Yoshida Shigeru, the preeminent Japa nese leader from 1946 to 1952, during
and immediately after the Allied Occupation, set Japan on its new po liti cal
course after World War II. As elected prime minister for most of the time
from 1946 to 1954, Yoshida, a former elite- track diplomat, made an effort
to represent Japan’s national interests to the Allied Occupation officials. Yet
he knew the Occupation officials had ultimate power and he willingly ac-
cepted and implemented most of their policies. Concerned that many po-
liti cal leaders voted in under the new system of demo cratic elections might
not have the knowledge or perspective to govern wisely, Yoshida helped re-
cruit former se nior bureaucrats who were knowledgeable about govern-
mental affairs to become politicians. These ex- bureaucrats, a group known
as the “Yoshida school,” sought to maintain Japan’s alliance with the United
States. They supported economic growth through a government- guided
market economy and they managed affairs with sufficient success that within
two de cades after the war, the vast majority of Japa nese citizens had be-
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Biographies of Key Figures
come members of the middle class. For four de cades after the war, most
of Japan’s prime ministers were members of the Yoshida School, including
Ikeda Hayato, Sato Eisaku, Fukuda Takeo, Ohira Masayoshi, and Miyazawa
Kiichi.
Yoshida was born in Yokohama and at a young age was adopted by a
rich childless merchant, Yoshida Kenzo. He lived a privileged aristocratic
life and was educated at elite schools and Tokyo Imperial University. He
married the daughter of Count Makino Nobuaki, the adopted son of Okubo
Toshimichi, the leading statesman during the first de cade of the Meiji pe-
riod, which gave him a very high status within the bureaucracy.
When he was a Foreign Ministry official, Yoshida was considered a
member of the Anglo- American school and he had great re spect for the
British po liti cal system. But he spent more years serving in China than serving
in English- speaking countries. His first overseas assignment was in the Japa-
nese consulate in Shenyang, from 1907 to 1908. He served as consul in
Dandong (then called Andong) on the border with Korea from 1912 to 1915,
and then he was assigned to Ji’nan, in Shandong province, in 1918. He was
consul general in the port city of Tianjin from 1922 to 1925 and in Shenyang
from 1925 to 1928.
During his first assignment in Dandong, he wrote reports expressing his
opposition to the Twenty- One Demands that Japan had presented to China
in 1915. He wrote that it was necessary to build China’s trust and cooperation
and that the “Shina ronin” (China drifters), who were then engaged in in-
trigue and espionage in China, made it difficult for the Japa nese to develop
friendly trade relations with China. After Yoshida voiced his opposition to
the Twenty- One Demands, he was criticized within the ministry and as-
signed to work in rec ords instead of receiving a plum assignment in Wash-
ington. Yoshida attended the 1919 peace conference at Versailles, where he
was persuaded that national power was more influential than idealism. He
also became cynical about U.S. expressions of idealism when there was so
much discrimination against the Japa nese in California.
In the 1920s Yoshida quickly grew pessimistic, believing that no Chi-
nese leader would be able to unify China and provide effective leadership.
Late in the de cade he expressed frustration with Zhang Zuolin because
Zhang did not manage things well and his statements could not be trusted.
Having concluded that China’s leaders did not respond to expressions
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Biographies of Key Figures
of friendship unless backed by force, he favored a firm policy toward
China.
As Japan’s ambassador in England from 1936 to 1938, Yoshida persisted
in seeking ways to restore good relations with England. But once Japa nese
troops moved into North China on July 7, 1937, any chance of success dis-
appeared. Yoshida returned to Tokyo in 1938.
In 1942 Yoshida concluded that Japan could not win the war, and he
began working with others to try to negotiate a settlement. The group was
known to Japa nese police as Yohansen (Yoshida Anti- War). He worked with
Prince Konoe Fumimaro, who was briefly prime minister in 1940–1941, to
prepare the “Konoe Memorial,” which Konoe was fi nally allowed to pre sent
to the emperor on February 14, 1945, urging the emperor to surrender. At
the time, the emperor did not agree to end the war, and on April 15, 1945,
Yoshida was arrested for supporting Konoe’s attempt to bring about Japan’s
surrender.
On April 10, 1946, in the first postwar election for the Diet, Hatoyama
Ichiro’s Liberal Party won a substantial plurality and it was expected that he
would become the first postwar prime minister. However, Occupation offi-
cials had already pro cessed the papers for the purge of Hatoyama, who in
the 1930s had praised Hitler and Mussolini. After receiving the purge order,
Hatoyama, who knew Yoshida well, asked Yoshida to form the new govern-
ment. In May 1946 Yoshida became prime minister. General Douglas Ma-
cArthur, head of the Allied Occupation, and Yoshida found that they could
work well with each other. Yoshida was prime minister between 1946 and
1954, except for the period from April 1947 through November 1948 when
he was out of office because of losing the election.
