U.S. Imperialism Is The Common Enemy Of The Chinese Andjapanese Peoples*235

Date: 1960-06-21
Source: en:FLP-Diplomacy
U.S. IMPERIALISM IS THE COMMON ENEMY
OF THE CHINESE AND JAPANESE PEOPLES*235
(June 21, 1960)
You are more than welcome. I am very pleased with the heroic struggle
of the Japanese people. Your struggle provides great support to the Chinese
people and to the people of the world as a whole. Your struggle is targeted at
the largest imperialist country, which once dominated China and helped
Chiang Kai-shek with the civil war and which still occupies our territory of
Taiwan. It has maintained military bases in Japan, the Philippines, South
Korea and Taiwan. Also under its occupation is South Vietnam, not to mention
quite a number of other countries west of Pakistan. It is our common enemy.
Last year when the leader of the Socialist Party of Japan, Asanuma Inejiro,^^^
visited China, he made a speech in Beijing, saying that U.S. imperialism is the
common enemy of the Chinese and Japanese peoples. At that time, some
people considered it too radical. The current struggle of the Japanese people
has far exceeded what was meant by the speech last year. The scope and size
of the struggle are so large that it goes beyond what one could imagine last
year. The struggle started with opposition to the "security pact," opposing
U.S. imperialism and its agent, Kishi Nobusuke,^^® and demanding national
independence and democracy, because the treaty was forced through by
Japanese and American reactionaries in the House of Representatives. That is
to say that, by nature, the Japanese revolution is a nationalist and democratic
one. The workers go on strike not raising economic slogans, but political ones,
which is rare in the world. Senior intellectuals have also participated in the
struggle. For instance, the day after the "June 15th Massacre" Kaya Seiji,
president of Tokyo University, called for a protest rally of the whole university, then led the gathering to demonstrate in the streets. The victim was a
student of Tokyo University. Her name was Kanba Michiko, now well known
to the world. Her father is Kanba Toshio, a professor of law at Central
* This is Mao Zedong's talk with a literary delegation from Japan.
University. It seems professors have been organized in their thousands.
Women have moved ahead, too. Monks and other religious people have come
out. The workers and students are the main force. An even more sizable strike
will happen tomorrow.
There are U.S. military bases in Japan. In the past, people could do
nothing about them. Although they were annoyed by them, they could not
attack them by force. Now you, the Japanese people, have come up with a
good method, that is, to carry out a mass struggle involving all the people.
Except for U.S. imperialism and its agents in Japan, all forces should unite in
the struggle against U.S. imperialism and its agents. In the past, China
basically adopted the same method. China also saw armed struggle. However,
when the May 4th Movement happened in 1919, there was no armed struggle.
It was to oppose the treaty signed at the Paris Peace Conference,^^^ which
occurred after the First World War. There was no Communist Party of China
then. Not until two years later did the Party come into being. In the beginning,
there were not many people involved, only scores of them who had been in
Marxist groups. In 1926 the Northern Expedition took place, when we
cooperated with the Kuomintang. You are all familiar with this period of
history. In 1927, when the Northern Expedition reached areas along the
Yangtze River, Chiang Kai-shek turned on the Communists, forcing us to fight
within the former alliance. Due to Chen Duxiu,^^° Right opportunist in the
Party, we were caught unprepared and suffered a surprise attack. China is large
in area, and the civil war went on for ten years. Then we fought against the
Japanese warlords in cooperation with Chiang Kai-shek. I have talked about
events of this period with many Japanese friends. Some say that the Japanese
aggression against China was bad. I say, of course aggression was bad, but one
should not look only at the bad side of it. On the other side Japan helped
China a great deal. Had Japan not captured a good half of China, the Chinese
people could not have waked up. From this angle, we should be graceful to
the Japanese "Imperial Army." However, you no longer have any burdens,
since you do not possess any colonies. On the contrary, you have become a
colony or semicolony yourselves. In the sense of the presence of foreign
military bases, Japan is a colony, but you have an independent government,
though dominated by the United States. In this sense, Japan is a semicolony.
