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Wataru Kaji

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Wataru Kaji
鹿地 亘
Wataru Kaji in 1952
Born
Mitsugi Seguchi

(1903-05-01)May 1, 1903
Misaki, Nishikunisaki District, Empire of Japan
DiedJuly 26, 1982(1982-07-26) (aged 79)
Usa, Japan
Alma materTokyo Imperial University
Political partyJapanese Communist Party
SpouseYuki Ikeda

Wataru Kaji (鹿地 亘, Kaji Wataru; 1 May 1903 – 26/27 July 1982)[1][2] was the nom de guerre for Mitsugi Seguchi (瀬口 貢, Seguchi Mitsugi), a Japanese writer, literary critic, and political activist.[3]

During his lifetime, he worked as a anti-militarist activist in pre-war Japan, and, after the outbreak of WW2, joined the Chinese resistance to Imperial Japan. After the war, he would be kidnapped and tortured by US intelligence for suspicion of being a Soviet Spy.[4]

Biography

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See also: CIA activities in Japan § Kaji Wataru Incident

Wataru Kaji was born in the village of Misaki in what was then Nishikunisaki District, Ōita (today part of Bungotakada) in 1903. He became involved with activism starting while at Tokyo Imperial University, and joined the Japanese Communist Party in 1932. In 1934, Kaji was charged with violating the Peace Preservation Law and threatening the Kokutai, being jailed for around a year and resulting in his flight to China in January 1936.[4] He arrived in Shanghai, where he married Yuki Ikeda.[5] While in China, Kaji met Lu Xun,[6][7] Hu Feng,[8] Xiao Hong,[9] Edgar Snow,[10] and Koji Ariyoshi.[11] Kaji had also met Communist Party member Max Granich who, following the outbreak of the Second-Sino Japanese war, advised that Kaji should focus on Japanese POWs, which he based on the news of the CCP’s capture of many Japanese POWs after the Battle of Pingxingguan.[12]

In Shanghai, Kaji was placed under suspicion for working with Japanese socialists by Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government,[13] fleeing following the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War to Hankou via Hong Kong, then to Chongqing.[4] While in hiding in Hong Kong, Kaji Wataru and his wife were given shelter by Chinese artist Huang Xinbo.[14]

During his service in the Chinese resistance, he coined the term ‘verbal bullets’ (kotoba no dangan) or ‘voice bullets’ (koe no dangan) concerning his loudspeaker propaganda operations against Japanese soldiers on the front. Verbal bullets were meant to ‘fire at the hearts of the soldiers’. Used to agitate the Japanese soldiers into a state of mutiny. [15]

Kaji Wataru wrote the Japanese introduction of the book What War Means by Harold Timperley. Published in 1938, What War Means chronicles the Nanjing Massacre. In the introduction, Kaji expressed that he was not surprised to learn of the massacre, saying the massacre was a result of Japan's aggressive foreign policies since the early 1930s. 11 copies of What War Means were confiscated by Japanese authorities from an American missionary who had been distributing this work throughout Japan in 1939.[16]

In Nationalist China, Kaji worked for the Chinese in propaganda campaigns, and re-educated Japanese POWs.[5] During the war, in December 1939, Kaji founded the Japanese People's Anti-war Alliance,[17] which was disbanded the following year due to a breakdown in relations between the Kuomintang and Communist Party and a subsequent increase in suspicion of leftists by the Nationalists.

In March 1940, Kaji Wataru, and his Anti-War League were utilized in the Battle of Kunlun Pass.[18]

According to Andrew Roth, Kaji had his hand in "everything", including a leaflet which Chinese airplanes dropped on Japan.[5] According to historians, the Chinese Air Force in 1938 dropped leaflets on the Japanese home islands only once.[19] In response the Japanese bombed the political department, nearly killing Kaji and his wife.[5]

In 1946, Kaji Wataru's two manuscripts "We Are Seven" and "Letters from the Front" were published in book form by the New York Japanese American Committee for Democracy. It was a "record of the first group of Japanese to fight for peace and democracy in China". The book tells the growth and propaganda work in Central China of the Japanese Anti-War League. The book was a limited edition with 1,000 copies published. Japanese dissident Taro Yashima designed the book cover.[20]

