security pact with the United States, many intellectuals and students joined
in criticizing the pact because it gave too much support to the military. Al-
though support for Marxism and leftist views gradually weakened as Japan
modernized, opposition to militarism, which in the eyes of the public had
brought disaster, has remained deep and strong.
The War Crimes Trials
The International Military Tribunal of the Far East, presided over by judges
from seven Allied countries, including China, met regularly from May 3,
1946, until sentences were announced on November 12, 1948, on the indict-
ment of twenty- eight class- A war criminals— leaders who had played a
role in guiding Japan into committing war crimes and crimes against hu-
manity. One civilian (Prime Minister Hirota Koki) and six generals were
hanged, sixteen class- A criminals were sentenced to life imprisonment and
two were given shorter sentences, three were found not guilty, and no one
was acquitted. In addition, class- B and class- C criminals who had com-
mitted conventional war crimes and crimes against humanity were also
tried. Eigh teen generals accused of being class- B criminals because they had
command responsibilities when their troops committed atrocities were tried
and found guilty. Some 4,200 class- C officers in lower positions were tried
. 299 .
china and japan
for other atrocities, about 700 of whom were sentenced to death; others
were committed to prison for vari ous terms.
Detailed evidence in the trials was presented by witnesses such as Lewis
Smythe, a missionary and sociologist in Nanjing at the time of the mas-
sacre. Smythe had worked with John Rabe and others in Nanjing to follow
closely the atrocities committed by the Japa nese at the time. The court also
collected evidence on the biological and chemical warfare carried out by Unit
731 on the outskirts of Harbin, where live experiments were conducted on
human subjects, some of whom died.
No legal basis existed before World War II for war- crimes trials such
as the Nuremberg trials in Germany and the International Military Tribunal
in Tokyo, although legal procedures were used for judging who had initiated
a war and who had committed atrocities. Volumes of information were
collected and carefully analyzed for the Tokyo trials, but the number of cases
tried was miniscule compared with the number of atrocities that had been
committed during the war. Evidence was collected from more than 400
witnesses, and in excess of 700 affidavits were filed. Major cases were
defended by a Western lawyer as well as a Japa nese lawyer. Chinese lawyers
at the trials strongly criticized the Japa nese, but some judges from other
countries believed that the Chinese pre sen ta tions at trial were not well
prepared and lacked careful analy sis or descriptions of the evidence.
In addition to the trials of major war criminals in Tokyo, other crimi-
nals were tried in China and elsewhere. In China, some 883 Japa nese indi-
viduals were brought to court, 149 were executed, and 350 were found not
guilty.6 At the higher levels of the Chinese government, Chiang Kai- shek
and others wished to show that China was living up to high international
professional standards. Unlike Chinese presentation at the War Crimes
Trials in Tokyo, the evidence used in China was more carefully presented.
Some of the Japa nese who were brought to trial in China were acquitted.
At the local levels in China, however, there were many cases of extralegal
retribution carried out against Japa nese and local collaborators.
Many Japa nese people agreed that the attacks in Nanjing and the ex-
periments on human subjects by Unit 731 were atrocities, but they also be-
lieved that the trials were based not on universal standards but on “victor’s
justice,” for only Japa nese defendants were tried. Westerners who, in the view
of the Japa nese, had also committed crimes, such as ordering the firebombing
. 300 .
The Col apse of the Japa nese Empire and the Cold War, 1945–1972
of civilians in Japa nese cities and the dropping of two atom bombs, were
not tried. Furthermore, the Japa nese who examined the proceedings felt that
a disproportionate percentage of the most serious punishments were handed
down for crimes against Western victims, not Asian victims. After the trials
had dragged on for more than two years, stories began to appear in the Japa-
nese media of the hardships suffered by the Japa nese who were being tried.
In 1953, the year after the Occupation ended, prison letters from war crim-
inals began to be published. Some of the Japa nese public sympathized with
those officials whom they claimed had been caught in difficult circumstances
over which they had little control. One of the seven justices, the Indian judge
Radhabinod Pal, considered the entire war crimes trial invalid because there
had been no rules set for war time be hav ior prior to the trials and there was
no universal standard of justice. In general, the Japa nese public did not try
to hide or belittle the crimes, or to justify the atrocities, but Justice Rad-
habinod Pal’s judgment received great attention from the Japa nese, who re-
sented the imposition of victor’s justice that punished only Japa nese and
not others who committed war crimes.
