From Mineo Nakajima’s essay “The Normalization of Japan-China Relations Was a Mistake.” Nakajima argues that Japanese diplomacy lacked both the strategic mindset and negotiating capacity required to deal with a China that consistently pursued its own strategic objectives. He examines personnel associated with the Foreign Ministry’s “China School,” Japanese ODA to China, leading China-policy officials, and Ambassador Uichiro Niwa’s remarks concerning the Senkaku Islands.

August 12, 2020
The following is from an essay by Mineo Nakajima, president of Akita International University, published in a Hanada magazine selection under the title “The Normalization of Japan-China Relations Was a Mistake.”
【Originally published in the October 2012 issue of WiLL, edited by Kazuyoshi Hanada】
This is an essay that should be read not only by the Japanese people but by people throughout the world.
【The Absence of a Diplomatic Strategy】
Why did Japan come to face such a situation?
Nakajima first points to what he regarded as deficiencies in historical awareness and intellectual orientation among Foreign Ministry officials, particularly those associated with the so-called “China School,” as well as an absence of strategy in diplomacy.
Above all, he argues that after the establishment of diplomatic relations with China, Japan displayed almost no serious awareness of how it should confront a China possessing a consistently strong strategic orientation, or what kind of negotiating capacity Japan itself needed to develop.
If “avoiding the provocation of China” becomes the overriding principle of diplomacy, Nakajima argues, a strategic approach toward China cannot emerge.
He then discusses a number of individual officials and their careers.
Yosuke Nakae, who became Ambassador to China after serving as Director-General of the Asian Affairs Bureau, was not a member of the China School in the narrow sense and might instead be described as belonging to the French-language school.
Nevertheless, Nakajima considered his positions on historical-perception disputes between Japan and China strongly favorable toward China.
Kunihiko Kushida, who became director of the China Division in 1985 and later Director-General of the Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, was, according to Nakajima, firmly opposed to a visit to Japan by former Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui.
His predecessor as China Division director was Motofumi Asai, appointed in 1983, whom Nakajima describes as frequently presenting arguments in media associated with the Japanese Communist Party that Japan did not need the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty.
Nakajima also refers to Eijiro Noda, who served as Deputy Director of the Cabinet Research Office before becoming Consul-General in Hong Kong in 1977.
Noda later became a member of a textbook-screening council on the recommendation of the Foreign Ministry.
Nakajima cites reports alleging that Noda sought to introduce what those reports characterized as a China-oriented interpretation of history into Japan’s textbook-screening process.
Nakajima distinguishes several China Division directors whom he regarded as comparatively balanced, including Kimio Fujita, Takashi Tajima, Sakutaro Tanino and Tadashi Ikeda.
Fujita, whom Nakajima describes as the first member of the postwar China School in the narrow sense to have undergone formal Chinese-language training, later served as president of JICA and became known for volunteer activities in Samoa.
Nakajima argues that officials such as Fujita, whom he believed should naturally have advanced to become Ambassador to China, moved away from the dominant China School line, while those he regarded as displaying excessive deference toward Beijing were more likely to advance.
He similarly names former Consuls-General in Hong Kong, including Akira Okada, Michiaki Suma and Fujio Hara, as officials who adopted positions different from those of Hashimoto and others and who, in Nakajima’s account, were consequently marginalized by officials he describes as pro-China.
Nakajima concludes that what he viewed as this distorted tradition of the China School constituted one of the major errors of postwar Japanese diplomacy.
He also argues that the influence of Tadashi Hashimoto and others was strengthened by Shinsaku Hogen, a dominant figure within the Foreign Ministry who, because of his strongly anti-Soviet orientation during the Sino-Soviet split, shifted from a policy sympathetic to the Republic of China toward one more favorable to Beijing.
Nakajima further contends that the pyramid structure of the China School not only harmed postwar Japanese diplomacy but also contributed to what he called a structure of excessive political entanglement between Japan and China.
He links this network to a succession of Liberal Democratic Party prime ministers whom he regarded as favorable toward China, including Kakuei Tanaka, Takeo Miki, Masayoshi Ohira, Noboru Takeshita, Kiichi Miyazawa and Ryutaro Hashimoto.
Nakajima also turns to Japan’s official development assistance to China, totaling approximately 3.6 trillion yen.
In his assessment, this assistance contributed not only to China’s economic development but also indirectly to the expansion of the military power China later possessed, while also becoming associated with vested interests.
He attributes considerable influence over this policy to what he describes as a China School network headed by ambassadors such as Yosuke Nakae, Tadashi Hashimoto and Michihiko Kunihiro.
Nakajima finally mentions ambassadors Yoshimitsu Anami and Yuji Miyamoto, whom he identifies unequivocally with the China School, followed by Ambassador Uichiro Niwa.
Regarding the Senkaku Islands, Niwa had warned against the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s plan to purchase the islands from their private owner.
Nakajima interpreted that intervention as reflecting the Chinese side’s position.
He further noted that Niwa had previously headed Itochu, which Nakajima characterized as one of the Japanese trading companies most strongly oriented toward China.
In Nakajima’s view, that corporate background combined with the Foreign Ministry’s China School tradition to produce what he sharply described as an ambassadorial statement of “uncertain nationality.”
To be continued.