Eurasian eclipse: Japan's end game in World War II

American Historical Review

Volumn 109, Issue 2, 2004, Pages 417-444

  Koshiro, Yukiko ^a  

^a Assistant Professor in the University Libraries   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 17344364191     PISSN: 00028762     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/530338     Document Type: Review

References (153)

1. In the United States, Robert Butow's classic work Japan's Decision to Surrender (Stanford, Calif., 1954) set the standard for studies on this topic. Relying heavily on Japanese testimony at the Tokyo War Crimes Trial, especially that by Marquis Kido Koichi, Butow divided Japanese parties into two categories: the villains (mostly in the army) who insisted on fighting until the bitter end, and the pacifists (mostly in the navy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) who sought to achieve peace with the United States. In Butow's paradigm, the Soviet Union existed only as an instrument for the pro-Soviet group within the Japanese army who attempted to manipulate the course of the war. Generations of scholars carried on Butow's interpretation, although they differed in arguing whether the reason for Japan's surrender was the Soviet entry into the war or the atomic bombs, or both.
2. For the most recent study, see J. Samuel Walker, "The Decision to Use the Bomb: A Historical Update," in Michael Hogan, ed., Hiroshima in History and Memory (New York, 1996).
3. Akira Iriye, in Power and Culture (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), criticized Japan's approach to the Soviet Union as a tragic mistake (170) and argued that Japan, at this watershed in the war, should have approached Washington rather than Moscow, abandoned the pan-Asian crusade, and returned to Wilsonianism (220-25).
4. For a historiographic analysis of Japanese studies of World War II, see Yukiko Koshiro, "Japan's World and World War II," Diplomatic History, special issue, "The Future of World War II Studies: A Roundtable," 25, no. 3 (Summer 2001): 425-26.
5. In reexamining the last phase of the war, it is necessary to realize that the standard archival sources-so-called evidence presented at the Tokyo War Crimes Trial (1946-1948)-merely provide a basis for writing an orthodox history of Japan's war, thus telling only a partial story. Shortly after the Japanese government decided to accept the Potsdam Declaration, the Cabinet members chose to incinerate a great number of official documents in expectation of an impending war crimes trial, in which the United States was expected to play a leading role. They destroyed documents deemed inconvenient to a presumed yardstick of postwar American justice. On August 7, 1945, only one day after Hiroshima and one day before the Soviet entry into the war, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs decided on the quick destruction of classified documents related to wartime diplomacy, and did so earlier and much more swiftly and extensively than the Imperial Headquarters did to the military-related documents. China-related diplomatic documents were the first to be destroyed. Next were the Soviet-related papers. The last were the papers related to Axis diplomacy. Yoshida Yutaka, Gendai Rekishi-gaku to sensō sekinin [Contemporary history studies and Japan's war responsibilities] (Tokyo, 1997), 127-34;
6. Usui Katsumi, Yoshimura Michio, and Hosoya Chihiro, Gaikō Shiryō-kan no Nijū-nen to shōrai (zadankai), vol. 2 [Roundtable: The past and future (The one hundred years of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, vol. 2)] (Tokyo, 1969), 1295-97.
7. The documents, especially diplomatic ones, that survived destruction were those deemed appropriate to constitute a "correct" narrative of Japan's war after capitulation. In archival research in Japan, I combed surviving (and declassified) diplomatic and military documents long excluded from the standard list of official sources on Japan's war. Mostly, they are marked top secret or confidential but are cataloged under innocuous subjects such as communism, intelligence, the war in Europe, or the Korean army. Kimitsu sensō nisshi [Top secret war journal], a handwritten record of day-to-day activities and planning of the Imperial Headquarters, is among the most comprehensive top-secret documents that were preserved, escaping confiscation by the United States. It offers a crucial insight into the decision-making process at the Army War Operations Plans Division, covering the period June 1940-July 1945. Now available as Dai Hon'ei Rikugun-bu Sensō Shidō-han [The Army War Operations Plans Division], Kimitsu sensō nisshi, 2 vols. (Tokyo, 1998).
8. The Yalta Agreement, signed on February 11, 1945, did stipulate that the Soviet Union would receive the following spoils if it entered war against Japan in two or three months after German surrender: to restore the southern part of Sakhalin, the Kurile Islands, and also Lushun (Port Arthur) as a Soviet naval base; to secure the preeminent Soviet interest in the port of Dalian; and to obtain the right to operate jointly with China the Chinese Eastern Railway and the South Manchurian Railway. The part of the agreement concerning the Chinese ports and railroads was not an automatic reward, however; the Soviet Union had first to conclude a pact of friendship and alliance with the GMD government and then to obtain the concurrence of Chiang Kai-shek.
9. The Kwantung Army was a one-division force originally assigned to guard the South Manchurian Railway and the Liaodong peninsula in 1907. After receiving independent status in 1920, it increasingly assumed a politicized role in determining policy toward Manchuria.
