Initial Planning Conference
Summary report by Ezra F. Vogel
International House of Japan, January 11-12, 2000
Sponsored by Centers at Harvard University, Peking University, and Tokyo University
 

Scholars from China, Japan, and the United States assembled in Tokyo to lay the groundwork for joint research on the Sino-Japanese War, 1931-1945. Scholars from the three areas presented papers introducing the major scholarly works and the available archival material respectively in Chinese, Japanese, and English. The cooperation between scholars from these three areas is based on our joint commitment to objective scholarly research to examine the historical record. Participants in the conference were unanimous in their praise of scholars from all three countries who embodied the spirit of objective search for understanding. Although our work embodies a joint scholarly enterprise, many of us joined this effort because we believe that our work can indirectly help our respective nations come to terms with the historical record, thereby increasing mutual understanding, reconciliation, and the prospects of our living together peacefully and cooperatively in the next century. (A list of scholars attending this initial conference will be appended.)

Those of us who attended this meeting have agreed to hold a series of conferences that will bring together scholars primarily from our three countries who use English, Chinese, and Japanese materials but we welcome the cooperation of scholars from other countries, some of whom do research using materials in other languages. We plan to sponsor the following:

One senior scholar noted that over the past three decades we have seen great advances in dialogue and joint research between scholars from the United States and Japan and between scholars from the United States and China. But we have seen almost no collaboration between scholars from China and Japan. The cold war and the separation between Japanese and Chinese scholars has delayed the process of reconciliation and cooperative research. We should help remedy this neglect.

This senior scholar also suggested that in our collaboration we should aim to find "the facts as they really were," the truths that all reasonable scholars everywhere must accept. A younger scholar added that we should also consider how history has been constructed by various scholars and the context that gives meaning to the facts that we uncover. There was general agreement that memory about history is important in its own right and needs to be considered but that we should make a clear distinction between history and memory about history; our main task is to deal with history. A Japanese scholar said it was important for us as serious scholars to draw lines between ourselves and journalists and propagandists who are irresponsible in their descriptions and do not make a serious attempt to discern the facts. One Japanese scholar emphasized that we should have no taboos that stand in the way of objective examination of what went on; as serious scholars we must look objectively at issues like the role of the Japanese Emperor and the activities of Japanese individuals who later held prominent positions in Japanese society. Similarly, we must look squarely at the nature of Chinese-Japanese relations in China, including activities that reflected collaboration. One scholar said that among the criteria for judging whether a scholar is objective is whether he is willing to admit mistakes when they are pointed out and whether he applies universal standards in judging what happened. There was general agreement that we need to give specificity to our work, recognizing the differences of locality, group, organization, and personality within each country and the changes over time.

Materials in various languages
Secondary works and publicly available archival materials in English are at this point more numerous than those in Japanese, and those in Japanese more numerous and accessible than those in Chinese. However, there are perhaps more secondary published works in Japanese than in English. Furthermore, the Westerners penetrated China less deeply than the Japanese and Japanese less deeply than the Chinese. Eventually we expect that the greatest depth of understanding of developments in the Sino-Japanese war will come from Chinese materials and that more depth will come from Japanese materials than English. Many of the English language materials may be objective but they are more limited in scope, focusing primarily on missionary activities, politics, diplomacy, and the battlefield. In assessing the value of materials we must make an effort to understand the vantage point and the perspective of various kinds of archival materials as well as the secondary works. Many of the Nationalist and Communist materials from the period, for example, must be seen in the context of their political efforts.

There were no scholars present from Taiwan, and since there are numerous archives in Taiwan relevant to our research topic, it was strongly recommended that in future conferences we include scholars from Taiwan familiar with their archival materials and research. There are also materials in Russian and as they are released, they will also be a valuable source. In addition there are some materials in German, French, and some other languages as well; we should make an effort to use materials in any language that shed light on our topic.

What term to use for the war
Some people have suggested in our research we concentrate on the years 1937-1945, but the consensus from our meeting was that we should begin in 1931 because the Japanese invasion of Manchuria had such an impact on all areas of China and because developments after 1937 are so intimately linked with those from 1931-1937.

