Foreign Correspondents in the East Asian Cold War: The Sino-Japanese journalist exchange of 1964

Abstract This article examines the importance of the exchange of foreign correspondents between Japan and China from 1964, during a period of the Cold War when the two countries did not have official ties. Favourable political circumstances in the first half of the 1960s led to a brief window of opportunity for an improved relationship between China and Japan, during which this unique exchange took place. The article attempts to shed light on the significance of the exchange within the broader context of Chinese foreign policy and Sino-Japanese relations during the Cold War. Thereby it will clarify the importance of the 1960–1964 period for the longer rapprochement process that would come to fruition in 1972 with the establishment of diplomatic relations. The exchanges of 1964 were seen by participants as an important first step on the way towards official ties. For the Chinese the importance of a relationship with Japan in this period, and, by extension, the importance of the journalist exchange, is shown by the involvement of an unusually high number of journalists from both countries. This article argues that the Chinese leadership's desire for the journalist exchange was rooted in a craving for accurate knowledge about Japan, especially concerning specific political trends and economic developments. This enthusiasm was matched by pro-China politicians in Japan, who also felt that the journalists’ presence would enable the Chinese to base their Japan policy on a broader variety of sources, extending beyond information merely gathered through contacts in the Japanese left.


Introduction
After the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in , only a limited number of non-communist countries recognized the new government, whereas the United States and Japan officially recognized Chiang Kai-shek's Republic of China (ROC) regime in Taiwan. This situation lasted until , by which time the PRC had achieved diplomatic normalization with Japan as well as with Western European countries. Despite the fact that the United States lagged behind its allies and did not establish official relations with the PRC until , China's opening to the West in the s has been studied from a predominantly American perspective. However, recent scholarship has brought to the fore the rich interactions between China and several countries from the capitalist bloc in the decades prior to . 1 Though constricted because of Cold War realities, these interactions laid the groundwork for the rapid improvement in China's international standing in the s and, as Romano and Zanier have argued, this means that we must understand the rapprochement processes as beginning in the s. 2 While these recent studies have drawn attention to China's efforts to engage with the capitalist world by focusing mostly on Beijing's cultivation of ties with influential political and business figures, this article seeks to build on these studies by drawing attention to the part played by journalists in these efforts, looking specifically at their role in Sino-Japanese relations during the first half of the s. 3 A closer look at this moment can shed light on Regarding the latter aspect, Brady has shown that in , Premier Zhou Enlai, who was also the foreign minister, established five principles for dealing with foreign journalists. 8 Cadres were urged to 'selectively and deliberately make friends' with journalists, who could serve to get the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) message out to the world. 9 While, unsurprisingly, many of these journalists were progressives naturally sympathetic to the Chinese communists, 10 we will see that by the s the PRC leadership was keen to move beyond those who were already supportive of Beijing in their approach to journalism and foreign correspondence.
In the first half of the s, the economic devastation of the Great Leap Forward famine and the loss of Soviet economic support (in the wake of the Sino-Soviet split) had made the further cultivation of foreign trade links an urgent necessity for the PRC. The - period would see a series of breakthroughs in China's relations with Western Europe and Japan. Amy King has shown that in the early s Zhou Enlai and those around him looked to Japan as an East Asian model of how to use technology to modernize the economy and thereby 'catch up' with the West. 11 Throughout the s, China had already begun to cultivate limited trade ties with Japan, leading to the signing of several 'nongovernmental' trade agreements. The early s saw successful efforts to drastically expand trade links, focusing on major Japanese firms and culminating in the establishment of so-called 'LT (Liao-Takasaki) Trade' in . An important breakthrough came on  April  with the agreement to establish trade liaison offices in Beijing and Tokyo, which reflected the rapidly growing trade between 8 The five principles were: '. Do not reject those who come, but be discriminating in how you treat them. . Be prudent, but not overcautious; maintain secrecy but do not be mysterious; take the initiative but do not act rashly. . Reply to reporters' questions; do not overuse 'No comment.' . As for provocations, rebut them in a principled manner, but do not get aggressive. . Hospitality towards foreign reporters should include questions and answers, it should lead us to a greater awareness of the situation, and [through it] we should selectively and deliberately make friends.' See: Brady, Making the Foreign Serve China, p. . 9 Ibid., pp. , , . 10 The most famous of the leftist journalists cultivated by the CCP leadership was American journalist Edgar Snow, who in the s and later in the early s wrote influential books eulogizing the CCP and the PRC leadership. See: E. Snow, Red Star over China (London: Victor Gollancz, ); E. Snow, Red China Today: The Other Side of the River (London: Victor Gollancz, ). 11 King, China-Japan Relations after World War Two, pp. -.

