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

Editor: Sean Curtin
Managing Editor: John Toppon
During August it was just about impossible foranyone on planet earth (and possibly beyond) not
to have known that the Beijing Olympics werebeing held. Offering the perfect antidote to the2008 Olympic media-onslaught, Professor Ben-Ami
Shillony, one of our regular review team, hasproduced a fascinating review of a new book on
the Olympics that never were, the forgotten 1940
Tokyo Olympics. Sir Hugh Cortazzi, another stalwart
reviewer, follows this up with a piece on Japanesediplomacy in the 1950s while Fumiko Halloran, alsoa member of the regular team, looks at a fascinating
Japanese language book on Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi’s foreign policy written by political insider
Isao Iijima, who was Koizumi’s executive secretary.
If that dazzling Troika doesn’t satisfy your thirst forreviews then we still have an excellent account of
the new Donald Keene book.
Sean Curtin....................................................................................................

Volume 3 No. 3 (2008) Issue 15

Contents(1) The 1940 Tokyo Games: The Missing Olympics(2) Japanese Diplomacy in the 1950s(3) Jitsuroku Koizumi Gaiko(4) Chronicles of My Life, An American in the Heart of Japan
New reviews: www.japansociety.org.uk/reviews.html
Archive: http://www.japansociety.org.uk/reviews_archive.html

We are grateful to our regular reviewers:
Sir Hugh Cortazzi
Fumiko Halloran
Takahiro Miyao
Ben-Ami Shillony
Mikihiro Maeda
Ian NishSean Curtin
Anna Davis
Susan Meehan
William Farr
Tomohiko Taniguchi.......................................................................................................................................................................................................

The 1940 Tokyo Games:
The Missing Olympics –Japan, the Asian
Olympics and the
Olympic Movement
by Sandra Collins
Routledge, London and New
York, 2007, 198 pages.
Hard Back £65.00
ISBN-13: 978-0415373173
Review by Ben-Ami Shillony
The 1940 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games are a nonevent, because they never happened. Promoted
by Japanese organizations since the early 1930s,
decided on by the IOC (International Olympic
Committee) in 1936, and given up by the Japanesein 1938, they were soon forgotten, overshadowedby the war with China and the Second World War.
When the Tokyo Olympics, the first ones in Asia,
finally took place in 1964, few remembered and few
cared to mention the unpleasant circumstances
under which the previous attempt to hold thegames there was conceived and abandoned.
Sandra Collins exhumes this fascinating story andbrings it back to life. Using a variety of sources,
she describes the day-to-day developments which
led to the selection of Tokyo for the 1940 Olympic
Games, and later to Japan’s decision to relinquish

them. Although the reader knows how the story
will end, the author manages to maintain suspense
throughout the book.
The main contribution of this monograph is thepresentation of the various backgrounds against
which this affair evolved. The rise and fall of the 1940
Olympiad project is described in the contexts of the
Olympic movement, the political developments inJapan at that time, the international relations inEast Asia, the war with China, the press and public
opinion in Japan and abroad, and the Japaneseand Western personalities that played a role inthis episode. There are no villains or heroes in thisnarration. As the story develops, we see how great
ideals, as often happens, become entangled in
the web of national, organizational, and personal
interests, and how important decisions are madewithout adequate understanding and with no wayof predicting their results.
As Collins shows, the Japanese were eager to hostthe 1940 Olympic Games for both external andinternal reasons. They hoped that staging thesegames would establish Japan’s status as a first-rate
modern power, which is an Asian empire and theleader of the non-Western world. Against growinginternational criticism of Japan’s agression on thecontinent, the Olympic Games were considered
to be a form of “people’s diplomacy,” that would
generate foreign good will. The Tokyo Olympiad
was to coincide with the 2,600th anniversary of thelegendary establishment of the Japanese empireby Emperor Jimmu (kigen) in 660 BC, plannedfor 1940. The combination of these two splendid
celebrations was expected to boost nationalism,
enhance the prestige of the emperor, and mobilize
the Japanese masses for national causes. Thus, fromthe beginning, the Tokyo Olympics carried a double
message: they were to advance modernization andinernationalization on the one hand, but also tofoster tradition and national pride on the other.
The Olympic Games were, since their inception
in 1894, a symbol of universal peace, fair play andglobal understanding through sport, but in fact
they were seen as a white man’s affair that washeld only in Europe and the United States. The
argument that the Japanese used to promote Tokyo
for the 1940 Olympics was that, only by staging thegames in Japan, the most modern country of the
non-Western world, would the Olympic movement
become international. This was a powerful argumentthat appealed to many members of the Olympic
organization. Therefore when the IOC voted, in
July 1936, on the venue of the 1940 Olympiad,
Tokyo’s candidacy was supported not only by such
Western countries like the United States, Canada,
Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, but also
by China, India, Egypt, and Iran (pp. 74-75).
Japan earned the 1940 games also by theachievements of its athletes. In the 1932 Olympic
Games in Los Angeles, the Japanese won 35 medals,
including seven gold medals, and Japan was
ranked fifth, after the United States, Italy, France,
and Sweden, ahead of Great Britain, Germany, andAustralia. In the 1936 Berlin Olympiad, which took
place shortly after Tokyo had been chosen for the1940 games, Japanese athletes won 44 medals,
including six gold medals (p. 10). These victories
and world records won Japan the praise of thewhole world. Collins makes the illuminating remarkthat 32 years after the Japanese novelist Natsume
Sōseki referred to himself in London as “small, ugly
and yellow,” a Japanese athlete in the 1932 Olympic
Games in Los Angeles described himself as “tall,
powerful and seemingly white” (p. 37).
In their efforts to promote Tokyo, the Japaneseresorted to tactics that were then unprecedented.
Japanese diplomats lobbied foreign governments,
especially those of Italy and Great Britain, topersuade their Olympic committees to withdraw thecandidacies of their cities from the race. In January
1935, the Japanese ambassador to Rome, Sugimura
Yōtarō, who was also the Japan IOC member,
met with Mussolini and convinced him to drop
the candidacy of Rome for the 1940 Olympics, inexchange for Japan’s support of Rome’s candidacy
for the 1944 games. This enraged the Italian National
2