10. "Gokuhi: Zai-Ro Tanaka Tōkichi Taishi hatsu Shidehara Gaimu Daijin ate" [Top secret: A telegraph from Tanaka Tōkichi, Ambassador to Russia, to Foreign Minister Shidehara], February 1, 1930, in "Nihon Kyōsan-Tō kankei zakken: Kyōsan-Tō to Sorenpō to no kankei" [Miscellaneous documents on the Japan Communist Party: Relationship between the JCP and the Soviet Union], I-4-5-2-3-3, Diplomatic Record Office, Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tokyo.
11. "Tai-Bei Ei-Ran-Shou sensō shūmatsu sokushin ni kansuru fuku-an" [A draft proposal for expediting the end of the war against the U.S., Britain, Netherlands and Chiang's China], November 15, 1941, in Sanbō Honbu [The Imperial Headquarters], ed., Sugiyama Memo (Tokyo, 1967), vol. 1, 523-24,
12. quoted in Nakayama Takashi, "Nihon no sensō sakusen shidō ni okeru Soren yōin, 1941-45" [The Soviet factor in Japan's conduct of war and military operations in 1941-45], Seiji Keizai Shigaku [Political-economic history], no. 333 (March 1994): 43.
13. Matsuoka Yōsuke Denki Kankō-Kai [Matsuoka Yōsuke Biography-Editing Committee], ed., Matsuoka Yōsuke-Sono hito to shōgai [Matsuoka Yōsuke-His personality and life] (Tokyo, 1974), 783, 799;
14. Minowa Kimitada, Matsuoka Yōsuke-Sono ningen to gaikō [Matsuoka Yōsuke-His personality and diplomacy] (Tokyo, 1971), 173.
15. Hosoya Chihiro, "The Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact," in James Morley, ed., The Fateful Choice: Japan's Advance into Southeast Asia, 1939-1941 (New York, 1980), 47, 50;
16. Miyazaki Yoshiyuki, "Saikō Matsuoka gaikō-Sono kokunai seiji-teki yōin" [Matsuoka diplomacy reconsidered: A remedy for national consensus], Gunji Shigaku [Journal of military history] 27, nos. 2-3 (December 1991): 34;
17. Minowa Kimitada, Matsuoka Yosuke (Tokyo, 1989), 173.
18. Saitō Yoshie, Azamukareta rekishi [History betrayed] (Tokyo, 1955), 89,
19. quoted in Minowa, Matsuoka Yōsuke, 49.
20. Torii Tami, Shōwa 20-nen [1945] (Tokyo, 1985), vol. 1, part 1, 335-39.
21. Nomura Minoru, "Nichi-Doku-I-So rengō shisō no hōga to hōkai" [Rise and decline of the concept of a Japanese-German-Italian-Soviet alliance], Gunji Shigaku [Journal of military history] 11, no. 4 (March 1976): 2-14, esp. 6-9.
22. Gushima Kenzaburō, "Sangoku Dōmei to NiSso kankei" [The Tripartite Pact and Japanese-Soviet relations], Kaizō 22, no. 20 (November 1940): 288-95.
23. The two articles in the May 1941 issue of Kaizō (23, no. 9) were Baba Hideo, "NiSso Chūritsu Jōyaku no seiritsu to igi" [Conclusion and significance of the Japanese-Soviet neutrality treaty], 102-04;
24. Ōkubo Tetsuo, "Sangoku Dōmei yori NiSso Chūritsu Jōyaku e" [From the Tripartite Alliance to the Japanese-Soviet neutrality treaty], 105-09.
25. Gabriel Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion: Statin and the German Invasion of Russia (New Haven, Conn., 1999), 8.
26. In 1994, Nagoshi Kenrō, a Japanese journalist, introduced a collection of newly declassified documents at the Soviet Foreign Ministry archives, claiming that it was Stalin who first advocated the four-nation alliance in November 1940 in the spirit of collective recognition for each nation's sphere of influence and non-aggression. Nagoshi Kenrō, Kuremurin himitsu bunsho wa kataru-Yami no NiSso kankei-shi [A story of secret Kremlin documents: A dark history of Japanese-Soviet relations] (Tokyo, 1994), 193-95.
27. Gorodestky, Grand Delusion, 193. Nagoshi's work also argues that when Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov visited Berlin in October 1940, he sounded out Hitler on Stalin's proposal for the four-nation alliance (195).
28. Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion, 8, 197. According to Nagoshi, Stalin's proposal for the four-nation alliance and approval for the pact with Japan demonstrate his seriousness about securing the territorial status quo.
29. Nagoshi, Kuremurin, 194.
30. Higashikuni Naruhiko, Ichi Kōzoku no sensō nikki [A war diary of a member of the Imperial family] (Tokyo, 1957), has the following entries, in discussions with General Koiso Kuniaki, Hisahara Fusanosuke, and Gotō Ryūnosuke: "Japan has to give the Soviet Union a keen awareness of being a member of Asia so that it will never stand on the side of the whites" (April 14, 1942); "Stalin is aware of and proud of being Asian [Tōyō-jin], so it's necessary to have the Soviet people feel the same way... Only in that manner can Japan and the Soviet Union together prevent the United States from invading China" (September 27, 1944); "We have to try to help Soviet people develop an Asian identity so we can stand together against Anglo-America" (May 15, 1945). See 103, 107, 147, 184.
