The Japan Society Review
Book, Stage, Movie, Arts and Events Review

Editor: Sean Curtin
Managing Editor: John Toppon...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Issue 23 Volume 4 Number 5 (November 2009)

Contents(1) Japan in Late Victorian London(2) Teacher and Three Children (石内尋常高等小学校 花は散れども)(3) Your Friends (きみの友だち)(4) Nonko (ノン子36歳 - 家事手伝い)(5) Nagasaki: The British Experience, 1854-1945(6) Japan Rising: The Iwakura Embassy to the USA and Europe(7) Japanese Intelligence in World War II(8) Okamoto Yukio: Genba Shugi o Tsuranuita Gaikokan

Our lead review in this issue takes us back to late Victorian
London when fascination with Japan was reaching its
zenith. In 1885 the seemingly unquenchable demandfor knowledge and insights into the mysterious Land of
the Rising Sun led to the creation of a mock Japanesevillage in Knightsbridge populated by Japanese artisans
as well as the debut of Gilbert and Sullivan’s ever popular
comic opera The Mikado. In an excellently researched
book, Sir Hugh Cortazzi brings back to life the longforgotten Japanese village situated in the heart of ....................................................................................................
Victorian London and examines its connection to the
The Mikado. Susan Meehan provides our annual review
Japan in Late Victorian London:of the highly popular “Premiere Japan at BAFTA” event
which features some of the most interesting Japanese The Japanese Native Village inmovies of the year. In this issue Susan looks at three films, Knightsbridge and The Mikado, 1885
Shindo Kaneto’s touching Teacher and Three Children
by Sir Hugh Cortazzi(石内尋常高等小学校 花は散れども), Hiroki Ryuichi’s
sentimental and naturalistic Your Friends (きみの友だち) Sainsbury Institute, 2009,
and Kumakiri Kazuyoshi’s emotional rollercoaster Nonko. 100 pages including 16 plates, 12 illustrations,
Roger Buckley delves into a substantive new work on the bibliography and index.
Iwakura Embassy to America and Europe which takes ISBN: 0-9545921-1-5
off some of the historical gloss surrounding the mission £5.00 (details overleaf)
to give us a behind-the-scenes account. Ian Nish takes Review by Sean Curtin
us into the murky world of Japanese wartime military
The idea that in 1885 there
intelligence with Ken Kotani’s ground-breaking study
was a Japanese village located“Japanese Intelligence in World War II.” Sir Hugh Cortazzi
in Knightsbridge, the heart of
explores Brian Burke-Gaffney’s well researched volumebustling Victorian London, may
on Nagasaki, where the author has lived for many years.
strike many as being something
Burke-Gaffney furnishes us with some truly intriguing
more suited to a fanciful Doctor
historical and cultural insights. Fumiko Halloran assesses
Who plot than a genuinely
the intriguing Japanese language book “Okamoto Yukio:
real fact. Thanks to Sir HughGenba Shugi o Tsuranuita Gaikokan” about a former
Cortazzi this long forgotten
foreign ministry high-flyer who created shockwaves by
episode in the nascent years
quitting his job in order to think outside the box andof Anglo-Japanese relations ischallenge orthodox views.
brought bursting back to lifein this excellently researched
Sean Curtin
and beautifully illustrated....................................................................................................
book. Utilizing a wide variety of sources, he sets thecontext and describes the process which transformed
New reviewsa corner of Victorian London into “The Japanese
www.japansociety.org.uk/resources/the-japan-society-review
Native Village, erected and peopled exclusively by
Archivenatives of Japan (page 9).” In the 1880s there was an
http://www.japansociety.org.uk/reviews_archive.html
amazing thirst for “things Japanese” as the land of the
We are grateful to our regular reviewers:
rising sun represented an exciting and mysterious
Susan Meehan
destination at the far frontiers of European knowledge
Sir Hugh Cortazzi
Takahiro Miyao
Simon Cotterill
and imagination. Recreating a Japanese village in
Ian NishWilliam Farr
fashionable Knightsbridge was just one way to satisfy
Ben-Ami Shillony
Fumiko Halloran
the intense Japan-mania of the day and it also helps
Tomohiko Taniguchi
Mikihiro Maeda
explain why in the same year Gilbert and Sullivan’s
popular comic opera The Mikado was launched on the
London stage for its first performances.

