Under the inept leadership of premiers Yukio Hatoyama and Naoto Kan, Japan truly lost its way in 2010. And, instead of helping bring some order to the chaos, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku has been one of the primary factors in prompting the situation to get almost totally out of hand. Sadly, 2010 is ending as a year in which the people of Japan feel the very foundation of their nation beginning to quickly melt down, with the emergence of an administration whose leaders don’t particularly appear to love their nation.
　　　What can be done to make 2011 a year of rejuvenation in Japan? A recently published book, entitled “Testimony: A One Time Only Showdown between Yukio Mishima and Aritsune Fukuda” (Bungei Shunju; 2010), presents an opportunity to give some thought to this question. From 1960 through 1970 – a decade in which fierce anti-U.S.-Japan Security Treaty campaigns ran rampant across Japan, particularly in Tokyo, Mishima (1925-1970) and Fukuda (1912-1994) were virtually alone as they steadfastly preached conservative values in a nation infatuated with left wing ideology. Amid the unrest, Japan’s two most celebrated conservative thinkers had a tet-a-tete on the state of affairs of post-war Japan at the behest of an almost unknown magazine called “Journal Polemic.” The book begins with co-authors Matsuo Sato and Hiroshi Mochimaru, who had served Mishima and Fukuda as close aides, looking back at the historic dialogue. As a college student, Sato set up the Japan Students Cultural Conference in 1970, with Fukuda as its advisor. In 1968, Mochimaru was instrumental in forming a private militia named the “Tate-no-Kai” (“Shield Society”) financed solely by Mishima, but parted with him and left the society in October of 1969 – slightly over a year before the playwright committed sensational “seppuku” (disembowelment) suicide on November 25, 1970 at the age of 45.
　　　In this year marking the 40th anniversary of his death, a variety of views have been voiced on Mishima the author, playwright, movie director, actor, martial arts aficionado, as well as samurai. In conjunction with this retrospective, there has been much discussion about Fukuda. Among all materials out there, the views expressed by this book’s co-authors are particularly interesting.
　　　Mishima and Fukuda shared a keen sense of crisis over the state of affairs of post-war Japan. Mishima penned “My Anti-Revolution Declaration” for the February 1969 issue of “Journal Polemic,” the gist of which is as follows: “An impossible situation confronts Japan no matter how one looks at it. It may just be a situation tantamount to the dawn of a real revolution at this stage. Therefore, we members of the ‘Shield Society’ are determined to stand up and take action for anti-revolutionary causes.” In short, Mishima’s statement constituted an adamant opposition to the impending possibility of the birth in Japan of a communist administration.
　　　About the same time, Fukuda wrote an essay titled “Japan on the Decline” for the mass-circulation “Sankei Shimbun” newspaper. He noted that, during the 20 odd years after its defeat in World War II, “Japan has continued to play into the hands of the leftwing camp,” warning that a real communist revolution could very well take place in Japan “within the next five to ten years.” Explaining why he thought Japan had been reduced to so sorry a state, a vexed Fukuda wrote: “Because the Japanese have denied their indigenous history, their past, in the post war era, their sense of community and solidarity has been sorely lost.”

Needed: A Spirit To Go It Alone
　　　The misgivings held by Mishima and Fukuda have manifested themselves in Japanese society today. Prime Minister Kan, Chief Cabinet Secretary Sengoku, and National Public Safety Commission Chairperson Tomiko Okazaki were all once members of the Japan Socialist Party. Justice Minister Keiko Chiba, who continues to retain her post despite her failure to be re-elected in the upper house election in July this year, is trying to change the judiciary foundation of this nation as head of the “Conference to Examine the State of Japan’s Prosecution.” The left wing administration that Mishima and Fukuda had feared has thus become a reality, brazenly implementing its policies.
　　　Commenting on the precarious situation faced by Japan, Mishima remarked during those days: “As far as I am concerned, the era of Showa abruptly ended in its 20th year, in 1945, when Japan lost the war. I don’t see the years that have followed as an extension of Showa.”
　　　Sato notes that economist Nobuyuki Okuma (1893-1977) introduced these remarks by Mishima in the prologue of his book entitled “Japan’s Lies: Criticism of Postwar Democracy” (Ronso-sha:2009), pointing out that the United States had driven two “stakes” into occupied Japan following the end of the war. According to Okuma, one of the stakes was the war-renouncing “peace” constitution, and the other was the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty. Japanese left wingers cherish the former while their counterparts do the latter, but unless Japan does away with both these stakes, it will never be able to regain its true independence, maintains Okuma. A sensible assertion, indeed.