31. Omer Bartov, "Germany's Unforgettable War: The Twisted Road from Berlin to Moscow and Back," Diplomatic History 25, no. 3 (Summer 2001): 413.
32. Nikolai Baikov, "Sayonara Nippon" [See you again, Japan], Gekkan Roshia [Russian Monthly] 8, no. 12 (December 1942): 52-53;
33. and "Nihon inshō-ki" [My impression of Japan], Asahi Shimbun, morning edition, November 13, 1942.
34. Hatano Sumio, "Shigemitsu Mamoru to Dai-TōA Kyōdō Sengen" [Shigemitsu Mamoru and the Greater East Asian Joint Declaration], Kokusai Seiji [International relations] 109 (May 1995): 48.
35. Sawada Kazuhiko, "Nihon ni okeru hakkei-Roshia-jin no bunka-teki eikyō" [Cultural impact of white (anti-Bolshevik) Russians in Japan], in Naganawa Mitsuo and Sawada Kazuhiko, eds., Ikyō ni ikiru-Rai-Nichi Roshia-jin no sokuseki [Living in a foreign land: Traces of Russian residents in Japan] (Yokohama, 2001), 31-46;
36. Zai Honpō gaikokujin ni kansuru tōkei chōsa zakken [Miscellaneous statistical data on foreign residents in Japan], vol. 1, K-3-7-0-15, Diplomatic Record Office, Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
37. Natasha Starffin, Roshia kara kita ēsu [An ace pitcher from Russia] (Tokyo, 1986);
38. Ushijima Hidehiko, Fūsetsu Nihon yakyū-V. Starffin [V. Starffin: Stormy years of Japanese baseball] (Tokyo, 1978).
39. "Zairyū gaikokujin meibo" [A directory of foreigners residing in Japan] (1942-43), in Zai Honpō gaikokujin ni kansuru tōkei chōsa zakken, vol. 4, K-3-7-0-15, Diplomatic Record Office, Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
40. Matsumura Miyako, "Shinbun 'Manshū no oka nite' (no. 1-79), ni keisai sareta Nihon kankei kiji o megutte" [On Japan-related articles printed in the newspaper 'On the Manchurian Hill' (nos. 1-79)], in Naganawa and Sawada, Ikyō ni ikiru, 162-63.
41. Torii Tami, Shōwa 20-nen, vol. 1, part 2 (Tokyo, 1986), 232-36.
42. Nakayama, "Nihon no sensō sakusen shidō," 48.
43. Hata Shunroku Nikki [The diary of Hata Shunroku], in Zoku gendai-shi shiryō (4) Riku-gun [Contemporary history documents (4), the army] (Tokyo, 1983), 329,
44. quoted in Nakayama, "Nihon no sensō sakusen shidō," 44.
45. Matsuoka Yōsuke Denki Kankō-Kai, Matsuoka Yōsuke-Sono hito to shōgai, 1097.
46. See the entry of November 16, 1944, Kimitsu sensō nisshi, 2: 608-09.
47. Dai-Niji Ōshū Taisen kankei ikken-sengo kei'ei mondai [The Second European Great War: Postwar management], 1944, esp. vol. 3, A-7-0-0-8-43;
48. Shōwa 19-nen Dai-Niji Ōshū Taisen kankei ikken-sengo kei'ei mondai Ei Bei Soren kankei [1944, the Second European Great War: Postwar management-U.S.-UK-Soviet relations], A-7-0-0-8-43-1, Diplomatic Record Office, Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
49. Morishima Gorō, Kunō suru chū-So taishi-kan [The Japanese embassy in Moscow in a dilemma] (Tokyo, 1952), 26-27, 41, 108-10.
50. Manchuria's value was in no way negligible. By the summer of 1945, Japanese investments in Manchuria were estimated at eleven billion yen. The main industrial centers had railways, mines, stockpiles of Japanese weapons and equipment, power-generating equipment, transformers, electrical motors, laboratories and hospitals, and the latest and best machine tools. Manchuria meant lucrative war spoils to the Soviet Union. See Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China (New York, 1990), 494-95.
51. See the entry of September 21, 1944, in Kimitsu sensō nisshi, 2: 586-87.
52. Nakayama, "Nihon no sensō sakusen shidō," 49, 52.
53. Also see George Lensen, The Strange Neutrality: Soviet-Japanese Relations during the Second World War, 1941-1945 (Tallahassee, 1972), 134-35, esp. note (b). Lensen's argument is classic, in that he claimed that Japan was so desperate that the Supreme Council of the Japanese government was ready to purchase Soviet assistance (134).
54. "NiSso gaikō kōshō kiroku" [Records of Japanese-Soviet diplomatic negotiations], in Gaimushō [Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs], ed., Nihon no sentaku-Dai-Niji-Sekai-Taisen shūsen shiroku [Japan's choice: Historical records of the conclusion of World War II] (Tokyo, 1990), vol. 2: 572-75, 579-81.