The village attracted large crowds and a massive
amount of press attention with its replica Japanesehouses populated by genuine Japanese men, womenand children as well as its “magnificently decorated andilluminated Buddhist temple.” One of the project’s moststriking and crowd-pulling features was the presence ofa considerable number of Japanese artisans and theirfamilies, which greatly enhanced the experience for theVictorian visitor.
Sir Hugh examines his subject from multiple angles, in
one section looking at Japanese anxiety in Tokyo about
how the Village might affect the image of Japan in Britain.
Regarding press coverage he observes, “There was often
a condescending tone to their comments, reflecting
Victorian feelings of superiority to non-European
peoples, and some gave way to the temptation to makefun of the Japanese and their ‘grotesque’ ways. But they
were not generally unkind (page 14).”
The author manages to bring the village to life byprofiling some of the figures most closely associatedwith the venture, especially the colourful and oddly
named proprietor Tannaker Buhicrosan. In fact, chapter
three of the book is devoted to Tannaker and his equally
unusually named wife Otakesan Buhicrosan. Tannaker,
who liked to be called Frank, appears to be the productof a union between a Dutch national and a Japanese
woman from Nagasaki. Tannaker travelled extensively,
with Sir Hugh unearthing reports of his visits to Australia
and New Zealand and documents about his visits toGermany and extensive tours of England. From thefragments we have he appears to be a self-confident,
energetic and highly successful entrepreneur. However,
we have a very incomplete picture of him and his wife; Sir
Hugh notes, “It is difficult if not impossible to find reliableaccounts of them by people – friends or associates – whoknew them directly, and so the picture we have of themhas to be put together using information from census
records, birth, death and marriage certificates andmiscellaneous newspaper articles, making it necessarily
patchy and sometimes contradictory (page 49).”
The Village was not the only Japan-related attraction
to capture the public imagination in 1885, which also
saw the popular Mikado hit the London stage. Sir
Hugh observes, “The coincidence of the two events(the opening of the Native Village and of The Mikado)
inspired reporters of the time to make a connection(page 61).” However, the author demonstrates that thetwo were not directly related remarking, “The Japanese
Village opened in January 1885 only two months before
The Mikado opened at the Savoy Theatre in March thatyear. Gilbert had begun work on the libretto of The
Mikado long before that, in May 1884, and had in fact
finished Act 1 two months before the Japanese Village
opened. The inspiration for the opera is much more
likely to have lain in the widespread fascination forthings Japanese (page 63).” Nevertheless, there was afair amount of crossover, London was not such a big city
2

in Victorian times, and folks from the Japanese village
assisted in various aspects of the stage production.
Indeed, the programme of The Mikado in 1885 actually
carried an acknowledgement of the support received
from the Japanese Village, “The Management desires toacknowledge the valuable assistance afforded by the
Directors and Native Inhabitants of the Japanese Village,
Knightsbridge (page 60).”
1885 spawned two large scale Japan-enthusiasm
inspired productions, one is amazingly still popular
today, the other, until this illuminating book, longforgotten. The 1880s was a boom time for interestin Japan; in this superbly researched and brilliantly
illustrated volume Sir Hugh Cortazzi resurrects thedecade’s sense of raw excitement and sheer wonder
about Japan. It was this energy and intense curiositythat contributed to the founding of the Japan Society in
1891, an organization which today still enthusiasticallypromotes and celebrates Anglo-Japanese relations.

Those who would like to buy a copy of the book, can doso by writing to The Sainsbury Institute for the Study ofJapanese Arts and Cultures (SISJAC) at the address below,
enclosing a cheque for £5.
The Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts &Cultures, 64 The Close, Norwich, NR1 4DH.

Premiere Japan 2009 at BAFTA 9th to 11th
October 2009
Teacher and Three Children(石内尋常高等小学校 花は散れども)
directed by Shindo Kaneto (新藤兼人)
2008, 118 minutes
Review by Susan Meehan
The scene is set in 1920s Ishiuchi (石内尋)in Hiroshima
Prefecture and revolves around the sixth form at
Ishiuchi Jinjo Primary School who are blessed withthe warm-hearted and dedicated Mr Ichikawa as