Olympic Committee, which possessed the right tomake such decisions, but the committee had toabide by the will of the Duce (pp. 60-67).
Japan also used monetary incentives to promote itscase. In December 1934, the Tokyo City Assembly
allocated one million yen (half a million US dollars)to subsidize the travel of athletes and officials to theTokyo Olympiad (p. 56). The president of the IOC,
the Belgian Count Henry Baillet-Latour, was invited
to Tokyo, on an all-expense-paid trip, to inspect
the city’s sports facilities. He arrived in March 1936,
shortly after the suppression of the attempted coupd’état of February 1936, but despite the troubled
times he was wined and dined during the two anda half weeks that he spent in Japan, and was evenreceived by the emperor. Baillet-Latour was greatly
impressed by what he saw and heard and returned
home as an enthusiastic supporter of the Tokyo
games (pp. 67-70).
The IOC claimed that its decisions were based purely
on sporting considerations and had nothing to dowith politics, but the selection of Berlin and Tokyo
as the venues of the Olympic Games in 1936 and1940 enabled Nazi Germany, and almost enabled
militarist Japan, to use these games as a propaganda
tool of their authoritarian and miltitaristic regimes.
Avery Brundage, the president of the American
Olympic Committee in 1936, rejected the demandsof Jewish groups in his country to boycott Hitler’s
Olympiad, on the grounds that “sports is above
politics” (pp. 147, 149).
The choice of Tokyo, in July 1936, as the venue of the1940 games caused a great sensation in Japan. The
streets were decorated with Japanese and Olympic
flags, fireworks were lit, congratulatory slogans
were displayed, and commemorative stamps were
issued to celebrate the occasion (p. 76). But it soonturned out that the Japanese could not make up
their minds on important issues concerning thegames. The first problem was the location of the
Olympic Stadium. When Tokyo submitted its
bid, it notified that the central stadium would belocated in the Outer Gardens of the Meiji Shrine.
When Baillet-Latour visited Tokyo, he was deeply
impressed by the serene beauty of that site. But after
Tokyo had been chosen, the Home Ministry and the
Shrine Bureau objected to that plan, claiming thatthe boisterous stadium would disturb the sanctityof the gardens dedicated to the spirits of the Meiji
Emperor and his wife. After a long debate, whichdragged for two years, the government decided,
contrary to the wishes of the IOC president, toconstruct the central stadium in the Komazawa
district of the capital (pp. 112-123).
Another controversy surrounded the route of theVolume 3 No. 3 (2008) Issue 15