In the view of the Allied Occupation officials in 1946, Yoshida was the
best pos si ble choice to be prime minister. He had a good command of En-
glish and he was considered to be pro– Anglo- American. He had been im-
prisoned by the militarists for his efforts to end the war, and he had unusual y
good relations with Joseph Grew, the respected U.S. ambassador to Japan
from 1932 to 1941. Grew’s wife had been good friends with Yoshida’s wife, and
the Grews were a great help to Yoshida’s wife in her last months, when she
was suffering from a terminal il ness. After Pearl Harbor, when Grew was
confined in Japan before being repatriated, Yoshida, at some personal risk,
sent food and other items to Grew. With this background, Yoshida was a
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Biographies of Key Figures
natu ral choice for the Americans, who were looking for a prime minister with
whom they could communicate and in whom they had confidence.
On September 20, 1945, Yoshida, as foreign minister, had his first
meeting with MacArthur. At scarcely five feet tall, Yoshida was a head
shorter than MacArthur, but when meeting him he displayed the natu ral
poise and dignity of a member of the meritocratic elite from an aristocratic
family. During this first meeting with MacArthur, as the American gen-
eral paced the room giving Yoshida what the Japa nese called a “sermon,”
Yoshida broke into a slight laugh. When MacArthur inquired why, Yo-
shida said he felt as if he was Daniel listening to a lecture inside a lion’s
cage. MacArthur reportedly first glared and then laughed.
During the meeting, Yoshida made a point that he would later repeat
many times in many diff er ent ways—to have democracy, one first had to
improve economic conditions. It was not until 1947 that U.S. policy in Japan
began to emphasize economic growth. Also at this meeting, Yoshida sug-
gested that MacArthur should meet the emperor, and a meeting with the
emperor took place one week later.
As an out spoken aristocrat, Yoshida was not a populist and was not even
popu lar with the elected Diet members who came from humbler back-
grounds. In March 1953 he lost an election after he yelled at a Socialist
Diet member, “Bakayaro! ” (You idiot!). Yet Yoshida was respected by much
of the Japa nese public for speaking to the Occupation authorities frankly
and with dignity, even when Japan was in a weak position.
In his years as prime minister during the Occupation, Yoshida accepted
the real ity that foreign and domestic policy were to be determined by the
Allied forces, but he continued to make the case that Japan should be al-
lowed to rebuild its economy. He argued in favor of allowing Japan to in-
crease its trade with China, against punishing so many “war criminals,” and
against breaking up Japa nese companies because it would prevent economic
growth— all with little success. However, what is known as the “Yoshida
doctrine” allowed the United States to provide for Japan’s military security
so Japan could reduce its military expenses and focus on economic recovery.
Yoshida was a smart, per sis tent negotiator who managed to end the
Occupation without making a commitment to build a large military.
Early in his career Yoshida had been a firm believer in the Anglo- Japanese
alliance that lasted until 1922. The alliance was based on Britain and Japan’s
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Biographies of Key Figures
common fear of Rus sia, even long before the Rus sian Revolution. To Yoshida,
the U.S.- Japan alliance also made sense, for he believed the greatest danger
to Japan was still Rus sia, even though it was now Soviet Rus sia instead of
Imperial Rus sia.
Yoshida argued that allowing Japan to develop trade with China would
help pull China away from the Soviet Union, but U.S. officials would not
yield. Yoshida retained his deep interest in China and wanted to develop
peaceful relations. He believed that more trade between China and Japan
would be good for both countries, and that Great Britain’s decision to es-
tablish diplomatic relations with Communist China in January 1950, within
months after the establishment of Communist rule, was wise, and the failure
of the United States to do likewise was unwise. He did not have the power
to force the U.S.- led Occupation to allow Japan to expand trade with China,
but he wanted as much trade as the United States would allow and to pave
the way for a time in the future when more trade would be pos si ble. In the
meantime, he sought to continue trade with Taiwan, making use of Japan-
Taiwan ties that had been built in the half- century of Japa nese occupation.
After the Allied Occupation ended on April 28, 1952, Yoshida remained
in office for another two and a half years. During that time, he lived up to
the letter he had written to U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in
December 1951, promising that he would maintain relations with Taiwan
and not move closer to mainland China.
While in office after the Occupation, Yoshida made no great policy
changes except when, in 1954, the “police reserves” that had been earlier es-
tablished were converted into a new Self- Defense Force, with an autho-
rized 152,115 troops. After retiring, Yoshida retained his informal role as
statesman, welcoming to his home both politicians and foreign visitors.
When MacArthur died in April 1964, Yoshida, at age eighty- six, traveled
to the United States for the funeral, signifying the per sis tence of a close re-
lationship between the two men and between the two countries. Yoshida
died three years later.