Issue 23 Volume 4 Number 5 (November 2009)

their teacher. Through him they learn compassion having scolded Moriyama Sankichi on one occasion
for sleeping in class, Mr Ichikawa then begs his
forgiveness when Sankichi cheerfully recounts that
he has been up all night harvesting rice. Mr Ichikawa
also feels for penniless class president, Yamazaki
Yoshito who leaves Ishiuchi at the end of the school
year when his mother dies. He also shows them theforce of love when he marries a fellow teacher, andbroadens their minds by taking them on excursions.
30 years on, the ebullient Sankichi organizes a classreunion to celebrate Mr Ichikawa’s retirement and 16
gather out of the class of 32. At this point the film turns
overly sentimental and self-pitying; the 16 recountwhat has happened to them in the intervening years
and, predictably, most of them tragically lost family inthe atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
Fujikawa Midori, now married, confesses the love she
has harboured for Yoshito, now struggling as a screenwriter in Tokyo and, once all others have made theirways home, persuades him to spend the night with
her in Ishiuchi as her husband is out of town.
Yoshito visits again five years later, having heard of thedeath of Midori’s husband, stabbed in Osaka. Yoshito
meets Midori’s five-year old daughter, Yoshiko, andpays a visit to Mr and Mrs Ichikawa who have remainedat the forefront of his mind since the reunion. It is Mr
Ichikawa who had said that Yoshito is “smart but has
no passion” and these words reverberate in the mindof the still struggling writer.
Life continues apace. Mr Ichikawa, left withirreversible speech difficulty after a stroke is visited
again by Yoshito, Midori and Sankichi who cheer him
and his wife up with their company and by singing
the Ishiuchi Jinjo Primary School song. Mr Ichikawa
continues to deteriorate, Yoshito continues to havedifficulties with his work and Midori, though pining
for him, refuses his marriage proposal; she doesn’twant him to leave Tokyo to join her at her restaurant
and wants him to continue writing.
A touching film, sometimes maudlin, of life and lives- often unfulfilled or not lived to their full potential.

Issue 23 Volume 4 Number 5 (November 2009)Your Friends(きみの友だち)
directed by Hiroki Ryuichi (廣木隆一)
2008, 126 minutes
Review by Susan MeehanYour Friends is a powerfully touching, sentimental
and naturalistic film which explores the depths offriendship.
One first encounters Emi and Yuka at school, in the
excited lead up to a jump rope contest. Given thejob of turning the rope for the contestants as neither
can jump, the background to prickly Emi is slowly
unraveled.
Emi is intrigued by Yuka, who is often absent fromschool as a result of a kidney condition which meanslong stretches away at hospital. One rainy day
returning from school, Emi runs over to talk to Yuka
only to be struck by a truck and crippled, forever to
use a cane.
Interest in Yuka turns to hatred as a result of theaccident, but Emi cannot fail to be won over by thesweet and caring Yuka, who remembers her birthday
and tells her about the fluffy clouds painted on thewalls of the children’s ward at hospital.
As the film beautifully evolves, we get glimpses ofthe few relationships which have defined Emi’s life,
but the central one is undoubtedly the five yearfriendship with Yuka. We learn all this intermittently
and as a result of Nakahara, a twenty-something
photographer who meets the older Emi, sensitively
played by Ishibashi Anna (石橋杏奈), at a school forchildren with special needs where she volunteers.
Compelled by her despite her initial coldness to him,
he manages to elicit her confidence and draw herout.
That the bond between Emi and Yuka is enduring andsymbolized by Emi’s quest to photograph the perfect
fluffy cloud for Yuka, is an endearing testament to thestrength of friendship.

3

Nonko(ノン子36歳 - 家事手伝い)

Nagasaki: The British Experience, 1854-1945

directed by Kumakiri Kazuyoshi (熊切和嘉)

Global Oriental, 2009, 288 pages including index,
bibliography, notes and 66 illustrations in colour andblack and white
Hardcover, £50.00