55. Constantine V. Pleshakov, "Taiheiyō Sensō-Sutārin no ketsudan" [Stalin's decision in the Pacific War], in Hosoya Chihiro, et al., eds., Taiheiyō Sensō [The Pacific War] (Tokyo, 1993), 185-89, 191-94;
56. also see Pleshakov, "Yaruta Taisei no keisei to Soren" [Formation of the Yalta system and the Soviet Union], in Hosoya Chihiro, et al., eds., Taiheiyō Sensō no shūketsu [The close of the Pacific War] (Tokyo, 1997), 412-18.
57. The Japanese Foreign Ministry had been criticized for its naïve anticipation of a break-up of the Grand Alliance, a situation that the government hoped to take advantage of for its own peace-making. After the war, the ministry censured itself in this regard when, in 1952, it edited and published Nihon no sentaku-Dai Niji Sekai Taisen shūsen shiroku [Japan's choice: Historical records of the conclusion of World War II], an anthology of primary and secondary sources on Japan's decision-making process inside and outside the government that eventually led to the acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration. This collection of documents seems to declare that the ministry made a deplorable mistake in underestimating the strong ties of the Grand Alliance. When the ministry printed an updated version in 1990, the basic apologetic stance remained unchanged. But that was not the reality.
58. Torii, Shōwa 20-nen, vol. 1, part 2, chap. 7.
59. Fujimura Yoshikazu, the navy attaché in Switzerland who contacted Allen Dulles of the Office of Strategic Services in late April 1945 for possible peace negotiations with Washington, insisted that post-surrender Japan should keep Korea and Taiwan. So did Brigadier General Okamoto Kiyotomi, a former army attaché in Switzerland who attempted to contact Dulles in mid-June for the same purpose. Fujimura spoke of Korea's integration into Japan as being as natural as New Mexico having been successfully annexed by the United States. See Hoshina Zenshirō, Dai-TōA Sensō hishi-Ushinawareta wahei kōsaku [A secret history of the Greater East Asian War: A failed peace operation] (Tokyo, 1975), 158.
60. Takenaka Yoshihiko, "Kokusai-hō-gakusha no 'sengo kōsō'-'Dai-TōA kokusai-hō' kara 'Kokuren shinkō' e" [Postwar visions of international lawyers in wartime Japan: From the pursuit of the Greater East Asian international law to idealization of the United Nations], Kokusai Seiji [International relations] 109 (May 1995).
61. Kasuda Hiroshi, "Dai-TōA Kyōei-ken hitei to henkaku no ronri-Ishibashi Tanzan no baai" [Arguments concerning a rejection of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere and a radical departure from it: The case of Ishibashi Tanzan], in Nakamura Katsunori, ed., Kindai Nihon seiji no shosō [Aspects of modern Japanese politics] (Tokyo, 1988), 194-97.
62. Dai-Niji Ōshū Taisen kankei ikken-sengo kei'ei mondai, vols. 1-4, A-7-0-0-8-43;
63. Dai-Niji Ōshū Taisen kankei ikken-sengo kei'ei mondai Ei Bei Soren kankei, A-7-0-0-8-43-1. A list of newspapers and journals included the New York Times, Daily Mail, Reader's Digest, Daily Telegraph, Manchester Guardian, Observer, London Times, Sunday Times, News Chronicle, Saturday Evening Post, Life, New York American, Svenska Dagbladet, TASS, Pravda, and Buenos Aires La nación, among others.
64. "Disposition of the Japanese Empire," Foreign Policy Bulletin [Foreign Policy Association, New York] (June 1, 1944), in "Dai-TōA Sensō kankei ikken-jōhō shūshū kankei" [The Greater East Asian War: Intelligence gatherings], A-7-0-0-99, Diplomatic Record Office, Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
65. Demaree Bess, "What Is Our Future in Asia," Reader's Digest, July 1944, in "Dai-TōA Sensō kankei ikken-jōhō shūshū kankei."
66. "Hi: Sutokkuhorumu Okamoto Kōshi yori Honsho" [Secret: From Minister Okamoto, Stockholm, to the Foreign Ministry], November 23-24, 1944, Showa 19-nen Dai-Niji Ōshū Taisen kankei ikken-sengo kei'ei mondai Ei Bei Soren kankei [1944, the Second European Great War: Postwar management-U.S.-UK-Soviet relations]
67. and "Stockholm no. 43 (Hi) [Confidential]," in Showa 19-nen Dai-Niji Ōshū Taisen kankei ikken-sengo kei'ei mondai Ei Bei Soren kankei [1944, the Second European Great War: Postwar management-U.S.-UK-Soviet relations], A-7-0-0-8-43-1, Diplomatic Record Office, Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
68. "Hi: Sutokkuhorumu Okamoto Kōshi yori Honsho [Secret: From Minister Okamoto, Stockholm, to the Foreign Ministry], March 21-22, 1944, in "Dai-TōA Sensō kankei ikken-jōhō shūshū kankei."