Now you no longer owe anyone anything. Instead, a foreign country owes
something to you. This foreign country is neither Britain nor France. It is none
other than the United States. As a result, the Japanese people have become
indignant. I have told many Japanese friends that I do not believe a great
nation like Japan will be ruled by others for long. Now who is educating the

Japanese people? U.S. imperialism is serving as your teacher by negative
example. At the same time, it is also our teacher by negative example. After
1945 what happened to China had nothing to do with you. It was U.S.
imperialism, not Japan, that pushed China around and helped Chiang Kai-shek
with the civil war. Therefore, the target of our hatred has transferred from
Japan to U.S. imperialism. Our two great nations now have possibilities of
cooperation, which is also highly necessary, as both suffer from the oppression
of U.S. imperialism. We have a common ground. Now it is the United States
that is oppressing the Chinese and Japanese peoples. Does any other country
do the same as the United States? How about Britain? Or France? The past
spheres of influence of Britain and France in China were gone after the Second
World War, and the role of Britain and France was taken over by the United
States.
Your history of being oppressed is not so long. Ours is very long, more
than one hundred years. However, you are more developed than China in
industry, economy and culture. Ours is a backward country. Even today you
can see the remains of backwardness. In proportion to population, we have
fewer college graduates than you.
All of you present are younger than I am. Most things in the world are
the accomplishments of young people—the lesser known, those of relatively
low social status and the poor. For instance, James Watt, the British inventor
of the steam engine, was a worker by background. You can always find such
examples, one way or another. We talked about this in 1958, at the Second
Session of the Eighth Congress of our Party. Later, people did some research
on the great inventors of the past 300 years. The findings were that 70 percent
of them were the lesser known, the young, the relatively low in social status
and the relatively poor people. I wonder what the situation is like in your
Japan. After all, are all the good things done by the old people, by the big
officials? I just do not believe it. It was the young people who put Hagerty^^'
under siege and who drove away Eisenhower.
The victim of the June 15th Massacre, Kanba Michiko, was young, too. In
China Youth Daily I read a short essay by a member of your delegation
Takeuchi Minoru,^^® which was very well written.
We shall always side with you, with the Japanese people, who call for
independence, democracy and freedom, and not with Kishi Nobusuke.
Things are changing in the world and changing very fast. Four or five
years ago, when I met many Japanese friends, they would keep silent as we
talked about the United States. I think that the Japanese friends were thinking
about the issue then and listened to what we were saying. They did not reject
it. They were willing to go on listening and did not defend the United States.
Now things have changed, as the Japanese people are on the move everywhere
in the country. For instance, they put up slogans against the "Security Pact,"
demanding that the military bases be done away with and the U-2 airplanes
be pulled out. They asked the Americans to get out. The people of Okinawa
even asked the Americans face-to-face, "How long are you going to keep us
under occupation?" The Japanese people of all walks of life have taken action.
They are in the millions, which would have been unthinkable four or five years
ago. I see that there is great hope for Japan's independence and freedom. It
will ensure Japan's independence and peace, and peace in Asia as a whole, to
do away with the U.S. military bases and the "Security Pact." Our congratu
lations on your victory.
Victory is won step by step, so also is the heightening of the awareness
of the masses. That includes ourselves; we have raised our political conscious
ness step by step. I, for one, did not know Marxism-Leninism when attending
middle school. My schooling can be divided into two parts. First, I was in an
old-style private school learning the stuff of Confucius, that is, feudalism.
Then I went to a new-style school, learning the stuff of capitalism. I once
believed in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Then the objective circum
stances forced me and others to organize communist groups and study
Marxism. Premier Zhou Enlai did the same. Because at that time I could not
afford to go to university, and even if I could have, I could not have gone on
studying. I studied at a normal school, training as a teacher. I worked as a
teacher and also as a headmaster of a primary school. Then I was determined
to be a teacher and never thought of becoming a Communist. Later I opposed
the warlords, influenced by New Youth. In the beginning New Youth was not
a Communist magazine. Later I could not teach anymore. Circumstances
forced me to work for the students' movement and the workers' movement.
