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People's Diplomacy: The Japan-China Friendship Association and Critical War Memory in the 1950s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Franziska Seraphim
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Summary

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This article examines the place of Sino-Japanese relations in Japan's domestic struggles over war memory in the early 1950s, when the door to an official reconciliation with China had just closed following the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty. It focuses on the Japan-China Friendship Association as a lens through which to understand the role of civic organization in carving out a public space for memories of Japanese wartime aggression as part of special interest politics.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 5 , Issue 8 , August 2007 , e18
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2007

References

Notes

1. Japan Times, 12 April 2007.

2. From Nozoe Kenji, ed., Hanaoka monogatari.

Mumyosha shuppan, 1995. Reprinted with the publisher's permission. Franziska Seraphim, War Memory and Social Politics in Japan, 1945-2005. Harvard University Asia Center Press, 2006.

3. “Tomen no mokuhyo nitsuite.” Nihon to Chugoku, 20 February 1950. This journal, Japan and China, was inaugurated in February 1950 under the auspices of the Japan-China Friendship Association Preparatory Committee and grew into the Friendship Association's main organ after its formal establishment in October 1950.

4. See Joshua Fogel, “The Other Japanese Community,” in Wen-hsin Yeh, ed. Wartime Shanghai. Routledge, 1998.

5. For more on Ito Takeo, see Joshua Fogel, ed., Life along the Manchurian Railway. M.E. Sharpe, 1988.

6. Shakai undo chosakai. Sayoku dantai jiten, Kyokuto shuppansha, 1966.

7. See Okamoto Koichi, “Imaginary Settings: Sino-Japanese-U.S. Relations during the Occupation Years.” Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 2000.

8. “Tomen no mokuhyo ni tsuite,” Nihon to Chugoku, 11 December 1953.

9. See Lawrence Olson, “Takeuchi Yoshimi and the Vision of a Protest Society in Japan” in Ambivalent Moderns. Roman & Littlefield, 1992, pp. 58 and 45.

10. “Shinchugoku to Nihon,” Nihon to Chugoku, 11 December 1953.

11. Nihon Chugoku yuko kyokai zenkoku honbu, Nithchu yuko undo shi. Shonen shuppansha, 1980, p. 58.

12. Quoted in Rikki Kersten, Democracy in Postwar Japan. Routledge, 1996, pp. 173-74.

13. “8.15 o mezashite: Chugoku ni aisatsu o okuro!” Nihon to Chugoku, 10 July 1951.

14. “Yoshida shokan nit suite no seimei,” Nihon to Chugoku, 15 February 1952.

15. Hirano Yoshitaro, “Kikokusha no minasan e,” Nihon to Chugoku, 1 April 1953.

16. A detailed analysis of this process can be found in M.Y. Cho, Die Volksdiplomatie in Ostasien (Otto Harrassowitz, 1971).

17. In Nitchu yuko kyokai, Shogen: Chugokujin kyosei renko, pp. 82-83, a booklet accompanying a three-part documentary video made by the Japan-China Friendship Association between 1991 and 2001.

18. In Nihon Chugoku yuko kyokai, ed., Nitchu yuko undo no hanseiki, pp. 27-28.

19. Ibid., p. 27.

20. China Daily, 19 May 2005.