69. "Plans for a Vanquished Japan," American Mercury, January 1944, in "Dai-TōA Sensō kankei ikken-jōhō shūshū kankei."
70. See, for example, Ichikawa Taijirō, Gaimushō Chōsa-kyoku Dai-Ichi Kachō [First Section Chief, Research Department, Foreign Ministry], "Bei-Ei-So sengo taisaku no kenkyū, 1943-nen 7-gatsu yori 1944-nen 2-gatsu ni itaru," February 1944.
71. Investigative reports regularly compiled by the Special Higher Police (Tokkō) in each prefecture demonstrate that the Japanese public held realistic views concerning the war's direction. A report from the Kansai district on July 30, 1945, told of a male acupuncturist discussing with his client that the presence of Chiang as one of the signers of the Potsdam Declaration meant nothing much, given his parasitical relations with Anglo-Americans. Meanwhile, he interpreted the absence of Stalin as a sign of discord among the Allied nations. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., Microfilm Collection, M 5041, "Japanese Army and Navy Archives, 1868-1945," roll 220, frames 90937-38. On August 11, 1945, in Hyogo Prefecture, a farmer stated that, now that the Soviets were coming in, Japan would not last more than a month. A factory worker remarked that Moscow's refusal to renew the Neutrality Pact had convinced him long ago that they would attack Japan at the most crucial moment in the war. Awaya Kentarō and Yoshida Yutaka, eds., Haisenji zenkoku chian jōhō [National reports on peace preservation at the time of defeat], vol. 6 (Tokyo, 1994), 275-77.
72. Matsuda Michikazu, "Mosukuwa Sangoku Gaisō Kaidan" [The Moscow Foreign Ministers Conference], Gaikō Jihō [Revue diplomatique], no. 938 (January 1, 1944): 5-12;
73. Yoneda Minoru, "Soren tai-Ei-Bei no ichidai mondai" [The major issue concerning the Soviet Union's relations with Britain and the United States], Gaikō Jihō, no. 942 (March 1, 1944): 5-14.
74. Naomi Zenzō, "Kōsaku suru Bei-Ei-So sangoku no seiryaku" [Clashes of political maneuvers of Britain, the U.S., and the Soviet Union], Gaikō Jihō, no. 945 (May 1, 1944): 25-31.
75. Suzukawa Isao, "Kebekku kara Mosukuwa made" [From Quebec to Moscow], in Asahi Shimbun-Sha Chūō Chōsa-kai, eds., Asahi TōA Nenpō [Asahi East Asian annual report] 3 (1944): 191-203.
76. Inabara Katsuji, "Roshia no gaikō kōsei o miru" [Observations of Soviet diplomatic offensives], Gaikō Jihō, no. 941 (February 15, 1944): 7-8;
77. Yoneda Minoru, "Soren tai-Ei-Bei no ichidai mondai" [The Soviet Union's big problem with Anglo-America], Gaikō Jihō, no. 942 (March 1, 1944): 12.
78. Komuro Makoto, "Okashii Han-Sūjiku Ren'mei an" [Ludicrous plan for the anti-Axis league], Gaikō Jihō, no. 950 (October 1, 1944): 1-4;
79. Nishizawa Ei'ichi, "San Furanshisuko Kaigi no syōtai" [Truth about the San Francisco Conference], Gaikō Jihō, no. 955 (March 1, 1945): 12-14;
80. Komuro Makoto, "Bei-Ei sekai seifuku no gensō" [Anglo-American illusion about world conquest], Gaikō Jihō, no. 956 (1945).
81. Matsuda Michikazu, "San Furanshisuko Han-Sūjiku Kaigi no hontai" [True nature of the anti-Axis San Francisco Conference], Gaikō Jihō, no. 956 (1945).
82. Tamura Kōsaku, "San Furanshisuko Kaigi ni kansuru kōsatsu" [Reflections on the San Francisco Conference], Gaikō Jihō, no. 956 (1945).
83. and Yoshizawa Seijirō, "Danbāton Ōkusu an ni tsuite no ni san no dansō" [Several thoughts on the Dumbarton Oaks Plan], all in Gaikō Jihō, no. 956 (April 1, 1945).
84. As Japan's partner, Takagi seemed to prefer Britain to the United States due to the former's capitalist system and international prestige as well as what Takagi believed to be its cultural and intellectual proximity to Japan (reflecting Japan's heavy cultural borrowing from Britain since the late nineteenth century). But he was also realistic in admitting Britain's waning power in sharp contrast to the United States and Soviet Union. He also pointed out the impossibility of Britain providing financial support to postwar Japan. Takagi Sōkichi, "Chūkan hōkoku an" [Draft intermediary report], March 13, 1945 [handwritten draft], in Takagi Sōkichi Shōshō Shiryō (Kaigun 9-Takagi 3), 35-36, Military Archival Library of the National Institute for Defense Studies, Tokyo.
