On the morning of September 29, 1972, in the West Flower Hall of Zhongnanhai, Premier Zhou was dressed solemnly and had a serious expression, as if he was waiting for something important. Soon someone came in and reported to the Prime Minister: Everything was ready to go! Without hesitation, Premier Zhou got into the car and went all the way to the Great Hall of the People.
At this time, many people had gathered in the Great Hall, and Premier Zhou waited after a brief greeting. Soon a group of people came to the synagogue, and Premier Zhou saw that the people rushed forward to shake hands: Hello Prime Minister! This was kakuei Tanaka, the prime minister of Japan at the time. After the personnel gathered, Premier Zhou announced the start of the ceremony.
Under camera footage, he and Kakuei Tanaka, as well as the foreign ministers Ji Pengfei and Masayoshi Ohira, signed their names on a document called the Joint Declaration of the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Government of Japan, and since then China and Japan have announced the establishment of formal diplomatic relations.
The statement took only 4 days from Kakuei Tanaka's visit to China to its signing, but for the great man and Premier Zhou, it was a wait of decades. Two days before the signing of the statement, the great man also personally dragged the sick body to receive Tanaka Kakuei, which was enough to see how much the great man attached to this matter.
In 1972, 23 years had passed since the founding of New China, so why did it take so long for China and Japan to formally establish diplomatic relations? From hostility to peace, what twists and turns have we experienced? What kind of negotiations did Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou have with Japan? At the end of World War II, as a defeated country, Japan should have paid a huge amount of war reparations to our country, but when China and Japan established diplomatic relations, the great man gave up this indemnity.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="44" > After World War II, the United States controlled Japan</h1>
On August 15, 1945, the Emperor of Japan announced his surrender, accepted United Nations sanctions, and no longer had offensive armed troops. After the surrender ceremony, in the name of urging Japan, the United States invited China and Britain to station troops in Japan. However, at that time, Chiang Kai-shek's government was busy with the civil war, and the British were busy with the occupation of Germany and the resumption of the war, and they could not allocate their energy to Japan, so Japan completely fell under the control of the United States.
The United States analyzed Japan's wartime performance and found that they had the characteristics of "bullying the weak and fearing the hard, and obeying the force", so on the one hand, they used the atomic bomb to achieve a deterrent effect, on the other hand, they retained the emperor and some hard-line right-wing forces, and controlled the whole of Japan by convincing them.
In 1949, when New China was founded, democrats from all walks of life in Japan gathered to celebrate this great day and established the Preparatory Committee for the Japan-China Friendship Association to convey the Japanese people's vision of establishing stable and friendly relations with New China. However, at that time, it was in the period of hegemony between the United States and the Soviet Union, and as a socialist country, New China naturally turned to the Soviet camp that supported itself. Out of consideration for its own interests, the United States decided to adopt a policy of total blockade against New China, and the Japanese government under its control naturally resolutely opposed the establishment of diplomatic relations with China.
In 1950, the Korean War broke out, and the United States intervened in the civil war in the name of the United Nations Army, extending the war to the Yalu River, which greatly threatened China's territorial security. In order to safeguard national sovereignty, China's War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea was launched. In this war, Japan naturally sided with the United States, not only becoming a transit point for the transportation of Weapons and Equipment to the United States, but also providing $110 million worth of arms and equipment to the U.S. military.
Not only that, the Korean People's Army placed many mines in the nearby waters at that time, which caused great trouble to the US military in transporting troops and equipment. After learning of the situation, Japan took the initiative to use the sealed minesweeper and dispatched a 1,200-person mine-sweeping force to smoothly clear the obstacles for the US landing on the Korean Peninsula.
In addition, in the later stages of the war, Japan sent a large number of experts to help the United States build germ bombs, which brought great trouble to our army. In short, although Japan did not directly participate in the war, it also did a lot of things and hid behind the United States and made a fortune. This has brought the United States and Japan closer together, while Japan's antagonism with China has deepened.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="79" > Sino-Japanese relations: the people come first, and the people promote officials</h1>
In April 1952, under the instructions of the United States, japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, a hardcore pro-American faction, ignored the stern warnings of our government and signed a "peace treaty" with the Chiang Kai-shek government in Taiwan, completely severing the line of reconciliation and establishment of diplomatic relations with our country. At this time, although the Japanese people have always expressed goodwill towards our country, under the intervention of the government, the Chinese and Japanese people have never been able to communicate directly.