Contacts with U.S. intelligence

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By 1942, he had begun occasionally working in association with the United States Office of War Information. In April 1945, the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) requested that the Chinese government release Kaji from his work there to allow him to work for the OSS in setting up a POW re-education camp Kunming, which was granted. Kaji, however, was unwilling to give up his operational independence in full. In response, the OSS said it would "make no guarantees" but "would not hinder" his larger work with his group, the League for the Establishment of a Democratic Japan, an offshoot of the Japanese People's Anti-war Alliance that sought "the ultimate liberation of Japanese society from authoritarian political oppression and ... industrial capitalist exploitation" so long as the work's sponsorship was not traceable back to the OSS. Negotiations and dialogue collapsed after Kaji objected to several points in the contract sent to him, including a demand for an oath of loyalty from him and his wife, and that the OSS reserved the right to terminate the agreement at any point.[4]

Kidnapping by U.S. intelligence

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Kaji and his wife in Hankow c. 1938
Photo of Kaji (left of back row) Sachiko Ikeda (middle of front row) Teru Hasegawa (AKA Green River Eiko) (left of front row) and Feng Naichao [zh] (冯乃超) (right of front row)

On 25 November 1951, Kaji was kidnapped by the Z-Unit (a black operations under Lt. Col Jack Canon), in what is today the city of Fujisawa, Kanagawa, and was held for more than a year in several locations.[21] According to Kaji, he was subjected to intense interrogation and torture, and was accused of being a spy for the Soviet Union, which he denied. He was given a demand to become a double agent for the United States, which he refused. Kaji attempted suicide via consumption of household cleaner on 29 November. The attempt failed, and his captors administered medical aid to both assist his recovery from the attempt, and from a persistent case of tuberculosis. After a Japanese-American officer in the Unit leaked a few details about Kaji's detention to the Tokyo press in September 1952, the leaker, as well as another Japanese-American officer who developed sympathy for Kaji, attempted to secure his release, first on 24 November informing Kōzō Inomata [ja], a member of the National Diet for the JSP, who then notified police. One of the officers also made a formal public statement about what he had seen, followed shortly thereafter by a press conference involving Inomata, another officer, and Kaji's immediate family. On 7 December 1952, Kaji was released. He alleged that his capture was due at least in part to his refusal to work with the OSS under their conditions at the end of World War II.[4]

U.S. sources at the time, including the Embassy of the United States in Tokyo, disputed this account, with a statement issued on 15 December saying Kaji admitted to being "an active Communist intelligence agent" after his capture, and that he had concocted the story of being kidnapped due to a possible threat against his life from his superiors. They also claimed that after the end of the Allied-occupation of Japan in late April 1952, Kaji was under U.S. protection at his own request, as anything else would have been a violation of Japan's sovereignty following the withdrawal of foreign troops. After another man (a former double agent for the U.S. Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) communicating with the Soviet Union until the end of the occupation) was arrested by Japanese police for sending radio signals to the Soviet Union on 10 December, he had claimed Kaji was a member of the same spy ring, which Kaji denied. The U.S. cited this event as further evidence for their claims. Ultimately, both the double agent and Kaji were charged with sending sensitive information to Moscow. The former was put on trial and convicted in March 1953, with Kaji's trial delayed due to ongoing health issues. Kaji was found guilty in 1961 and given a mild suspended sentence, but was acquitted on appeal in 1969 due to lack of evidence. Details later emerged that Kaji was under surveillance by the U.S. prior to the other man becoming a double agent for the CIC, meaning that intelligence from him could not have been evidence proving the U.S. claim. Additionally, U.S. response intended to assassinate the character of Kaji, painting him as a likely traitor due to his actions opposing the Japanese government during World War II, as well as shore up the incumbent pro-American government in Japan headed by Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, which may have been destabilized should the true facts of the case have become known. It was also revealed that the kidnapping occurred without formal authorization by CIC senior leaders, and that shortly after the event, the CIC realized that Kaji knew little that would help them with regard to the Soviet Union following vague suspicions about his ties.[4]