85. Takagi, "Chūkan hōkoku an," 25-26, 41-43.
86. In fourteenth-century Japan, where civil war divided the nation into two camps-the samurai regime and the Imperial court-it was not uncommon for members of the same clan deliberately to take opposite sides. A deliberate division of allegiance within a clan did not have much to do with conflicts of principle; rather, it guaranteed one part of the family would be on the winning side regardless of the outcome. Therefore, beneath seeming family breaches, there was a basic understanding between the two camps, and the familial conflict was superficial. George Sansom, A History of Japan, 1334-1615 (Stanford, Calif., 1961), 53, 74.
87. "Peace Rumors Concerning Japan (U.S. collection), Zurich, May 2 (Dōmei)," in "Dai-TōA Sensō kankei ikken-jōhō shūshū kankei."
88. "Peace Rumors Concerning Japan (U.S. collection)," in "Dai-TōA Sensō kankei ikken-jōhō shūshū kankei."
89. See the entry of April 16, 1945, in Kimitsu sensō nisshi, 2: 702-03.
90. See the entry of November 26, 1943, in Kimitsu sensō nisshi, 2: 453.
91. Bōei-chō Bōei-Kenshū-jo Senshi-shitsu [Military History Department, the National Institute for Defense Studies], ed., Senshi sōsho: Kantō-Gun (2) [War history series: The Kwantung Army (2)]
92. [hereafter, Kantō-Gun (2)] (Tokyo, 1974), 282-83, 322-23, 338-39.
93. The critical issue to note is the government's sheer lack of attention to the defense of civilian settlers in Manchuria and Korea, a topic passionately debated in postwar Japan. The Imperial Headquarters War Operations Plans Division considered the early evacuation of Japanese civilian settlers inappropriate, as it would contradict Japan's basic policy of preserving the status quo with the Soviet Union and arouse people's suspicions of an impending crisis. As a result, of 1.5 million civilian settlers in Manchuria, some 180,700 died amid the chaos surrounding Japan's surrender. Kantō-Gun (2), 278-79, 339-40, 353-55.
94. "Shōwa 21-nen goro o medo to suru jōsei handan" [Analysis of situations as of the spring of 1946], Bōei-chō Bōei-Kenshū-jo Senshi-shitsu, ed., Senshi sōsho: Hondo kessen junbi (2) [War history series: Preparation for Mainland Battle (2)]
95. [hereafter, Hondo kessen junbi (2)] (Tokyo, 1972), 432-33.
96. "OLYMPIC and CORONET: G-II Estimate of the Enemy Situation," April 25, 1945, Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs, Operation Division (RG 165), National Archives II, College Park, Maryland. Also see Alvin Coox, "Needless Fear: The Compromise of U.S. Plans to Invade Japan in 1945," Journal of Military History 64 (April 2000): 411-38;
97. Hondo kessen junbi (2), 442-43.
98. Hondo kessen junbi (2), 447-49.
99. Suzuki Masayuki, "Manshū Chōsen no kakumei-teki renkei: Manshū kō-Nichi tōsō to Chōsen kaihō-go no kakumei naisen" [A Manchurian-Korean revolutionary linkage: The anti-Japanese movement in Manchuria and the post-liberation civil war in Korea], in Iwanami Kōza Kindai Nihon to Shokumin-chi, vol. 6,
100. "Teikō to Kutsujyū" [Iwanami lecture series on modern Japan's colonial history, vol. 6, "Resistance and submission"] (Tokyo, 1993), 29-59.
101. Bōei-chō Bōei Kenshū-jo Senshi-shitsu, ed., Senshi sōsho-HokuShi no chian-sen (2) [Peace preservation war in North China (2)]
102. [hereafter, HokuShi no chian-sen (2)] (Tokyo, 1971), 319-34, 504-12, 523-26.
103. HokuShi no chian-sen (2), 523-25.
104. Akashi Yoji, "Taiheiyō Sensō makki ni okeru Nihon gunbu no En'an seiken to no wahei mosaku-Sono haikei" [In search of peace: The Yan'an alternative and the Imperial Japanese Army], Gunji Shigaku 31, nos. 1-2 (September 1995): 176.
105. Hatano, "Shigemitsu Mamoru to Dai-TōA Kyōdō Sengen," 47-48.
106. Also see Akashi, "Taiheiyō Sensō makki ni okeru," 175-85.
107. See the entry on March 17, 1944, in Kimitsu sensō nisshi, 2: 505-06.
108. Also see Hata Shunroku, "Tai-En'an seiken senden bōryaku jisshi yōryō" [Memorandum on conducting propaganda and intelligence campaigns toward the Yan'an regime], cited in Torii, Shōwa 20-nen, vol. 1, part 3, 40.
109. Imperial Headquarters, "Saikin Bei-En gunjiteki torikime seiritsu to So-En gunji dōmei teiketsu setsu ni tsuite" [Observations on the recent U.S.-Yan'an military deals and alleged Soviet-Yan'an military alliance], November 29, 1944, in Usui Masami and Inaba Masao, eds., Gendaishi Shiryō, 38, Taiheiyō Sensō 4 (Tokyo, 1972), 328-31.