2008, 106 minutes
Review by Susan Meehan

by Brian Burke - Gaffney

ISBN 978-1-906876-13-5
Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi

Nonko, wonderfully played by Sakai Maki (坂井真紀), isa 36 year old divorcee who has returned home to herparents’ Shinto shrine in a provincial town, embitteredat the collapse of her marriage and the end of her film
career as a starlet. Nonko mopes around the family
home where she is supposed to be the ‘home help’ andspends most evenings in an alcoholic stupor, fuelled byvisits to a bar run by a former classmate whose marriage
has also come to an end.
Lethargic, uninspired and bored by life, Nonko
encounters the young and naive Fujimaki Masaru who
is hoping for a stall space at the upcoming local festival.
Despite herself and better instincts, Nonko ends up
helping Masaru and facilitates his stay at her home in
the run-up to the festival.
The gauche Masaru gives Nonko something to focus
her attention on and they gradually become close. This
state of affairs is disturbed by the sudden appearanceof Udagawa, Nonko’s former husband who has cometo offer her a job as a film agent. Nonko is a mess,emotionally and physically torn between the apparently
innocent Masaru and Udagawa.
On the day of the festival, Udagawa disappoints Nonko
once again; he is purely after a loan from her. Nonko’s
dreams of leaving her parents’ home on the strengthof the job promised by him are shattered. At the sametime, Masaru flips at not being able to set up his stallwhich sells newly-hatched chicks and embarks on ascary and unsettling Rambo-style rampage.
Nonko whisks him away and they both disappear, theirlives in tatters, heading away on a train, hopefully tobetter things.

4

During the Edo period up to the arrival of Commodore
Perry and his ‘black ships’, Nagasaki was the only port
open to trade with China and, through the Dutchcolony on the artificial island of Deshima, with Europe.
In 1858 it was the first of the Japanese treaty ports to‘welcome’ foreign traders. It was soon overtaken as a
trading centre by Yokohama and from 1868 by Kobe.
Hakodate, the only treaty port in Hokkaido, was more
important as a refuge for whalers and for contacts
with Russia than for commerce. Nagasaki remained
a significant trading port at least until the end of thenineteenth century and became one of Japan’s major
shipbuilding centres. There was a British consulate
in the city between 1859 and 1941 and as the list of
British consuls in Nagasaki on pages 248-9 shows, thiswas not seen by the British authorities as a backwater.
In addition to trade, Nagasaki was one of the main
tourist attractions for foreigners in the late Victorianperiod. It was generally the first port of call in Japanof ships coming from Europe and thus gave the globe
trotters their first impressions of Japan. Its climate
was better than that of Shanghai and many foreign
residents on the China coast would take their holidays
in Nagasaki or in one of the hot spring resorts nearby.
Nagasaki was also used by foreign navies on the China
station and became a major coaling place.
To many foreigners Nagasaki is renowned as thelocation of Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly and of
the novel Madame Chrysanthememe by Pierre Loti.
Others will immediately recall the name of Thomas
Blake Glover whom Alexander McKay, who wrote a
biography of Glover, dubbed a Scottish samurai. But
these are only three of the many colourful personalities
Issue 23 Volume 4 Number 5 (November 2009)

who peopled foreign society in Nagasaki in the years
covered by this interesting book. Although this bookhas the subtitle of ‘The British Experience’ it also covers
the lives of many who were not British including
Americans, Germans and French.
Burke-Gaffney has lived for many years in Nagasaki
and is the outstanding foreign expert on the city. His
book adds significantly to the literature about life in
the Japanese Treaty Ports. I hope it will be a forerunnerof books devoted to the other treaty ports.
The 66 illustrations, mainly old photographs, add
significantly to the value of this book. Inevitably someold photographs are not as clear one would have liked
and would have benefitted from higher resolution
images and larger size reproductions, but this would
have added significantly to the cost. We must be
grateful for what we are offered in this book.
Burke-Gaffney has delved far and wide among
the archives and has extracted much fascinating
information. I rather regret, however, that he did
not find space for Lord Elgin’s account of his visit
to Nagasaki in 1858 on his way to Edo. Nor does hemention some other early British visitors such Captain
Sherard Osborn who made interesting observations
about Nagasaki prior to the fall of the Tokugawa. I
particularly regret that no mention is made of Rudyard
Kipling, who in 1889 was greatly charmed by Nagasaki,
but this book is not an encyclopaedia of travel, butrather the portrait of foreign life in a Japanese city, now
often only remembered in the West as the site of thesecond atomic bomb which devastated so much of
the city and killed so many people.

