Peter D. Poland in the Twentieth Century (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1999). Starr, Mark. Lies and Hate in Education (London: Hogarth Press, 1929). Steinlauf, Michael C. Bondage to the Dead: Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1997). Stern, Lewis M. Defense Relations between the United States and Vietnam: The Process of Normalization, 1977–2003 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2005). Su, Chi. “Sino-Soviet Relations of the 1980s: From Confrontation to Conciliation.” In Samuel Kim, ed., China and the World: New Directions in Chinese Foreign Relations (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989). Suzuki, Shogo. “The Importance of ‘Othering’ in China’s National Identity: SinoJapanese Relations as a Stage of Identity Conflicts.” Pacific Review 20, No. 1 (March 2007). Tahara, Soichiro. “President Jiang Zemin’s Visit to Japan Heightens Anti-China ¯ Emotions; Did Prime Minister Obuchi Speak Out Clearly?” Shukan Asahi (December 18, 1998), in FBIS (Northeast Asia, China) (December 12, 1998). Takamine, Tsukasa. “Domestic Determinants of Japan’s China Aid Policy: The Changing Balance of Foreign Policymaking Power.” Japanese Studies 22, No. 2 (2002). . “A New Dynamism in Sino-Japanese Security Relations: Japan’s Strategic Use of Foreign Aid.” Pacific Review 18, No. 4 (December 2005). Takubo, Tadae. “Come to Think of It, Jiang Zemin Is Indeed Rude!” Shokun (February 1999), in FBIS (Northeast Asia, China) (January 14, 1999). Taliaferro, Jeffrey W. “Security Seeking under Anarchy: Defensive Realism Revisited.” International Security 25, No. 3 (Winter 2000/01). Tanaka, Hiroshi. “Why Is Asia Demanding Postwar Compensation Now?” Hitotsubashi Journal of Social Studies 28 (1996). Tavuchis, Nicholas. Mea Culpa: A Sociology of Apology and Reconciliation (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991). Tawara, Yoshifumi. “Junior High School History Textbooks: Whiter ‘Comfort Women’ and the ‘Nanking Massacre.’” Sekai [The World] (November 2000). (English translation of the article is available at http://www. iwanami.co.jp/jpworld/text/textbook02.html.) Tent, James F. “Mission on the Rhine: American Educational Policy in Postwar Germany, 1945–1949.” History of Education Quarterly 22, No. 3 (Autumn 1982). Tiersky, Ronald. “France in the New Europe.” Foreign Affairs 71, No. 2 (1992). Tomiak, Janusz J. “Educational Policy and Educational Reform in the 1970s.” In Jean Woodall, ed., Policy and Politics in Contemporary Poland: Reform, Failure, Crisis (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982). Tow, William T. “Sino-Japanese Security Cooperation: Evolution and Prospects.” Pacific Affairs 56, No. 1 (Spring 1983).

