A dialogue between Masayuki Takayama and Miki Otaka examining the argument that Japan’s emergence as a modern power provoked Western suspicion and propaganda campaigns, and that the GHQ’s War Guilt Information Program subsequently transformed Japanese historical consciousness and national confidence. The discussion covers Japan’s innovations in naval warfare, the “Las Casas method,” Saburo Ienaga, Shiro Azuma, Seiji Yoshida, Kaheita Okazaki, and the structure of postwar Japanese self-denigration.

2020-08-05
About This Article
This article presents a dialogue concerning the argument that modern Japan, after emerging onto the world stage, became the target of Western suspicion and propaganda warfare, and that after Japan’s defeat, the GHQ’s War Guilt Information Program profoundly altered the way Japanese people viewed their own history and nation.
The discussion addresses Japan’s innovative methods of modern naval warfare, the sense of threat that Western nations allegedly felt toward Japanese military technology, the implementation of the WGIP after the war, and the formation of historical narratives portraying Japan as a cruel and barbaric state.
Drawing a comparison with the role played by Bartolomé de las Casas in the history of the Spanish Empire, the speakers also discuss the actions of Saburo Ienaga, Shiro Azuma, Seiji Yoshida, Kaheita Okazaki, Masuichi Midoro, and Tomoo Hirooka, together with the structure of postwar Japanese self-denigration.
The following is the full text originally published on August 5, 2020, retaining its arguments and dialogue format.
The Japanese Nation Stripped of Its Backbone
Otaka: It was a terrifying outcome.
They made skilful use of earlier works of self-criticism.
Takayama: The same thing happened to Japan.
When Japan emerged onto the world stage as a rising nation, it provoked jealousy among the Western powers.
That led to the kind of reporting we saw earlier from Creelman.
They are always mindful of conducting this kind of propaganda war.
Otaka: It has become clear that, in postwar Japan, the GHQ carried out an indoctrination campaign through the WGIP, the War Guilt Information Program.
Moreover, it continued for seven years.
Takayama: As a result, the Japanese nation, which had once been so strong, was stripped of its backbone.
For two thousand years, Western nations had followed a particular method of naval warfare.
Ships would close in, fire their secondary guns, and drive their bows into the sides of enemy vessels.
That was why their bows were fitted with rams.
Japan, however, demonstrated a completely different method in the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars.
Without once coming into direct contact with the enemy’s ships, Japan used powerful main guns to sink them one after another.
Moreover, during the Russo-Japanese War, special explosives caused 18,000-ton steel warships to catch fire and sink.
It was regarded as an almost unimaginable phenomenon.
Otaka: So the world felt threatened by a Japan capable of doing that.
Takayama: Japan transformed naval warfare from the ram-based tactics that had continued uninterrupted since the age of ancient Greece into battleship warfare centred on main guns.
Following Japan’s example, Britain built the first Dreadnought.
This was the class of battleship known in Japanese as a “dreadnought-class” warship.
Larger and more powerful vessels were called super-dreadnoughts.
By the time of the Second World War, the Prince of Wales displaced around 30,000 tons and was described as a super-super-dreadnought.
It was assumed that no enemy could defeat it.
Yet when Japan fought Britain and the United States, Japanese aircraft sank this enormous battleship.
Japan was always one or two steps ahead of the Western powers.
It is said that one year of war equals ten years in peacetime, but it took Britain and the United States three years to catch up with Japanese aviation technology.
In other words, Japan had been thirty years ahead.
Otaka: It was an extraordinarily innovative method of warfare.
Takayama: Therefore, just as in the case of the former Spanish Empire, after somehow forcing this powerful Japan to surrender, the question became how to prevent the country from rising again.
The chosen method was the Las Casas approach: portray the Japanese as a cruel people and destroy their morale.
That was why the GHQ implemented the WGIP.
Japan was portrayed as undemocratic and backward, and the Japanese were told that they had to adopt individualism and free themselves from being a cruel and barbaric people.
The occupiers then looked for Japanese figures who would assume the role of Las Casas.
Saburo Ienaga and Shiro Azuma may be said to have played that role. [Laughter]
Otaka: Ienaga was a historian who gave credence to the testimony of the well-known Seiji Yoshida.
When Azuma testified about the Nanking Incident, he claimed that his superior, a corporal in the 20th Infantry Regiment of the former Imperial Japanese Army’s 16th Division, “put a Chinese man into a mail sack, poured gasoline over it and set it on fire, tied a hand grenade to the cord of the sack, and threw it into a swamp.”
Yet it would be impossible to fit a person into a mail sack. [Laughter]
I once attended a meeting of Chukiren, the Association of Returnees from China, to which Azuma belonged.
What impressed me was that when I entered the meeting partway through, all the members suddenly began putting on masks.
This was not an age of viruses, yet they were carrying masks with them at all times.
Perhaps they were conscious that they were engaged in activities about which they had reason to feel guilty. [Laughter]
Another person who must be mentioned is Seiji Yoshida.
Takayama: When an ordinary person with no particular distinction rode the wave of national self-denigration, the Asahi Shimbun would give him publicity.
As a result, people proclaiming themselves to be “Japan’s Las Casas” appeared in swarms.
One of them was Kaheita Okazaki, a former Bank of Japan official who repeatedly declared that “Japan had caused trouble for China.”
Okazaki was promoted by Asahi Shimbun president Masuichi Midoro and became president of All Nippon Airways.
In return, he was allegedly expected to devote himself to self-denigration and adopt a pro-China, anti-Japan position.
Throughout his life, Okazaki advocated Sino-Japanese friendship.
Two days before Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka visited China for the normalization of diplomatic relations, Zhou Enlai invited Okazaki to a dinner.
Zhou told him, “In China, we have a saying: ‘When you drink water, never forget the person who dug the well.’”
“Prime Minister Tanaka will soon come to China, and diplomatic relations will be normalized. But the man who dug that well was you, Mr. Okazaki.”
Zhou Enlai was highly skilled at charming and winning over people in this way.
Okazaki went around saying, “Hitler committed acts of massacre against the Jews. The Japanese Army did the same thing on the Chinese mainland. Therefore, we must atone for our sins.”
Otaka: It is fascinating to see part of the mechanism by which the Chinese government mass-produces these so-called “anti-Japanese apology men”!
Takayama: Behind Okazaki stood Midoro.
One of Midoro’s protégés was Tomoo Hirooka.
Otaka: Once again, it leads back to the Asahi Shimbun. [Laughter]
Hirooka was also one of those “anti-Japanese apology men.”
Takayama: When you read your book with this background in mind, you understand it more deeply and think, “So that is what was happening.”