Japan Rising:
The Iwakura Embassy to the USA and Europe
compiled by
Kunitake Kume,
edited by Chushichi
Tsuzuki and R. Jules
Young; with an
introduction by Ian
Nish
Cambridge University
Press, 2009, 528 pages
Paperback, £17.00

Yet this was no all-expenses-paid, fun trip for casual
tourists. From late December 1871 until September 1873
a huge collection of Japanese politicians, officials andstudents under the charge of Foreign Minister Prince
Tomomi Iwakura set out to examine everything andeverybody across the globe.
The results of their survey of constitutions, counting
houses and customs make for fascinating reading. If you
want to know what an earlier Japan, just beginning to findits feet in the wider world of high imperialism, thought ofthe streets of Naples (“tunnel-like”) or the behaviour of
Hungarians (“semi-civilized”) or the contrasts between
Americans (“open initially”) and Brits (“they gradually
thaw”), this is an ideal starting point.
Professors Tsuzuki and Young have shrunk the five
volumes of the English translation originally put out byForeign Correspondents’ Club of Japan (FCCJ) member
Sumio Saito’s “The Japan Documents Enterprise” in 2000
into a more manageable 528 pages. The result sparkles
with astute commentary, cross-cultural comparisons andviews of both the post-Civil War U.S. (then comprising 37
states) and Europe that may not rank with de Tocquevillebut remain of considerable value today.
Pride of place should go to Kunitake Kume, the young
author of the undertaking. It was his task to look, record andthen write up the Iwakura mission’s findings for a domestic
audience. He obviously approached his orders with due
diligence and loads of diplomatic tact – the reader neverhears of anyone missing their train or nodding off during
the interminable banquets and speeches that followed
everywhere from the initial landing in San Francisco
to the final days in Shanghai. Ambassador Iwakura’s
opinions remain unstated throughout in what is verymuch a group report. It’s always a case of “we toured thepalace,” “we were skeptical,” and “we were even given
pickled herrings to eat, which were disgusting.”
Kume’s work provides a historical sketch of each country
visited. This is then followed by notes on VIPs met,
factories visited, parades watched and an analysis of
the political, religious and industrial structures of thecountries encountered. It is a careful, if often too generous,
interpretation of the West and its Asian territories with theaim of better understanding the nations that had forced
the unequal treaties on Japan in the early 1850s.

Review by Roger Buckley

The mission saw at first hand the strengths andweaknesses of its counterparts abroad. Obviously, as
Kume insists on emphasizing, the study tour did notalways have time to dig under the surface, but theenvoys do return home with an experience that can only
be described as enlightening.

The grandest of grand tours made it back home without
losing anyone en route. Despite rain in Manchester, snow
in the Rockies, donkey rides in Egypt and hellish music in
Shanghai the inspection team lived to tell the tale.

They are able to meet prime ministers, presidents andprinces, take the pulse of the great powers and draw
parallels between Japan’s predicament and those of
emerging states in Europe.

ISBN-13: 978-0521735162

Issue 23 Volume 4 Number 5 (November 2009)5

Perhaps the two most revealing meditations take place inLondon and Berlin. When visiting the collections within
the British Museum, Kume senses the gradual evolution ofcivilizations and feels that “we move forward by degrees.
This is what is called ‘progress.’” He then criticizes his own
country for having little comparable to what he has justseen displayed and adds that “to excuse ourselves bysaying that we are of a different habit of mind is not anhonest argument.”
A more practical lesson follows in March 1873 when theenvoys have dinner with Bismarck in Berlin. The great man
lectures them on his version of international relations,warning Japan to be wary of the British and French.
Drawing on the experiences of Prussia when it also was“weak and poor,” he urges his audience to learn fromPrussia in its quest for sovereign rights. Bismarck ends his
pitch with a plea for German-Japanese friendship andwarns the mission never to “relax your vigilance.”
Anyone curious about late-19th-century Boston or
Amsterdam or Rome as seen through the eyes of an
astute observer will enjoy Japan Rising. The fact thoughthat its conscientious author lived on until 1931 is areminder of how things would change. In the decades
after the Iwakura mission, Japan too would soon join theranks of the imperialist powers and bid to create its own
new world order.