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 the two countries that would result in Japan becoming China's largest trade partner in . While the expansion of trade and the establishment of trade offices were the most important developments in Sino-Japanese relations at this time and have therefore received most scholarly attention, 12 less well-known is that on the same day the Sino-Japanese Journalist Exchange Agreement was signed, which resulted in the permanent exchange of news correspondents. Through an analysis of this often-overlooked journalist exchange between Beijing and Tokyo we can take a further step towards completing our understanding of the history of Sino-Japanese relations in the Cold War. This article will argue that in the context of rapidly improving economic and political ties, the importance of the Sino-Japanese journalist exchange for the Chinese leadership lay in a craving for accurate knowledge about Japan. It thereby serves as an example of Zhou's desire to use interactions with journalists to inform themselves of the outside world, 'leading to greater awareness'. A central concern shared by both sides in the exchange was that the permanent presence of journalists would enable the Chinese leadership to engage with, and formulate policy on, Japan based on information that would not just come from the Japanese left. Beijing's reliance on limited and biased sources was considered a problem by both the Chinese leadership and Japanese politicians and was seen as an obstacle to the goal of placing relations on a more solid footing. In the mid-s, when the presence of Chinese citizens in Japan and vice versa was still limited, the journalists were to become a rare conduit for information and would serve Beijing as sources upon which policy could be based. An example of this was the use of both the Chinese and Japanese journalists to gain up-to-date information during the Japanese prime ministerial succession in November . It was feared an anti-China politician could derail much of the progress made on trade and other issues, as had happened during the tenure of Kishi Nobusuke (-). For the Chinese, the fact that there was a permanent presence of trade liaison officers and journalists in Japan and vice versa from  was seen as an important step on the way to diplomatic normalization. That the exchange was indeed part of a new era in Sino-Japanese relations is shown by the fact that although a deterioration in relations had led to a complete breakdown of trade ties 12 See, for example: Soeya, Japan's Economic Diplomacy with China; King, China-Japan Relations after World War Two; Mayumi Itoh, Pioneers of Sino-Japanese Relations: Liao and Takasaki (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, ). C A S P E R W I T S  in the s, when relations deteriorated again in the second half of the s, a lot of the gains made in the - period would not be reversed.
This article will examine the road that led towards achieving the journalist exchange, as well as the experiences of the journalists who were part of the exchange between Beijing and Tokyo from September . Looking initially at the first generation of Chinese correspondents in Tokyo, we will examine the extent to which they were encouraged to cultivate relations with those in Japan not already sympathetic to Beijing, something considered crucial for gaining an accurate understanding of the country. As for the Japanese journalists in China, their case was striking not only because there were far more of them than of journalists from other (even socialist) countries, but also because they were given greater access to the leadership in the person of Liao Chengzhi. A close confidant of Zhou Enlai who had grown up in Tokyo and was fluent in Japanese, Liao was the country's foremost expert on Japan and responsible for the management of China's Japan policy. A Central Committee member and director of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, he had been briefly head of the Xinhua News Agency prior to  and would become a pivotal figure in bringing about and managing the journalist exchange. 13 Access for the Japanese correspondents was achieved by creating a unique space for the exchange of ideas and information between the Japanese and Liao: a monthly 'breakfast meeting', held at Hefeng, the sole Japanese restaurant in Beijing at the time, was established especially to facilitate Sino-Japanese exchanges. This stands in marked contrast to the rather limited role of Western journalists in China in the s, whose presence, according to Beverly Hooper in her chapter on the subject, was regarded by Beijing as merely a 'necessary evil to allow China to send a few of its own media representatives abroad'. 14 Based on first-hand accounts from journalists' memoirs and diaries, as well as interviews with three of the last surviving participants in the journalist exchange of , as well as with the manager of Hefeng, this article will explore the content and political significance of the exchange.

Sino-Japanese journalist interaction in the s
In the early s the newly founded PRC faced relative international isolation, with many countries outside of the Soviet bloc not recognizing the new government, a situation that was exacerbated by the Korean War. Nonetheless, the Chinese leadership pursued trade ties with countries it did not have official relations with, promoting nongovernmental trade links as part of its so-called people's diplomacy. While trade with capitalist nations would become of vital importance after the Sino-Soviet split in the early s, several scholars have shown that Beijing was already proactively considering alternative markets to the USSR in the s, efforts that were seen by many involved as steps towards official recognition of the PRC. 15 The official position of the Chinese government was to make a clear distinction between hostile governments and their people, with Beijing always opposed only to the former, but willing to engage and trade with the latter. 16 This served to educate the Chinese people about why trade was conducted with supposedly hostile nations and also contributed to making 'foreign friends', who might not share the views of their governments, in the countries in question. The limited opportunities for interaction between China and Japan were usually related to this promotion of trade, and trade negotiations led to the signing of several nongovernmental trade agreements throughout the s. These negotiations took place between Chinese government representatives and progressive Japanese business organizations representing mostly small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) that were pro-China. 17 The progress made on trade in the s was highly prone to setbacks due to rapid changes in the political sphere, especially when the  conservative right-winger Kishi Nobusuke became Japanese prime minister in  and with the start of the Great Leap Forward in China in . As we will see, the work of the Chinese and Japanese journalists was closely tied to these ups and downs in Sino-Japanese trade.
