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Japanese leader’s 1972 mission to normalise China ties a ‘huge gamble’
- Daughter of Kakuei Tanaka, Japan’s former prime minister, recalls how father vowed to resign if talks failed and feared for his life ahead of Beijing trip
- Taiwan tensions and wartime atrocities continue to strain relations 50 years after historic agreement
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The Japanese leader who normalised relations with China 50 years ago feared for his life when he flew to Beijing for the high-stakes negotiations at the height of the Cold War, according to his daughter, a former Japanese foreign minister.
Kakuei Tanaka’s mission to normalise relations with China just two months after taking office was a huge gamble, his daughter, Makiko Tanaka, said ahead of the 50th anniversary on Thursday of the historic communique that Tanaka signed with his Chinese counterpart, Zhou Enlai.
The then-prime minister told his daughter before his departure that he would resign if his mission failed, recalled Makiko Tanaka, who served as foreign minister and in other key posts from 1993 to 2012.
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Opposition was so fierce in Japan, she said, that some ruling party hawks came to their home the day before the trip to try to stop him from leaving. He told his daughter that he feared being poisoned in China, which was a largely closed country in 1972.
Earlier that same year, US President Richard Nixon made his visit to China that would transform the country’s position in the world. His trip led to the US establishing diplomatic relations with Beijing in 1979 and the parallel severing of formal ties with Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing claims as its own.
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