Olympic flame. The custom of bringing the firefrom Olympia in Greece to the opening ceremonyof the Olympic Games by relay, was started with
the Berlin Olympics, at that time to symbolizethat Nazi Germany was the successor of ancient
Greece. This new tradition struck roots and has
continued until today. The planners of the 1936
relay recommended that the 1940 relay, which
would span 10,000 km., should be conducted byhorse riders and runners and follow the ancient Silk
Road. But the Japanese did not like the idea of theCentral Asian route which would cross China, andsuggested instead that one of their war ships carry
the torch from Greece to Japan. Later, the Japanese
proposed that the Olympic flame be carried by anairplane (called “kamikaze”) along a South Asianroute. Within Japan the fire would be carried by relay
from Mt. Hyūga in Kyushu (where the legendary
Ninigi-no-mikoto descended from heaven to rule
Japan), through the Ise Shrines to Tokyo (pp. 124132). Another problem was the emperor’s role in
the opening ceremony. According to the Olympic
rules, the head of the host state officially opens
the games. But the Japanese emperor at thattime was considered to be too sacred to have his
voice transmitted electronically by microphone,
loudspeaker or radio (pp. 132-135).
Collins shows how difficult it was to transplant theWestern traditions and practices of the Olympic
Games into the political and cultural context
of prewar Japan, and how difficult it was for theJapanese to decide how to present their “Asian”
traditions and values to the Western world throughthe Olympic Games. Obtaining consensus on theseissues in prewar Japan was almost an impossible
goal, with the military, the bureaucracy, the Olympic
Committee, and the public pulling in different
directions.
Under these circumstances it became questionable
whether the 1940 Tokyo Olympic Games would
ever take off. But what finally sealed their fate was
the expanding war in China, which had broken
out in July 1937. At first, the Japanese hoped thatthe hostilities would end in a short time and theywould be able to stage the Olympic Games asscheduled. But as the war situation exacerbated at
the expense of more and more lives and material,
the prospects for the games started to look dim.
The financial allocations for the Olympiad were
gradually curtailed, and voices were heard that
it was inappropriate to host such a festive eventat a time when Japanese young men were dying
on the battlefields. In March 1938, Army Minister
Sugiyama Hajime declared that the Olympic Games
interfered with the “successful conclusion of the
China Incident”. Two months later, Welfare Minister
Kido Kōichi, the cabinet minister responsible forVolume 3 No. 3 (2008) Issue 15

the games, informed the Diet that the government
had decided to cancel the Tokyo Olympiad (pp.
151, 161-162). Although there had been earlier
calls in the United States and Britain to boycott theTokyo Olympics, in protest at Japan’s aggression in
China, the cancellation of the games was made by
the Japanese themselves. The IOC President BailletLatour insisted until the last moment that thegames should be held as scheduled, explaining thathe opposed the boycott of Tokyo “with the same
arguments I used to fight the Jewish campaign in1936” (p. 157).
The cancellation of the Tokyo Olympics did
not bring about the cancellation of the 2,600th
anniversary of the foundation of the empire. On thecontrary, relieved from the need to host a multitudeof Western athletes and to perform problematicWestern ceremonies, the Japanese celebrated the
kigen of 1940 on a grand scale in a solemn andtraditional way. As part of the celebrations, Tokyo
hosted the East Asian Games, in which 700 athletes
from Japan, Manchukuo, occupied China, Thailand,
the Philippines, and Hawaii participated. A “sacredfire,” brought by relay from Kashihara Shrine(dedicated to Emperor Jimmu) in Nara Prefecture,ignited the flame at the Meiji Shrine Outer Gardens,
where the central ceremony took place (pp. 179180). Meanwhile, the IOC had chosen Helsinki tohost the 1940 Olympic Games, but the Second
World War, which broke out in September 1939,
led to the cancellation of both the 1940 and 1944
Olympiads.
After the war, the Olympic Games were resumed,with London hosting them in 1948, Helsinki in
1952, and Melbourne in 1956. In May 1952, shortly
after the end of the Allied Occupation of Japan, thegovernor of Tokyo submitted the candidacy of his
city for the 1960 summer games. But Rome, which
had competed with Japan for the 1940 Olympics inthe past, won. In 1958 Tokyo hosted, with remarkablesuccess, the third Asian Games, proving how wellit was prepared to host international sporting
events. In 1959, Tokyo’s candidacy was submitted
again for the 1964 Olympics and this time it won.
The bid was supported by the IOC president, Avery
Brundage, who had succeeded Baillet-Latour andwho had been, like him, an enthusiastic supporterof the 1940 Tokyo games (p. 182). The 1964 Tokyo
Olympiad was an astonishing success, showing
the whole world how successfully Japan had
modernized and democratized. The Olympic flame
was carried from Athens to Kagoshima by a JAL
plane, which stopped on its way in Istanbul, Beirut,
Tehran, Lahore, New Delhi, Calcutta, Rangoon,
Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Hong Kong, andTaipei. In Kagoshima, the flame was separated into
four flames which advanced to Tokyo by relay along3

