How does PRC Foreign Ministry, Review of New China's Diplomatic History; Foreign Ministry, 100 Stories of the CPC's Foreign Exchanges (2022) characterize Normalisation of China–Japan Relations?

The Chinese Foreign Ministry places normalisation at the end of a long history of "people's diplomacy": after 1949 Japan, "under US control", pursued a policy hostile to China and in 1952 concluded a "peace treaty" with the Taiwan authorities, "creating 'two Chinas'"; in the 1950s and 1960s, under the policy of "people first, using the people to promote the government", unofficial exchanges "laid the foundation" for normalisation. The third of China's three principles held that the "Japan–Taiwan treaty" was "illegal and invalid and must be abrogated". A Foreign Ministry story collection adds that Tanaka's "caused trouble" provoked "strong resentment" in China, that when Mao received him Tanaka said Japan was "prepared to change it according to Chinese custom", and that the communiqué finally recorded Japan's "deep remorse".

How does Tanaka Kakuei's banquet speech (25 September 1972); Foreign Minister Ohira's press conference (29 September 1972) (Japanese texts, translated by CMC) characterize Normalisation of China–Japan Relations?

In his banquet speech on 25 September Tanaka said that over the past several decades Japan–China relations had "regrettably followed an unfortunate course", that Japan had caused the Chinese people "great trouble", and that he "once again" expressed "deep remorse". At his press conference on 29 September Ohira explained the communiqué point by point: it was "only natural" that Japan maintained its position based on the Potsdam Proclamation; China's renunciation of reparations should be "appraised frankly and fairly"; and although the communiqué did not mention it, "as a result of normalisation, the Japan–ROC Peace Treaty has lost the significance of its existence and is deemed to have ended". He added that the preamble read together with the first article meant the question of ending the war had been "completely resolved" by the communiqué.

How does ROC Foreign Ministry statement severing relations with Japan (29 September 1972, via the Japanese translation in Chuka Shuho); Kawashima Shin, Koryu (January 2023) characterize Normalisation of China–Japan Relations?

Taipei's Foreign Ministry statement of 29 September declared that, in view of the Japanese government's "perfidious disregard of its treaty obligations", the ROC was severing diplomatic relations and that "the Japanese Government must bear full responsibility for this situation"; all acts by which the Tanaka government unilaterally abrogated the peace treaty and colluded with the Communist "puppet regime" to the detriment of the ROC's legal status and rights were "illegal and void". The statement recalled Chiang Kai-shek's post-war policy of "repaying injury with kindness" — repatriating more than two million Japanese prisoners and waiving reparations and the right to occupy Japan — and said the government was confident the Tanaka government's mistaken policy would not affect the Japanese people's gratitude to President Chiang, and that it would continue to "maintain friendship" with all anti-communist, democratic Japanese. The University of Tokyo historian Kawashima Shin notes that this friendship clause paved the way for maintaining economic and cultural ties after the break.

How does INR Intelligence Note (29 September 1972; FRUS 1969–1976, vol. XIX, part 2, doc. 136) characterize Normalisation of China–Japan Relations?

An Intelligence Note issued by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research on the day of the communiqué judged that it "closely follows a mid-August version leaked in the Mainichi newspaper and contains no real surprises", and that two of China's so-called "three principles" were, "as expected, fudged". The reference to Article 8 of the Potsdam Declaration, it said, "amounts to an indirect Japanese renunciation of any residual claim to Taiwan"; the communiqué was silent on abrogating the Japan–ROC treaty, and Ohira's statement that the treaty had "lost the significance of its existence" was seen as "presumed compensation for this calculated vagueness". The note added that Chinese officials had told Japanese visitors privately that the US–Japan Security Treaty was not an obstacle to improved relations.

How does Inoue Masaya, "How Did Japan Decide to Sever the Diplomatic Relations with Taiwan?" (World Congress of Taiwan Studies paper, Academia Sinica) characterize Normalisation of China–Japan Relations?

Drawing on newly declassified records and interviews, the Japanese diplomatic historian Inoue Masaya argues that while earlier studies stressed Tanaka's political leadership, the government's basic policy of "putting an end to diplomatic relations with the ROC while keeping practical relations with Taiwan" had already been formulated by the Sato cabinet in its last days; the Foreign Ministry had expected negotiations to take years, and it was the PRC's drastic policy change after Tanaka took office that eased the way, so that Tanaka's "political leadership" was "premised by the PRC's drastic policy change". On Taiwan, Kuriyama Takakazu, head of the Foreign Ministry's Treaties Division, devised the formula of citing Article 8 of the Potsdam Declaration while avoiding the Cairo Declaration: Japan maintained that Taiwan's legal status was undecided while giving China a "political message" that it did not support Taiwan independence — "a modus vivendi over the Taiwan issue, which still continues today".

