China and Japan

by Ezra F. Vogel

  bookstores and to Kyoto.

  In his diary Zhou commented on how well or ga nized and disciplined

  the Japa nese were. He lamented that the Chinese were so poorly or ga nized

  and were not making rapid pro gress toward modernization. He read news-

  papers about the Rus sian Revolution and books in Japa nese about

  Marxism. The Japa nese author he found most in ter est ing was Kawakami

  Hajime, whose book The Tale of Poverty analyzes the causes and distribu-

  tion of poverty and what nations might do to deal with it. Even rich na-

  tions had poor people, Zhou learned. Zhou, like Kawakami, had come

  from a comfortable family and was becoming concerned about moral issues,

  including the need to help the poor. Zhou made an effort to enter Kyoto

  University to study under Kawakami, but it did not work out. Like

  Kawakami, Zhou was not yet a Marxist, but also like Kawakami, such con-

  cerns paved the way for his later commitment to Marxism.

  In the summer of 1918 Zhou was troubled by Japan’s rice riots. A group

  of farm house wives had blocked people from taking rice from the villa gers

  to sell in urban markets. Inflation was high and rice merchants were making

  a great deal of money, but the rice farmers were receiving a very low price

  for their crop. An estimated 700,000 people, including some urban resi-

  dents upset by the spiraling costs owing to inflation, joined in the riots. For

  Zhou, the riots raised questions about justice for the poor farmers, who

  were being squeezed out by a cap i tal ist system that brought profits only to

  the merchants. While a student at Nankai, Zhou had written essays praising

  Japan’s economic pro gress, but the rice riots raised questions about whether

  China should be copying the Japa nese economic system, and if so, how its

  policies should be modified. In December 1918 Zhou also observed the dem-

  onstrations of Korean students at the Korean YMCA in Kanda as the

  Korean In de pen dence Movement was growing. In 1921 Zhou joined the

  Chinese Communist Party.

  In March 1919, after he failed the examinations for a second time, Zhou,

  who had relied on friends for funding, de cided it would be better to return

  home than to continue burdening his Chinese friends. But before he re-

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  Biographies of Key Figures

  turned to China, he stayed with a Nankai friend for a month in Kyoto,

  where he took some last looks at the gardens and wrote poems about their

  beauty. “Cherry blossoms, delicately pink, tenderly sweet,” he wrote. “All

  soul- enchanting. Beauty of nature, untouched by artfulness.”

  In late April Zhou boarded a ship in Kobe for Pusan, and from there

  he went on to Beijing. Fortuitously, Zhou arrived home just before May 4,

  and he immediately threw himself into the demonstrations for a national

  awakening. Zhou formed the Awakening Society, a secret organ ization to

  help raise national awareness. The society included some who had been his

  friends in Japan and several who later became Communists. His two years

  in Japan, when he was wrestling with the issues of poverty, capitalism, and

  imperialism, had helped prepare him for his role as an intellectual leader in

  the aftermath of May 4, 1919.

  In January 1920 Zhou and some other members of his Awakening So-

  ciety were arrested in Tianjin for participating in demonstrations. After his

  release some six months later, Zhou and others set sail for France for fur-

  ther study, where they would gain a greater understanding of Eu ro pean so-

  cial conditions and a clearer picture of what needed to be done in China.

  Unlike most young Chinese students then in France who were on work-

  study programs, Zhou had received funding to write for a Tianjin news-

  paper and he could devote himself full- time to writing and organ izing. Chi-

  nese youths who were selected to go to France on the work- study programs

  were among the most able elite students, but the depression in France at

  the time made it impossible for them to earn enough money working, mostly

  in factories, to pay for their tuition. Therefore they studied not in the class-

  rooms but outside them, through observation and reading, and sifting

  through new ideas in their discussion groups. Zhou remained in touch with

  friends in China, and in 1921, just months after the Chinese Communist

  Party was formed, Zhou and others or ga nized a Chinese Communist Party

  cell in France. Zhou became a full- time party or ga nizer, traveling to England,

  Belgium, and Germany to help expand the Chinese Communist Party

  among Chinese students in Eu rope. In 1923, he also joined the Nationalist

  Party. By this time, having already been imprisoned and with many friends

  living under fear of arrest, Zhou had been hardened.

  In the fall of 1924 Zhou returned to China and was assigned by the party

  to serve as po liti cal commissar at the Huangpu Military Acad emy, working

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  Biographies of Key Figures

  under Chiang Kai- shek as part of the United Front. In the next year he mar-

  ried Deng Yingchao, who had been a member of his Awakening Society in

  Tianjin. Throughout his life, she remained his partner in marriage and in

  the Communist cause.

  In 1926 Zhou left the Huangpu Military Acad emy to engage in organ-

  izing work in Shanghai. Following the split between the Communists and

  Nationalists in April 1927, Zhou and the other Communists became en-

  gaged in life- and- death battles with the Nationalists. It was Zhou’s respon-

  sibility to obtain intelligence from the Nationalists. In 1934 he received

  secret intelligence that helped the Communists break through the Nation-

  alist encirclement and start on the Long March. Even after the two sides

  restored the United Front in December 1936, each remained suspicious of

  the other side and what it would do after the Anti- Japanese War ended.