Premier Zhou, who is also foreign minister, is also a headache for this situation. With the gradual deterioration of relations between the two governments, it is difficult to have normal diplomatic exchanges in the short term. In order to ease Sino-Japanese relations and pave the way for the future normalization of diplomatic relations, Premier Zhou put forward the principle of "people first, and promote officials with the people" to strengthen the ties between the two countries and break the deadlock through people-to-people diplomacy.
In May 1952, when Japanese parliamentarians FanZuji, Miyagawa Kisuke, and Senator Takara Futa attended the International Economic Conference in Moscow, they ignored the obstruction of the Japanese authorities, accepted the invitation of our representatives to visit China, went to Beijing to conduct friendly negotiations with us, and finally signed the first non-governmental trade agreement between China and Japan. Since then, the situation of people-to-people diplomacy between the two countries has opened up!
At the end of 1954, the pro-American Japanese Prime Minister Shigeshino Yoshida and the Democratic Party Hatoyama Ichiro became prime minister. Ichiro Hatoyama was committed to getting rid of total U.S. control, achieving diplomatic freedom, and improving Japan's international status, so he attached great importance to relations with China, the Soviet Union, and other countries. During his term of office, although there were still many domestic and international resistances, and it was difficult for China and Japan to make substantive breakthroughs in diplomatic relations, friendly exchanges between the two countries became frequent and began to warm up significantly.
In November 1955, the great man received former Japanese Prime Minister Tetsu Katayama and held friendly talks on the topic of maintaining peace and opposing war. In August 1956, the great man also received a delegation of old Japanese soldiers. In October, the great man and Premier Zhou personally visited the venue of the Japan Commodity Exhibition, which greatly promoted the improvement of Sino-Japanese relations. In February 1957, Japan broke the shackles brought by the United States and formally resumed diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, which greatly increased the possibility of establishing diplomatic relations between China and Japan.
But just when the situation was good, Kishi Nobusuke, who had become a Class A war criminal after World War II, came to power. He highly admired close relations with the United States, was hostile to China, and supported the Chiang Kai-shek government in Taiwan. As a result of his series of measures to worsen Sino-Japanese relations, the relations between the two countries deteriorated further, and even regressed to the early state of relations between the two countries after World War II. Fortunately, previous efforts were not completely in vain, and even in such a bad period of relations, in 1959, Japan's Inajiro Asumuma broke through government restrictions and led a Socialist Party delegation to visit China.
At this time, our country is facing more serious problems. After Khrushchev came to power and his position was secure, he took a very tough attitude toward the state of the socialist camp and wanted to control China militarily. At the end of 1958, China and the Soviet Union broke up, the relations between the two countries entered a stage of tension, and China's international situation became more and more difficult.
Fortunately, in the 1960s, China gradually broke through the technological blockade of Western countries and successfully developed missiles, atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs, which greatly improved its international status and successfully gained a firm foothold in the international arena. In the early 1960s, based on the promotion of economic relations with Asian countries, the newly appointed Japanese Prime Minister Isamu Ikeda once again adjusted his diplomatic decisions and began to cool down japan-Taiwan relations, and instead favored the improvement of Sino-Japanese relations.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="81" > Sino-Japanese relations: ups and downs</h1>
At this time, the contradictions between China and the Soviet Union were getting bigger and bigger, and the United States was gradually falling into the inferior position in the struggle for hegemony with the Soviet Union. For the United States, the enemy of the enemy is the friend, and they have realized the failure of this foreign policy after so many years of isolation of our country. Therefore, since 1966, the United States has begun to change its China policy and release a friendly attitude toward China.
Until 1971, the two countries began "ping-pong diplomacy", turning a large ball with a small ball, officially breaking the diplomatic ice of the two countries. U.S. President Richard Nixon visited China in 1972, and relations between the two countries further warmed up, and finally diplomatic relations were formally established in 1979. However, during the period when Sino-US relations were gradually heating up in the 1960s, in line with the international situation and their own interests, Sino-Japanese relations, which should have warmed up with them, fell to the bottom again.
In 1964, Eisaku Sato became prime minister of Japan, and like his brother Kishi Nobusuke, he hated our country. The prime minister, who has visited the Yasukuni Shrine 11 times, is a staunch right-winger. Therefore, as soon as he took office, he began to sabotage the gradually heating Sino-Japanese relations.