Bibliography

347

. “China and the International Strategic System.” In Robinson and Shambaugh, eds. Tucker, Nancy Bernkopf. “American Policy Toward Sino-Japanese Trade in the Postwar Years: Politics and Prosperity.” Diplomatic History 8, No. 3 (July 1984). . “John Foster Dulles and the Taiwan Roots of the ‘Two China’ Policy.” In Richard H. Immerman, ed., John Foster Dulles and the Diplomacy of the Cold War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990). Turnbull, C. M. “Regionalism and Nationalism.” In Nicholas Tarling, ed., The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Turner, John. “Towards a Cognitive Redefinition of the Social Group.” In Henri Tajfel, ed., Social Identity and Intergroup Relations (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1982). Twomey, Christopher P. “Japan, a Circumscribed Balancer: Building on Defensive Realism to Make Predictions about East Asian Security.” Security Studies 9, No. 4 (Summer 2000). Ueki, Chikako Kawakatsu. The Rise of “China Threat” Arguments. Ph.D. dissertation (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2006). UNESCO. Bilateral Consultations for the Improvement of History Textbooks (Paris: Education Clearing House, 1953). U.S. Department of State. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–54, Vol. 14, pt. 2 (Washington, DC:U.S. G.P.O., 1985 ). Vachudova, Milada Anna and Tim Snyder. “Are Transitions Transitory? Two Types of Political Change in Eastern Europe since 1989.” East European Politics and Societies 11, No. 1 (Winter 1997). Valkenier, Elizabeth Kridl. “The Rise and Decline of Official Marxist Historiography in Poland, 1945–1983.” Slavic Review 44, No. 4 (Winter 1985). . “Stalinizing Polish Historiography: What Soviet Archives Disclose.” East European Politics and Societies 7, No. 1 (Winter 1993). Van Evera, Stephen. “Hypotheses on Nationalism and War.” International Security 18, No. 4 (Spring 1994). . Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997). . “Memory and the Israel-Palestinian Conflict: Time for New Narratives.” Unpublished manuscript, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2003). Vayrynen, Raimo. “Stable Peace through Security Communities? Steps towards ¨ Theory-Building.” In Kacowicz et al., eds. Wakamiya, Yoshibumi. The Postwar Conservative View of Asia: How the Political Right Delayed Japan’s Coming to Terms with Its History of Aggression in Asia (Tokyo: LTCB International Library Foundation, 1998). Walder, Andrew G. “Urban Industrial Workers: Some Observations on the 1980s.” In Arthur Lewis Rosenbaum, ed., State and Society in China: The Consequences of Reform (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992).

348

Bibliography

Walicki, Andrzej. “The Three Traditions in Polish Patriotism.” In Stanislaw Gomulka and Antony Polonsky, eds., Polish Paradoxes (London: Routledge, 1990). . “Intellectual Elites and the Vicissitudes of ‘Imagined Nation’ in Poland.” East European Politics and Societies 11, No. 3 (Fall 1997). Walt, Stephen M. The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987). Waltz, Kenneth N. Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: AddisonWesley, 1979). Wan, Ming. Sino-Japanese Relations: Interaction, Logic, and Transformation (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006). Wang, Zhen. “National Humiliation, History Education and the Politics of Historical Memory: Patriotic Education Campaign in China.” International Studies Quarterly 52, No. 4 (2008). Watanabe, Akio. “Japanese Public Opinion and Foreign Affairs.” In Scalapino, ed. . “Foreign Policy Making, Japanese Style.” International Affairs 54, No. 1 (January 1978). Wegner, Gregory. “The Power of Selective Tradition: Buchenwald Concentration Camp and Holocaust Education for Youth in the New Germany.” In Hein and Selden, eds. Weissbrod, Lilly. “Nationalism in Reunified Germany.” German Politics 3, No. 2 (August 1994). Wetherell, Margaret. “Social Identity and Group Polarization.” In John C. Turner, ed., Rediscovering the Social Group (Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell, 1987). Whetten, Lawrence L. Germany’s Ostpolitik: Relations between the Federal Republic and the Warsaw Pact Countries (London: Oxford University Press, 1971). Whiting, Allen S. China Eyes Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989). . “Chinese Nationalism and Foreign Policy after Deng.” China Quarterly, No. 142 (June 1995). Williams, Raymond. “Hegemony and the Selective Tradition.” In Suzanne De Castell et al., eds., Language, Authority, and Criticism: Readings on the School Textbook (London: Falmer Press, 1989). Willis, F. Roy. France, Germany, and the New Europe, 1945–1967 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1968). Winter, J. M. Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995). Wolff, Stefan. The German Question since 1919: An Analysis with Key Documents (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003). Wolffsohn, Michael. Eternal Guilt? Forty Years of German-Jewish-Israeli Relations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). Xu, Ben. “Chinese Populist Nationalism: Its Intellectual Politics and Moral Dilemma.” Representations 76 (Fall 2000).