four routes, passing the capitals of all prefectures.
The flames were reunited in front of the imperial
palace into one torch, which was carried fromthere to light the Olympic Cauldron at the Olympic
Stadium at the Meiji Shrine Outer Gardens, by Sakai
Yoshinori, who was born in Hiroshima on the daythat the atomic bomb was dropped. The Shōwa
Emperor announced the opening of the Olympic
Games into a microphone, with no objection fromthe conservatives (p. 184).
The second time that the Olympic Games were heldin Asia was in Seoul in 1988, and the third time wasin Beijing in 2008. Collins thinks that the historicalprecedent for the Seoul and Beijing Olympics was
not the the 1964 Olympiad in Tokyo, but rather theaborted 1940 Tokyo Olympiad. She points out thatlike Japan in 1940, but unlike Japan in 1964, South
Korea in 1988 and China in 2008 were authoritarian
Asian countries which wished to strengthen theirregimes and improve their international standing
by demonstrating their modernity (p. 186). Collins
alleges that when the mayor of Beijing, Liu Qi,
announced that the 2008 Olympic Games would“promote economic and social progress… promote
the exchange of the Great Chinese culture withother cultures… [and] mark a major step forwardin the spread of Olympic ideals,” he was mimicking
the rhetoric of the campaign to promote the 1940
Tokyo games (p. 187).
The book is well written, with charts, cartoons, andblack and white photographs. Yet, it is not clear
why the author, or the editor, decided to present
the chapters as independent essays, with theirown lists of references. As a result, there are someoverlappings on the one hand and some lacunae
on the other. The most important topic which I
found missing was the 1936 Olympic Games inBerlin. The Berlin Olympiad is remembered in Japanand Korea because of the Korean athlete Sohn
Kee-Chung (Son Kitei in Japanese), who won themarathon race as a member of the Japanese team.
Another Korean, Nam Sung-Yong, won the bronze
medal of that marathon, also as Japanese. In 1936
they were regarded as Japanese, today they are
regarded as Koreans. At the opening ceremony of
the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Sohn Kee-Chung, at theadvanced age of 76, carried the Olympic torch into
the stadium, as a representative of Korean athleticachievements. This whole story is not mentioned
in the book.
Another problem is the haphazard spelling ofJapanese names. In transcribing Japanese names
into English, one can either ignore the longvowels, as some authors have done, and not use
macrons, or one can, as many scholars nowadays
do, indicate the long vowels by macrons. This book4

follows a strange middle way, sometimes using
macrons, sometimes attaching them partially,and sometimes avoiding them altogether. Thus,
Kido Kōichi and Kōno Ichirō appear throughout
the book without the macrons, while Kanō Jigorō
appears sometimes with macrons, sometimes
without them, sometimes as Senator (?) Kano (p.
52, caption), and sometimes as Kanō Jigarō (p. 92).
In addition, Niniginomikoto on p. 127 becomes
Nihigi-no-mikoto on the following page, and Kido’s
Nikki (diary) becomes Nikko in the references on p.
176. A little more editorial attention would haveavoided these mistakes and inconsistencies. But
these are minor defects. The book is recommended
reading to anyone interested in modern Japanese
history or the history of the Olympic Games.
This review first appeared in Reviews in History,
produced by the Institute of Historical Research,
School of Advanced Study at the University of
London and is reproduced with permission of thereview Professor Ben-Ami Shillony of the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem

Japanese Diplomacy
in the 1950s:
From Isolation to
Integration
edited by Iokibe
Makoto, Caroline
Rose, Tomaru Junko,and John Weste
Routledge, 2007, 215
pages including index andnotes.
Hardback £75.00
ISBN13: 978-0415372961
Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi
The studies in this volume are a valuable contribution
to knowledge of Japan’s post-war diplomacy andwill help students of Japanese foreign policy tounderstand some of the complicated negotiations
which affected Japanese interests.
Perhaps because as a young diplomat I was involvedon the margins of some of the events discussed I
was particularly interested in Part I “Japan, AngloAmerican rivalry, and indifference.” In Chapter 1
Shibayama Futoshi concludes that “the US forced
the UK to accept the strategic notion that a Soviet
attack on Japan was sufficient casus belli…In thisway, the US forcefully linked the defence of Japan
with that of Western Europe.”
In Chapter 2 on “Great Britain and Japanese
rearmament, 1945-60” John Weste notes correctly
Volume 3 No. 3 (2008) Issue 15

