Information Regimes During the Cold War in East Asia

Jason Morgan, Jason Morgan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000200478
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia dell'Asia

Morgan and his contributors develop the concept of the Information Regime as a way to understand the use, abuse, and control of information in East Asia during the Cold War period.

During the Cold War, war itself was changing, as was statecraft. Information emerged as the most valuable commodity, becoming the key component of societies across the globe. This was especially true in East Asia, where the military alliances forged in the wake of World War II were put to the most severe of tests. These tests came in the form of adversarial relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as pressures within their alliances, which eventually caused the People's Republic of China to break with from Moscow, while Japan for a time during the 1950s and 1660s seemed poised to move away from Washington. More important than military might, or economic influence, was the creation of "information regimes"– swathes of territory where a paradigm, ideology, or political arrangement wereobtained. Information regimes are not necessarily state-centric and many of the contributors to this book focus on examples which were not so. Such a focus allows us to see that the East Asian Cold War was not really "cold" at all, but was the epicentre of an active, contentious birth of information as the defining element of human interaction.

This book is avaluable resource for historians of East Asia and of developments in information management in the twentieth century.

Part one

Diplomacy, public diplomacy, and espionage

1 Behind the curtains

How Soviet intelligence masters and Japanese journalists brought about Soviet–Japan diplomatic normalization—without the return of the northern territories

Takizawa Ichirō

Introduction

Soviet premier Nikita Khruschev’s (1894–1971) “de-Stalinization campaign” began after Josef Stalin died on March 5, 1953. This campaign coincided with the aggressive push of the Soviet Union’s “peaceful co-existence” strategy worldwide. The Soviet leadership under this new co-existence paradigm was well aware of the geopolitical and strategic value of Japan. However, the Soviet Union had no diplomatic relations with Japan, which was inside the sphere of influence of the United States. This greatly hampered the Soviet Union’s ability, at which it was highly proficient, to use intelligence plotting and maneuvering to stir up anti-American forces and drive a wedge between the United States and an ally.¹ The Soviets were urgently seeking to set up an embassy in Japan which could serve as a base for both diplomacy and espionage. Khruschev was even prepared to return to Japan the islands of Habomai and Shikotan, illegally occupied by the Soviet Union since the final days of World War II, as a reward for Japan’s agreeing to the restoration of diplomatic relations.² But before this could happen, the Soviets first needed to open negotiations with the Japanese government.

The first “trial balloon” designed to feel Japan out over the possibility of restoring diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union was sent up in the fall of 1954. Japan responded positively. The timing was especially fortuitous because in December of 1954, the prime ministership of Japan passed to Hatoyama Ichirō, who viewed with hostility the outgoing prime minister, the anti-communist Yoshida Shigeru (1878–1967). This was a change in the political landscape highly favorable to the Soviet Union.³ The Soviets did not waste the opportunity. The next month, in January of 1955, Andrey (Andrei) Ivanovich Domnitsky, from the Soviet fishing industry negotiating delegation located in Mamiana, Tokyo, accompanied Kyodo News Agency reporter Den Hideo (1923–2009) to the palatial Hatoyama residence, known as Otowa Mansion. Entering by the back door, the two men met with the master of the household himself, Prime Minister Hatoyama.

According to Den Hideo’s later testimony to the Diet, Den and other left-leaning Kyodo News Agency reporters were asked by members of the Soviet fishing industry negotiating delegation (actually Soviet intelligence agents) to arrange a confidential meeting between Domnitsky and Hatoyama at the diplomatic mission (actually the successor to the Soviet Embassy which, while technically no longer in existence, continued to function under the guise of a temporary negotiating delegation in Tokyo for conducting negotiations pertaining to fisheries).⁴ In order to prevent anyone from the Yoshida Shigeru faction from discovering the plan, the Kyodo reporters discretely conveyed the Soviet side’s request to Sugihara Arata (1899–1982), a foreign policy advisor to Hatoyama who was pro-communist and who hated Yoshida. Sugihara relayed the Soviets’ designs to Hatoyama, and thus Domnitsky’s visit to the Hatoyama mansion was effected.⁵

In general, this arrangement whereby left-leaning public figures mold public opinion and move among the members of the Soviet diplomatic mission (or, today, the Russian Embassy) has not changed substantially since Den’s time. This points to a serious but almost entirely overlooked aspect of Japan’s Cold War, namely, that a negative information regime of defenselessness in the face of foreign espionage operations contributed to a series of diplomatic defeats for Japan, not least vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. Every country in the world has laws designed to thwart spies—except for Japan, which is left unprotected from espionage because of this legal loophole. Nor has this negative information regime abated. If anything, it has only intensified. As the March 2019 personnel shakeup involving former International Olympic Committee Takeda Tsunekazu makes clear, the entire operation was an intelligence stratagem designed to ensure that Takeda would be replaced with someone friendly to Russia.⁶ This scheme culminated with the nomination of a well-known pro-Russian judo athlete, Yamashita Yasuhiro, as Takeda’s replacement.⁷ Even at the level of sports diplomacy, Japan, nominally an ally of the United States, continues to be maneuvered into positions favorable to the power, not to its far east, but to its immediate west.