For further reading, see John Dower, Empire and Aftermath: Yoshida
Shigeru and the Japa nese Experience, 1878–1954 (Cambridge, Mass.: Council
on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1979); Richard B. Finn, Win-
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Biographies of Key Figures
ners in Peace: MacArthur, Yoshida, and Postwar Japan (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1992).
Zhou Enlai, 1898–1976
Henry Kissinger described Zhou Enlai, the legendary Chinese premier and
foreign minister, as “one of the two or three most impressive men” he ever met,
“infinitely patient, extraordinarily intel igent, subtle.” Zhou studied in Japan
for nineteen months from 1917 to 1919, just when Chinese nationalism was
growing, He was in France from 1920 to 1924, as it was recovering from World
War I and evaluating the significance of the Rus sian Revolution. Zhou joined
the Chinese Communist Party in 1921, the year it was founded. After the es-
tablishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, he served as premier,
with responsibility for foreign affairs, from 1949 until his death in 1976. Zhou
had a remarkable capacity to remember and manage details while devising
national strategy and finding ways to work with other nations.
Zhou Enlai grew up in a middle- class, well- educated family, with four
brothers. His parents allowed him to be adopted by his father’s younger
brother, who was dying of tuberculosis, so his uncle would have an heir.
Zhou’s stepmother, Madame Chen, doted on him and provided him with
an excellent Confucian education in which he excelled, but she died when
he was ten years old, a year after Zhou’s natu ral mother died. Zhou’s natu ral
father moved away, but another of his father’s brothers, who had no children,
took an interest in Zhou’s education and brought him along when he moved
to Shenyang, where Zhou attended the city’s best primary school. The uncle
then brought Zhou with him to Tianjin, where Zhou passed the entrance
examination for Nankai Middle School— one of China’s best middle
schools, modeled after Phillips Acad emy in the United States— which
Zhou attended from age fifteen to nineteen. The school was a highly struc-
tured boarding school. Students lived in dormitories, rose early, took classes
in modern subjects, ate together, and developed strong feelings of camara-
derie. Zhou thrived there, wrote for the school newspaper, had a lead role
in a school play, was covaledictorian of his class, and won a graduation prize
for an outstanding Chinese essay. He was much beloved and respected by
the faculty and his fellow students.
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Biographies of Key Figures
Before Zhou went to Japan in 1917 he was already familiar with Japa-
nese life, since some 200,000 Japa nese lived in Shenyang when he was in
school there. In Tokyo, Zhou soon moved from a Chinese inn to a Japa-
nese inn because it was quieter, and then he moved to a dormitory for
Chinese students, where they could do their own cooking. He entered a
Japanese- language program at East Asian Higher Preparatory School,
a
school with nearly 1,000 Chinese students who were preparing for admission
into regular Japa nese institutions. Most of his friends in Tokyo were from
a group of thirty gradu ates from his middle school. His uncle sent him some
money to cover his expenses in Tokyo, but Zhou was constantly short of
funds, and several former schoolmates from Nankai Middle School
chipped in to help him out financially.
After some months of studying Japa nese and En glish, Zhou took an ex-
amination to enter Tokyo Education School, but he failed. He later took
another entrance examination, for Number One High School, which he
also failed. In his diary he blames himself for his failures. He also rec ords
his sadness about the deaths in his family, the untended graves of his mother
and stepmother, the death of his uncle who had helped him out, and his in-
ability to help his family. Friends reported that while in Japan Zhou became
depressed. The fact that he failed the examinations was a terrible embarrass-
ment because he had been an outstanding student at Nankai, because many
of his former schoolmates did pass their entrance examinations in Japan,
and because his friends in Japan had to help him out financially.
Zhou did not have any close Japa nese friends but he had friendly ac-
quaintances. He expressed appreciation to the president of his preparatory
school, Master Matsumoto Kamejiro, who had formerly taught at Kano Jig-
oro’s Kobun Institute. (When Zhou’s widow, Deng Yingchao, visited Japan
in April 1979, she paid her re spects to Matsumoto’s grand sons.) Yasuda
Ryumon, an art student in the same rooming house where Zhou lived,
painted Zhou’s picture, and in 2000 the paint er’s son presented the por-
trait to the Zhou Enlai and Deng Yingchao Memorial Museum in Tianjin.
Later, in his writings, Zhou was critical of Japa nese politicians and milita-
rists who had imperialist designs on China, and he was also critical of the
Chinese who called other Chinese “traitors” if they had Japa nese friends. Al-
though he later took part in anti- Japanese demonstrations, he did not ex-
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Biographies of Key Figures
press antipathy toward the Japa nese people. He was quite comfortable in
dealing with Japa nese visitors later in his career, and he reminisced fondly
about his time in Japan, especially remembering his visits to the Kanda
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