China and Japan
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Western pens but with Asian brushes.
Tanaka had assisted Japan’s elite- track prime ministers manage politics,
much as Lyndon Johnson had done for President John Kennedy. Unlike the
former bureaucrats who were cautious, methodical, and somewhat aloof,
Tanaka was bold, irreverent, and charmingly direct. He also did not hesi-
tate to use cash to solve prob lems, an approach that brought him many
friends, but later exposure of this led to his resignation and, still later, to
his house arrest.
Tanaka grew up in a small village in the poor “snow country” of Niigata.
His father, unlike his hard- working mother and most Japa nese farmers,
tried vari ous schemes to avoid physical labor. Unlike the many frugal ( kinken
chochiku) Japa nese famers, Tanaka’s father invested the family’s meager sav-
ings to import Holstein cows from Holland, to trade horses, to bet on
horse races, and to build a large carp pond. His father had more failures
than successes, and Kakuei, like his father, was bold in trying new ventures.
Kakuei, as the only boy, was exempt from doing any house work, unlike his
six sisters. In 1934, when Japan was still suffering from the worldwide de-
pression and Kakuei was fifteen, he quit school and set out for Tokyo. He
stayed with a friend’s relative and found vari ous odd jobs, doing construc-
tion work, delivering newspapers, and working as a handyman. He then
found a job in a firm engaged in construction, attended some architecture
classes in the eve ning, and at age nineteen started his own construction
com pany, without any partners or employees.
Tanaka was drafted into the army in March 1939 and was sent with the
cavalry to Manchuria, where he was assigned a clerical job. One year later
he came down with such a serious case of pneumonia and pleurisy that he
was sent back to Tokyo. He remained in critical condition for some time
and was discharged from the army. Physically unable to serve in the armed
forces, he found work in construction for Riken, an industrial group cre-
ated to make use of advanced science and technology. As war time short-
ages increased, Tanaka was imaginative about acquiring necessary materials
and accomplishing his work. For the time, he had quite a high income. At
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twenty- four, he married a thirty- one- year- old woman whose father, a suc-
cessful construction businessman, had died a few months earlier. Tanaka
took over and expanded the business. As bombing destroyed much of Tokyo,
Tanaka moved some Riken factories to southern Korea. The war ended be-
fore Riken was firmly established in Korea, but Tanaka had already reaped
large profits for managing the move. In the immediate aftermath of the war,
when many people were considering entering politics, one of Tanaka’s
friends asked him, with his then plentiful amount of money, to contribute
funds to a po liti cal campaign. He also encouraged Tanaka to enter politics
himself, and Tanaka agreed to give it a try. Using some of his personal funds
for campaigning and relying on support from the workers in his construc-
tion com pany, Tanaka was soon elected as a member of the Diet.
Tanaka proposed construction proj ects in his home district that in-
cluded building tunnels and roads through the mountains to link the snow
country with western Japan. He knew where construction would make a
difference in his election district and he was able to make it happen, quickly.
He was not a sophisticated diplomat, but with foreigners his directness and
creativity enabled him to solve prob lems. In 1971 he helped Prime Minister
Sato deal with his promise to limit textile exports, an issue that had enraged
President Nixon. Within three months he had found a solution, paying off
Japa nese textile companies to limit their exports.
Within the Liberal Demo cratic Party, the former elite bureaucrats found
Tanaka to be an enormous asset for raising money and managing the se-
lection of local candidates to run for the Diet. His prodigious memory
helped him understand the conditions in each election district and select
appealing candidates and appropriate messages. Tanaka could work with
the elites, but he never pretended to be one of them. Local people happily
cal ed him by his nickname, Kaku- san, while they referred to the elite bureau-
crats by more formal names. He was a crowd- pleaser, with stories, humor,
nostalgia, and an irreverence that moved his audiences. To the common
people, Tanaka was one of them. In 1972 he became the youn gest prime min-
ister since World War II and the only one without a col ege degree.
Tanaka became prime minister shortly after the United States had em-
barrassed Japa nese leaders by rushing ahead of Japan to open contacts with
China. Within months Tanaka not only opened Japan’s channel for ex-
panding contacts with China, but rushed ahead of the United States in
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normalizing relations. For making this breakthrough, he won praise from
Chinese leaders.
Niigata is on the western side of the main Japa nese island, the “back side”
( ura Nippon), and was relatively neglected compared with the east coast,
which had prospered when trade with the United States increased after
World War II. As a Diet member looking out for his home district, Tanaka
drew on his construction- company experience to win national support for
building proj ects— roads, tunnels, mountain passes, power generators, train
routes, and train stations—to help develop his more backward district.
Later, as prime minister, Tanaka’s main domestic effort was a plan to
extend economic construction to areas that had not yet benefited from
Japan’s expanding industrialization, a plan known as Nihon Retto Kaizoron
(Building a New Japan: A Plan for Remodeling the Japa nese Archipelago).