110. Katō Kōichi, "Chūgoku Kyōsantō no tai-Bei ninshiki to Soren no tai-Nichi sansen mondai, 1944-1945" [CCP's views of the United States and the Soviet entry into the war against Japan, 1944-1945], Rekishigaku Kenkyū [Journal of Historical Studies], no. 751 (July 2001): 38.
111. In Revolutionary Struggle in Manchuria: Chinese Communism and Soviet Interest, 1922-1945 (Berkeley, Calif., 1983), Chong-Sik Lee argued that, even before Pearl Harbor, the Soviet Union was not willing to assist the anti-Japanese Chinese guerrillas in Manchuria because such assistance could aggravate sensitive diplomatic relations with Japan (320-21).
112. Also see Sergei Tikhvinskii's comment in Hosoya, et al., Taiheiyō Sensō, 644-45.
113. For Stalin's comment on "margarine communists," see Gordon Chang, Friends and Enemies: The United States, China, and the Soviet Union, 1948-1972 (Stanford, Calif., 1990), 10;
114. Dieter Heinzig, The Soviet Union and Communist China, 1945-1950: The Arduous Road to the Alliance (New York, 2004), 22-23.
115. Imperial Headquarters, "Jyūkei no haisen ni tomonau En'an gawa no seijiteki kōsei" [Political rise of Yan'an and decline of Chungking], February 22, 1944, in Usui and Inaba, Gendaishi Shiryō, 38, Taiheiyō Sensō 4, 326-27
116. Imperial Headquarters, "Saikin Bei-Ei gunjiteki torikime seiritsu to So-En gunji dōmei teiketsu setsu ni tsuite," 330.
117. As Michael Hunt argues in The Genesis of Chinese Communist Foreign Policy (New York, 1996), Mao anticipated Japan's defeat in the Pacific War but also feared that it would be followed by the rise of American and Soviet powers in the Far East. Moreover, Mao worried that his collision with Soviet ideology as well as Soviet military strategy in East Asia would harm his party's survival and growth. Subsequently, while he noticed the gradual collapse of the Grand Alliance, Mao hoped to utilize U.S. power to his advantage. Yet Mao was careful not to allow the United States any chance for imperialistic expansion, not to mention obtaining complete command of the Pacific (see 145-50 and 155-57). In this regard, there emerged a stunning parallel between Mao and Tokyo's planners in sensing the need to control the U.S. and Soviet rises in power in East Asia.
118. Between 1936 and 1940, the Imperial Headquarters of the Korean army (Chōsen-Gun Sanbō-bu) submitted to Tokyo semi-annual reports on Korean attitudes and thought trends concerning Japan and Korean independence against the background of their knowledge of world affairs. See Miyata Setsuko, ed., Chōsen shisō undō gaikyō (Jūgo-nen Sensō gokuhi shiryō shū, vol. 28) [Survey of Korean thought movements (Anthology of top secret documents concerning the Fifteen-Year War, vol. 28)] (Tokyo, 1991).
119. Also see Morita Yoshio, "Chōsen ni okeru Nihon tōchi no shūen" [The end of Japanese rule in Korea], Kokusai Seiji [International relations], no. 2 (1962): 83.
120. The Japanese Foreign Ministry's knowledge of Washington's stale relations with Rhee was recorded in a series of entries in the August-December 1944 file "DōmeiTsūshin Sha-nai Jōhō-kyoku, Tekisei jōhō" [Domei News Agency, Information Bureau-Enemy Information], in "Dai-TōA Sensōkankei ikken-jōhō shūshū kankei."
121. See Chōsen Sōtoku-fu, Dai-85-kai Teikoku Gikai setsumei shiryō [The Governor-General of Korea, documents submitted to the 85th Imperial Diet session], August 1944, rpt. in Kondō Kin'ichi, ed., Taiheiyō Sensō shūmatsu-ki Chōsen no chisei (Chōsen kindai shiryō-Chōsen Sōtoku-fu kankei jūyō bunsho senshū [2]) [Politics of Korea in the last period of the Pacific War (Modern Korean documents-Selected documents of the Governor-General of Korea (2)] (Tokyo, 1961), 73-81.
122. Kondō, Taiheiyō Sensō shūmatsu-ki Chōsen no chisei, 2: 67, 69-70.
123. Also see Miyata, Chōsen shisō undō gaikyō, vol. 28: 9, 73, 171.
124. See Morita Yoshio, Chōsen shūsen no kiroku: Bei-So ryōgun no shinchū to Nihonjin no hikiage [A record of the war's end in Korea: Advances of the U.S. and Soviet armies and the Japanese reparation] (Tokyo, 1964), 157.
125. See Nagaoka Shinjirō, "Nan-Sen to Hoku-Sen-Sono shiteki kōsatsu" [Examining the historical backgrounds to southern and northern Koreas], Nihon Rekishi 64 (September 1953).
126. Also see Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War: Liberation and the Emergence of Separate Regimes, 1945-1947 (Princeton, N.J., 1981), 121.
127. Kathryn Weathersby, "Soviet Aims in Korea and the Origins of the Korean War, 1945-1950: New Evidence from Russian Archives," Cold War International History Project, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Washington, D.C., 1993), 8.