Bibliography

349

Xu, Bin and Gary Alan Fine. “Memory Movement: Opportunity Structure, Mobilization, and Framing in the Chinese WWII Victims’ Reparations Movement against Japan.” Paper presented at the Midwest Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Chicago (2007). Yahuda, Michael. China’s Role in World Affairs (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1978). Yang, Daqing. “Convergence or Divergence? Recent Historical Writings on the Rapes of Nanjing.” American Historical Review 104, No. 3 (June 1999). . “Mirror for the Future or the History Card? Understanding the ‘History Problem.’” In Marie Soderberg, ed., Chinese-Japanese Relations in the Twentyfirst Century (London: Routledge, 2002). Yokoi, Yoichi. “Plant and Technology Contracts and the Changing Pattern of Economic Interdependence between China and Japan.” In Howe, ed. Yoneyama, Lisa. Hiroshima Traces: Time, Space, and the Dialectics of Memory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). Young, James E. The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993). Zhang, Hong. “Fan Meifuri: The Chinese Student Movement Opposing the U.S. Rehabilitation of Japan, 1948.” Journal of American–East Asian Relations 5, No. 2 (Summer 1996). Zhang, Shu Guang. Economic Cold War: America’s Embargo against China and the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1949–1963 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000). Zhao, Quanshen. “A State-Led Nationalism: The Patriotic Education Campaign in Post-Tiananmen China.” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 31, No. 3 (1998). . “Impact of Intellectuals and Think Tanks on Chinese Foreign Policy.” In Hao and Su, eds. Zielinski, Siegfried. “History as Entertainment and Provocation: The TV Series ‘Holocaust’ in West Germany.” New German Critique, No. 19 (Winter 1980).

Index

Abe Shinzo, ¯ 238, 269, 286, 288, 310 Adenauer, Konrad, 49, 53–54, 57–61, 64, 77, 106, 112, 298 apology, 35, 37–38. See also specific countries Ashida Hitoshi, 123, 143, 144 Auschwitz, 74, 78, 89, 101, 103 Bahr, Egon, 85 Baoshan Steel Incident, 200 Bitburg Incident, 88–89, 92 Brandt, Willy, 14, 67–70, 75, 77–78, 81–83, 85–87, 92, 102, 298. See also Ostpolitik Britain. See also India; U.S. China and, 149 Germany and, 52 Japan and, 223 Poland and, 52, 95, 98, 102, 111 CCP (Chinese Communist Party), 120, 133–139, 144, 150, 180–181, 183–184, 208, 212–213, 215–216, 219, 243–246, 269 CDU/CSU (Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union, Germany), 49, 58–59, 61, 75, 80–81, 84, 87, 89, 92, 106, 295. See also Germany, unified; Germany, West Chiang Kai-shek, 139, 149, 151, 153, 156, 215, 245. See also KMT; Taiwan China. See also Britain; France; CCP; historical entitlement; history card;

history issue; Russia, Vietnam; war crimes trials commemoration, 138–139, 216–217, 247, 255 films, 139, 181–182, 215–216, 246–247 myth, 7–8, 133–140, 153, 173, 174, 180–182, 194, 204, 217–218, 232, 234, 249, 268, 276, 293, 298, 309 nationalism, 134, 175, 212, 215, 218, 223, 226, 230, 243–249, 259–260, 278–279, 282, 309–310 patriotic education, 8, 217, 234, 244–249, 256, 261, 276–277, 287 public opinion, 8, 33, 119, 165–167, 173, 201–204, 207, 222–224, 229–232, 248, 250, 252, 261–264, 278–282, 310 textbooks, 136–138, 181, 215, 247–248, 259, 268 trauma, 116–118 U.S. and, 120–121, 134–135, 138–139, 142, 145–146, 157, 160, 164, 175–176, 180, 183–185, 207–208 USSR and, 120–121, 138, 143, 157–158, 174–176, 181, 182–191, 193, 199, 201, 207–208, 295. See also Sino-Soviet alliance victimhood, 29, 136, 206, 217–218, 223, 226, 249, 276 CHINCOM (China Committee), 159–160 CoCom (Coordinating Committee), 55–56, 159–160, 199, 225