The Chinese saw the trade and other negotiations, such as those on the repatriation of Japanese who had remained in China after , as an opportunity to create a transnational network involving actors from both sides, aimed at the improvement of ties and establishment of official relations in the long term. This was encouraged and managed in detail by Liao Chengzhi. 18 From the start, the work of those Chinese journalists reporting on Japan was integrated with these efforts. In addition to the long-term goal of cultivating connections with Japanese journalists, their task in the first half of the s was mainly to influence coverage on China in the Japanese media through direct propaganda. Furthermore, they facilitated reporting on Japan in the Chinese media in a way that supported Beijing's overall Japan policy, especially by emphasizing how numerous Japanese were supportive of the new government in Beijing. The Chinese journalists involved usually had long-standing ties to Japan and were often overseas Chinese originally from Japan or Chinese from the northeast of the country who had grown up under Japanese rule. Many of them had attended Japanese universities before . A first effort at promoting China in Japan was the founding of the Japanese-language propaganda magazine Jinmin Chūgoku (People's China) in  by Liao Chengzhi. Liao involved two young journalists who were fluent in Japanese in running the magazine: Liu Deyou, who was from the northeastern city of Dalian and would soon become a prominent Japanese interpreter for the Chinese leadership, and Kang Dachuan, who was originally from Taiwan, had been educated in Japan, and had moved to mainland China in  to take part in the anti-Japanese struggle.
At the Xinhua News Agency, the most prominent Japan specialists were Wu Xuewen, also from Dalian, and Ding Tuo, an overseas Chinese originally from Southeast Asia. They had both studied in Japan and had been involved with Xinhua since the Sino-Japanese war. The Chinese journalists at Xinhua and Chinese newspapers who were assigned to write about Japan first had to understand Beijing's Japan policy and therefore the aims of the Chinese had to be clearly   articulated, to the journalists and then, through their reporting, to a domestic audience. According to Wu Xuewen, Xinhua's principles regarding reporting on Japan were to: . Emphasize the Sino-Japanese nongovernmental exchange and Sino-Japanese friendship activities . Support the Japanese people's struggle for peace, democracy, and sovereignty . Expose the Japanese government's hostility to China and pursuit of any Two China scheme . Have an appropriate amount of reporting on Japan's politics, economics, society, and international relations. 19 These guidelines served to promote the idea of Sino-Japanese trade and people's diplomacy among a Chinese population for whom the memory of Japanese aggression was still raw. One of the journalists' first tasks was to get a grasp of who was who in Japan and what their opinion of China was. Wu Xuewen recalls that Liao Chengzhi gave the Xinhua journalists detailed instructions on who they should focus on and urged them to compile lists of important Japanese: Liao's order was to report widely on influential Japanese people from various fields, and he went so far as to rearrange the names or add new ones. From this moment onwards, the names appearing in Xinhua's reports on Japan were often the same ones, and this was in close alignment with the policy of 'People-to-People Diplomacy'. 20 By drawing attention to 'Japanese friends' who were sympathetic to the PRC, they sought to draw a clear distinction between Japan's leaders and its people. This in turn served to aid the effort to 'build a base of support within China and Japan for undermining American imperialism in Asia'. 21 In the s, the nominally nongovernmental negotiations were the only times at which Chinese journalists could interact with Japanese and engage in first-hand reporting from Japan. Priority was given to deepening their connections inside the country generally and with Japanese journalists specifically. For example, during the  visit led  by the Japanese Red Cross to China to discuss the repatriation issue, Wu Xuewen was instructed by Liao to interact especially with Japanese journalists in the delegation. 22 When the reciprocal Chinese Red Cross delegation visited Japan in , Wu Xuewen joined it and made the first-ever dispatch from Japan on behalf of Xinhua. 23 With a network in Japan that was still very limited, Wu relied on overseas Chinese journalists sympathetic to Beijing to obtain a press card, necessary for sending dispatches, since Xinhua had no official relations with its Japanese counterpart, Kyōdō. 24 In order to deepen their ties to Japanese journalists it was decided to seek out the most obvious channel for interaction: the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association (Nihon Shimbun Kyōkai, NSK). For this reason Kang Dachuan and Wang Xi of the People's Daily were included in a Chinese trade delegation that visited Japan in the spring of . A meeting was held with NSK representatives in their hotel in Tokyo, where they indicated that many Japanese journalists were interested in visiting China. After consulting with Liao Chengzhi, an NSK delegation was invited to China in August . 25 The delegation was headed by Yokota Minoru, the deputy president of Sankei Shimbun, who had previously been foreign correspondent in Beijing for the Dōmei News Agency before . 26 The highlight of their visit was a lengthy meeting with Zhou Enlai on  August, at which many Chinese journalists were also present, including Wu Lengxi, the head of Xinhua, and Liu Deyou, who served as an interpreter, together with another of Liao's senior Japan hands, Zhao Anbo. 27 The growing trust between the two sides eventually led the Chinese Journalists' Association (Zhongguo xinwen gongzuozhe xiehui)-the NSK's Chinese counterpart-to formally request permission from the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) in September  to send two correspondents, namely Wu Xuewen and Ding Tuo, to be stationed in 22


Japan. This was done with the endorsement of the NSK, who would then be able to send two Japanese correspondents to China in return. 28 However, as was often the case with Sino-Japanese interactions in this era, the growing willingness of Japanese nongovernmental actors to engage with their Chinese counterparts was not matched with similar enthusiasm inside the Japanese bureaucracy. No response came from MOFA, and when Kishi Nobusuke became Japanese prime minister in February , an exchange of correspondents became increasingly unlikely. This was despite the further efforts of Wu Xuewen and Ding Tuo on two visits to Japan in August and December . Together with Yokota Minoru, they tried to use continuing momentum among Japanese news organizations, most of which were still keen to send correspondents, to achieve the exchange. 29 From early  the relationship between Japan and China deteriorated rapidly, due to both Kishi's pro-Taiwan stance and a radicalization in foreign policy following the start of the Great Leap Forward in China. The Chinese completely suspended trade with Japan after the Nagasaki Flag Incident on  May, when Japanese pulled down a PRC flag at a Chinese stamp exhibition in a Nagasaki department store. In fact, the Chinese had already broken off contact with Japanese journalists in the NSK in February, after it had sent a delegation to Taiwan. 30 During the remainder of Kishi's tenure as prime minister until July , efforts were made to restore trade ties through channels established in the context of the previous decade's people's diplomacy. While some high-profile visits from Japan Socialist Party (JSP) leaders were made in this period, it was two visits in  by Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) politicians-ex-prime minister Ishibashi Tanzan in September and ex-government minister Matsumura Kenzō in October-that arguably did most to restore high-level communications. 31 For example, Matsumura returned to Japan with an invitation for Takasaki 28 Nihon Shimbun Kyōkai nijūnen shi (A Twenty Year History of the NSK) (Tokyo: Nihon Shimbun Kyōkai, ), pp. , .