How does Ji Pengfei, "When Drinking Water, Remember Those Who Dug the Well" (People's Daily, 26 September 1993) characterize Normalisation of China–Japan Relations?

Ji Pengfei, then foreign minister, recalled in 1993 that at the first meeting Tanaka asked to issue the joint statement on the 29th and said frankly that "to seek normalisation, Japan can only end its relations with Taiwan of its own accord, but confusion must be avoided". Zhou said China–Japan friendship "is not exclusive"; China had objections to the US–Japan Security Treaty but "will not mention it in the joint statement". At the second meeting Zhou said: "To establish relations, as Foreign Minister Ohira said, means breaking with Chiang Kai-shek, and the Japan–Taiwan treaty will lapse of itself… The word need not appear in the communiqué this time, but we cannot be made to recognise the treaty's existence or legality." Ji wrote that the communiqué was signed "in only 81 days" from 7 July.

1972-09-29

Normalisation of China–Japan Relations

From 25 to 30 September 1972 Japanese Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei visited Beijing, and on the 29th he and Zhou Enlai signed the joint communiqué establishing diplomatic relations that day. Japan expressed "deep remorse" for the serious damage its war had caused the Chinese people, recognised the PRC government as the sole legal government of China, and said it "fully understands and respects" China's position on Taiwan; China renounced its claim to war reparations. Japan declared the same day that its peace treaty with Taiwan had ended, Taipei immediately announced the severance of relations, and the two sides thereafter maintained practical ties through private bodies. In 1978 the two countries signed the Treaty of Peace and Friendship.

Background: From "People First" to the Tanaka Cabinet

On 28 April 1952 Japan signed the Treaty of Peace with the Republic of China government on Taiwan (known in Japan as the Japan–ROC Peace Treaty) and maintained diplomatic relations with it. For the next twenty years Beijing promoted unofficial exchanges with Japan under the policy of "people first, using the people to promote the government". After Henry Kissinger's secret visit to China in July 1971, Washington announced that President Nixon would visit — the first "Nixon shock", as it is known in Japan — and in October that year the People's Republic took up China's seat at the United Nations. China set out "three principles" for restoring relations: the PRC government is the sole legal government representing China; Taiwan is an inalienable part of the PRC's territory; and the "Japan–Taiwan treaty" is illegal and invalid and must be abrogated. Tanaka Kakuei formed a cabinet on 7 July 1972 and pledged to speed up normalisation; on the 9th Zhou Enlai publicly welcomed this, and on the 12th China announced that it welcomed and invited Tanaka to visit. According to Ji Pengfei, then foreign minister, Zhou "generally relied on Comrade Liao Chengzhi" for Japanese affairs, and now designated Ji, Qiao Guanhua, Liao Chengzhi, Han Nianlong and others as a "Japan group" to study the establishment of relations.

The Takeiri Memo and Preparations

On 25 July Takeiri Yoshikatsu, chairman of Japan's Komeito party, led a delegation to China and held three rounds of talks with Zhou Enlai from 27 to 29 July. According to the record of the talks later made public in Japan, at the final session Zhou read out the main points of a draft joint statement approved by Mao Zedong, said the statement would not touch on the US–Japan Security Treaty or the Japan–Taiwan treaty, and indicated that China would renounce war reparations. On 4 August Takeiri handed the record and his notes of the draft to Tanaka and Foreign Minister Ohira Masayoshi. Hashimoto Hiroshi, then head of the Foreign Ministry's China Division, later recalled that China's acceptance of the security treaty and renunciation of compensation were "frankly, unexpected", convincing the Japanese side that negotiations could work. In September the Japanese government sent Liberal Democratic Party vice-president Shiina Etsusaburo to Taipei as a special envoy to explain its position.

The Beijing Talks

Tanaka arrived in Beijing on 25 September with Ohira and Chief Cabinet Secretary Nikaido Susumu. At Zhou's welcoming banquet that evening Tanaka said that over the past several decades Japan had caused the Chinese people "great trouble" (in Japanese, tadai no go-meiwaku) and expressed deep remorse. According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, the phrase drew murmurs in the banquet hall, and at the second summit meeting the next afternoon Zhou criticised "caused trouble" as far too light. The other focus of the talks was Taiwan and the Japan–Taiwan treaty. According to Foreign Minister Ji Pengfei's later recollection, Takashima Masuo, director of Japan's Treaties Bureau, argued from the letter of the law, while Zhou urged a "political" solution, agreeing that the communiqué need not mention the Japan–Taiwan treaty but refusing to recognise its existence or legality. The Japanese scholar Inoue Masaya notes that Japan proposed to express its position on Taiwan by "firmly maintaining its stand under Article 8 of the Potsdam Proclamation"; the two sides also agreed not to specify when the state of war had ended. Mao Zedong received Tanaka on 27 September.