Japanese Intelligencein World War II
by Ken Kotani
Osprey, 2009, 224 pages,
including notes,
bibliography and index,
Hardcover £18.99
ISBN 13: 978 1 84603 425 1
Review by Ian Nish
Dr Kotani’s ground-breaking
study brings to an Englishspeaking audience thefindings of his earlier book,“Nihon gun no Intelligence,”
which was published in 2007. The subject of militaryIntelligence has been sadly neglected by scholars inJapan until recent years because so much of the source
material was systematically destroyed at the end of
the war. But the author, through his connection with
the National Institute of Defence Studies, Tokyo, where
he works, has had access to “one of the largest militaryarchives in Japan” from which he uses much new material
in this volume.
The book begins with a valuable review of the existing
literature published on this important subject that mainly
consists of memoirs and unit histories. He then devotes
6

individual chapters to the early actions of the Japanesearmy and navy, discussing signals intelligence and codebreaking, human intelligence, counter-intelligence andthe types of foreign assistance on which they drew inorder to develop their expertise. Both services seem tohave given a low priority to Intelligence. Each had its
Intelligence successes (e.g. in code-breaking) but also
its serious shortcomings in dealing with Japan’s main
enemies of the 1930s, the Soviet Union and China. As
the ambitions of the army grew in Asia, it set up in 1939
the elite Nakano School in order to provide a rigorousand many-sided training to a cadre of specialists. They
were taught languages and the more recondite arts oflock-picking, ninja martial arts and ideology. Unlike mostsoldiers who were taught to die rather than surrender,
Nakano graduates were instructed to survive at all costs.
They proved particularly effective in exploiting ethnic
situations on the ground in colonial territories and playeda large part in South Seas (Nanyo) operations. Thus, Dr
Kotani believes that “the defeat of Britain at Singapore
was inevitable [because the Japanese army] had closely
investigated the military affairs and topographical data
there in advance (page 55).”
It is over the central handling of Intelligence that Kotani
has the most salient criticisms to make. Surprisingly there
were in 1941 when their remit was extended to theUnited States and Britain as few as 60 staff forming thecore of Japan’s central Intelligence services which wereby global standards seriously understaffed. Moreover,priority at the top was given to Operations rather
than Intelligence staff with the result that Intelligencespecialists were frequently moved on and inadequately
promoted. There was a tendency for them to be lowerranking and lacking in influence. By comparison with
USA and Britain, there was a lack of centralized authority
coordinating the information that was gathered anddiscussing its implications. To add to the problem, thearmy and navy generally failed to share their informationand (in the case of the battle of Midway, for example)
were economical with the truth in communication with
one another.
Passing to the war period, the author rates the Intelligence
services highly in dealing with the operations at Pearl
Harbour and Palembang. He provides case studies of
how Intelligence was employed in Japan’s advance into
Northern and Southern Indochina. In these as elsewhere,
he quotes from many Japanese and non-Japanesesources and offers new insights based on Japanesesources together with his use of archives from othercountries. This leads to Kotani’s overall conclusion that,while Japanese units could use Intelligence competently
at the tactical level, consideration among decision-makers
at the strategic level was relatively poor. The information
gathered and sent on to Tokyo was competent enoughbut tended to be politicized or distorted in order toconform to military-naval operational thinking andprejudices. Thus, ‘it is true that IJA and IJN were defeatedin the “Intelligence war” by the Allied forces. Yet it was
Issue 23 Volume 4 Number 5 (November 2009)

not Intelligence Departments, but the war planners in
Operations Departments who decided strategy...andchose Intelligence reports in an arbitrary and impromptu
manner for their own strategic goals.’ [p. 163] Anotherimportant aspect of Japan’s wartime decision-making
was that Japan’s civilian leaders were afraid of the army’s
ability to decode government signals traffic going abroad
and felt constrained in reaching compromises withforeign diplomats without clearing the ground with thearmy in advance. It is a moot point how far this affected
foreign policy- making.
But puzzles remain. It is odd that in a country wherebureaucracy and the corporate sector are inclined tobase their decisions on elaborate consultative procedures(sometimes called ringisei), information gleaned fromIntelligence sources should be under-rated in the militarynaval sector. Was there something about Bushido or(what Kotani calls) the ‘spiritualism’ of the Japanese army
which led it to take a dismissive view of Intelligence’s
role in modern warfare and ignore the broader political
picture? Dr Kotani has steered clear of these wider
psychological questions; but his short and enlightening
study is comprehensive, nonetheless. He takes the studyof Japanese military Intelligence to a new level which willinterest both the specialist and the general reader.