During his term of office, he not only strongly obstructed Sino-Japanese friendly exchanges, but also refused to allow exchange groups to enter the country. It also vigorously advocates "two Chinas" and openly interferes in China's internal affairs. Moreover, when China restored its legitimate seat in the United Nations, he also took the initiative to collude with the United States and obstructed it, which greatly increased the difficulty of our country's entry into the United Nations. Ironically, such a prime minister who is committed to undermining China's peace and Sino-Japanese relations won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1974!
Fortunately, the international environment had changed at that time, and the United States, under the pressure of Soviet superiority, accelerated the process of reconciliation with China. In 1971, with the support and acquiescence of many countries, China expelled Taiwan and restored its legitimate seat in the United Nations, and its international status became more and more stable.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="82" > the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Japan</h1>
At this time, the conditions are ripe, and the normalization of Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations is imminent. In 1972, Sato Eisaku Shimono came to power, and Kakuei Tanaka, who was known as the prime minister of the common people, came to power. At this time, Nixon had completed his visit to China, and Sino-Japanese people-to-people relations were also very harmonious. After a brief diplomatic exchange, on September 25 of the same year, Kakuei Tanaka accepted the invitation of Premier Zhou to begin his visit to China, the first Japanese leader to come to China after World War II!
Due to the great man's ill health, the main recipient of Tanaka Kakuei was Premier Zhou, and the two countries mainly held talks on post-war compensation and issues left over from history. Under the basis of Premier Zhou's reasoning, Kakuei Tanaka made a profound remorse for Japan's past crimes and added this passage to the Sino-Japanese Joint Statement: The Japanese side deeply feels the responsibility of the Japanese state for the heavy damage caused to the Chinese people in the past due to the war, and expresses profound reflection.
After several hours of debate, and finally after meticulous consultations between the two countries, the "Sino-Japanese Joint Declaration" was finally perfected and mainly contained five major contents: First, China and Japan formally established diplomatic relations; second, Japan recognized that there was only one China and That Taiwan was an inalienable part of China; third, Sino-Japanese diplomacy took the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence as the general principle; fourth, China and Japan carried out diversified trade cooperation; and fifth, China gave up demanding war reparations from Japan.
After the promulgation of the Sino-Japanese Joint Declaration, it immediately caused widespread controversy in China, when Japan's war reparations, only through the mortgage of some old equipment, paid 22 million US dollars, and still owed us 21.6 billion US dollars, why should we take the initiative to give up war reparations?
In fact, long before Kakuei Tanaka came to China, the great man made a decision on this matter through consultation with Premier Zhou and others: As long as Japan has a sincere attitude, admits the mistakes it has made, and admits that there is only one China, we can give up our demand for post-war compensation against Japan. There are several reasons for this decision:
The first is for the sake of peaceful development. At this time, although there were many comrades in the country who still had strong resistance to the crimes of the Japanese people. But it is undeniable that the theme of the world at that time was already peace and development. In the era of globalization, only by reconciling with Japan, an economic power, and developing trade relations can we achieve win-win results and have the capital to stand tall in the forest of the world.
The second is to consider the actual situation. Because of the Taiwan issue, Japan's war reparations have been in arrears for 27 years, and if it wants to come back, it will face many unclear problems. It is better to give up on its own initiative and show our generosity and sincerity in exchange for Japan's greater support for our country.
The third is the great power of our country. According to Ms. Lin Liyun, who was working as a translator for Premier Zhou at the time, Premier Zhou once said that the consideration of great people. When we were in the Qing Dynasty, we suffered from reparations, and the reparations came and went, and in the end they were all scavenged from the people layer by layer, and the suffering was still the people. Although Japan invaded us at that time, it was a matter for the upper classes, the people at the lower levels were innocent, and in the war, the Japanese people were not happy. Once compensated, it is they who suffer. And even if Japan compensates, it will not give us good things, it will only be shoddy, it is better not to!
On September 27, after the Sino-Japanese Joint Declaration was concretely determined, Kakuei Tanaka also met a great man in Zhongnanhai. The Japanese prime minister admired the magnanimity of the great man, and often nodded unconsciously during the conversation. When the talks were over, the great man also took a copy of the Chu Ci and gave it to Tanaka Kakuei as a gift.
After the signing of the Sino-Japanese Joint Declaration on September 29, Kakuei Tanaka visited Shanghai under the leadership of Premier Zhou, and left China directly after the visit. Although he did not stay in China for long, since then, more and more Japanese have remained in China. Today, China is already the second largest economy in the world, and there are more and more cooperation with Japan in economic, trade, cultural and other aspects. Looking at that year from today, the decision-making of great people can be called far-sighted, for a hundred years!