Men, Matters & Memories
M L Kotru
Some three decades ago I was in Tokyo, one of some half a dozen Indian journalists covering an Indian Ministerial visit to Japan. It was my second visit to the country and I cannot, therefore, advance unfamiliarity with the land of the rising Sun as a reason for my ignorance of its history.
After all, I was an adult during the World War II years and was expected to know of Japan’s role in that war; I know how close indeed they had come to occupying Indian territory, knocking on the doors of British India’s north eastern borders after overrunning Burma.
I knew of Netaji Subash Chandra Bose’s Indian army, fighting against the Allies on various Eastern fronts, regrouping under Netaji’s Azad Hind Fauj to fight for India’s freedom from the British. In later years, while pursuing my journalistic career in Delhi, I ran into several Japanese colleagues and their sole obsession in terms of news-gathering it had seemed was limited to the economic sphere and India’s nuclear capability. The Japanese colleagues’ ears would instantly perk up when- ever a developmental project (s) was mentioned in Parliament or by Nehru or by one of his Ministers.
Japan in the midst of its own post World War II recovery was always alert to developments, particularly economic, in the countries of the region. This may in part explain the Japanese Journalists’ obsession with economic developments.
May be they were on the lookout for business opportunities or simply keeping their papers well posted with economic developments in India. The word nuclear or atom would often send them into a tizzy and they would scurry around wanting to know more. “What was that about nuclear power” they would insist. They were hardworking and keen, never to miss out on anything of interest to their country.
On all my visits to Japan I was to witness face to face this same sense of keenness, even among those working their fields or working in the factories. And, of course their phenomenal sense of discipline!
I remember once at the Japanese Foreign Office we were in the midst of a discussion around noon when all of a sudden a sound of a siren enveloped the whole complex; our interlocutors immediately stood up and started a military-like drill, exercising their limbs, hands on hips, bending backwards and forwards etc. With the next sound of the siren they quickly returned to the job on hand : talking to us. This happen again at the MITI Office (Ministry of Trade and Industry) two days later and indeed at the Toyota factory when we visited its massive complex.
One afternoon we were set to meet the Japanese Prime Minister, Mr. Nakasone, by all accounts a major engagement. We had hardly settled down in our seats than the Prime Minister strode in and followed an hour long discourse on world affairs with indo-Japanese relations at the heart of it. Bilateral talks brought us to then limited Japanese investments in India, Nakasone saw a bright future for the relationship but I was taken aback when he bluntly told us that India could not make a grouse of it that Japan was paying greater attention to an emerging China.
He said he could not explain Tokyo’s massive economic help to China, without mentioning the cruelty Japan had inflicted on that country during the war years. Japan has to make it up to the Chinese people, he frankly admitted, saying that it did not mean that India’s economy was less important. But in respect of China it was a debt he believed his country owed its neighbour across the sea.
It was then and only then that I remembered the fact that Japan had invaded China much before the start of World War II, the eight-year long war that an impoverished China fought against Japan, one of the most militarised and technologically advanced nations of the time (1937). For China World War II had begun two years before Britain and at least four years before the US entered it.
China’s ability to tie down 800,000 Japanese troops on the mainland at huge personal cost- the near total destruction of its infrastructure, a death toll of 14 million and untold pain of millions of internal refugees spawned by it – played a significant role in the ultimate victory of the Allied Forces.
The important role played by Marshal Chiang Shek’s Nationalist Army, which was simultaneously fighting Mao’s Liberation Army in this war has not got its due place in history. A new history of China’s war-time experience must take into account the three way struggle of modern China : the nationalists led by Chiang, the Communists led by Mao and the collaborationists under Wang Jingweie, a leader who was more prominent than either Chiang or Mao and his red Army, while Wang simply disappeared.
It was a war story that marked a vital step in China’s progression from semi-colonised victims of global imperialism to its entry on the world stage as a sovereign power with wider regional and global responsibilities. At the same time the war created conditions that shaped society and perceptions in ways that persist even to the present day, the pathological Chinese fear of disorder. As Naksone gave us a broad outline of Japanese ruthlessness against the Chinese between 1937-45 we went back in time to count the losses. For instance, the large number of Chinese women who were used by the Japanese as “comfort girls” to keep their soldiers amused. To Nakasone’s credit I must confess my admiration for him to have admitted to a sense of guilt on this account. How important it would be if every war-like situation and its aftermath were to be considered by those in whose power it lies to make wars.
In retrospect, while on the same issue, the China of today needs to keep itself reminded that the tragic struggles it is unleashing in its areas of influence in countries near and far from its shores in the neighboring waters, claiming exclusive right to waterways which are not its, to lands adjoining its, which it claims as it own when they are not.
Adherence to the five principles of Panchshilla which a non-signatory like the Japanese Prime Minister of yesteryears, showed that day in his Tokyo office by offering an apology to China for trouble his country had caused, needs to be replicated by Beijing now that it boasts of being the world’s second largest economy as well as a major military power. A sheer impossibility to expect it from China as it stands now.
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