that “Military security was hardly the first instancein which British officials found themselves ignoredby their US counterparts. The Foreign Office had
earlier noticed an American reluctance to share its
economic policies for Japan.” (The extent to which
members of the US mission in Japan were prepared
to share information with members of the British
mission depended to a considerable extent on
personal contacts.) Later Weste asserts: “ten years
after allied victory and three years after the endof the occupation, the FO experts blatantly still
held little faith in the seaworthiness of Japanese
democracy.” Nor were they convinced that Japan
would long adhere to the pacifist principles
underlined by Article 9 of the constitution. (Former
members of the Japan Consular service with whom
I served in the British mission were understandably
sceptical, in the light of their experience of pre-war
Japan, about the intentions of pre-war politicians,
such as Kishi Nobusuke, who had leading roles in
the Japan of the 1950s.)
Chapter 3 by Tomaru Junko on “Japan in British
Regional Policy towards South-East Asia, 19451960” asserts that Malcolm MacDonald and his
successors as Commissioner General for the United
Kingdom “continued to play an important role inshaping British policies towards South-East Asia
through their correspondence with the Foreign
and the Colonial Offices, and through chairing
the annual conferences of the British Heads ofMission under their jurisdiction.” As a very juniordiplomat it fell to me to act as secretary of theconference chaired by Malcolm MacDonald held at
Bukit Serene in December 1950. I do not think thatany of the colonial governors or, for that matter,
British ambassadors present felt that they were
under MacDonald’s “jurisdiction.” The governors,in particular, jealously guarded their autonomy
and prerogatives and would never have accepted
any attempt by MacDonald to dictate policy. Hong
Kong was not, of course, part of South-East Asiaand the governor of the colony, Sir Guy Grantham,hardly disguised his contempt for the whole
affair. Tomaru Junko asserts that MacDonald’s
later appointment as British High Commissioner to
India was due to his being regarded as too “Asianminded” and “insufficiently active in directing a
co-ordinated anti-communist front and conveying
London’s views to the elite.” If this was the viewin parts of Whitehall it was not in my view fair to
MacDonald. MacDonald, a former politician and sonof Ramsay MacDonald, the Labour Prime Minister,
was informal in dress and manner. He got on wellwith Asians and preferred to mix with them rather
than with the colonial elite in Singapore. I suspectthat this had upset some of the stuffy senior colonial
servants. MacDonald may also have ruffled feathers
in Whitehall by his tendency to send lengthy secret
Volume 3 No. 3 (2008) Issue 15

and personal messages to Ministers and to bypass
the normal channels. Rob Scott, his successor, who
had been imprisoned in Changi jail during the war
and had suffered greatly as a result, had been theunder-secretary in charge of Asian Affairs in theForeign office. He was able and intelligent. He wasno “push-over” but was readier than MacDonald
to stick to the accepted channels. Working in theCommissioner General’s office was a frustrating
experience as our work consisted essentially of
coordinating and liaising between the British
missions and colonial governments in the area plus
the regional information office on the one hand
and the three service headquarters in Phoenix
Park, Singapore, where we also had our offices. In
the 1950s the Commissioner General had a usefulrole but his influence should not be exaggerated.
The British ambassador to Japan was invited to
the regular conferences in Singapore but Japanwas not seen as central to British policies in South
East Asia. As Tomaru Junko points out: “despite thecloser contacts and co-operation between Britain
and Japan in Asia in the latter half of the 1950s,
Britain still distrusted Japanese intentions.”
Part II covers “Japan’s re-emergence in regional
and international organizations” and contains
interesting and informative studies by Kweku
Ampiah on “Japan at the Bandung Conference,”
Oba Mie on “Japan’s entry into ECAFE” and Kurusu
Kaoru on “Japan’s struggle for UN membership in
1955.”Part III is entitled “Japanese and US domestic
constraints on Foreign Policy.” The first study byJohn Swenson-Wright is on “The Lucky-Dragon
Incident of 1954: A failure of crisis management?”
Swenson-Wright notes correctly that the incident
revealed “an interesting ambivalence in Japan’s
attitude to nuclear issues. Japan’s nuclear allergy
was highly selective.” His account of the revelations
made by the Soviet defector Rastvorov is a valuablesummary of an important episode. He notes that
the Americans were increasingly frustrated byinaccurate Japanese press reporting about theincident. He quotes Bill Leonhart, then Minister in
the US Embassy who was one of the ablest membersof the state department (who would never havebeen accused of hiding his light under a bushel).
Unfortunately, as Swenson-Wright points out, there
were “very real failings” on the part of the US in
handling the Lucky Dragon Incident at least initially.
(I noted that Swenson-Wright has dug out of thearchives a minute which I wrote in October 1954
as a junior officer in the Far Eastern Department of
the Foreign Office. Young diplomats beware! Theirconfidential animadversions may appear in print
one day! ).
One of the other two studies in this part is that5