29 Ibid. 30 The NSK insisted on having relations with both Chinas, a policy that actually predated the Kishi government. The official NSK history states that the breakdown in trust in February  was in response to its insistence on 'the principle that the mutual exchange of journalists should be separated from politics'. Nihon Shimbun Kyōkai nijūnen shi, p. . 31 For a detailed overview of the efforts to restore Sino-Japanese trade and cultural relations in the - period, see: Caroline Rose, 'Breaking the Deadlock: Japan's informal diplomacy with the People's Republic of China, -', in Iokibe Makoto, C A S P E R W I T S  Tatsunosuke to visit China in the following year. Takasaki was the former minister of trade and industry in the Kishi cabinet and would go on to play a central role in re-establishing Sino-Japanese trade links over the next few years. Although he was at first viewed with suspicion due to his perceived closeness to Kishi, Matsumura convinced the Chinese that Takasaki was the person best placed to aid them in improving trade relations with Japan. 32 The role of Matsumura Kenzō and Tagawa Seiichi Chairman Mao Zedong, as architect of the Great Leap Forward mass collectivization campaign which led to the disastrous famine from  to , was left marginalized during the first half of the s, with economic policy now in the hands of other leaders. In addition to the economic devastation of the Great Leap Forward, the loss of economic support from the Soviet Union exacerbated the urgent need for foreign trade. In the following years China would take significant steps to engage with the capitalist world, building on the nongovernmental exchanges that had begun in the s. In , diplomatic normalization was achieved between the PRC and France, a trade agreement was reached with Italy, 33 and (ultimately unsuccessful) trade talks were held with West Germany. 34 However, it was access to Japanese markets and technology in particular that was now more important than ever, 35 and by  Japan would become China's most important trade partner. This was in no small part thanks to Japanese Prime Minister Ikeda Hayato, who was in office from July  until November . Though constrained by Japan's alliance with the United States in terms of seeking diplomatic normalization with the PRC, Ikeda was keen to strengthen Sino-Japanese trade relations. Realizing he could not openly take the lead in these efforts without The Chinese made use of this momentum by actively seeking to expand trade with Japan, first formalizing previous trade patterns that focused on progressive pro-China firms in so-called 'Friendship Trade' in August . By  Zhou Enlai was convinced of the need to expand further and start trading with Japan's major corporations. 38 This necessitated an engagement with more mainstream sections of the Japanese political and economic establishment. The fact that the Chinese did not have an embassy or any other permanent presence in Japan meant that Beijing's contacts in the country had mostly been progressive sympathizers of the PRC, often linked to the JSP and Japan Communist Party (JCP). Even during the trade negotiations in the s the Chinese mostly came in contact with Japanese left-wing economic groups. Amy King has described how the Chinese leadership harboured certain mistaken ideas about Japanese economic development, especially concerning the central role played by the United States, due to its reliance on this particular leftist subsection of the Japanese population. 39 There was some awareness of this in Beijing and already by the mid-s one of the concerns for Liao Chengzhi and the Chinese leadership was the cultivation of ties with non-traditional allies beyond the Japanese left. 40 Although this was a slow process, by the early s it had begun to bear fruit, slowly creating a more balanced picture of Japan for the Chinese government. 41  The Chinese perception that relations had entered a 'half-governmental' stage is backed up by the fact that the Japanese government tacitly supported Matsumura's efforts, as did many factions of the LDP, including Ikeda's own, whose member Ogawa Heiji would accompany Matsumura to China in . 45 During this visit Matsumura stated that an improvement in Sino-Japanese relations should be based on Zhou's 'Three Political Principles' 46 and the non-separation of politics and economics. For the Chinese this was a prerequisite for progress on issues regarding trade as well as the 42 47 In private, Liao Chengzhi assured Matsumura that the establishment of diplomatic relations was not a prerequisite for moving forward on trade. 48 While the  visit was important because of the trade agreement and subsequent rapid increase in Sino-Japanese trade, Matsumura also stressed the importance of the journalist exchange to further mutual understanding. This was in response to complaints by Zhou Enlai regarding misunderstandings about China that had appeared in the Japanese media. 49 By the time of the next visit to China of Matsumura and his associates in the spring of , Takasaki Tatsunosuke had died and his role was taken over by Okazaki Kaheita. On  April , Liao Chengzhi and Okazaki Kaheita signed another agreement on LT Trade, leading to the establishment of trade liaison offices in Beijing and Tokyo, in August  and January  respectively. On the same day Liao and Matsumura signed the Sino-Japanese Journalist Exchange Agreement, which would lead to the exchange of correspondents in September of that year.
