2011 Volume 2011 Issue 164 Pages 164_129-142
The purpose of this article is to revisit a very controversial issue-the evaluation of the Sato Eisaku Cabinet's China policy from 1970 to 1972-through the clarifications regarding the situation in Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the period. Since, in the wake of World War II, the Allied Powers had dismantled the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been the central bureaucracy, being responsible for the planning and drafting of the diplomatic and security policies of the Japanese government. However, preceding studies have not focused adequate attention on the very important issue of how the high officials of the ministry had discussed the Japanese government's China policy in the era. This article analyzes the issue empirically on the basis of primary sources, which mainly comprise the recently declassified diplomatic documents of the Japanese government.
Because the Japanese government has disclosed a very limited number of diplomatic documents thus far, the quality of information through these Japanese sources tends to be extremely fragmentary. I have invested considerable effort to organize the pieces of fragmented information and painstakingly compared them not only with preceding works but also with the documents declassified by the White House and the U.S. Department of State. During the course of those lengthy and difficult procedures, I discovered certain historical facts that are very important for studying the Japanese government's postwar foreign policy.
These facts prove that the ministry failed to formulate a strategic response to the drastic transformation of the international situation in the early 1970s. These facts also reveal that the ministry decided to normalize its relations with China and severe diplomatic relations with Taiwan, as early as immediately after the Taiwanese government was expelled from the U.N. on October 25, 1971. In addition, before the formation of Tanaka Kakuei's Cabinet on July 7, 1972, the ministry succeeded in mending U.S.-Japan relations, which had been seriously damaged by President Nixon's unilateral initiative for the U.S.-China reconciliation.
Lastly, I would like to draw your attention to another very important point regarding the manner in which Hashimoto Hiroshi, who served as the chief of the “China Section” for the ministry during the period, evaluated the far eastern policy of the Nixon administration. He is conventionally recognized as a “pro-China” Japanese diplomat or as having a “sense of independence from Washington,” because he consistently asserted the prompt normalization of relations with China. However, his assertions regarding the China policy was based on his expectation that Washington's commitment to the defense of Taiwan was very stable and reliable, and it meant that the conventional views of him could be oversimplifications.
