The original version of "Tanaka Sonata", the original title of "The Empire's Positive fundamental policy toward Manchuria and Mongolia", has been discussed since its authenticity was disclosed by the Nanjing "Current Affairs Monthly" in late 1929, and it can be said that since its birth, it has been a controversial issue between China and Japan in the study of the War of Resistance.
The Japanese side initially held a negative view on the existence of the Tanaka Sonata. In 1930, Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs protested to the Chinese Nationalist government, calling the Tanaka Fold a forgery. Some people in Japan even hypothesized from the perspective of the Cold War that the Soviet intelligence department had forged the "Tanaka Sonata" in order to induce the Japanese "southward faction" to attack Southeast Asia and curb the Japanese military forces' "northward faction" from attacking the Soviet Union, thus alleviating the pressure of the Soviet Union facing two-sided operations in the east and west. Chinese scholars, on the other hand, are mostly positive. So why is there such a big difference in attitudes between the two sides? From the perspective of a legal person, the reason why there is such a big difference is related to the characterization of Japan's aggression against China.
If we affirm the existence of "Tanaka Sonata", it just shows that Japan has been deliberately committing it for a long time. The reason why many people in Japan deny the existence of the "Tanaka Recital" and regard the subsequent 918 Incident and the July 77 Lugou Bridge Incident as triggered by accidental factors is nothing more than to show that the war was triggered by accidental factors and that Japan's invasion of China was a negligent crime, believing that the guilt could be reduced in this way.
Since the Allies did not find the original Tanaka Recital after World War II, Japan used this as an excuse to say that the Tanaka Recital was a forgery. In fact, not finding it doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't exist. Before and after the surrender on August 15, 1945, the Japanese authorities purposefully, systematically, and systematically destroyed a large number of archives on the invasion of China and its war crimes. Just because these crimes do not exist. In legal practice, the loss of original evidence proving intentional crimes does not mean that intentional crimes do not exist. Even if the original document is not found, the existence of the original evidence can be proved through other relevant chains of evidence, and the Japanese side cannot say that it does not exist without finding the original document, but must prove that it does not have criminal intent. And Japan's later proof of the existence of similar documents:
First, after the "Tanaka Recital" was made public, Chinese officials revealed at a relevant meeting of the League of Nations that the documents were copied from the Imperial Library of Japan. The Japanese authorities immediately removed all 28 people under the library official, Isamu Koshita. Cai Zhikan, a patriot who risked his life to infiltrate the imperial library of the Japanese Imperial Palace to copy the Tanaka Recital, was also arrested and imprisoned.
Second, the direction, steps, and process of Japan's aggressive actions after 1927 are the same as the strategic plans made in "Tanaka Folds." It's hard to imagine an outsider being able to make such accurate predictions about war! Even the then Japanese Foreign Minister Shigemitsu Aoi later admitted in his book "Showa's Turmoil": "The subsequent events in East Asia, and the actions taken by Japan on the basis of such events, seem to have taken the Tanaka Memorandum as a textbook, so it is very difficult to dispel foreign doubts about this instrument."
Therefore, Japan's use of the fact that it did not find the original of the Tanaka Recital to vigorously deny the existence of the Tanaka Recital is legally and historically untenable, and belongs purely to the sophistry of the invaders.
(About the author: Yu Xingwei: Doctor of Law, retired colonel, former researcher of a certain military department and lawyer of the Legal Counsel Office, long-term engaged in theoretical research and legal practice work, has undertaken a large number of non-litigation business and litigation cases involving the military. ）