A negative information regime

The authors of this negative information regime are primarily the Japanese themselves. The example of Sugihara Arata stands out. Sugihara was even more anti-Yoshida Shigeru than Hatoyama Ichirō was. Before World War II, Sugihara had served in such important posts as the head of the international legal affairs bureau (“treaties bureau”) in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1946, however, after the war had ended, Sugihara was caught up in Foreign Minister Yoshida Shigeru’s “Red Purge” and run out of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Thereafter, Sugihara nursed an unyielding hatred for Yoshida. Sugihara would go on to serve as the Defense Agency Director General (from March 19 to July 31, 1955) and was affiliated with Fukuda Takeo, the leader of the pro-Soviet, pro-communist faction within the LDP. Other prominent members of this faction included well-known pro-Soviet politicians like Abe Shintarō (1924–1991) (Shinzō’s father), former prime minister Mori Yoshirō, and others. Because those with ideological predilections such as these made common cause with Soviet intelligence agents in initiating diplomatic negotiations, it is little wonder that subsequent developments did not align with Japan’s best interests. It was against this background that the Soviet Union secured yet another opportunity in its engagement with Japan.

The nexus of the negative information regime inside Japan and the global reach of Soviet espionage was populated by figures playing private roles often very different from their public personae. For instance, during his visit to the Hatoyama residence, Domnitsky personally presented Hatoyama with the “Domnitsky letter on the normalization of relations between the Soviet Union and Japan,” dated January 25, 1955. It was to hand-deliver this letter that Domnitsky had visited Hatoyama, a rendezvous arranged by pro-communist members of the Japanese fourth estate. Thereafter, and as a result of this unofficial contact, United Nations observer ambassador Sawada Renzō (1888–1970) and permanent Soviet representative at the United Nations Arkadii Aleksandrovich Sobolev (1903–1964) took over and entered into an official diplomatic channel in New York.⁸ This is the basic account, but the question remains, though: Who was this man Domnitsky, the Soviet who, with help from a Japanese counterpart, was able to enter unobserved into the Hatoyama residence?

There is nothing written about Domnitsky’s life in any books on the history of Japan-Soviet relations, whether in Western languages or, it goes without saying, in Japanese. It seems that self-styled “Russia experts” in Japan had no interest in finding out who Domnitsky really was. That no one in Japan has followed up on Domnistky’s proffered bona fides is consistent with Japan’s studied ignorance about Russia: for example, few in Japan have pointed out that Eufemii Vasilievich Putyatin (1803–1883), who was raised to the title of count for leading around by the nose his negotiations partner, Kawaji Toshiakira (1801–1868), during the dawn of Russo-Japanese diplomatic relations history, was an emissary from the intelligence wing of the Russian Imperial Navy.⁹ However, all of this began to change, ironically, with the collapse of the communist superstate in Russia. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, records from the Soviet intelligence agencies began to be leaked and posted online. The number of such records was enormous, but after a meticulous search, I finally found what I was looking for. I presented my findings a few years later, on September 20, 2009.¹⁰ It turns out that Domnitsky was a genuine and authentic career spy working for the Soviet navy’s intelligence bureau.

The life and times of Andrey Ivanovich Domnitsky

Andrey (Andrei) Ivanovich Domnitsky was born in 1909. The year of his death is unknown. The events of the intervening years—that is, the outline of his life’s work—make it undeniable that Domnitsky was a full-fledged communist agent. In October of 1931, he entered the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army of the Soviet Union, and in 1932 joined the Soviet Union’s Communist Party. From October of 1931 to May of 1932, he served in the Signal Battalion as a regular soldier, and from May of 1932 to August of 1933, he was the assistant officer in charge. From August of 1933 to March of 1935, he was a trainee in the political commissar course, during which time he also took Japanese in a foreign-languages course. He was clearly preparing for intelligence work in East Asia.

From March of 1935 to February of 1938, Domnitsky was the adjutant to the commanding officer of the border reconnaissance post affiliated with the intelligence section of the Soviet Pacific Fleet. From February of 1938 to February of 1939, he was the senior officer in the cryptographic department of the Pacific Fleet’s coastal monitoring unit. From February of 1939 to March of 1940, Domnitsky was an interpreter with the intelligence service at Pacific Fleet headquarters, and from March of 1940 to June of 1942 was the leader of an espionage group for the same Pacific Fleet headquarters intelligence service. From June of 1942 to September of 1943, Domnitsky was the leader of the First Group, and from September of 1943, he became the leader of the Second Group of the Eighth Section at the intelligence service of the Pacific Fleet’s General Headquarters. From August to September 1945, he took part in the Soviet Union’s war against Japan.

Domnitsky’s work history is the typical career course for an intelligence officer. The Soviet records show that from 1935 onward, Lieutenant Commander Domnitsky participated in countless special espionage operations for the intelligence wing of the Soviet Pacific Fleet and carried out intelligence activities “within the territory of a latently hostile nation in the Far East.” “Hostile nation” refers, of course, to Japan. Domnitsky was thus undercover in Japanese territory doing reconnaissance and spy work.

Also, according to the Soviet records, “From 1942 to 1943, [Domnitsky] sent those under his command on secret missions to enemy territory, where they carried out intelligence operations and gained valuable information.” Until this revelation from the Soviet archives, it had been unknown in ...