Together with his associate Tagawa Seiichi, Matsumura had been the main channel for the achievement of a journalist exchange on terms acceptable to Beijing. The motivation for this was connected to the Chinese leadership's limited understanding of Japanese realities, described above. According to Tagawa, he and Matsumura also thought a central problem in dealing with China was that there the 'information about Japan is biased, and this is because the information entering China comes from the Japanese left'. 50 To improve Sino-Japanese relations and aid the burgeoning trade ties, they thought it necessary to widen the Chinese perspective. An important tool for this was a permanent presence of journalists in each other's countries, who could serve as a source of information and thereby enhance mutual understanding.  trade relations and Furui Yoshimi would become a key political ally for China in the party, it was Tagawa who was most influential in working for the establishment of the journalist exchange. Tagawa had been an Asahi Shimbun journalist before he was recruited by Matsumura to be his secretary and then he was elected to the Diet for the LDP in . The growth in trade in the wake of the establishment of the LT Trade Agreement in  increased the need for permanent representation in the form of trade liaison offices in each other's countries. Against the background of these developments, Tagawa worked to achieve an exchange of correspondents. According to Liu Deyou: By  the amount of annual trade involved in LT Trade had reached $ million. When this happened permanent offices became a necessity, and within that discussion Tagawa had been actively arguing for some time that a Journalist Exchange was also necessary. Looking at it now an exchange of journalists seems like nothing but at the time it was a political problem. Would it be permitted or not? Would permanent offices be permitted or not? This was one landmark decision. When it was permitted it was an important event in the preparation for a new era. 51 For the Chinese, the permanent presence in Japan of both trade envoys and journalists would be an important step towards establishing official relations. As we will see, this was a point that Liao Chengzhi repeatedly stressed to the journalists who were to take part in the exchange. With a journalist exchange becoming increasingly likely during the Ikeda years, news organizations on both sides were keen to place correspondents in each other's countries. At first the Japanese still expected this to happen via the NSK, but due to it continuing relations with Taiwan, the Chinese could not accept this and further attempts from the NSK to facilitate the journalist exchange were ignored. 52 Wu Xuewen says that 'when [the Japanese] learned of our stance they agreed to achieve the mutual exchange of journalists via direct negotiations between Liao and Matsumura'. 53 This was still a long process and negotiations had to take place in a largely informal capacity due to factors like Taiwanese opposition and the pro-Taiwan faction in the LDP. With the increase in cultural exchanges between China and Japan under Ikeda, Liao Chengzhi began to make use of Chinese groups visiting Japan by attaching his associates to these 51 Liu Deyou, interview by author, Beijing,  August . 52 Nihon Shimbun Kyōkai nijūnen shi, p. . 53 Wu and Wang, Liao Chengzhi yu Riben, p. .

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 delegations. While in Japan they could meet freely with partners for the discussion about trade and the journalist exchange. Prominent Japan specialists Sun Pinghua and Wang Xiaoyun made several trips to Japan in this way in  and , where they met Matsumura, Takasaki, and Furui to discuss both trade and the journalist exchange. Both sides were resolved to achieve a breakthrough on both these fronts as soon as possible. 54 Tagawa Seiichi then visited China in February  to discuss further the exchange-the Chinese people involved regarded his input at this moment as highly significant. 55 The official reason for the visit was to have a meeting with the Chinese Red Cross about the right of Japanese to visit their relatives' graves in China, but this was a cover to discuss the journalist exchange as well as the establishment of the trade liaison offices. 56 Tagawa stresses that while he undertook this trip in an informal and individual capacity and was not an official envoy, he felt that he had tacit yet strong support from both the Japanese government and many in the LDP. 57 Liu Deyou recalls how it was also clear to the Chinese that Tagawa's efforts had the backing of a great many Japanese news organizations. 58 On this visit to Beijing, Tagawa had meetings with Liao Chengzhi and several of his associates like Xiao Xiangqian, Ding Tuo, and Wu Xuewen. 59 The importance of the exchange for the Chinese is shown by the fact that when Tagawa first suggested that one newspaper and one broadcaster from each country should both exchange one journalist, Liao unexpectedly suggested the exchange should involve journalists from more organizations. 60 Tagawa also conveyed a message directly from Prime Minister Ikeda, who requested the Chinese to invite Matsumura to China once again. 61 Upon returning to Japan, Tagawa had meetings with government officials and many news organizations, 54 Wu Xuewen, 'Chūnichi shimbun kōkan e no tōki michinori' (The long road towards the Sino-Japanese Journalist Exchange), in Unsurprisingly, relations between Taipei and Tokyo had been deteriorating for some time due to increased economic cooperation between Japan and the PRC. Taiwanese retaliation against Japanese companies trading with the PRC had little effect, and by  many Japanese companies had realized the lucrative potential of trade with mainland China, at the expense of Taiwan. 