Legacy

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The Chinese documentary series Today in the History of Anti-Japanese War dedicated an episode to Kaji.[22]

Wataru Kaji was featured in the International Friends During the Anti-Japanese War, an exhibition organized by the Beijing People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries. The show "features 160 pictures of 39 foreign friends who worked together with the Chinese people and made contributions to China's independence and freedom."[23]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Library of Congress Name Authority File. Accessed 19 January 2014
  2. ^ "Political writer Kaji died at 79". The Miami News.
  3. ^ Challis, Derek (2002). The Book of Iris: A Biography of Robin Hyde. Auckland University Press. p. 542.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Esselstrom, Erik. “From Wartime Friend to Cold War Fiend: The Abduction of Kaji Wataru and U.S.-Japan Relations at Occupation’s End.” Journal of Cold War Studies 17, no. 3 (2015): 159–83. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26926210.
  5. ^ a b c d Roth, Andrew (1945). Dilemma in Japan. Little, Brown. pp. 234–243.
  6. ^ Koshiro, Yukiko (2013). Imperial Eclipse Japan's Strategic Thinking about Continental Asia before August 1945. Cornell University Press. p. 100. ISBN 9780801451805.
  7. ^ Empire of Texts in Motion Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese Transculturations of Japanese Literature By Karen Laura Thornber Page 75
  8. ^ Literary Societies of Republican China edited by Michel Hockx and Kirk A. Denton Chapter 13 Page 458
  9. ^ "Seminar: Home Away From Home: Displacement and Cosmopolitanism in the Itinerary of Xiao Hong". University of Hong Kong.
  10. ^ From Vagabond to Journalist: Edgar Snow in Asia, 1928-1941 By Robert M. Farnsworth Page 326 -327
  11. ^ From Kona to Yenan: The Political Memoirs of Koji AriyoshiBy Koji Ariyoshi, Alice M. Beechert, Edward D. Beechert page 104-105
  12. ^ "Fighting Fascism with 'Verbal Bullets': Kaji Wataru and the Antifascist Struggle in Wartime East Asia". Brill.
  13. ^ Esselstrom, Erik (2009). Crossing Empire's Edge: Foreign Ministry Police and Japanese Expansionism in Northeast Asia. University of Hawai'i Press.
  14. ^ "Huang Xinbo" (PDF). Hong Kong Memory.
  15. ^ "Fighting Fascism with 'Verbal Bullets': Kaji Wataru and the Antifascist Struggle in Wartime East Asia". Brill.
  16. ^ Yoshida, Takashi (2006). The making of the "Rape of Nanking" : history and memory in Japan, China, and the United States. New York, Oxford University Press. p. 23-35.
  17. ^ Empire of Texts in Motion: Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese Transculturations", Karen Laura Thornber, Page 75
  18. ^ "Japanese and Chinese fight side by side". Swan Express.
  19. ^ Li, Xiaobing; Li, Hongshan (1998). China and the United States: A New Cold War History. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America. ISBN 0-7618-0978-3.
  20. ^ "The Nisei Weekender" (PDF). Densho. 1946.
  21. ^ Yakuza: Japan's Criminal Underworld By David E. Kaplan, Alec Dubro Page 47
  22. ^ 抗战史上的今天 12月19日 鹿地亘对记者谈反战同盟 (in Chinese). 【抗战史上的今天】官方频道---纪念中国人民抗日战争暨世界反法西斯战争胜利70周年. 20 December 2015.
  23. ^ "Int'l friends photo exhibition unveiled in Beijing". This Is Beijing. 23 July 2015.

Further reading

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  • 井上 桂子 (2012). 中国で反戦平和活動をした日本人―鹿地亘の思想と生涯. 八千代出版.
  • Records of the Office of Strategic Services (Record Group 226) 1940-1947, Entry 211, Boxes 1-45. Location: 250/64/32/1. CIA Accession: 85-0215R. at the National Archives and Records Administration.
  • Pingchao Zhu (2015). Wartime Culture in Guilin, 1938–1944: A City at War. Lexington Books. pp. 175–180.
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