351

352 Cold War, 5, 9, 13, 15, 44, 51–52, 57–58, 66–69, 77, 78, 82–83, 85, 89, 92, 93, 100, 112–113, 235, 292, 295, 296 Asia, 119–122, 124, 127, 142, 145, 149, 154, 156, 158, 159, 172–173, 236, 305 comfort women, 39n78, 117, 240–241, 296 commemoration, 14, 28, 136. See also specific countries commercial peace theory, 12, 43–44 compensation, 29, 35, 37, 39. See also specific countries Czech Republic Germany and, 3, 113–114 Poland and, 98 Czechoslovakia Germany and, 54, 68 Poland and, 57 USSR and, 55 democratic peace theory, 12, 42–43 Deng Xiaoping, 176, 180, 185, 187–189, 194, 208, 212–214, 217, 225, 227–231, 243–246 Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands disputes, 8, 118, 174, 191, 193–194, 224, 234, 264, 270–272, 277, 280–282, 284–285 DPJ (Democratic Party of Japan), 238, 296 Dulles, John Foster, 121, 143, 154 East China Sea disputes, 8, 271–273, 280, 282, 285–287 Eckert, Georg, 79, 80. See also Georg Eckert Institute elite, 4, 7, 16, 25–34, 41 emotions, 2, 4, 8, 14, 23, 25, 26, 29–34, 39–41, 45 Erhard, Ludwig, 54, 69 expulsion. See also Germany, unified; Germany, West FDP (Free Democratic Party, Germany), 69, 82, 100, 106. See also Germany, unified; Germany, West forgiveness, 35, 37–39, 59, 77, 102, 110, 264, 307 France. See also U.S. and China and, 149 Germany and, 3, 52, 94. See also joint history research Poland and, 95, 98, 111

Index FRG (Federal Republic of Germany). See Germany, West Fukuda Takeo, 179, 188, 242, 297 Fukuda Yasuo, 271, 286, 288, 310 Furui Yoshimi, 147, 192–193 GDR (German Democratic Republic). See Germany, East Genscher, Hans-Dietrich, 85, 87, 95–97 Georg Eckert Institute, 81, 303. See also Eckert Georg German question, 52–54, 93–96 Hallstein Doctrine, 53 inter-German contacts, 50, 67–70, 72, 77, 85–87 unification, 58, 67, 82, 85, 92–97, 295 German-Polish Textbook Commission, 79–81, 86, 92, 106–108, 113, 267 Germany, East, 50, 87, 100. See also German question Poland and, 53, 57, 63, 66 USSR and, 51, 53, 54, 93 Germany, Nazi, 47–48, 97 German memory of Nazi history, 57–61, 66, 72–75, 77–78, 88–90, 99–102, 112, 291–294 Polish memory of Nazi history, 62–65, 110, 298 Germany, unified. See also CDU/CSU; Czech Republic; FDP; SPD; war responsibility apology, 102–103 commemoration, 101, 102 compensation, 102, 103, 113 expulsion, 95, 100–102, 108, 111, 112 myth, 101 nationalism, 99–100, 102 public opinion, 108–110, 112 victimhood, 100, 102, 108 Germany, West, 53. See also Britain CDU/SCU; Czechoslovakia; FDP; Historikerstreit; Israel; Ostpolitik; SPD; war crimes trials; war responsibility apology, 9, 78, 81, 292–294, 298 commemoration, 59–60, 74, 78, 89 compensation, 48, 60, 66, 78, 82, 95, 103, 113, 292, 293, 298 education reform, 73–74, 81, 179, 294 expulsion, 9, 49, 52, 56, 58–61, 74, 79–82, 94 myth, 9, 57–61, 65–66, 81, 292

Index

353

nationalism, 45, 57, 61, 69, 77, 90, 295 public opinion, 33, 56–58, 67, 71, 74, 95 revanchism, danger of, 52–53, 63, 65–66, 72, 82, 84–87, 94 textbooks, 60–61, 73–74, 291, 294 trauma, 49 U.S. and, 51–52, 55, 60, 84, 88, 293–294 USSR and, 52, 54, 57, 68, 87, 89, 94 victimhood, 49, 58–61, 65, 81, 101, 112 Gierek, Edward, 70–72, 75–76, 78 Gomulka, Wladyslaw, 53, 62–63, 65, 70 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 85, 208, 222