Okamoto Yukio: Genba Shugi o Tsuranuita
Gaikokan [岡本行夫 現場主義を貫いた外交官](Okamoto Yukio: A Diplomat Always in the Field)
by Iokibe [五百旗 頭 真], Motoshige Ito [伊藤 元重] and Katsuyuki Yakushiji [薬師寺 克行]
Asahi Shimbun Publishing, 2008, 347 pages,
Paperback, 2,000 yen
ISBN-13: 978-4022504791
Review by Fumiko Halloran
Yukio Okamoto quit the foreign
ministry when he was director(kacho) of the first department
on North America, a position
coveted by ambitious officials.
As he was only 45 years old, thisshocked not only his colleagues
but his superiors who tried tokeep him. His departure wasreported by major newspapers,
which was rare for an individual
resignation in government.
In this book, which is basedon a series of interviews, Okamoto explains his state ofmind. Shortly after the end of the Gulf War in 1991, he
was afraid of becoming a bureaucrat whose instinct
would be caution, not making mistakes, and not risking
his career on challenging causes. He denies having any
problems with the ministry, asserting that he maintained
Issue 23 Volume 4 Number 5 (November 2009)

contact with his former colleagues after leaving.
Okamoto then established Okamoto & Associates inTokyo, a small think tank. It began to attract clients andsoon Seirouku Kajimoto, chief cabinet secretary of Prime
Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, asked Okamoto for help after
a girl was raped by American soldiers in Okinawa in 1996.
Okamoto established a special government task force tohelp Okinawan communities that had various issues with
U.S. bases. Since then, Okamoto has often been involved
in Japan’s diplomacy while remaining a private citizen.
Earlier, in the foreign ministry, he had been involved in US-Japan security issues during the Cold War and the Gulf
War. As a private citizen, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi
appointed Okamoto as a counselor to the cabinet todeal with the post 9-11 crisis and to help shape Japan’s
response to the Iraq war.
This book would be useful to researchers on Japan’s foreign
policy, for two reasons. The first is Okamoto’s detailed
description of what Japan did in several international
crises. For example, he discloses hitherto unknown
logistical contributions by Japan in the Gulf War when theinternational community had criticized Japan for inaction.
Okamoto was in charge of compiling a list of supplies
for the international coalition forces, coordinating withseveral ministries to secure the supplies and arranging fortransporting them to Iraq. In addition to giving 1.5 trillion
yen in financial assistance, Japan donated 80 billion yen
worth of materials including 800 Toyota Land Cruisers
and Mitsubishi Pajero, trucks, forklifts, seawater purifying
facilities, computers and construction materials.
General Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of the
Coalition Forces in the Middle East, praised Japan’s effort
in his memoir, although bashing of Japan with newspaper
headlines such as “Too late, too little” continued. Okamoto
regrets that Japan lost in the communications war becauseof the reluctance of the Japanese government to informthe US government and public about its contributions.
The Japanese government was reluctant because it wasconcerned about the political backlash in Japan fromthose who opposed Japanese involvement in the war.
Okamoto discovered Washington was little aware of thescope of Japanese involvement. He points out, however,that the fundamental problem was the lack of leadershipby Japanese government headed by Prime Minister Toshiki
Kaifu, who failed to disclose Japan’s position, policy, andaction.
Secondly, Okamoto explains the working of the Japanesebureaucracy in shaping foreign policy. He cites turf battles,
the influence of political issues on foreign policy, and how
individuals can guide foreign policy to certain goals.
Japan’s role in the US-Soviet INF (Intermediate Range
Nuclear Forces) negotiation was little known until Okamotoexplained it in this book. The negotiation started in 1981
after the Soviets deployed SS-20 missiles aimed at Western
Europe. Reflecting close relations between President
Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone,
the US dispatched a special envoy to brief the Japanese7government each time the US-Soviet negotiations
proceeded to the next level. In 1986, Nakasone received
a personal letter from Reagan saying the US planned topropose that Russia withdraw all SS-20s from west of the
Ural Mountains and reduce by 50% the SS-20s aimed atAsia. In exchange, the US would withdraw GLCMs (Ground
Launched Cruise Missiles) and Pershing II missiles from
West Germany. The next day, a special envoy from thepresident flew to Tokyo to brief the foreign ministry.
Japanese officials saw potential problems for Japan; 177
SS-20s positioned east of the Ural Mountains aimed at Asia
had been left out of the proposal. Thus, while the proposal
would ease the worries of NATO, the SS-20s aimed at Asia
would trigger discord in US-Japan relations, generateunease in the Japanese public, and might breed distrustof the US-Japan alliance.
Four officials at the foreign ministry mapped Japan’s effort
to make sure that Soviet intermediate nuclear missiles
aimed at Asia would be either withdrawn or neutralized;
Yukio Sato, director of the Ministry Secretariat (laterambassador to the United Nations), Ryozo Kato, directorof the treaty bureau (later to be ambassador to US), Yuji
Miyamoto, director of the disarmament bureau (laterambassador to China), and Okamoto himself, director of
US-Japan security treaty. Their strategy was to respond to
the US proposal immediately, to argue with the US notfrom the standpoint of US-Japan relations but from thepotential conflict in a debate on the nuclear balance inAsia. Such tensions would backfire against the US in the
Pacific security strategy. Thus, they wanted not just to
oppose the proposal but to suggest an alternative.
Checking all Soviet missile bases, the four concluded
that it would be best if the SS-20s aimed at Asia were to
be gathered at a Soviet base in Barnaul, in south-western
Siberia, which was equidistant between European borders
and the Sea of Okhotsk. This equidistance would neutralize
the political effect of the SS-20s by making it ambiguouswhether they were aimed at Europe or Asia. This proposal
was included in the draft of Nakasone’s personal reply to
Reagan. Okamoto flew to Washington and Miyamoto flew
to Europe to deliver Japan’s proposal. Japan’s proposal waswell received and presented as a Defense Department
proposal to the White House. In 1987, Reagan and Mikhail
Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, agreed that the Soviets
would withdraw all SS-20s from the European and Asianfront, which was more than Japan had hoped. Okamoto
considers the success of the INF negotiation and Japan’scontribution to have been the result of the trust between
Reagan and Nakasone, which trickled down to personnel
on both sides. The absence of trade disputes that could
complicate the picture and a quick response by theJapanese foreign ministry, which cut across bureaucratic
obstacles, were also responsible.
Okamoto talks passionately about his involvement in theissue of Okinawa and US bases. In 1996, he was appointed
special assistant to Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto on
Okinawa issues. Until he left that position in 1998, he visited
8