This plan was a natu ral for Japan at the time. Like the takeoff in China’s
growth two de cades later, Japan’s growth began in the big urban areas along
the east coast, near Tokyo and Osaka, and points in between, while the rest
of the country lagged behind. The idea of new construction was always dear
to Tanaka’s heart, and his efforts to win national support by spreading mod-
ernization to more backward areas was an extension of what he had been
trying to do in his own home prefecture. Initially, his plan brought some suc-
cess to the backward areas, but over time the plan reached a point of dimin-
ishing returns. The first bridge between Honshu and the smaller island of
Shikoku brought great economic benefits, but the third bridge produced
marginal results at best. Within years, some people were blaming Tanaka for
wasting money on construction without thinking about the environment
and quality of life.
Although Tanaka was welcomed when he visited the United States and
Eu rope in 1973–1974, when he visited Indonesia and Malaysia in 1974 the
local people, harboring anger at the Japa nese as a result of Japan’s invasion
in World War II, rioted. Tanaka and other Japa nese leaders quickly got the
message. When Ohira Masayoshi and Fukuda Takeo later visited South-
east Asia and brought promises of aid, their reception was much more
favorable.
Tanaka was vulnerable to charges of corruption. He had acquired a bus
com pany and a lot of real estate by working with another tycoon, Osamu
Kenji. In 1974 the popu lar magazine Bungei shunju revealed that several of
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Biographies of Key Figures
Tanaka’s friends had been permitted to buy property just before new public
developments in a locality were announced, thus allowing them to reap great
profits as the value of the property rose rapidly. The article also exposed the
fact that Tanaka’s girlfriend had profited in this way as well. Rather than
testify, Tanaka resigned from the Diet in 1974.
In 1976 the vice president of the American aerospace com pany Lock-
heed told a court investigating the com pany’s payments that Tanaka Kakuei
had been paid off in 1972 for arranging for All Nippon Airways’ purchase
of twenty- one Lockheed aircraft. Tanaka was arrested, and for seven years,
from 1977 to 1983, he was summoned to the Tokyo District Court house each
week. It was found that he had received $2 million in bribes, and he was
sentenced to four years in prison. Despite the payoff accusations, Tanaka’s
popularity increased. His faction had fewer than 80 members before the
Lockheed scandal broke in 1976, but by 1981 the number had increased to
more than 150 members. In the election of 1983, shortly after the court’s deci-
sion was announced, Tanaka won more votes than any other candidate in
the country. He continued to be po liti cally influential until 1985, when he
suffered a stroke and withdrew from politics. He died in 1993. Throughout
Japan Tanaka has his admirers as well as critics, but in Niigata he is a beloved
and revered hero.
For further reading, see Jacob M. Schlesinger, Shadow Shoguns: The Rise
and Fall of Japan’s Postwar Po liti cal Machine (New York: Simon & Schuster,
1997).
Wang Jing wei, 1883–1944
While studying in Japan from 1903 to 1905, Wang Jing wei met Sun Yat- sen,
a fellow Cantonese student. Like Sun, Wang was thoroughly convinced that
the Manchu leaders could not solve China’s prob lems. He joined Sun’s Rev-
olutionary Alliance and was Sun’s close personal aide for the rest of Sun’s
life. After Sun Yat- sen died in 1925, Wang was considered a leading candi-
date to succeed him; however, within a year Chiang Kai- shek had become
Sun’s successor. But Wang never accepted Chiang as a rightful successor.
Wang had been an excellent student in Japan and spoke far better Japa nese
than Chiang Kai- shek. Although Wang briefly joined Chiang in Chongqing
after the Japa nese invasion of China, for years the two remained po liti cal
rivals. In March 1940, the Japa nese who led the occupation of China desired
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Biographies of Key Figures
a Chinese face to administer the government. Wang Jing wei, as a high- level
leader who spoke excellent Japa nese, was a logical choice, and they offered
him the presidency of the government. After lengthy negotiations, the Japa-
nese made the position attractive enough for Wang to accept. Wang
claimed that while he was president he remained a patriot and tried to use
his position to help the Chinese. However, the Japa nese tightly controlled
his pronouncements and his actions, and he had little room to maneuver.
Wang was born in Sanshui in the northwest outskirts of Guangzhou.
In 1903 he went to Japan to study on a provincial government scholarship,
and in 1905 he graduated from Hosei University (Tokyo Institute of Law
and Public Administration). On his return to China, Wang continued to
read widely in legal theory and Western philosophy. In contrast to Liang
Qichao, who believed that China needed an emperor, Wang believed that
China needed more laws that expressed the general will. In 1910 Wang was
arrested for plotting against the Manchu prince regent, and he remained in
prison until the 1911 Revolution. Shortly after his release, he became well
known as a hero to the revolutionary cause. An articulate orator, he became
a popu lar public speaker and attracted large audiences. He was also recog-
nized as an essayist and poet.