China and, 191 myth, 306 nationalism, 306 Pakistan and, 3, 15, 299, 305, 306 trauma, 304 victimhood, 306–307 Ishibashi Tanzan, 155 Israel. See also Holocaust; Jews Arabic countries and, 15, 302 Germany and, 60, 73, 101, 107, 293 myth, 302 Palestine and, 3, 11, 299, 301–303 Poland and, 104–105, 107 textbooks, 302

Hashimoto Ryutar ¯ o, ¯ 239, 242, 251, 271 Hatoyama Ichiro, ¯ 124, 133, 145, 155, 160, 171, 293 Herzog, Roman, 101, 102 Hibakusha (atomic bomb victims), 118, 131–132 historical entitlement, 31 China, 200, 207, 226–229, 231, 276–278, 282 historical injustices. See trauma historical myth. See myth Historikerstreit (historians’ quarrel), 88, 89–90, 296 history card, 8, 163, 227, 232, 260, 282, 310 history issue China and Japan, 5, 8, 116, 122, 146, 163–164, 173, 214, 232, 235, 243–252, 256, 260, 264–265, 287–288, 296 Japan and South Korea, 300, 301 history problem. See history issue Holocaust, 48–49, 259. See also Israel; Jews; Warsaw Ghetto German memory of, 59, 60, 74–75, 78, 89, 101, 292, 293 Polish memory of, 65, 91, 105 Honecker, Erich, 85–87 Hosokawa Morihiro, 240 Hu Jintao, 271, 281, 288 Hu Yaobang, 212, 214, 219, 230, 232, 281

Japan. See also DPJ; JCP; JSP; LDP; South Korea; Taiwan; Vietnam and; war crimes trials; war responsibility apology, 132, 179, 195, 210, 231, 239–242, 251–252, 259, 260, 263–264, 300–301 commemoration, 129, 132–133 compensation, 127, 129, 131–132, 149, 151–152, 173, 195–196, 229, 240–241, 249–250, 252, 258–259, 264, 278, 283, 296, 300, 310 emperor, 29, 125–126, 129, 132, 210, 251, 263–264, 293–294 guilt feeling, 133, 168, 262n101, 283, 292 militarism, danger of, 128, 141, 145–148, 167, 175, 184, 190–191, 220–222, 227, 229, 255–258, 260–263, 277 myth, 7, 123–133, 140, 153, 173, 174, 177–180, 182, 194, 204, 206, 209–211, 217, 232, 234, 237–243, 292, 298, 300 nationalism, 45, 125, 127, 179, 209–211, 241–242, 258n89, 309–310 ODA (Official Development Aid) to China, 189–190, 196–197, 224, 232, 259, 274–275, 278, 282–285 public opinion, 8, 33, 165–169, 201–204, 207, 222–224, 252, 261–262, 264–265, 284–287 textbooks, 130–131, 153, 178, 211, 240–242, 284, 291, 294, 300. See also Tsukuru Kai; textbooks controversy, Japanese trauma, 118

Ienaga Saburo, ¯ 131, 178 Ikeda Hayato, 127, 148, 155, 161–162 Ikeda, Masanosuke, 160 India Britain and, 11, 299, 304–307

