It is a book of dialogue between Masayuki Takayama, the one and only journalist in the post-war world, and Masahiro Miyazaki, whose footwork rivals Tadao Umesao in intellectual production.
Their dialogue book, Japan, the Land of History that Shook the World, was published on February 29, 2020.
It is a must-read for the Japanese people and people around the world.
Japanese people who can read must subscribe to it.
I will let the world know as much as I can.
P114~p118
Foreign government advisors in Meiji Japan Henry Dennison's betrayal
Takayama
Japan has suffered many horrible things from other countries but has not learned anything about them and has always countered them with the straightforward sense of the Japanese people.
Jutaro Komura's diplomacy is the same.
He cannot lie without hesitation like the Chinese and Americans.
He thought that if he conducted sincere diplomacy with such a Japanese sensibility, it would eventually be accepted.
That's the problem, isn't it?
Miyazaki
That's right.
People assume that what works among Japanese people will work internationally as well.
They take Japan as they like.
It is precisely what happened with the apologies to China and Korea.
When we do things domestically, we are Japanese, and we know each other well, and we can do something with Japanese values, but when we go abroad, we have to take on multiple personalities.
A professional diplomat has to know that better than anyone else.
Takayama
I want to cite Henry Dennison as an example.
He was an American who became a legal advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1880 and remained in that position for 34 years.
He was the longest-serving foreign government advisor in Meiji Japan, having served from the Meiji to Taisho eras, and now rests in Aoyama Cemetery.
But he was a vicious American, he was only a good-looking man and did not give any advice.
He was also in charge of the Sino-Japanese War, but he didn't even negotiate when the Three Powers Interference Order was issued; he just accepted it.
So we gave everything back to them for free, including the Liaodong Peninsula.
Miyazaki
It was the arrogant diplomacy that Russia developed by inviting Germany and France.
Takayama
We were forced to accept such things.
Even during the Russo-Japanese War, he was called Jutaro Komura's right-hand man, and in the end, we were unable to get a single inch of territory or a single penny of compensation.
Although he was paid a lot of money, he did not do anything as a foreign government advisor in Meiji Japan.
When people talk about his achievements, he "resolved unequal treaties.
But that's a lie.
It was not this man, but Durham Stevens, who worked with Hirobumi Ito to figure out how to deal with Korea.
He was a former U.S. Minister to Japan who stayed in Japan after his retirement to help Ito.
He was opposed to the annexation of Korea and anticipated that Korea would become a drag on Japan, so he gave practical advice that Korea should become a protectorate at a distance.
Before and after that, he did all the revision of the unequal treaties for Hirobumi Ito.
It is in sharp contrast to Henry Dennison.
Miyazaki
It's as if you had a double agent at the heart of Japan while paying him a high price for thirty years.
Takayama
At the Portsmouth Treaty, Dennison was meeting with Theodore Roosevelt frequently.
A man should work for Komura Jutaro as a foreign government advisor in Meiji, Japan, in Japan.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs kept a memorandum describing everything about Portsmouth, including the backroom negotiations with Roosevelt.
Kijuro Shidehara found it, and one day he went to Henry Denison and showed it, "Master, your memo detailing the history of the Treaty of Portsmouth. It is our diplomatic guide. Let me write it down."
Henry Dennison said, "Oh, it found something like that. It's a memorandum," he said, and he threw the document, which described the backstage of those negotiations, into a stove that was there, opened up the cover, and threw it inside, and burned it.
It is in front of Shidehara's eyes.
Shidehara also honestly took such a critical diplomatic memo with him.
He was literally an idiot.
Foxes and raccoons are flying around in the world of diplomacy.
I'm sure he understood that very well.
If you find it, you should probably read it secretly and keep it for the sake of Japan's younger generation.
Miyazaki.
Typical of a Japanese diplomat.
He should have at least brought a copy with him.
He inadvertently took it because he didn't have the diplomatic sense that Diplomats must be multiple personalities.
Kijuro Shidehara is doing all the weird things.
By the way, someone wrote that Denison burned his diplomatic notes on the stove.
Takayama
Shidehara wrote in his autobiography.
Miyazaki
After all, he doesn't know what diplomacy is until the very end, so he doesn't mind writing such things.
He has no sense of shame.
Takayama
Let's finish the problem of Kijuro Shidehara here.
Shidehara passed the 4th Diplomat Examination, and although he seems to be good at English, he is a typical diplomat examination group.
The Diplomatic Service Examination was a system created with the help of Jutaro Komura, and the first examination was held in 1894.
It was a specialized examination for training diplomats, but apparently, the quality of diplomats declined.
Anyway, Shidehara maintained weak-kneed diplomacy from start to finish.
At that time, Henry Dennison was on the U.S. side, while Shidehara was on the Japanese side, and it looked like a defeat for Japanese diplomacy.
Shidehara also represented Japan in the Washington Naval Disarmament Treaty of 1922.
Shidehara was the one who agreed to cut off the Japan-Britain alliance, which was the lifeline of Japan, just as the U.S. wanted.
Therefore, Shidehara was the worst diplomat for Japan.
That's because he passed the top diplomat exam.
Shidehara even said that "I initiated" the renunciation of war and the right of belligerency imposed by MacArthur.
It's irredeemable.
MacArthur created it to destroy Japan by imitating Scipio in Rome.
Why would Shidehara purposely say Japan made it?
Shidehara's whole life has been a disloyal retainer to Japan from beginning to end.
He was a natural disloyal retainer.
The fact that Dennison burned the memo is also due to the Japanese sense that Dennison disposed of it out of self-deprecation.
Miyazaki.
Ah, I see...an idiot who was of no use to Japan.
It's a classic example of how brilliant test takers are not necessarily capable of practical work.
Takayama
Shidehara really made Japan cry.
When he came out, everything was going to be fade to black.
It is the fate of Japan.