During World War I Wang went to France, where he studied French
lit er a ture. He returned to China in 1917 to become Sun’s personal assistant,
writing many of the papers issued in Sun’s name and accompanying Sun
on his travels. He taught Guomin dang Party history at the Huangpu Mili-
tary Acad emy, and in 1925 he became a member of the Guomin dang Cen-
tral Executive Committee. He was at Sun’s bedside when Sun died on
March 12, 1925, and he was the lead author of Sun’s po liti cal testament.
After Sun’s death, Wang was elected head of the Central Standing Com-
mittee. At the time, Chiang Kai- shek was not a member of the committee
and was not yet considered a candidate to become Sun’s successor. But
Chiang was respected by the corps commanders of the Guomin dang Army,
and on June 5, 1925, while preparing for the Northern Expedition, Chiang
was named commander in chief of the National Revolutionary Army. One
month later, Chiang became the Generalissimo (supreme commander). On
August 20, 1925, Liao Zhongkai, another pos si ble candidate to succeed Sun,
was shot, and Chiang became a member of the Central Standing Com-
mittee. Rus sian adviser Mikhail Borodin and Li Zongren, a Guangxi mili-
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Biographies of Key Figures
tary leader, believed that Wang Jing wei’s ambitions made him unpredict-
able and unreliable. Wang was surprised when the military declared its
support for Chiang. Just as Yuan Shikai, the soldier, had become president
rather than Sun Yat- sen, the politician, so Chiang, the soldier who knew
little about politics, became president rather than Wang. It seemed to Wang
that his rightful place as Sun’s successor had been stolen from him. Fearing
for his life, Wang Jing wei fled to Shanghai and then to France.
In 1927 when Chiang established his national government in Nanjing,
Wang set up what he hoped would be the national government headquar-
ters in Wuhan, but Wang’s Wuhan headquarters gained little support and
was soon abandoned. In 1930 Wang Jing wei cooperated with the warlords
Yan Xishan and Feng Yuxiang to set up a government in opposition to
Chiang’s.
In 1935, when the Guomin dang Central Executive Committee was posing
for a group photo, a photographer pulled out a gun and took several shots at
Wang Jing wei, one of which caused a serious wound. Since Chiang Kai-
shek was not at the photo session, some speculated that Chiang had ordered
the assassination attempt. For medical treatment, Wang Jing wei and his wife
went to Eu rope, where Wang spent some months recuperating and studying.
After the Japa nese invasion of China and Chiang’s withdrawal to Chongqing,
Wang Jing wei followed him there and briefly served under Chiang as head
of the National Defense Council.
In N
ovember 1937 the German ambassador to China, Oskar Traut-
mann, was entrusted by Japan to negotiate with Chiang. Discussions were
held, but they failed to lead to an agreement to end the fighting. Wang
Jing wei, hoping to stop the war and save lives, continued to meet with prom-
inent Japa nese officials in an attempt to reach an agreement, even after he
left Chongqing for Hanoi. At times it appeared there might be some hope
for an agreement, but in the end Chiang Kai- shek was determined to fight
on and Wang Jing wei’s efforts were called an unpatriotic “peace conspiracy.”
In Hanoi, Wang was wounded for a second time by an assassin, apparently
sent by the Guomin dang.
In March 1940 the Japa nese offered Wang Jing wei the position of pres-
ident of the Republic of China. Wang hesitated for some weeks but then,
announcing that he was working with Japan to fight communism and
Western imperialism, he fi nally accepted. After Wang accepted, Japan es-
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tablished its own government in Nanjing and publicized it as the return of
a true Guomin dang government. Since Wang had no troops, he was in a
weak position to resist the Japa nese. He was reported to be depressed
because he had so little success in convincing the Japa nese to be less repres-
sive. He became sick in 1944 and was sent to a Japa nese hospital in Nagoya,
where he died shortly thereafter.
Those who regard Wang as a traitor point to a speech he gave in support
of Japan’s Greater East Asia Co- Prosperity Sphere, and to his November
1940 signing of the Japan- China Basic Relations Treaty, which, they claim,
was similar to accepting the Twenty- One Demands. After Wang’s death,
both the Guomin dang and the Communists denounced him as a collabo-
rator and led huge public campaigns attacking him as a traitor. His tomb
in Nanjing was destroyed by Chiang’s troops. Today, both Guomin dang
and Communist history books attack Wang Jing wei as one of the most
notorious traitors in Chinese history and downplay his close relationship
with Sun Yat- sen.
For further reading, see Gerald Bunker, The Peace Conspiracy: Wang
Ching-wei and the China War, 1937–1941 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1972).
Yoshida Shigeru, 1878–1967