354 Japan (cont.) U.S. and, 3, 119–130, 141–142, 145, 147, 154–156, 159, 169, 184–189, 223, 293–294. See also U.S.-Japan alliance USSR and, 143–144, 155, 165–166, 185, 187–190, 201, 222–223, 295 victimhood, 125, 126, 128, 130, 179, 223, 264 Jaruzelski, Wojciech, 84, 86, 87 JCP (Japan Communist Party), 123–124, 144, 164, 295 Jews, 47, 48, 108. See also Holocaust; Israel; Warsaw Ghetto Germany and, 60, 73, 78, 101–102, 107, 298 Poland and, 6, 9, 47, 49, 63, 65, 76, 91–92, 104–105, 107, 298 Jiang Zemin, 226, 244–246, 251, 264–265, 281, 283 joint history research, 35–37, 39, 309 China and Japan, 267–270, 288 East Asian countries, 267–268 Germany and France, 3 Germany and Poland, 9, 35, 50, 83, 88, 99, 106–108, 288, 294. See also German-Polish Textbook Commission Israel and Palestine, 303 Japan and South Korea, 35, 301 Poland and Sweden, 105 JSP (Japan Socialist Party), 123–124, 152, 177, 186, 240, 295–296 Kaifu Toshiki, 250 Katayama Tetsu, 123, 133 Katyn Massacre, 48, 76, 82, 91 Kishi Nobusuke, 124, 142, 146, 155, 160–161, 163–164, 190, 193, 293 Kissinger, Henry, 176, 183–184 Kitaoka Shinichi, 259–260 KMT (Kuomintang), 120, 134–139, 150, 167, 180–181, 215–216, 224, 247. See also Chiang Kai-shek; Taiwan Kohl, Helmut, 50, 83–88, 92, 95, 97, 101 Koizumi Junichiro, ¯ 15, 44, 238–239, 242, 256, 269, 274, 286, 288, 298, 310 Yasukuni Shrine, 239, 251, 259, 265, 274, 301 Kokary o¯ Incident, 224, 227, 229, 231 ¯ Kono Yohei, 238, 275 ¯ ¯

Index LDP (Liberal Democratic Party, Japan), 124, 128, 144, 147, 155–156, 161, 177, 185–187, 192–193, 211, 227, 238–239, 242, 275, 283–285, 295–296 Liao Chengzhi, 161, 185–186, 190, 215. See also LT/MT Trade LT/MT Trade, 146–147, 161, 164–165 MacArthur, Douglas, 123, 142 Manchuria Incident, 116, 138, 223, 259 Mao Zedong, 120–121, 134, 142, 150–151, 153, 180, 183–184, 212–214, 230, 245, 298 memory collective, 25–26 divergence (contestation), 1, 4, 9, 25, 28, 30–34, 40–41 shared, 1, 5, 10, 35–41 traumatic, 2, 4, 14, 31, 32, 40–41, 299 Miki Takeo, 179 Miyazawa Kiichi, 187, 190, 238 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, 47, 76, 82 Mombusho¯ (Japanese Ministry of Education), 130–131, 178, 210–211, 215, 242, 268, 284 Murayama Tomiichi, 240, 269, 283 myth, 4, 25–31, 33, 36, 38, 40–41, 287–288, 289–291. See also specific countries Nagasaki Flag Incident, 157, 161, 163, 171 Nakagawa Shoichi, 286–287 ¯ Nakasone Yasuhiro, 148, 185, 209–210, 219–222, 224, 232, 240 Yasukuni Shrine, 209, 215, 223, 230, 249 Nanjing Massacre, 36, 117, 138, 153, 178, 216–218, 241, 242, 248, 259, 262 national humiliation, 12, 31 China, 199, 215, 217, 226, 258, 259 Germany, 49 national identity. See nationalism national mythmaking theory 4–5, 20, 44 concepts, definitions, and predictions of, 25–34, 40–41 scope of applicability, 299–308 summary of empirical results about, 7–10, 112–114, 119, 172–173, 174–175, 206–207, 231–233, 234–235, 287, 289–291