by Robert Eldridge on “the Revision of the USJapan security treaty and Okinawa” which I foundenlightening. The other by Caroline Rose “Breaking
the deadlock: Japan’s informal diplomacy with thePeople’s Republic of China in 1958-9” containedmuch which I did not know (I was at that timeworking in Bonn).

Jitsuroku Koizumi Gaiko(Records of Koizumi
Diplomacy)
by Isao Iijima
Nihon Keizai Shimbun
Shuppansha, 2007,
343 pages.
Hardback ￥1,890
ISBN -13: 978-4532352714
Review by Fumiko Halloran
Iijima Isao, who was Prime Minister Koizumi
Junichirō’s executive secretary, has come out witha new book in which he gives a full-fledged andintriguing account of the former prime minister’s
diplomacy, focusing on records of his trips and ofvisits to Japan by prominent leaders from aroundthe world. It follows the author’s earlier book,the subject of an earlier review in Issue 11 (Vol. 2
No. 5 October 2008 pp.2-3), about Koizumi’s
domestic reforms.
By reading this record, perhaps the most striking
lesson one learns is that a prime minister is required
to have physical stamina to keep going with little
sleep and a strong stomach to eat unfamiliar foodpresented by the hosts. In contrast to Koizumi’s
physical resilience, his successor, Prime Minister
Abe Shinzō had to resign after only one yearmainly
because of serious health problems that were
aggravated by strenuous overseas trips.
In 2001, for instance, Koizumi was scheduled to
fly to Beijing early in the morning of 8th October.
Late at night on the 7th, Koizumi was informed that
American bombing in Afghanistan had begun. At
2am on 8th, he convened an emergency cabinet
meeting. At 3am, he held an emergency press
conference. At 8 am, he boarded the plane for
Beijing. He visited the Marco Polo Bridge and ananti-Japan war museum and expressed his
apologies and condolences to the victims of thewar between China and Japan. Then, he attended
a working luncheon with Prime Minister Zhu
Rongji that was followed by another meetingwith Chairman Jiang Zemin. Late in the afternoon,
Koizumi’s group flew back to Tokyo, arriving at 9pm
At 10 pm, he convened another emergency cabinet
6

gathering and then an anti-terrorist meeting. Thereis no record of how long these meetings lasted,
but assuming he went to bed around midnight,
for more than 24 hours, he kept a busy schedule
without much sleep.
During his term in office from April 2001 to October
2006, Koizumi made 51 trips abroad, visiting 49
countries, some several times. He visited the UnitedStates 8 times, South Korea 7 times, Indonesia
4 times, China 3 times, Russia 4 times, Thailand,
Malaysia and Vietnam twice each. Moreover, he
was the first Japanese prime minister to visit
Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in Central Asia. His
travels extended to Israel, Jordan, Palestine, Saudi
Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey, as well as India andPakistan. In Africa, he went to South Africa, Ghana,
Ethiopia, and in the Americas, travelled to Brazil,
Chile and Mexico. In addition, he talked over thephone with foreign leaders more than 90 times.
He met with heads of state and other leaders who
visited Japan on more than 200 occasions. His
foreign trips included international conferencessuch as the G8 summit talks five times, ASEAN and
APEC conferences, and the United Nations General
Assembly in New York.
The book is a straight record of each trip withlittle political analysis but Iijima emphasizes
the basic approach of Koizumi’s diplomacy. His
book shows that, despite advanced technology
in communications, meetings between politicalleaders are useful in improving bilateral andmultilateral relations. This diplomacy, which iscalled “Shunō Gaikō” (top leaders’ diplomacy), in
contrast to “Gaimushō Gaikō” (Foreign Ministry
diplomacy), requires leaders of strong will andnegotiation skills. Koizumi certainly made strong
impressions on these accounts.
As for criticism that he caused strained relations
with China and South Korea, Iijima quotes Koizumi
as saying, “I believe later generations would
give positive evaluation as they would come tounderstand the circumstances.”
Iijima asserts that the Foreign Ministry’s diplomacy
focuses on long-term relations based on theexpertise of government officials and those withan institutional memory of the history of relations
with other countries.
In the Shunō Gaikō, direct encounters with top
leaders are necessary because they can solve
problems at political level, sometimes withdramatic results. A case in point was Koizumi’s visit
to Pyongyang, North Korea. Koizumi confronted theNorth Korean leader, Kim Jong-Il, who concededthat his country was responsible for kidnapping
Japanese citizens. That was in September, 2002.
After his second visit to Pyongyang, in May 2004,
Volume 3 No. 3 (2008) Issue 15