Many Japanese have used the term "fifteen year war" although it was slightly less than fourteen years from the Manchurian Incident of 1931 until the end of the war in August 1945. Many Chinese use the term "the war of resistance against Japan" to describe the war from their perspective. Westerners tend to see these events as part of World War II; Americans and some Japanese have tended to focus on the "Asia-Pacific War," but our focus is on developments in China. Some have used the term, "The second Sino-Japanese war," but in general it was felt that "The Sino-Japanese War, 1931-1945" is a neutral comprehensive term that describes our subject matter and is acceptable to all sides.

How to conceive the Sino-Japanese War, 1931-1945
One participant suggested that the most fundamental perspective is that the war was a major tragedy that engulfed a major portion of mankind. Europeans talking of world history or listing the great people of the last century neglect the role of Asia. We should aim to correct this bias. The Sino-Japanese war caused enormous suffering and had long-term consequences. All were losers: the Japanese were defeated, the Kuomintang soon lost out to the communists, and the Chinese people suffered enormous losses of life, property, and a breakdown of local political and social order. America also suffered loss of life and property in China. One issue which should eventually be addressed is how to assess the long-term impact of the war, not only on developments in China but on developments in Japan and other parts of the world.

Another suggested that the war could be seen as the failure of diplomacy. Diplomatic history in the United States has generally concentrated on the cold war period, but we should aim to extend diplomatic history beyond this period.

Europeans and Americans studying World War II have tended to see the Sino-Japanese War as part of the world war and the narrative with which many Westerners approach the study is of the course of war leading to "our victory." Many Chinese have approached the war with the narrative of the heroic Chinese resistance to foreign invasion and domination. Recently many Chinese have been compiling accounts of Japanese atrocities. Japanese scholars are generally concerned with the Japanese role in China, but many of their works are sharply divided between those emphasizing the tragedy brought to China, and others minimizing the horrors brought to China by Japan.

We should also include developments in Japan as they relate to the war and developments in those parts of China not occupied by Japan, both under communist and nationalist control, for they too were greatly affected by the war and affected developments of the war. We should also consider the overseas Chinese for they too played an important role in this war.

There was agreement that we should aim for a comprehensive understanding of the war, from various perspectives. In general, the victors control the writing of history, but we should make an effort to achieve a many-sided picture.

Future conference proposals
Participants generally agreed on three general topics that were promising for future conferences. The first two will be held in 2002 and 2003 respectively, and the conference in international diplomatic relations will be held at a later time. A fourth conference on literature and other forms of culture may be held at a later time.

  1. Local Chinese rule after Japanese invasion of China's northeast: politics, economics, and society. One frontier of scholarship in all three countries on the Sino-Japanese war is with how local governments operated during the period after Japan invaded Manchuria. We include under this rubric all kinds of government, including the so-called "puppet-governments" of Wang Jingwei and others who ruled under Japanese guidance. We also will include areas under Guomindang rule and the base areas and guerilla forces under Communist rule. How did local government change as a result of Japanese invasion and how did local governments continue to change during the course of communist rule? How did the local Chinese governments under Japanese guidance relate to the Japanese military rule in China? What kind of people took part in these governments and how did they relate to local society and the local economy. These topics are of great interest to scholars in all three countries who have already begun researching these topics. The United States for example has a group of scholars working on base areas with almost every base area being studied by at least one scholar. China has recently published a number of books on puppet governments.

    One scholar highlighted the complexity of this topic. Some local areas were nominally under the rule of governments guided by the Japanese, but sometimes this rule was only meaningful in the larger cities or towns directly occupied by the Japanese and along major transportation lines such as railways. Sometimes many activities in the same area were partially under control of Guomindang and partially under control of Communist guerilla forces. We aim to select some geographical areas where there are materials both in Japanese and Chinese reports and in both communist and nationalist reports. How did Japanese trying to achieve pacification look at local Chinese governments compared to how Chinese resisting the Japanese looked at their governments? If we have some cases where there are materials from two or three sides, it would help us get a more multifaceted picture of what was taking place.