63 With a breakthrough in Sino-Japanese relations seemingly close, the pro-Taiwan faction in the LDP, largely made up of allies of former Prime Minister Kishi, made a last-ditch attempt to derail the exchange of trade envoys and journalists. One of the Japanese cabinet members who was in this faction was the justice minister Kaya Okinori. He tried to block Wu Xuewen from entering Japan with the Nan Hanchen delegation, which had the desired effect of angering the Chinese. Beijing then put the entire delegation as well as Matsumura's invitation on hold. 64 This became a major scandal and the 'Wu problem' featured prominently in the news in early April, signalling the rift between the pro-Taiwan faction, on the one hand, and Matsumura's pro-China faction and Prime Minister Ikeda, on the other. 65 Under pressure, Kaya Okinori, together with the foreign minister Ōhira Masayoshi, stated that during an earlier visit Wu had criticized Japan and therefore would be banned from visiting this time, but that the rest of the trade delegation was welcome. 66   would be a major triumph for anti-PRC forces in Japan. Zhou therefore decided that the Nan Hanchen delegation could go to Japan without Wu and that Matsumura and his associates could come to China for the visit that would lead to the breakthrough on the trade liaison issue as well as the journalist exchange. 68 According to Liu Deyou, who was the interpreter at the meetings between Zhou and Matsumura in April , the Sino-Japanese Journalist Exchange Agreement largely reflected China's wishes, especially with regard to the guarantee of safety and assurances about the treatment of the Chinese journalists, similar to that enjoyed by other correspondents in Japan. 69 Although initially the agreement had been to send eight journalists each, the Chinese wound up sending seven and the Japanese sent nine. The establishment of both the trade liaison officesthe 'Liao Chengzhi Liaison Office' in Tokyo (in August ) and the 'Takasaki Tatsunosuke Liaison Office' in Beijing (in January )-was a landmark achievement. Liao Chengzhi impressed upon Sun Pinghua (as the most senior person stationed in Tokyo, he would be in charge of both the trade envoys and the journalists) that it was 'a little like an embassy. It will give you all plenty of opportunity to demonstrate your abilities.' 70 At last, both countries had permanent representation in the other country and, especially for China, this was further evidence that Sino-Japanese relations had reached a new stage. Liu Deyou says: We could send personnel to live there, and this was major progress. To be able to get to know each other was very important. The Japanese wanted to know about China. And of course the Chinese also wanted to know about Japan … There was no embassy, but those who worked [in Japan] played an important role. The understanding of the Chinese was that we were representing China. 71 Liu Deyou and the others clearly saw this as a step towards establishing official relations, both with Japan and the capitalist world. Martin Albers has described how the expectation in Beijing was that many other countries would follow France's lead after its recognition of the PRC in January . 72 This, however, did not come to pass, and from  the atmosphere in China would become increasingly xenophobic, culminating in another period of radicalization and international 68 Wu, 'Chūnichi shimbun kōkan e no tōki michinori', p. . 69 Liu, 'Chūnichi kisha kōkan no kiroku', p. . 70 Sun, Chūgoku to Nihon no hashi wo kaketa otoko, p. . 71 Liu Deyou, interview by author, Beijing,  August . 72 Albers, Britain, France, West Germany and the People's Republic of China, p. . C A S P E R W I T S  isolation when Mao Zedong unleashed the Cultural Revolution's radical phase (-). Despite these later setbacks, in  significant steps were taken in China's gradual opening to the non-communist world. In the next section we will see how the Chinese journalists in Japan were urged to use this opportunity to solidify their position and establish a 'foothold' in the country.

The Chinese correspondents in Japan
A clear sign of the importance placed on the journalist exchange by Beijing is the fact that usually only one or two, and in exceptional cases three, Chinese correspondents would be placed in a foreign country. The decision to send eight (later reduced to seven) to Japan surprised even the Chinese journalists themselves, and some expressed doubt that journalists with sufficient knowledge of Japan could be found at such short notice. 73 According to Wu Xuewen, a list was quickly drawn up by Xinhua and the Foreign Affairs Office of the State Council, 74 under which Liao Chengzhi and his Japan hands operated. Not all those selected had experience as newspaper journalists; for example, Liu Deyou recalls that 'at the time I was very active as an interpreter. I had also done reporting for the magazine [Jinmin Chūgoku] so they must have thought I was suitable. I was summoned suddenly.' 75 All but one of the Chinese correspondents were fluent in Japanese, with transnational links to Japan that could be traced back to the pre- era which made them especially suited for their pioneering task. Three of them had spent significant time there as students and two came from the northeast, where they had been exposed to the Japanese occupation from a young age. 76 Two journalists-Liu Deyou and Liu Yazhoufrom this first generation of Chinese correspondents in Japan are still alive, and the former was interviewed for this article.


