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bold leadership style, became Japan’s prime minister. Tanaka and his foreign
minister Masayoshi Ohira quickly declared their determination to normalize
relations with China. US-PRC rapprochement had eliminated US opposition
to Japan-China normalization, while new Japanese uncertainty regarding
Washington gave Tokyo additional incentive to move in that direction.
Zhou Enlai coordinated a campaign to respond positively to the Tanaka-
Ohira initiative and move it toward a successful conclusion. Zhou desig-
nated Liao Chengzhi to be China’s point person in courting Japanese elite
circles. Liao was born in Tokyo in 1908 as the son of Liao Zhongkai, a leading
member of the KMT and close associate of Sun Yat-sen. Liao Chengzhi came
under Zhou’s influence in the 1920s and joined the KMT (then allied with the
CCP) in 1925. Forced to flee China because of his radical political activities,
Liao returned to Tokyo in 1927 and joined the CCP branch in Tokyo while
studying at Waseda University in that city. For the next several decades, Liao
put his linguistic skills at the service of the CCP, having picked up German,
French, and English in addition to Japanese along the way. Liao spoke fluent
Japanese and was well known in Japanese circles. Among Liao’s effective
tropes with his Japanese friends in was the proposition that history was being
made, and that old friends should play an important role in the process of
Sino-Japanese rapprochement.^36
Zhou himself had visited Japan twice, in 1917 and 1919. During Beijing’s
1972 courtship of Japan, Liao, Zhou, and other Chinese diplomats liaised with
various Japanese political parties, especially the opposition, including but
not limited to the Japan Socialist Party (JSP). Zhou found a way, however,
to gracefully decline JSP solicitation of a visit to China by a large JSP dele-
gation in the months before Tanaka’s visit. Zhou thus ensured that Tanaka,
representing Japan’s governing party, not the JSP, would harvest the prestige
for the coming breakthrough. The China-Japan Friendship Association was
mobilized to lend its weight to the push for normalization. Japanese business
leaders were motivated by promises of large and lucrative Chinese contracts.
Zhou guided the themes stressed during the Chinese effort in Japan, playing
effectively (but subtly and not harshly, as would be the case several decades
later) on Japanese guilt for its aggression in the 1930s and 1940s, mingled with
respect for China’s ancient civilization. In the words of scholar Chae-Jin Lee,
Zhou showed “keen sensitivity to ... Japanese psychology and masterful ma-
nipulation of Japan’s political and economic forces.”^37
In September 1972, seven months after Nixon’s historic visit to Beijing,
Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka arrived in Beijing with an entourage of nearly
fifty for a six-day visit. Tanaka was met at the Beijing airport by a large and
high-ranking Chinese delegation led by Premier Zhou Enlai and Ye Jianying.
Mao met with Tanaka early in the visit to signal his approval of the normaliza-
tion of relations with Japan. The two sides proceeded to negotiate a nine-point
communiqué that ended the “abnormal state of affairs” that existed between