Index national trauma. See trauma nationalism, 16, 25–27, 28–29, 30. See also specific countries NATO, 51, 83, 84, 92, 94, 96–98, 113 New Thinking, 281 Nihon Izokukai (Japanese Bereaved Families Association), 132, 239 Nixon, Richard, 175, 184–187, 220 Nixon-Sato¯ Joint Statement (November 1969), 122, 146–147, 156 Obuchi Keizo, 301 Oder-Neisse Line, 52–54, 56, 63, 67, 78, 86, 95 1970 settlement, 50, 69–71, 75 1990 settlement, 92, 95–97, 108 Yalta Conference, 48, 52 ¯ Ohira Masayoshi, 148, 179, 185, 189, 192, 196–197 Ostpolitik, 50, 67–72, 77, 82–83, 85, 87, 92, 295–296. See also Brandt, Willy Ozawa Ichiro, ¯ 237 Pakistan, 246. See also India Palestine. See also Israel myth, 302 nationalism, 302 textbooks, 302 patriotism. See nationalism People’s Diplomacy, 7, 119, 134, 136, 149, 150, 153, 154, 163, 169, 171–172 perception of intentions, 25, 31–34, 40–41 PFT (Peace and Friendship Treaty, China and Japan, 1978), 185, 187–188, 190, 194 Philippines, 273 nationalism, 306–307 trauma, 303 U.S. and, 11, 299, 303–304, 307 Poland. See also Britain; Czechoslovakia; Czech Republic; France; Germany, East; Israel apology, 105 commemoration, 64–65, 99, 105, 110–111 education reform, 90, 104–105 myth, 9, 61–66, 75–76, 104, 293 nationalism, 49, 62, 63, 91, 99, 103–104, 298 public opinion, 33, 56, 71, 98, 108–111

355 PZPR (Polish United Workers’ Party), 53, 62, 64 Russia and, 46–48, 54, 63, 94, 96, 98, 109, 111 textbooks, 63–64, 66, 76, 91. See also German-Polish Textbook Commission trauma, 46–49 U.S. and, 84, 95, 97–98, 102, 111 USSR and, 46–48, 50–51, 53–56, 62–65, 71, 93, 104 victimhood, 9, 29, 48–49, 63, 65, 92, 105, 293, 298 public opinion, 23, 31–33, 309. See also specific countries Reagan, Ronald, 83–84, 88, 207–208, 222 realist theory, 1, 3–5, 20–25, 30, 41–44 summary of empirical results about, 7–10, 112–114, 119, 172–173, 231–233, 287, 289–291 reconciliation, 12, 45 deep interstate, 1–3, 4, 5, 10, 12–14, 19–20, 23–24, 35, 41, 44 operational definition of, 14–20 policy implications of, 309, 311 regional integration Asia, 44, 297 Europe, 3, 11, 44, 50, 93, 96–99, 110, 296 theory of, 12, 44–45 ROC (Republic of China), 148, 151, 154–155, 192–193, 195, 272. See also KMT; Taiwan Russia 27. See also Poland China and, 235, 273 San Francisco Peace Treaty (September 1951), 124, 142, 143, 154–155, 195 Sato¯ Eisaku, 142, 147, 155–156, 162, 165, 166. See also Nixon-Sato¯ Joint Statement SCAP (Supreme Command for Allied Powers), 123, 129–130, 294 Schmidt, Helmut, 77, 78, 84, 87 Schroeder, Gerhard (West German foreign ¨ minister 1961–66), 54 Schroeder, Gerhard Fritz Kurt (German ¨ chancellor 1998–2005), 103, 110–111 security community. See regional integration