  Zhou Enlai carried on negotiations with the Nationalists while also looking

  for in for mants who would reveal to him the Nationalists’ secrets. During

  the Anti- Japanese War Zhou spent some time in Chongqing, the Nation-

  alist headquarters, where he negotiated with the Nationalists and met with

  Westerners, and he also spent some time in Yan’an with Mao and other

  Communist leaders. When the Marshall Mission, led by U.S. Army gen-

  eral George Marshall, was dispatched to Chongqing in 1946–1947 to try to

  avert a civil war, Zhou joined with Mao in the negotiations.

  From the time the Communists took power in 1949 until his death in

  1976, Zhou was a central pillar in all Chinese policies, domestic and for-

  eign, and all major negotiations, owing to his broad strategic perspective,

  extraordinary command of detail, capacity for incredibly long hours of work,

  and good relations with the major Communist leaders. Mao had the power

  to make all impor tant decisions, such as entering the Korean War, allying

  with the Soviet Union, later breaking with the Soviets, and opening to the

  West. But Zhou carried out the detailed negotiations. He negotiated the

  Treaty of Friendship with the Soviet Union in 1950, and he managed the

  negotiations surrounding the Korean War. In 1955
, when permitted by Mao,

  Zhou attended the Geneva Conference to expand China’s diplomatic arena

  and improve relations with Japan and the Western countries. His negotia-

  tions with Henry Kissinger over resuming diplomatic relations between

  China and the United States, beginning in 1971 when they represented their

  respective countries, have become legendary.

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  Biographies of Key Figures

  Mao purged many leading party officials, especially in 1942–1943, 1957–

  1959, and 1966–1967. He often disparaged Zhou Enlai and expressed great

  dis plea sure that many officials seemed at times to re spect Zhou more than

  they respected Mao himself. Zhou was always self- effacing, however, he al-

  ways deferred to Mao, and he wisely anticipated Mao’s moods. Mao also

  realized that no one could compare with Zhou in his knowledge of foreign

  affairs and the re spect he enjoyed among foreign leaders.

  As Japan began its programs for economic growth in the 1950s, Zhou

  was deeply worried about the danger that Japan would use its newfound

  economic strength to return to militarism. Yet after 1949 Zhou welcomed

  Japa nese “friends of China” to Beijing, and after 1972 he welcomed main-

  stream Japa nese visitors from across the po liti cal spectrum, all of whom

  regarded Zhou as an icon.

  During the weeks when Zhou Enlai was on his hospital deathbed in

  late 1975, Mao never visited him. After Zhou died on January 8, 1976, Mao

  chose not to attend his funeral, and he forbade foreign countries from

  sending del e ga tions to pay their re spects. On April 3, two days before the

  annual grave- sweeping festival, Beijing officials, knowing that many people

  were unhappy that Zhou had not been given appropriate funeral ser vices

  and anticipating that large crowds might use the occasion to remember

  Zhou, issued an order from Mao: Do not go to Tian anmen Square to lay

  wreaths. Nevertheless, on April 5, 1976, an estimated two million people,

  touched by Zhou’s contributions to China for more than five de cades, espe-

  cially his tireless efforts to curb the excesses of the Great Leap Forward

  and the Cultural Revolution, went to the square to honor Zhou. Mao, ailing

  himself, but well enough to understand that Zhou’s popularity exceeded

  his own, died five months later.

  For further reading, see Gao Wenqian, Zhou Enlai: The Last Perfect Rev-

  olutionary: A Biography (New York: Public Affairs, 2007); Miyumi Itoh,

  The Origins of Con temporary Sino- Japanese Relations: Zhou Enlai and Japan

  (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016); Henry Kissinger, White House Years

  (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979).

  . 470 .

  Notes

  chapter 1. chinese contributions to

  japa nese civilization, 600–838

  I profited from the guidance of Yukio Lippit and Robert Borgen for scholarship on

  this period, especially concerning architecture. For the overall history of the period,

  I drew especially on the first two volumes of The Cambridge History of Japan and

  East Asia: Tradition and Transformation by Fairbank, Reischauer, and Craig. For the

  account of the clans and use of the kabane system, I relied on research by Richard

  Miller. I am indebted to Mark Byington for helping me understand the Korean in-

  fluence. For information about the development of the Japa nese language, I relied

  on work by David Lurie. For the Japa nese military, I relied especially on work by

  William Wayne Farris. I also benefited from the advice of Richard Dyck, Andrew

  Gordon, Li Tingjiang, Benjamin Ng, and Wang Yong.

  1. For con ve nience, I use the names “China,” “Japan,” and “ Korea” to describe the

  po liti cal units of the time, even though they did not then have the well- developed

  po liti cal structure of a modern nation- state and did not cover as broad a geo-

  graph i cal area as they do today.

  2. I use “clan” for the Japa nese word uji. The uji was basically a patrilineal descent group, but it could also include those who married in or others who were added

  in. There is insufficient recorded information to be precise about who was added

  to the basic descent groups.