    To prepare for this topic, one person is being selected from each country, familiar with this research, to try to identify a few geographical areas where the most materials and best research is being done in his or her country. He (or she) would in turn be in touch with counterparts in the other two countries to try to identify common geographical areas of interest to people in the other country. The research materials may include some of the excellent fictional materials which are semi-factual accounts as well as various reports and historical records.

  2. A military history of the war from 1931-1945
    A part of our effort must be to have an overview of the military developments during this period. To achieve this, we can draw on the volumes of Japanese military (approximately one-fourth of the 100 volume series is related to the China War period) and the 105 volumes of military history compiled by the Kuomintang in Taiwan. Since many of these materials deal with specific battles, part of our task will also be to consider the overall strategy of the Japanese, the nationalists, and the communists. How, for example, did Japanese military leaders believe they might complete the war and how did this affect their conduct of the war? For all countries, we should make an effort to consider the structure and nature of the various forces and the relations between the military and local political and social organization.

  3. Diplomatic relations of participants of the China War, 1931-1945.
    The overall foreign relations of Japan, the Kuomintang, and the Communists will be considered during this period, including the relations with the United States, Germany, Russia, and other countries.

    Other topics. No final decision was made on other topics at this point, but of the topics considered, one other especially promising topic for consideration was: Propaganda, culture, and literature in China, 1931-1945. How did the Japanese adapt literature and other forms of culture for their propaganda and educational purposes in China? How did literature and other forms of culture develop under the Kuomintang and the Communists? A Japanese scholar suggested that new research is addressing other questions that may be interesting to raise in future conferences, questions like: how in Japan was the government and the economy restructured to support an all-out war effort? What is the nature of colonization and decolonization? What was the role of ideology in various countries?

Web site
It was suggested that we put up a Web site for the Sino-Japanese war studies with collaboration from Chinese, Japanese, and Americans. The Web site could include the existing bibliographies we have thus far compiled and new entries could be added periodically. It would be desirable to have a brief essay on the history of research in each country, providing some perspective on the kinds of studies available. We could also include accounts by users of various collections about their experience concerning the usefulness and accessibility of various archives. Haruo Iguchi from Japan, Steven Phillips from the United States, and Li Yu from China would assist in the updating of these bibliographic and archival materials. One scholar suggested that perhaps a newsletter coming out every few months might supplement a Web site.

We will make an effort to solicit brief historiographic essays on scholars from the three countries that would give a perspective on the background and approach of scholars from their respective countries.

Joe Esherick of San Diego history department has a Web page on modern Chinese history which includes information on archives in China.

Supplementary comments on English language sources
English language sources include official documents, memoirs, private papers, and oral histories located primarily in the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. These items are valuable because they supplement Chinese and Japanese language documents and provide a different perspective to the war in China.

In fact, many English language materials are based on Chinese or Japanese sources. For example, rivalries in the Nationalist ranks might be seen through the eyes of a "third force" politician in Chongqing, then further summarized and interpreted by a British diplomat who felt that China was too backwards to make any meaningful contribution to the war against Japan.

Among the types of materials and repositories open to scholars are:


Supplementary comments on Chinese language sources
Many of the official government records of the war period were taken by the nationalists to Taiwan. In Taiwan, many documents are in the "guoshiguan" and it may be necessary to take notes and not to copy materials. The "second archives" in Nanjing are mostly official records. They tend to be better indexed and more accessible to scholars than some of the other archives, but a number of provinces and counties have their own materials from the war period. Some of these local materials are very open. Various units in China are making rapid progress in publishing their materials, making them readily accessible to the scholarly community. Many policy documents have already been published and there is continuing effort to publish more research materials. There are also many oral history projects in China, including many led by local governments.