In 1969, the Ministry of Health and Welfare sent the names of the class-
A war criminals to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. In October 1978 the new
chief priest at the shrine, Matsudaira Nagayashi, de cided that they should
be enshrined. Emperor Hirohito was so upset about this decision that he
never again visited the shrine. In 1978, China and Japan were working to
establish formal diplomatic relations, and three years later the Chinese
began protesting about the enshrinement. From 1946 to 1948, at the time
of the War Crimes Trials, the Chinese people were so preoccupied with
their own Civil War that they had not paid much attention to the trials. Later,
when the Chinese publicized information about the Nanjing Massacre and
Unit 731 biological experiments, they drew on evidence presented at the
trials. In 2006, when Chinese films on World War II were popu lar in China,
one widely viewed Chinese film, Tokyo Trial ( Dongjing shenpan), called at-
tention to the evidence presented during the trials.
The Cold War and the “Reverse Course,” 1947
Occupation officials wanted to destroy the Japa nese military and its cen-
tralized military- industrial complex, which could support another war effort.
. 301 .
china and japan
Until 1947, the Allied Occupation concentrated on breaking up large com-
panies, especially those that might have been able to support war making
and did little to aid Japan’s economic recovery. In 1947, however, when the
Cold War divisions had become sharper, Occupation officials began to re-
gard Japan as a potential partner against the Soviet Union. After 1947, con-
servative Japa nese officials who had taken part in World War II but sup-
ported the new U.S.- Japan alliance were allowed to return to office. After
lished in Japan to free up the U.S. Occupation forces to fight in Korea. And
in 1954 Japan’s Self- Defense Force was established—in effect, an army that
could be used only to defend Japan, not to attack other countries— and
within a de cade it had 200,000 troops.
The strategic rationale for this “reverse course” in Occupation policy was
spelled out by George Kennan, Amer i ca’s leading Cold War strategist, who
was dispatched to Japan in March 1948 to evaluate U.S. policy on Japan.
Kennan wrote a forty- two- page report based on his investigation, and
his policy proposals for Japan were approved by President Truman in
October 1948. Kennan believed that if the people of Western Eu rope and
Japan continued to suffer from poverty, they could become prey to Com-
munist advances. By the time his proposals were approved, the Commu-
nists had already taken over Czecho slo va kia and blockaded Berlin, and the
Chinese Communists were poised to win the Civil War in China.
The central goal of Kennan’s Japan policy was to create a strong stable
economy. He concluded that the Occupation policy of destroying large Japa-
nese businesses should be reversed. With strong economies, he believed,
Japan and Eu rope would become pillars in a global free- market economy.
When Kennan was later asked to reflect on his career years, he said that
along with his part in launching the Marshall Plan for Eu rope’s recovery,
his role in supporting the reverse course in Japan was the “most significant
contribution” he had made in his ser vice to the U.S. government.
By 1947 the United States was sending some of its excess grain to Japan
to ease the food shortage there, and to address Japan’s shortage of cotton
for making clothing, the United States, which had just made advances in
the production of synthetic fibers, supplied Japan with synthetic fiber tech-
nology. By manufacturing more goods, Japan was beginning to generate
income to pay for the food and other supplies that the United States was
. 302 .
The Col apse of the Japa nese Empire and the Cold War, 1945–1972
exporting to Japan. U.S. industrial firms began transferring manufacturing
skills to Japan, just as U.S. and Japa nese firms would do in China three de-
cades later. Japa nese industry had been decimated by the massive bombing
during the war, but the business and technology skills that it had developed
since the Meiji period survived, and Japa nese businesses began to grow
quickly.
Although the Occupation authorities had discouraged Japan from
greatly increasing trade with China for fear that it might pull Japan into the
Communist economic order, Kennan did not believe it was necessary to op-
pose trade with China. In Kennan’s view, China was a very poor and di-
vided country, and at the time China was not considered a threat to the
United States. Kennan, a Rus sia specialist, was convinced that even if China
were to join with the Soviet Union, the forces of Chinese nationalism were
so strong that an alliance with the Soviet Union would not last. John Foster
Dulles, who was directing U.S. policy, did not agree. He believed that Com-
munist China was already allied with the Soviets and that the United
States should not assist China’s economic growth.
The Korean War and the Freeze in Sino- Japanese
Relations, 1948–1972
Just as Korea had been at the vortex of the strug gles between Japan and
China during the 1870s and 1880s, during the Sino- Japanese War of 1894–
1895, and during the Russo- Japanese War of 1904–1905, it was at the center
of the power strug gles in Asia after World War II. But this time the con-
flict was not just between Japan and China or Japan and Rus sia. Now Korea
was the focus in a strug gle between the entire Communist world and the
entire cap i tal ist world.