Then the Communist Party was in the making. That was in 1919, 1920 and
1921. Premier Zhou, too, could not go on studying. He went to Japan and
stayed there for a year and a half, returning to take part in the May 4th
Movement. The warlords wanted to put him under arrest, so he went to France
on a work-study program. He wrote for a newspaper, Yishi Bao, and later they
set up a Communist group. In 1927, after the defeat of the Great Revolution,
many people went to Moscow to study at Sun Yat-sen University.^'"-
The Chinese revolution covered a long journey, going through twists and
turns, before it was brought to fruition. In 1840 the Opium War broke out.
Between 1851 and 1864 the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom rebelled for 13 years
before it ended in failure. The Reform Movement of 1898, with the particiU.S.
pation of Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, also failed. After that many people
went to Japan, about 10,000 to 20,000 of them. It was in Japan that China
Revolutionary League (Tong Meng Hui) was set up under Sun Yat-sen in 1905.
The Revolution of 1911 failed, too, as Yuan Shikai attempted to be emperor.
It was followed by the wars among warlords. In 1919 the May 4th Movement
occurred. In 1921 the Communist Party of China was founded. In 1923 the
General Strike of February 7th happened. In 1925 there was the May 30th
Massacre and the struggle against British imperialism. In 1924 the Kuomintang
and the Communist Party entered into cooperation and the First National
Congress of the Kuomintang was held in Guangzhou. In 1926 the Northern
Expedition began. In 1927 Chiang Kai-shek betrayed the revolution, and we
went underground and started guerrilla warfare. Between 1927 and 1949 we
fought for 22 years, in the War of Agrarian Revolution, the War of Resistance
Against Japan and the War of Liberation. During the War of Liberation the
target of struggle changed from Japanese imperialism to U.S. imperialism and
its running dog, Chiang Kai-shek. It came to a stop in 1949. Last year marked
the first decade of New China. In the past over ten years we have carried out
socialist revolution and socialist construction; that is what you are seeing now.
In the ten years there have been some achievements. However, a decade is not
very long after all, and there is not too much success to speak of.
I have told you a lot of history—history I have gone through. It illustrates
that it was only step by step that the Chinese people heightened their political
consciousness. People of my generation went through the same process. I am
convinced that you will develop your political awareness gradually, too. As I
said just now, some Japanese did not dare to speak against U.S. imperialism
four or five years ago. However, when Asanuma Inejiro visited China last year,
he dared to make a public speech in Beijing, saying that U.S. imperialism is
the common enemy of the Chinese and Japanese peoples. Barely one year later
the Japanese people have launched such a sizable struggle against the "Security
Pact." It should be said that the progress is very fast, and that the political
awareness has been raised by a large measure. Now people have realized that
U.S. imperialism is the common enemy of the Chinese and Japanese peoples.
You will move faster than we. It took us more than 100 years to do it, 109
years, to be exact, from 1840 to 1949. To date, you have not done away with
the "Security Pact." What you have done away with is the planned visit of
Eisenhower to Japan. The "Security Pact" still exists, but it will be done away
with some day, which may still take quite some time. It is difficult to predict
in which month or which year it will be done away with, but done away with
it shall be. Of course, I am not for your fighting a war with the United States.
You can reach your end by means other than war. There is no precedent in
other countries yet. Maybe you will make the precedent.
As for achieving independence, there are precedents of reaching the end
by means of war and not by means of war. One hundred and eighty years ago
America was a British colony. George Washington^^' drove Britain away and
it was by means of war that he did so. The independence of India did not
arrive by means of war, as the British allowed it to happen. You may find a
proper means and it seems you have found some means. It is the method that
is being used now—setting up such institutions as the National Conference to
Stop the Security Pact, which embraces over 100 organizations, adopting the
method of organized struggle under leadership. In the past we did not adopt
such methods.
Those of you who have never been to China before may not be in the
know about China, but as your visit goes on, you will be. You will see that
the Chinese people are friendly to you.
We should assist each other, learn from each other, learn from each
other's strong points.
(From the verbatim record)