Koizumi brought back five Japanese victims ofkidnapping. But he failed to persuade RobertJenkins, the American husband of Hitomi Soga,and their two daughters to join the group. Later,
they were reunited with Soga in Indonesia, thencame to Japan. Since Japan and North Korea haveno diplomatic relations, Iijima says finding North
Korea’s intentions prior to the meetings was difficult.
Japan had to negotiate with the US military on thetreatment of Jenkins, who had defected to North
Korea from South Korea. Although the kidnapping
issue dominated Japanese press coverage andpublic opinion, Iijima points out that the two
leaders discussed at length issues of nuclear arms,
missiles, and spy boats.
The sequence of Koizumi’s foreign visits reveals his
priorities in foreign policy. In June 2001, soon after hebecame prime minister, Koizumi visited the UnitedStates, United Kingdom and France in one trip. Thenhe attended his first G8 summit in Italy. He again
came to the United States immediately after the
9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington,
visiting the sites and assuring President Bush ofJapan’s cooperation in combating terrorism. After
consolidating close relations with Western partners,
he visited China and South Korea in two separate
trips in one month in attempts to improve bilateralrelations that had been chilled with disagreements
over Yasukuni Shrine, Japanese history textbooks,
and Japan’s war responsibility. Then he attended
multilateral talks of APEC in Shanghai and ASEAN
Plus 3 meeting in Brunei. His last trip in his first year
was to Belgium to attend the tenth annual JapanEuropean Union meeting where he met with senior
EU leaders.
According to Iijima, Koizumi’s strategy with Asianand African nations was to treat them on an equal
footing, respecting their national pride regardlessof the size and power of those nations. Koizumi’s
personality apparently played a major role as various
episodes in the book illustrate how other leaderssought him out in international conferences, how
he was often the top story in the press of hostcountries and how his love of music and open mind
charmed dignitaries and children alike.
Iijima says that despite Koizumi’s seven visits toSouth Korea, bilateral relations were strained after
President Roh Moo-hyun was elected. The meetingat the inauguration of the new president went well.
By June 2005, however, when Koizumi made hissixth visit to Seoul, disputes over Takeshima (Dokdo
in Korean and also known as the Liancourt Rocks
in English) chilled relations. Despite an agreementthat they would take turns visiting each other’scountry, Roh never came to Japan for an official
visit. Koizumi and Roh did have a brief meetingin Ibusuki, a hot spa in Kagoshima, in an informal
Volume 3 No. 3 (2008) Issue 15

setting.
With China, Koizumi’s visits to the Yasukuni Shrine
were a sore point and Japan’s relations with China
were strained during his tenure. (During the visitof China’s President Hu Jintao to Japan in May
2008, Koizumi declined to attend meetings with
Hu, including a breakfast meeting with former
prime ministers. Koizumi reportedly said he did notwish to spoil the occasion for Hu with whom he
had heated arguments about the Yasukuni Shrine
issue.)
Another failure was Japan’s bid to become apermanent member of the UN Security Council. In
spite of Koizumi’s appeal in person to foreign leaders
and assurances from many that they would support
Japan, Japan could not overcome opposition from
China and South Korea.
Koizumi’s talks with foreign leaders covered a wide
range of political, economic, and security issues;in most of his speeches, he emphasized Japan’s
willingness to work with other nations in expanding
economic and trade partnerships, challenging
global and social issues such as hunger and AIDs,
and stimulating human and cultural exchanges. He
made it clear that Japan joined the international
effort to combat terrorism and sided with the US bysending National Self-Defense Forces on missions
to Iraq and the Indian Ocean.
Koizumi kept up a swift pace for five years and fivemonths, navigating domestic reforms, elections,and diplomacy, often giving instructions on
legislative and political matters on the phone fromhis plane. His last overseas trip as prime minister
was in September 2006 to Helsinki, Finland, for
an official visit and to attend an ASEM6 (AsiaEurope Meeting). At a press conference, Koizumi
expressed his satisfaction that the meeting
had been productive, covering a wide range of
topics including terrorism and weapons of mass
destruction, AIDs, North Korea, the Middle East, theenvironment, and economic development.
The book has a complete list of Koizumi’s overseas
trips, his meetings with foreign leaders in Japan, andthe names of officials who, as special assistants tothe prime minister, were involved in the preparationand execution of Shunō Gaikō.
A different version of this review first appearedon the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR)
Japan-US Discussion Forum and is reproduced withpermission.

