Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the intelligence activities of Chinese language specialist and diplomat Shigemitsu Iwamura from 1897 through the 1930s, aiming to clarify how the Chinese language was used as a diplomatic tool in MOFA's information strategy, and its effect on the pre-war Sino-Japan relationship.

Paper long abstract:

This paper aims to explore a new dimension in Japanese diplomatic history by examining how a foreign language can be used to convey, collect, analyze and translate information in a diplomatic network. By focusing on the long-ignored Chinese language specialist and China expert, officer Iwamura Shigemitsu (1867-1943), this paper offers a glimpse inside the intelligence strategies of Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) in relation to Chinese affairs during the prewar period.

Until now, scholars have written specifically on prewar MOFA in relation to Chinese affairs, focusing on the formulation of foreign policy, personnel system construction, the consular system and its human resources. However, there is a lack of research on "non-career (middle-ranking)" China expert officers and how their Chinese language expertise was utilized in intelligence activities. To better understand Iwamura's diplomatic activities in Chinese affairs and his attitudes towards the Chinese language, this paper aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of officer Iwamura in the context of the utilization of the Chinese language in the bureaucratic structure and the routes along which the collected intelligence information was delivered. We gathered MOFA's official documents, along with published essays, a dictionary, and textbooks written by Iwamura to trace his activities and analyze the evolution of his diplomatic work.

To study the use of the Chinese language in Japan's intelligence network, we divide Iwamura's diplomatic activities into three periods. First, we provide a brief overview of Iwamura's acquisition of Chinese boosted by MOFA's personnel selection policy and how the dictionary he compiled contributed to diplomacy in China affairs. The dictionary was designed to disseminate the correct pronunciation of north Mandarin (1867-1899). Second, we examine how Iwamura undertook intelligence analysis and diplomatic negotiation in the Chinese language after he consolidated his position in MOFA (1899-1926). Finally, we focus on Iwamura's expanding range of activities after arriving back in Japan from two perspectives: how Chinese knowledge was utilized within MOFA to facilitate the exchange of academic information, and how it was utilized outside MOFA to educate the Japanese public about the Chinese language through the mass media (the 1930s-1941).

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Paper short abstract:

This talk illustrates how a rightwing socialist, and self-proclaimed ‘Stalinist,’ Tsukui Tatsuo (1901-1989), recast imperial anticommunism and wartime commitment to the New Order into postwar admiration for Mao Zedong’s radical reconstruction of the ‘New China’

Paper long abstract:

At the height of the Cold War, Chinese Communist leaders, frustrated with the failures of Japan’s socialist movement to promote the campaign to normalize diplomatic relations, shifted their attention to courting the Japanese Right. In the mid-1950s they turned to the infamous ex-imperial propagandist, Tsukui Tatsuo (1901-1989), to lead highly orchestrated tours of the Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC). These tours became a rite of passage among ex-soldiers and nationalists for whom the building of a powerful nation-state on anti-Western and anti-capitalist lines held great appeal. This talk illustrates how a rightwing socialist, and self-proclaimed ‘Stalinist’ like Tsukui, recast imperial anticommunism and wartime commitment to the New Order into postwar admiration for Mao Zedong’s radical reconstruction of the ‘New China’

A prodigious self-promoter, suspected by the CIA of being a conduit for the flow of money from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to Japan, Tsukui brokered his knowledge of the ‘New China’ and connections with revolutionary leaders such as Zhou Enlai, to politicians and businesses across the country. In newspapers, books, and lectures, he contrasted the nationalism and statism of the Chinese Communist Party with the subservience of the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) to the Soviet Union. The Chinese Revolution, Tsukui declared, was not a communist revolution but a Leninist and nationalist revolution, led by a vanguardist elite dedicated to national cohesion and mobilizing the masses for modernization. Invoking notions of cultural unity, racial kinship, and geographical proximity, Tsukui lavished praise on the CCP as the true heirs to Japan’s prewar mission of Pan-Asianism. As this talk demonstrates, enthusiasm for the ‘New China’ reveals a wider course among the Japanese Right, deepening our understanding of transwar political culture, and the post-imperial 1950s when the People’s Republic of China became the crucible of Japanese thinking about their state and society.