　　　How then should Japan pull up these stakes and achieve real “independence”? To explain, Mochimaru cites a message Mishima once delivered to the “Shield Society”: During the years preceding the Meiji Reformation (1868), reformist thinker Shoin Yoshida (1830-1859), widely known as the spiritual leader of the reformation movement towards the end of the Tokugawa era, was totally isolated and began to feel he had to go it alone no matter what. But things began to click the minute he started feeling this way, and the Reformation eventually became a reality. Mochimaru notes Mishima would often stress that the spirit making one feel, as Yoshida did, that he has only himself to rely on is the crucial ingredient that separates the “Shield Society” from the left wing mass movements.
　　　Meanwhile, Sato introduces the following observation by Fukuda:”It may be that neither the state nor the people will support you. Important is the realization that you are least bothered by the lack of their backing…Only those who can go it alone in the absence of allies should band together to form a group dedicated to the real cause.”
　　　Looking back over the political history of modern Japan, one instantly recalls former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi as a politician with the spirit of going it alone, who signed into law the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty in 1960 despite fierce left wing and popular opposition. If they were alive today, what would Mishima and Fukuda make of present-day Japan, marred by an almost total lack of mettle which had once made this nation great? With this question in mind, Messrs. Sato and Mochimaru engage in a fascinating dialogue in which they relentlessly argue over the state of Japan’s conservative camp as well in connection with its posture towards the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty and the Japanese constitution. Unfortunately, however, they make absolutely no reference to China as they single-mindedly tackle matters pertaining to the U.S.
　　　To the extent that their failure to refer to China in their dialogue can significantly be supplemented, a recent book authored by Yoh Kaiei, a Mongolian-born naturalized historian at Shizuoka University, is quite useful. It is entitled “Grassland without Grave Posts” (Iwanami Shoten; 2010).
　　　At a time when only a clear viewpoint unobstructed by the misconceptions about China and adequate mental preparedness can safeguard Japan’s secure future in Asia, Japanese must learn much more about China and its people. Professor Yoh’s book comprises remarks by 14 Mongolians who discuss what has really taken place in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China, which embraces three times the land mass of Japan, during the 60 plus years since the end of World War II.

“Fated to Love My Native Country”
　　　Japan created Manchukuo in 1932, incorporating the eastern region of Inner Mongolia, setting up various educational institutions, and educating a large number of Mongolian intellectuals. A power vacuum resulting from Japan’s retreat following its defeat in the war was quickly filled by the Chinese Communist Party. The People’s Republic of China, founded in 1949, proudly announced that it had “liberated the Mongolians from colonialism” and introduced the Autonomous Region of Inner Mongolia. Against some 800,000 original Mongolian inhabitants, the number of Han Chinese settlers has ballooned to some 5 million, reducing the Mongolians to an absolute minority.
　　　The Mongolians have since been continuously oppressed by the Han Chinese. Prof. Yoh’s two-volume book constitutes a vivid record of the slaughters and suppression that continue on in Inner Mongolia even today. China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which was accompanied by horrific massacres, actually began in Inner Mongolia. It was carried out under the unambiguous strategy of “cleaning up the Mongolians inhabiting northern frontiers with the history of having cooperated with Japan during the war, as well as enhancing border defense – so as to be able to concentrate on implementation of the cultural revolution across the wide expanse of mainland China.”
　　　The theoretical basis of the Han Chinese justifying the massacres committed against the Mongolians allegedly is the “Rectification Movement” – the political campaign developed to clean up “the Mongolian spies who are as innumerable as the hair of the cow,” who the Chinese claimed had infiltrated the Chinese Communist Party. The People’s Liberation Army devised more than 50 different types of torture aimed at the Mongolians, the book points out, explaining that the atrocities were verified through the testimony by those who had miraculously survived the horrendous torture, and graphically evidenced by the bodies of the victims which showed traces of every conceivable type of abuse, such as driving several nails into the skull. Sadly, Mongolia’s ethnic self-determination movements were hushed up as a result of the massacres. With these hitherto undisclosed facts about ethnic cleansing, this book forces those Japanese still fooled by the illusion of China to confront the reality of the true nature of the Han Chinese.
　　　When brooding on the real state of affairs in the United States and China, both of which exert a strong influence on Japan, I cannot help feeling deep affection for my home country of Japan which has nurtured a gentle civilization. At the same time, the words of Tsuneari Fukuda frequently flash across the back of my mind – “I am fated to love my native country.” One loves his parents for the simple reason they are his father and mother. One should love his native country for the same simple reason – because it has nurtured you, said Fukuda. He further explained that patriotism is a happy dispensation of Nature, transcending the question of whether one nation is superior, or inferior, to others, and that the basis of patriotism should rest on one’s view of destiny. These words of one of postwar Japan’s greatest conservative thinkers permeate gently and deeply into my heart.
(Translated from “Renaissance Japan” column No. 441 in the December 23,2010 issue of The Weekly Shincho.)