128. Also see Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), The Conference of Berlin (The Potsdam Conference), 1945, vol. 2 (Washington, 1945), S 1.1/3:P 84/v.2: 345-53, 408.
129. The Imperial Headquarters estimated that the Soviet army would deploy its forces should the U.S. army adopt one of the following moves: land in central and northern China and spread over the continent; land in southern Manchuria and quickly advance northward; or penetrate into the Sea of Japan, from which to land on Japan proper. Morita, Chōsen shūsen no kiroku, 13-15, 20-22;
130. Nakayama, "Nihon no sensō sakusen shidō ni okeru Soren yōin, 1941-1945," 51-53.
131. For the reproduction of the military planning made by the Imperial Headquarters, see Dai-17-Hōmen-Dan [The Seventeenth Area Army], Hondo Sakusen Kiroku [Records of plans for the mainland], vol. 5
132. in Miyata Setsuko, ed., Chōsen-Gun gaiyō-shi-15-nen Sensō gokuhi shiryō-shū [A survey history of the Korean Army-Top-secret documents on the Fifteen-Year War], vol. 15 (Tokyo, 1989), 214-16, 223, 231-44.
133. Takagi, "Chūkan hōkoku an," 25, 42-43.
134. Kantō-Gun (2), 325.
135. Nakayama, "Nihon no sensō sakusen shidō," 52.
136. Morita, Chōsen shūsen no kiroku, 20-21.
137. Kantō-Gun (2), 325-27.
138. See the confidential telegram, dispatched on July 2 from Shanghai and received on July 3, in Dai 17-Hōmen-Gun Sanbō-bu Sakusen-han [The Seventeenth Area Army Staff Operations Plans Division], Kimitsu sakusen nisshi (Otsu tsuzuri) [Top secret war planning journal (2)], July 1945, Military Archival Library of the National Institute for Defense Studies.
139. The copy of Ryū's letter was transmitted top-secret to Tokyo by Kase Shun'ichi, minister to Switzerland. See "Kase Kōshi yori Tōgō Gaimu Daijin" [A memo from Minister Kase to Foreign Minister Tōgō], July 9, 1945, in "Dai-TōA Sensō kankei ikken-Suwēden, Suisu, Bachikan nado ni okeru shūsen kōsaku" [Reports on the Greater East Asian War-Peace operations in Sweden, Switzerland, the Vatican, etc.], A-7-0-0-9-66, Diplomatic Record Office, Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
140. Ōmori Minoru, Sengo hishi-Ten'nō to genshi bakudan [A secret history of the postwar years: The emperor and the atomic bombs] (Tokyo, 1975), 167-68.
141. For the Moscow-Washington talks on the Soviet occupation of Japan, see Averell Harriman Papers: Moscow files, 1945, Manuscript Division, the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
142. For Soviet plans to occupy Hokkaido, see David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956 (New Haven, Conn., 1994);
143. David Glantz, "The Soviet Invasion of Japan," MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History 7, no. 3 (Spring 1995). Holloway argues that Stalin decided not to clash with the United States over Hokkaido and hence withdrew the proposal (131).
144. A growing body of recent Japanese works on Japan's final military battle against the Soviet Union include Nakayama Takashi, Manshū-1945.8.9: Soren-Gun shinkō to Nikon-Gun [Manchuria, August 9, 1945: Advance of the Soviet army and the Japanese army] (Tokyo, 1990);
145. 1945-nen natsu saigo no NiSso sen [Summer 1945: The final Soviet-Japanese War] (Tokyo, 1995);
146. Handō Kazutoshi, Soren ga Manshū ni shinkō shita natsu [The summer when the Soviets invaded Manchuria] (Tokyo, 1999).
147. For the English texts of "Shūsen no Shōsho" [The Imperial Rescript of the Termination of the War, also known as "Emperor Hirohito's broadcast to the Japanese people on surrender"], August 14, 1945, and "Riku-Kai gunjin ni tamawaritaru chokugo" [The Imperial Rescript to the Japanese troops], August 17, 1945, see http://www.bun.kyoto-u. ac.jp/~knagai/GHQFILM/links.html.
148. Hatano Sumio, "Sengo gaikō to sengo kōsō," in Hosoya, et al., Taiheiyō Sensō no shūketsu, 30.
149. Omori, Sengo hishi-Ten'nō to genshi bakudan, 138;
150. Hatano, "Sengo gaikō to sengo kōsō," 24.
151. Hatano, "Sengo gaikō to sengo kōsō," 24.
152. For the latest work on Japan's "pragmatic" two-Chinas policy, see Chen Zhao-bin, Sengo Nihon no Chūgoku seisaku-1950-nen-dai Higashi Ajia kokusai seiji no bun'myaku [Postwar Japan's China policy: A contextual analysis of East Asian international politics in the 1950s] (Tokyo, 2000).
153. Yukiko Koshiro, Trans-Pacific Racisms and the U.S. Occupation of Japan (New York, 1999), 44.