Normalization with the Asian Powers } 455
States to brief Japan’s leaders about the upcoming “lesson” to Vietnam.
Japan disbursed loans to China every year but one between 1979 and 1988,
averaging 89 billion yen per year. The ADB, in which Japan played a major
role, disbursed another US$5.6 billion to China, far more than to any other
cou nt r y.^48 An intergovernmental conference, headed by Gu Mu on the
Chinese side, met regularly. A conference of nongovernmental personages
was established and met three times through 1986. There were frequent
declarations of fine-sounding principles to underpin Sino-Japan relations.
In June 1982, during his visit to Tokyo, Zhao Ziyang advanced three guid-
ing principles for Sino-Japanese relations: peace and friendship, equal-
ity and mutual benefit, and long-term stability. During a November 1983
visit to Japan, Hu Yaobang spoke to Japan’s parliament, saying that China
would always be sincere and honest, open and aboveboard, and would act
in good faith. Hu and Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone agreed that fu-
ture relations would be guided by the principles enunciated by Zhao Ziyang
the previous year. Hu and Nakasone also agreed in 1983 to establish a 21st
Century Committee for China-Japan Friendship, which met in Beijing in
June 1984. The first full session met in Tokyo in September 1984 and is-
sued yet another statement of fine-sounding principles. The same month,
four groups of 3,000 Japanese youth began visiting China at the invita-
tion of Hu Yaobang. The cornerstone for a China-Japan Youth Exchange
Center in Beijing was laid in November 1986. During the 1980s, the two
sides also conducted joint activities commemorating the World War II
atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A Japanese parliamentary
delegation visited China, while the China-Japan Friendship Association
held various activities.^49
Periodic confrontations over the history issue paralleled this process
of Sino-Japanese cooperation and, as it turned out, eroded mutual amity.
Beijing’s first “history lesson” came in 1982, when Japanese journalists dis-
covered that the Ministry of Education had suggested that the wording used
in some high school textbooks be changed to lessen the moral onus associated
with Japan’s actions in the 1930s and 1940s. Japan’s “invasion” of China was
called a “forward advance.” The 1937 “Massacre” at Nanjing became the “kill-
ing of many” as a result of “fierce resistance by Chinese troops.”^50 One month
passed before Beijing responded. That response began with an official pro-
test, followed by a nearly month-long media campaign excoriating in vivid
terms Japan’s aggression against China. The key themes of the media cam-
paign were the danger of revival of Japanese militarism and the anger and
hurt feelings of the Chinese people at the unrepentant nature of the Japanese
government. China’s newspapers and magazines were filled with photos of
Chinese being decapitated, mutilated corpses, and the like, along with per-
sonal reminiscences from that era and cartoons lambasting the position of
Japan’s government and politicians. Dramatically worded headlines and