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Yoshizawa Kenkichi and the Soviet—Japanese Non-aggression Pact Proposal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Brian Bridges
Brian Bridges
Affiliation:
University College of Swansea
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Extract

While the developments leading up to the signature of the Soviet—Japanese Neutrality Pact in April 1941 have received considerable attention from scholars, the antecedents of this pact, the discussions between Japan and Soviet Russia over non-aggression or neutrality agreements from the mid-1920s onwards, are less widely known. The most significant of the earlier initiatives came in December 1931, when Soviet Foreign Commissar, Maxim Litvinov, proposed a pact of non-aggression to the Japanese Foreign Minister designate, Yoshizawa Kenkichi. Subsequently, at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, a Soviet legal expert was to argue that the Japanese refusal to accept this proposal was proof of their aggressive plans for war on the Soviet Union.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , February 1980 , pp. 111 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

The author would like to thank Professor Ohata Tokushirō and Dr Eleanor Breuning for their encouragement and advice.Google Scholar

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62 In 1940 a British diplomat gave the following assessment: ‘it appears that Mr Yoshizawa has considerable diplomatic experience, is an admirer of Herr Hitler and is an expert in discussions of the “delay action” kind’. Br.F.O. British Consul-General in Batavia, Walsh, to Lord Halifax, Foreign Secretary, F717/141/61, FO 371/27785. On Shidehara see Nish, , Japanese Foreign Policy, pp. 174, 256.Google Scholar

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