Okinawa fifty-five times, building networks with Okinawan
leaders, discussing US military bases, and promoting the
local economy. He proposed holding the G8 summit
meeting in Okinawa; it took place in 2000, hosted by Prime
Minister Yoshiro Mori.
Okamoto’s views on Americans are complicated; while
he values close US-Japan relations as the foundationof Japan’s security, he doesn’t always agree with the
US government. One notable example is his criticism
of the Bush administration for going to war in Iraq, aview published in a Japanese newspaper. Once the US
launched the war effort, however, Okamoto believedin fully cooperating with the US. He feared a backlash
against Japan, as happened in the Gulf War. One month
before the war began in March, 2003, Okamoto was in
Washington discussing Japan’s role in the war. Before
that, he told Prime Minister Koizumi that American forces
would capture Baghdad but the real problem would beguerrilla war and terrorist attacks that would mire America
in a muddy swamp. Nonetheless, Koizumi issued a strong
statement supporting the war effort. Within a couple ofweeks, Koizumi appointed Okamoto as a special assistantand he became engaged in post-war reconstruction in
Iraq.
Okamoto frankly talks about opposition to his visible role
without an official position. As a former government
official, Okamoto knows how to navigate within thebureaucracy. Even so, he was often frustrated by turfconscious former colleagues, by legal and administrative
obstacles, and conflicting interests in government andprivate sectors. He criticizes the insularity of Japan’s
political leaders and bureaucrats, arguing that the status
quo means backpedalling in a rapidly changing global
community. Looking at world history, he asserts thatmany nations have dominated the international scene
for a short time and then disappeared. Japan’s influenceis clearly declining, he says, and we may be witnessing the
beginning of the nation’s fall.

Next Issue:
Deciphering the
Rising Sun: Navyand Marine Corps
Codebreakers,
Translators andInterpreters in the
Pacific War
by Roger Dingman

In the next issue of theJapan
Society
Review
we will be looking at
Roger Dingman’sbook,
Deciphering the Rising Sun: Navy and Marine
Corps Codebreakers, Translators and Interpreters in
the Pacific War
Issue 23 Volume 4 Number 5 (November 2009)