7

Chronicles of My Life, An
American in the Heart ofJapan
by Donald Keene
Columbia University Press,
New York, 2008, 208 pages,
including photographs andlist of names of Japanesementioned in the text.
Hardback £16.50
ISBN 13: 978-0231144407
Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi
Donald Keene is the most eminent foreign scholar ofJapan. He has written more than thirty books about
Japan including many translations of Japanese works
from medieval to modern times and an illuminating
history of Japanese literature.
His book “On Familiar Terms, a Journey across Cultures”
which was published by Kodansha International in 1994
included some account of his life and his immersion in
Japanese history and culture. The present volume ismore the personal story of his life and friendships.
He was a lonely child, but was introduced to Europe asa boy when he accompanied his father in 1931 visiting
Paris, Vienna and Berlin. One day in 1940 he cameacross in a second hand bookshop in New York a copyof Arthur Waley’s “Tale of Genji” which he bought for
40 cents. He found the translation ‘magical’ as so manyothers since have done. After the war when he wasteaching at Cambridge University he enjoyed meeting
Waley in London. He began to study Japanese before
he joined the US Navy where he was trained at the US
Navy’s Japanese Language School.
One of his war-time assignments with Otis Carey took
him to Attu, a cold inhospitable island in the Aleutians
where he took part in the American landings. There
were only twenty-nine Japanese prisoners. Later hetook part in the landing on Okinawa, by good fortune
escaping death from a failed kamikaze attack. After the
war he was sent to China rather than to Japan, although
he managed a week’s quick visit to occupied Japan.

He decided to spend his first Christmas in Italy. On
his way there his only copy of his draft doctoral thesis
was stolen. Devastated by this experience he wasfortunately helped by kind English friends. He set about
rewriting his thesis and came in touch with Eric Ceadel
who had been appointed senior lecturer in Japaneseat the University. Ceadel asked him to teach Japaneseconversation. ‘At the time, students at Cambridge wereintroduced to the language by reading the preface tothe tenth-century anthology of poetry “Kokinshu” in theoriginal…My conversation classes were most peculiar.
The students tended to use tenth-century vocabularyeven when relating contemporary events.’ Donald
went on to join the staff at Cambridge and worked on
his book “The Japanese Discovery of Europe.”
In London he was able to enjoy concerts and operas. He
recalled these London performances “with particularaffection and with gratitude” that he “happened to
be present during an extraordinary revival of music.”
He records that “On the whole I was happy during hefive years I lived in England,” but he wanted to get toJapan.
He managed to win a fellowship which enabled him totravel to Japan. He reached Tokyo in August 1953 andwent straight to Kyoto. He found Kyoto “a wonderful city”
and immersed himself in Japanese culture. “My greatest
pleasure at this time,” he writes, “was my kyogen (comic
drama) lessons”.
Cambridge University would not extend his leave ofabsence but he was allowed to do so by Columbia
University which offered him a post. From then on he has
commuted each year between New York and Japan.
In Japan he made many friends in the literary andpublishing world including Tanizaki Junichirō, Kawabata
Yasunari and Mishima Yukio, but while he worked onmodern novels he never flagged in his study of Japaneseclassical literature.
All foreign students of Japanese culture owe a great
debt to Donald Keene’s scholarship and must admire
his sensitive writing about Japan, its literature and its
history. They will enjoy this memoir with its charming
little colour illustration. Donald’s humility and humourshine through.

On being demobilised he resumed his studies of Japaneseat Columbia University and later at Harvard where
he was disappointed by Professor Elisséeff’s attitude
towards Japanese scholars. From there he managed
to win a fellowship to go to England. He thought itwould be a mistake to study Japanese in England
where there were at that time few opportunities forJapanese studies. Instead he thought of taking up
Arabic and Persian, but was dissuaded from pursuingthis idea. Although he had an MA from Columbia
he was regarded by Cambridge University as anundergraduate.
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