  3. There is disagreement among specialists about the historical authenticity of

  Prince Shotoku. He was not called Prince Shotoku until after his death. Some

  Buddhists believed he was the reincarnation of a Chinese monk. The legend of

  Shotoku that developed after his death is traced in Michael I. Como, Shotoku:

  Ethnicity, Ritual, and Vio lence in the Japa nese Buddhist Tradition (Oxford: Ox-

  ford University Press, 2008). For my account of Shotoku, I have relied on the

  view of most historians.

  4. Gina L. Barnes, Archaeology of East Asia: The Rise of Civilization in China, Korea

  and Japan (Philadelphia: Oxbow Books, 2015), 270–271.

  5. Some scholars have assumed that the term wo in woren implied that the Japa-

  nese were dwarfs, but more recent scholarship casts doubts on this conjecture.

  6. Inoue Mitsusada, with Delmer M. Brown, “The Century of Reform,” in The

  Cambridge History of Japan: Volume 1, Ancient Japan, ed. Delmer Brown (Cam-

  bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 182.

  . 471 .

  notes to pages 12–30

  7. William Wayne Farris, Heavenly Warriors: Evolution of Japan’s Military, 500–

  1300 (Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University

  Press, 1992), 38–39.

  chapter 2. trade without transformative

  learning, 838–1862

  I have benefited from detailed advice from Paula Harrell and Robert Innes on all

  parts of this chapter. I have also benefited from the advice of Robert Borgen,

  Richard Von Glahn, and Peter Bol on the Song period, Michael Szonyi on the

  Ming period, and Ronald Toby on trade between China and Japan. On the role of

  the monks, I have profited especially from the thesis by Li Yiwen, in which Li traces

  the role of monks during the six centuries when there were no tribute missions. For

  an account of the views of Xu Guangqi, I have drawn on Timothy Brook, in Fogel,

  ed., Sagacious Monks and Bloodthirsty Warriors. For the lasting image of Japa nese

  pirates, I have drawn on the article by Wang Yong in the same volume. I am in-

  debted to Wang Yong for his help on the earlier centuries.

  1. The discovery in the 1970s of two Chinese shipwrecks still filled with Chinese

  goods added to our knowledge about trade between China and Japan. In 1976 a

  sunken ship, now called the Sinan, which had been headed from Ningbo to

  Hakata, was discovered off the coast of South Korea. It was built and owned

  by Chinese merchants. Many rec ords were found on the ship. When the Sinan

  sank on its 1323 voyage from China to Japan, its cargo included some 28,000

  tons of copper coins and 20,000 pieces of Chinese ceramics. More than 350

  wooden slips were attached to the goods, indicating to whom they belonged.

  Apparently most of the people on board the Sinan were Japa nese, and the

  goods were all connected to the Jotenji Monastery in Hakata. Another sunken

  ship was discovered in 1974 in the bay off Quanzhou (in Fujian province).

  Many of the goods on that ship were owned by the Japa nese Tokufuji Monas-

  tery,
but some were owned by merchants. In another find in the 1970s, when a

  subway was being built in Hakata thousands of Chinese coins and fragments

  of ceramics were discovered.

  For some de cades, Japa nese Buddhists believed that to prevent the deterio-

  ration of the world until the arrival of the next Buddha, it was necessary to

  bury sutras in mounds whenever someone died. Thousands of such mounds

  were built in Japan between the eleventh and nineteenth centuries, and they

  were discovered throughout Japan in the twentieth century. Most were found

  in Kyushu and in the area around Kyoto, but many were also found on the

  island of Shikoku, on the Inland Sea route for Chinese goods traveling from

  Kyushu to the area near Kyoto. Thousands of Chinese goods, especially Chinese

  . 472 .

  notes to pages 30–68

  sutra containers, were found in the sutra mounds in Japan, but no such sutra

  mounds have been found in China. Coins, knives, and images of Buddha were

  also found with the sutras in mounds dating from the eleventh to the thirteenth

  century. The presence of so many goods from China in these sutra mounds

  reflects the high prestige of Chinese goods in Japan during that time.

  2. It has been estimated that some 50 Chinese ships visited Japan in the ninth

  century, approximately 100 ships in the tenth century, 100 ships in the eleventh

  century, 120 ships in the twelfth century, approximately 50 in the thirteenth

  century, very few in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and nearly 100 in the

  sixteenth century. Few Japa nese ships ventured abroad in the tenth to the twelfth

  centuries, but an estimated 200 Japa nese ships sailed to China in the thirteenth

  century. Fewer ships went abroad in the fourteenth century, but after learning

  about Ming shipbuilding advances, the Japa nese built better ships and sent more

  than 1,000 to China every year during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

  Richard Von Glahn, “The Ningbo- Hakata Merchant Network and the Re-

  orientation of East Asian Maritime Trade, 1150–1350,” Harvard Journal of Asi-

  atic Studies 74, no. 2 (2014): 249–279.

  3. Reported by Von Glahn, in “The Ningbo- Hakata Merchant Network.”

  4. Jurgis Elisonas [George Elison], “The Inseparable Trinity: Japan’s Relations with

  China and Korea,” in The Cambridge History of Japan: Volume 4, Early Modern