Even within China, many scholars have only limited access to some of the materials, and some materials are more readily available to people in that unit than to outsiders. One Chinese scholar commented that there is a very clear law about what materials should be classified with what level of secrecy but that there is no clear law about declassification which is therefore proceeding unevenly depending on the perspective and the courage of local officials; he commented that Chinese reform had not yet reached the operation of archives; some scholars want to complete their own work on documents in their unit before releasing the materials for others to use. Some mainland China archives also require letters of introduction and special applications that are not given to all seekers of materials automatically. Some local archive officials are afraid of criticism that might come from making materials available to outsiders. Some Chinese officials do not want to take risks about releasing information that might be politically sensitive and they are therefore much readier to supply materials where there is clearly no political risk. One foreign scholar gave an example of a group of Japanese scholars studying Manchu and Mongol documents; since those scholars clearly did not arouse political sensitivities and they received excellent cooperation from Chinese when they sought materials. One Chinese scholar said that in general the Sino-Japanese War is not a sensitive topic but if it involves issues about current leaders, those parts would be more sensitive.

One Chinese problem is the importance of preservation; many materials from wartime are on paper of poor quality; little money is available for preservation and for those interested in long term research this problem needs attention. Chinese archives have received little government funding so they have few high quality specialized staff and often charge more for copying and other services than do archives in other countries. Some local units use the archival materials as a source of income and thus charge high fees for usage.

One Japanese scholar noted that some documents taken from the Japanese at the end of the war in 1945 have not yet been available to Japanese, and he made a plea that they be returned or at least released to the Japanese. Some documents from Yanan were buried but have not yet been recovered. Some documents were also destroyed during the culture revolution.

In China, there is concern about the political and military implications of Japan's rapid economic growth and there is thus a concern that to coexist peacefully, it is important for the Japanese to examine and criticize their past and for young Japanese to be taught about the serious tragedies that Japan caused China.

There was recognition by scholars from all countries that it would be difficult to get precise figures such as the numbers of people killed in the Nanjing massacre. One Chinese official gave an example of the difficulty of getting precise documentation. He found his father's photo collection a picture that was taken of a Chinese that had been beheaded by the Japanese. There is no name of who the Chinese was or precisely when the photo was taken; it may be impossible to ever trace the exact information, but information such as this do indicate things that happened even if they cannot be precisely authenticated.

As for historical memories, some Chinese are not satisfied with Japanese apologies because there are fresh denials by Japanese political officials and some Japanese seem to make the statements only under pressure and seem to belittle the significance or scope of Japanese aggression. One Chinese reported watching on Chinese TV an interview of a young Japanese who had just visited some historical museums in Nanjing; the Japanese student was crying from the horrors and said he had previously had no idea that such horrors had gone on. This illustrates that many Japanese have not been exposed to the horrors that took place in China. In the 1950s when Marshall Chen Yi received apologies from Japanese veterans, the Japanese said they will never forget what they did; Marshall Chen Yi responded that since they said they would never forget it, then it would not be necessary for Chinese to bring it up. One Japanese scholar commented that Japan invaded China, that they were aggressive and killed many Chinese and that no serious Japanese historian denies this. He added that all Japanese politicians who made wild statements denying what happened in the Sino-Japanese War were criticized by other Japanese and that virtually every Japanese political leader who held an important post when he made such statements was forced to resign. Japanese acknowledged that from 1945-1960 many Japanese tended to emphasize that Japanese people had been victims of World War II, but leftist historians of the time emphasized how much Japanese had victimized Chinese and Koreans and how much Japan had departed from universal values and international order beginning in 1931.

Supplementary comments on Japanese language sources
After the end of World War II, Japanese intellectuals were very critical of Japanese imperialism and Japanese aggression, even those who were not particularly leftists. Some leftist scholars like Ienaga Saburo and Fujiwara Akira were very critical of other Japanese scholars who tended to look down on Chinese and had a very low opinion of Chinese fighting capacity.

Beginning in the 1960s the mainstream of Japanese scholars was less affected by this mood and are more motivated by their desire for objective research. They were more interested in issues like modernization theory, the process of decision-making, and the links between domestic and foreign relations.

The Japanese freedom of information act will go into effect in April 2001 so that at that time many new requests can be made for government materials not yet open.

Japanese National Defense Archives are all open. Many are inundated by requests from individual Japanese trying to trace the records of their relatives. However, scholars have sometimes been told that family permission is needed to gain access to personal papers that are in these Archives.

Although the senior Japanese scholars working on the Sino-Japanese war are affected by a guilty conscience, this is much less true of the younger generation.