At the end of World War II the United States firmly refused Stalin’s
request to divide Japan, as Germany was divided, into separate occupation
zones. But on August 10, 1945, as the war’s end approached, U.S. officials
agreed that Soviet forces in Korea could occupy the area north of the
38th parallel, and the United States would occupy the area below the
38th parallel. The establishment of South Korea as a separate nation with
its own government was officially declared on August 15, 1948, three years
after the Japa nese surrender, and the government of North Korea was
. 303 .
china and japan
officially declared on September 9, 1948. Shortly thereafter the Soviet
Army left Korea and returned home, and in June 1949 the U.S. Army
pulled out as well and returned either to the United States or to its bases
in Japan.
Under Soviet guidance, Kim Il Sung became the leader of North Korea,
and under U.S. guidance Syngman Rhee became the leader of South Korea.
Kim Il Sung had been in Manchuria with the Chinese guerrilla forces
fighting the Japa nese, but after 1941, as pressures from the Japa nese Army
in Manchuria grew stronger, Kim had retreated with the Chinese guerillas
to the Soviet Union, where he spent the rest of World War II. Syngman
Rhee was a Christian who had studied under Woodrow Wilson at Prince ton
and married an Austrian woman. Before assuming the leadership of South
Korea, he had spent only a few years of his life living in Korea. U.S. offi-
cials considered him their ally. In the absence of foreign troops, Kim Il Sung
and Syngman Rhee each began to strengthen his military in the hope of
reuniting Korea under his leadership. The United States was reluctant to
send tanks and other heavy equipment to Syngman Rhee for fear that he
might invade the North.
At the time, North Korea had a much larger industrial base than South
Korea because of the electric power stations on the Yalu River and the chem-
ical and related industries built by the Japa nese during their occupation,
whereas South Korea was primarily agricultural. Since educated Koreans
had learned the Japa nese language and been taught about Japa nese culture,
some had good relations with the Japa nese. Koreans such as Park Chong-
Hee, who had served in the Japa nese military in Manchuria, had been deeply
influenced by Japan. But because the Koreans, unlike the Taiwanese, had
had their own national identity prior to being colonized and occupied by
Japan, many had been far more resistant to Japan than the Taiwanese and
they remained deeply ambivalent, respecting Japa nese successes, enjoying
Japa
nese culture and Japa
nese friendships, while hating Japa
nese
domination.
In a speech on January 12, 1950, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson
did not include South Korea among the nations within the U.S. defense
perimeter. It is likely that, owing to this, China and Rus sia assumed that
the United States would not support South Korea if the North were to in-
vade. By the spring of 1950 Kim Il Sung, who had received Stalin’s permis-
. 304 .
The Col apse of
the Japa nese Empire and the Cold War, 1945–1972
sion to invade South Korea, was preparing his troops to cross the
38th parallel.
By April 1950, with Mao Zedong’s approval, more than 47,700 ethnic
Korean- Chinese in the Chinese Army, many of whom had fought the Japa-
nese during World War II, had been transferred to North Korea to sup-
port Kim Il Sung.7 Mao had already assured Kim Il Sung that by early 1950,
once the Communists had basically subdued all of China, Chinese troops
would be available to provide assistance if it were needed.
When Mao Zedong met Kim Il Sung in May 1950 to discuss a pos si ble
military conflict on the Korean Peninsula, Mao raised the possibility that
the United States might make use of some 70,000 Japa nese “mercenary”
troops to defend South Korea, but he did not expect that U.S. troops would
become involved. Mao was more worried about the revival of Japa nese mil-
itarism. The Sino- Soviet Treaty of February 1950 had addressed the con-
cern that Japa nese troops might again invade China, but a conflict with U.S.
troops in Korea was not anticipated.
On June 25, 1950, troops from the North crossed the 38th parallel with
heavy military equipment. They advanced rapidly to Seoul, which they took
on June 27, destroying tens of thousands of southern troops along the way.
President Truman, who feared that, if he did not act, the Soviet Union
would take all of Korea and then move on to an ever- broadening war, real-
ized that U.S. intervention would require a major commitment of troops.
In what he described as the most difficult decision of his life, even more
difficult than whether to use the atomic bomb on Japan, Truman de cided
to seek the support of the United Nations for an immediate deployment
of troops in Korea. He and his advisers believed the failure of the League
of Nations to respond strongly to the Japa nese invasion of Manchuria in
the 1930s had allowed Japan to continue to expand and eventually to start
the Pacific War. In addition to seeking a UN response in Korea, Truman
also sent the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet to the Taiwan Strait, thus preventing
the Chinese Communists from attacking Taiwan. On July 7, the UN agreed
that United Nations command forces would be sent to Korea and U.S.
troops began arriving in Korea.
That same day, Mao Zedong announced the creation of a Northeast
China and Japan Page 47