The five Chinese trade representatives, headed by Sun Pinghua, sent to Tokyo to set up the Liao office arrived there in August . The journalists would follow in late September of that year and received several weeks of rigorous training at the Xinhua offices. Starting in early July, Wu Xuewen compared the training to that undertaken before a war. The curriculum involved studying 'the Central Committee's principles behind the establishment of the Liao Office in Tokyo, and behind the sending of correspondents to Japan, as well as the general situation in Japan, Sino-Japanese relations, and the country's Japan policy'. 77 At the end of their training period they received detailed instructions from Liao Chengzhi, who emphasized their role as pioneers and described the challenges involved in being the first generation of PRC journalists in Japan: You will be beset by reactionaries wherever you go. They will hinder, restrict, and keep watch over you. You must be sufficiently prepared for this in your thinking. You all come from different backgrounds and now you must unite, help each other, be disciplined, develop your work, and you must make efforts to establish a long-term foothold. 78 Establishing a foothold in Japan was their shared task and they would represent different news organizations in name only. Liu Deyou says: It had been agreed with the Japanese in the  agreement that one [news] organisation would send one person. So everyone was nominally from a different organisation … So I had to belong to some organisation and I was placed with the Guangming Daily. But in reality I was transferred to Xinhua and would work for them … For the outside world we were called the 'Chinese journalists group' but internally we were one unit; the Xinhua Tokyo office. 79 Crucially, another essential group task, Liao emphasized, was for the journalists to mix with a wide variety of Japanese: The work of journalists is the work of making friends widely. In principle, you can mix with and befriend people from the left, the centre, and the right … There are those people who oppose us today who might change tomorrow and become relatively friendly. When making friends you must think ahead. If in your surroundings you only have leftist friends or those who speak well of us, and no rightists or those who speak ill of us, your grasp of the situation is not 77 Ibid., pp. , . 78 Ibid., p. . 79 Liu Deyou, interview by author, Beijing,  August . C A S P E R W I T S  complete … The more widely you have friends, the more useful it will be for you in establishing a long-term foothold. 80 Not limiting themselves to mixing only with those Japanese already friendly to the PRC would not only enhance China's understanding of Japan, but would also contribute to their long-term presence in the country. Of course, this type of interaction was not without risks. On the eve of their departure, Liao Chengzhi invited Foreign Minister Chen Yi to address the journalists, who said: 'Japan is a capitalist country, you will live there long-term so you must make sure to "emerge from the mud unsoiled".' 81,82 The Liao office in Tokyo stayed in contact with Liao Chengzhi and the Foreign Affairs Office of the State Council; Sun Pinghua would keep Liao informed about the activities of the office as well as of the journalists. 83 Both groups of journalists left at the same time, and on September  their paths crossed in Hong Kong, where they met for dinner. On the evening of the next day, both groups arrived at their destination. The Chinese were met at the airport by Sun Pinghua and by Japanese sympathizers. 84 With their network in Japan still limited, in the beginning they relied largely on Japanese sympathizers for practical matters, as well as on overseas Chinese, thereby making use of their contacts from a previous era. 85 At first the group stayed in the Diamond Hotel in Tokyo's Chiyoda ward, but after a few days they moved to the Grand Hotel in the same ward. Located conveniently close to the Diet building, they were able to use the hotel as an office. Ding Tuo, as 80 Wu and Wang, Liao Chengzhi yu Riben, p. . 81 Ibid. 82 Chen Yi's warning about the dangers of mixing with capitalists did not mean he was opposed to these types of exchanges.   leader of the group of journalists, visited many news organizations in his first days as well as nongovernmental groups sympathetic to China. 86 At the end of , Sun Pinghua had found an appropriate building in Bunkyo ward for the Chinese of the Liao office as well as for the journalists, who were able to establish their offices and their homes there. 87 Liu Deyou describes how the journalists worked ferociously to keep up with all the news in Japan; they would usually begin their working day by reading newspapers and magazines for two hours, and then would try to watch as much TV as they could. When something important had happened, the reading could take up the whole morning. 88 While at first they had to rely on ideological sympathizers, they soon made efforts to mix with many people, as they had been instructed to do: As the first generation of journalists we could not just stay in our rooms but had to go out and get our hands on some first-hand materials. So not only in Tokyo but in all areas we would attend meetings and discussions, and would visit people from various backgrounds. 89 Not limiting themselves to Japanese leftists, Liu Yanzhou nonetheless recalls how his first impressions of Japan were of the widespread enthusiasm for improved relations with China and diplomatic normalization among all kinds of Japanese. 90 While the Chinese journalists were relatively free to mix with people, they would sometimes be openly shadowed by plainclothes police. They were told it was for their own safety, although Japanese friends told Liu Deyou that their real purpose was more likely to be to intimidate them. 91 Tagawa Seiichi has described how, to his dismay, the Chinese journalists were subjected to discriminatory treatment not faced by correspondents from other countries nor by the Japanese correspondents in Beijing; for example, there were certain restrictions on travel outside Tokyo and their Japanese interviewees were often questioned by the police after being interviewed. 92 Also, their access to official meetings for foreign 86   correspondents, including press conferences, was limited because the Taiwanese Central News Agency (CNA) would be represented there. 93 The working conditions for the Chinese correspondents would worsen significantly once Satō Eisaku became prime minister of Japan in November , which shows both the limits of nongovernmental agreements and that they were not always supported unanimously within the Japanese establishment.