Index

356 Seikei Bunri (separation of politics and economics), 155, 158–162, 196 Sino-Japanese Joint Declaration (September 1972), 184–185, 187, 192–193, 195 Sino-Soviet alliance, 141–143, 162, 189 Solidarity, 50, 84, 90–91, 93, 103, 212, 233, 309 Sonoda Sunao, 189 South Korea Japan and, 11, 121–122, 146, 155, 162, 178, 180, 203, 214, 264–265, 269, 284, 299–301, 306. See also joint history research; Nixon-Sato¯ Joint Statement myth, 300 nationalism, 300 textbooks, 300 trauma, 300 U.S. and, 188, 299 Soviet Union. See USSR SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany), 50, 58, 61, 69, 72–73, 75, 77–80, 82, 85–86, 92, 103, 106, 179, 210, 295. See also Germany, unified; Germany, West Stalin, Joseph, 48, 52, 54–55, 61, 62 Suzuki Zenko, ¯ 179, 218, 224 Taiwan 247, 271, 276. See also Chiang Kai-shek; KMT controversy of, 118, 140, 148–149, 153, 158, 174, 180, 195, 207–208, 224, 226–227, 234, 270, 272, 277. See also Kokary o¯ Incident ¯ Japan and, 120, 121–122, 145–146, 152–156, 160, 162, 164, 171, 191–193, 202, 203, 227, 241, 259, 270, 277. See also Nixon-Sato¯ Joint Statement pro-Taiwan lobby in Japan, 119, 149, 155, 174, 192–193, 204 Taiwan Strait, 121, 142, 145, 161, 169, 170, 215, 236, 253–254, 270 U.S. and, 151, 153, 207–208, 227 Takeshita Noboru, 210 Tanaka Kakuei, 148, 177, 179–181, 184–186, 188, 192, 195 textbook controversy, Japanese, 8, 191, 211, 214–215, 220, 227, 232, 249, 267, 268, 300–301

textbook cooperation. See also joint history research; German-Polish Textbook Commission textbooks, 26, 28. See also specific countries Tiananmen Incident, 235, 243, 246, 250, 261, 273, 277, 287 trauma, 1–3, 5, 12, 23, 35, 37, 41, 308. See also specific countries traumatic conflicts. See trauma Treaty on Good Neighborly Relations and Friendly Cooperation, German-Polish (June 1991), 96 Tsukuru Kai (Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform), 242, 268 U.S. See also China; Japan; Germany, West; Philippines; Poland; Taiwan; Vietnam Britain and, 13, 56 Canada and, 44 France and, 56 Mexico and, 43 USSR and, 13, 54, 68, 83, 145 U.S.-Japan alliance, 120, 127, 142, 145, 169, 179, 183–186, 189, 191, 209, 219, 236, 238, 254, 263, 270, 295 USSR. See also China; Czechoslovakia; Germany, East; Germany, West; Japan; Poland; U.S. ¨ Verjahrungsdebatten (Bundestag debates about the statute of limitations on prosecuting Nazi criminals), 72–73, 75, 78, 81, 296 victim consciousness. See victimhood victimhood, 27–29, 30. See also specific countries Vietnam China and, 142, 175, 176, 188, 208, 273, 306–307 Japan and, 146, 162, 170, 177 myth, 306 nationalism, 306 trauma, 304 U.S. and, 11, 156, 175, 179, 299, 308 Walesa, Lech, 84, 102, 105 war crimes trials, 29 China, 149–151

Index Germany, 39, 57, 59, 72. See also Verjahrungsdebatten ¨ Japan, 39, 126, 129, 209, 221, 241–242, 293 war reparations. See compensation war responsibility, 30–31, 37–41 Germany, 5, 45, 58–61, 73–74, 78, 81, 83, 86, 88–90, 99, 101, 179 Japan, 5, 7, 45, 125–129, 132, 136, 164, 168, 179, 210, 217, 220–221, 223, 227, 231, 233, 234, 241, 249, 269, 277, 294, 296, 310 Warsaw Ghetto, 78, 81 Warsaw Pact, 52, 93, 94 Warsaw Treaty, West Germany and Poland (December 1970), 68–71, 75, 82, 86, 95

357 Warsaw Uprising, 65, 102–103, 110 Weizsacker, Richard von, 77, 88–89, ¨ 298 Wen Jiabao, 281, 288 Yasukuni Shrine, 127, 132–133, 179, 251, 278, 280–281, 284, 292, 310. See also Koizumi Junichiro; ¯ Nakasone Yasuhiro Yoshida Shigeru, 120, 124, 126, 143–145, 148, 154–155, 158–161, 236 Zhao Ziyang, 218, 224, 232 Zhou Enlai, 135, 142, 150, 152–154, 161, 164–165, 181, 183–185, 191–195, 231, 250 Zhu Rongji, 281, 283