Readers familiar with history know that after the sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War, the Qing government, as a defeated country, paid the victorious Japan 230 million taels of silver as compensation. With this money, Japan vigorously developed heavy industry, arms industry, and education.
However, after the end of World War II, China did not receive japan's due and timely war reparations.
After World War II, china gave up war reparations, and Japan secretly rejoiced, and fifty years later, it suddenly realized. What the hell is going on? Let's talk about the causes and consequences of things.
It all started after the end of World War II.
According to article 14 of the Treaty of San Francisco, countries that had been invaded and destroyed during the war negotiated with Japan, and the Japanese government compensated those countries for their losses. The Philippines received compensation in 1956 and Vietnam in 1959.
The Soviet Union also received $12 billion in war reparations from Germany, while the Jews received $60 billion in reparations from Germany.
It should be pointed out that in dealing with the Japanese issue, the United States regards itself as an ally. After the United States took relevant measures, it held real power over the occupation of Japan and the handling of the problem, and the United States manipulated and took over Japan's compensation and other matters.
At that time, although the Kuomintang government was ostensibly among the top four, in fact, its role in the reparations was very limited.
In the early postwar period, the Attitude of the United States toward Japanese reparations was still quite positive, but with the increasingly acute confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, coupled with the smooth progress of the Chinese Liberation War, the foreign policy of the United States changed.
So, in the Far East, the United States wanted to establish an anti-Soviet and anti-communist base, and finally decided that only Japan was the most qualified for this condition. Therefore, supporting Japan and denying compensation have become the basic policy of the United States.
According to the estimates of the Compensation Committee of the Executive Yuan of the Kuomintang, China's wartime losses were no less than $62 billion at that time, while China's share of compensation materials was only about $22.5 million, accounting for only three-tenths of a thousand. When the japanese remnants were first allocated, China was given 34 ships, seven of which were destroyers with a tonnage of less than 50,000 tons. By 1950, China had dismantled and shipped more than 50,000 Japanese machinery and equipment and special measuring instruments, or about $22.07 million, which was only a symbolic compensation.
The U.S. government issued an interim directive in 1949 to cancel the implementation of the "advance demolition" program and to stop Japan's compensation to allies. At this point, the matter of post-war claims against Japan has actually been cut off by the United States.
At the beginning of the War of Resistance Against Japan, Chiang Kai-shek also had plans to make claims against Japan. However, in order to gain the support of the United States, the Taiwan authorities have indicated that they may reduce or abandon them all as appropriate on the issue of compensation.
One of the important reasons for the Change in the Kuomintang's attitude toward Japan's claims was that Japan had previously threatened to sign a bilateral treaty with the People's Republic of China. In fact, this was a conspiracy by the diplomat-turned-Japanese bureaucrat Shigeru Yoshida to force the Taiwan authorities to make concessions in the negotiations, renounce war reparations, and make peace with Japan.
The Government of the People's Republic of China strongly condemned the Kuomintang's practices. It is actually quite understandable that the Kuomintang would give up the reparations, but why did the later government of the People's Republic of China also agree to give up the reparations?
In fact, the relationship between Chinese mainland and Japan, which was across the sea, was still in a frozen period. In order to follow the United States in adopting a policy of hostility toward New China, the Japanese Government has set up many obstacles to the normalization of Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations.
It was not until 1972, after the normalization of Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations, that China gave up its war reparations claim against Japan for the sake of Sino-Japanese friendship.
At that time, Kakuei Tanaka was appointed Prime Minister of Japan. Immediately after Tanaka took office, he announced that he would normalize diplomatic relations between Japan and China as his top priority. And with the maturity of the time to normalize diplomatic relations, the issue of war reparations has once again been placed before China and Japan. Before Tanaka's visit to China, he said that if the amount of compensation proposed by the Chinese side is appropriate, he intends to pay compensation.
However, our side has not demanded compensation from the Japanese side, which reflects China's broad ambitions and also represents the tolerance and long-term vision of a big country.
In fact, it now seems that China's decision not to demand compensation from Japan was correct. At that time, Japan did not have much ability to pay compensation, so it was unrealistic and meaningless to ask it to pay large amounts of compensation.
Therefore, our country has changed its approach, and they have asked Japan to give China a large amount of assistance in China's reform and opening up. Between 1979 and 2010, China received a total of 263.8 billion yuan in concessional loans from Japan, which together with aid and technical cooperation funds, amounted to 290 billion yuan.
Moreover, the large amount of money that China borrows from Japan is also interest-free. This was the most important thing for China at that time, and Chinese showed superb wisdom on the issue of obtaining compensation! The Japanese, on the other hand, suddenly realized fifty years later, but didn't all this solve their predicament at that time?
What do you think about that?
References: Treaty of San Francisco, Portes Proclamation