The journalist exchange came at a volatile moment in Sino-Japanese relations, due to Prime Minister Ikeda's worsening health and stepping down from office in November. This was preceded by a leadership contest within the LDP which the Chinese leadership followed closely. The Chinese correspondents threw themselves into covering the developing contest, which was a three-way election between Satō Eisaku, Kōno Ichirō, and Fujiyama Aiichirō. Liu Deyou describes his impression of the frenzied media coverage of the campaign, and his bemusement that, in reality, backroom deals brought Satō Eisaku to power, after Ikeda had endorsed him from his hospital bed. 94 For months, the Chinese leadership had already been seeking to inform itself about possible successors to Ikeda and what each would mean for Beijing, because an anti-China politician in the mould of Kishi Nobusuke could potentially undo much of the recent progress. In April, Matsumura Kenzō had expressed to Zhou Enlai his preference for Fujiyama Aiichirō, explaining that an improvement in Sino-Japanese relations was most likely under his leadership. 95 But in May, Satō Eisaku had also relayed a message to the Chinese via a member of his faction, assuring them that if he was to prevail in any future leadership contest he would strive to continue improving relations with the PRC. 96 By the time Satō came to power, the Chinese, in fact, had a rather favourable opinion of him, despite him being Kishi's brother. 97 However, relations would deteriorate very quickly after the establishment of the Satō government, which would prove to be much  more susceptible to pressure from Taiwan and the United States. 98 One of Satō's first actions was to block a visit to Japan by Beijing mayor Peng Zhen. He also expressed gratitude to Chiang Kai-shek for the Treaty of Taipei of , which had established peaceful relations between Tokyo and Taipei. 99 While Satō did express a willingness to continue on the path taken by Ikeda regarding the promotion of Sino-Japanese trade, this meant an explicit separation of politics and economics that would not be welcomed by the Chinese. 100 Looking at the Chinese reaction to Satō's rise, we get a sense of how Beijing intended to use the recently improved channels of communication. The Chinese correspondents in Tokyo were intensely focused on getting a grip on the ideas of the incoming prime minister, a particular challenge being the extreme vagueness of his statements, with Liu Deyou often finding himself unable to render them into intelligible Chinese. 101 Back in Beijing, evaluating the incoming information about the new government was a priority for Liao Chengzhi and his associates, as it was for the remaining journalists. Wang Taiping, a Japan specialist in the Foreign Ministry who would be stationed as Beijing Daily correspondent in Tokyo from  to , recalls: In , at one of Liao Chengzhi's gatherings, all those active in Japanese affairs from different departments had come together to discuss the nature of the Satō Cabinet, which had been an order from Zhou Enlai. The meeting was held in the restaurant Hefeng in the Wangfujing area of Beijing and between twenty and thirty people attended. 102 As the journalists and other Japan hands would come to realize, in many ways the Satō government would resemble Kishi's government as far as relations with China were concerned. This was reflected in the unfriendly treatment of the Chinese journalists in the Satō era. 103 Still, throughout the Satō years (-), the Chinese in the Liao office and the correspondents who were based in Tokyo were able to remain and work there, although many were recalled during the Cultural Revolution. Eventually, using the Chinese journalists in Tokyo as a tool 98 King, China-Japan Relations after World War Two, p. . 99 Furukawa, Nitchū sengo kankei shi, pp. , . 100 Ibid., p. . 101 Liu, 'Ryūnen' saserareta jūgonen: tokuhain seikatsu no-to', p. . 102 Wang Taiping, interview by author, Tokyo,  September . 103 Chen Bowei, 'Jiongran butongde liangci zhuri jingli' (Two entirely different experiences of living in Japan), in Fengyu Dongjinglu, p. . C A S P E R W I T S  for gathering first-hand information on political developments would prove to be very important for Zhou Enlai in the heady days before Sino-Japanese rapprochement in . Wang Taiping, in particular, known as the 'Foreign Ministry's correspondent' and who would go on to become Chinese consul general in several Japanese cities in the s and s, became a trusted source and go-between for Zhou and the Chinese leadership in this period. 104 The Japanese correspondents in China As described, in  China achieved several breakthroughs in its relations with capitalist countries, perhaps most notably the diplomatic normalization with France in January. However, Martin Albers has described how France was barely given any preferential treatment and French diplomats in Beijing were left largely in the dark with regard to developments in China. 105 This must have been especially frustrating because the chance to be better informed had been a key motivation for the French in seeking official ties with Beijing. 106 As for Western correspondents in China, as mentioned earlier, their presence was barely tolerated and they had very limited access to information. 107 The contrast with the experience of the first generation of Japanese correspondents in China reveals just how unique their situation was and, by extension, how important relations with Japan were for China at this moment.
As we have seen, it was agreed that both countries would send eight correspondents-in the end, however, the Chinese sent seven and the Japanese sent nine. The Japanese requested this change because, although one television broadcaster was represented (namely, the national broadcaster NHK), commercial TV stations were excluded. Thanks to the mediation of Tagawa Seiichi, in July  the Chinese agreed that the Japanese could send an extra correspondent, with a