The Joint Communiqué and the Break with Taipei

On 29 September Zhou Enlai and Ji Pengfei signed the Joint Communiqué with Tanaka and Ohira in the Great Hall of the People, and diplomatic relations were established that day. In it the Japanese side was "keenly conscious of the responsibility for the serious damage that Japan caused in the past to the Chinese people through war" and expressed deep remorse; the "abnormal state of affairs" between the two countries was declared at an end; Japan recognised the PRC government as the sole legal government of China; Japan "fully understands and respects" China's reiterated position that Taiwan is an inalienable part of its territory, and firmly maintains its stand under Article 8 of the Potsdam Proclamation; China renounced its demand for war reparations; neither side would seek hegemony; and both agreed to negotiate a treaty of peace and friendship. The communiqué did not mention the Japan–Taiwan treaty; at a press conference afterwards Ohira said the Japanese government considered that it had lost the significance of its existence and ended. Tanaka and Ohira cabled Chiang Kai-shek that day to inform him, and Taipei's Foreign Ministry immediately issued a statement severing relations with Japan. On 1 December Japan set up the Interchange Association and Taiwan the Association of East Asian Relations to maintain practical ties through private bodies; on 15 December the Japanese embassy in Taipei closed.

The Treaty of Peace and Friendship

As agreed in the communiqué, on 12 August 1978 the two countries signed the Treaty of Peace and Friendship in Beijing, with Foreign Minister Huang Hua and Foreign Minister Sonoda Sunao as signatories. The treaty confirmed the joint communiqué as the basis of peaceful and friendly relations and included a clause that neither side would seek hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region or any other region. On 22 October that year Deng Xiaoping began an eight-day visit to Japan, and on the 23rd the two countries exchanged instruments of ratification in Tokyo, bringing the treaty into force. According to People's Daily Online, Prime Minister Fukuda Takeo likened the 1972 communiqué to a "wooden bridge" of friendship and the treaty to an "iron bridge".

Narrative Comparison

Source	Narrative
PRC Foreign Ministry, Review of New China's Diplomatic History; Foreign Ministry, 100 Stories of the CPC's Foreign Exchanges (2022)	The Chinese Foreign Ministry places normalisation at the end of a long history of "people's diplomacy": after 1949 Japan, "under US control", pursued a policy hostile to China and in 1952 concluded a "peace treaty" with the Taiwan authorities, "creating 'two Chinas'"; in the 1950s and 1960s, under the policy of "people first, using the people to promote the government", unofficial exchanges "laid the foundation" for normalisation. The third of China's three principles held that the "Japan–Taiwan treaty" was "illegal and invalid and must be abrogated". A Foreign Ministry story collection adds that Tanaka's "caused trouble" provoked "strong resentment" in China, that when Mao received him Tanaka said Japan was "prepared to change it according to Chinese custom", and that the communiqué finally recorded Japan's "deep remorse".
Tanaka Kakuei's banquet speech (25 September 1972); Foreign Minister Ohira's press conference (29 September 1972) (Japanese texts, translated by CMC)	In his banquet speech on 25 September Tanaka said that over the past several decades Japan–China relations had "regrettably followed an unfortunate course", that Japan had caused the Chinese people "great trouble", and that he "once again" expressed "deep remorse". At his press conference on 29 September Ohira explained the communiqué point by point: it was "only natural" that Japan maintained its position based on the Potsdam Proclamation; China's renunciation of reparations should be "appraised frankly and fairly"; and although the communiqué did not mention it, "as a result of normalisation, the Japan–ROC Peace Treaty has lost the significance of its existence and is deemed to have ended". He added that the preamble read together with the first article meant the question of ending the war had been "completely resolved" by the communiqué.
ROC Foreign Ministry statement severing relations with Japan (29 September 1972, via the Japanese translation in Chuka Shuho); Kawashima Shin, Koryu (January 2023)	Taipei's Foreign Ministry statement of 29 September declared that, in view of the Japanese government's "perfidious disregard of its treaty obligations", the ROC was severing diplomatic relations and that "the Japanese Government must bear full responsibility for this situation"; all acts by which the Tanaka government unilaterally abrogated the peace treaty and colluded with the Communist "puppet regime" to the detriment of the ROC's legal status and rights were "illegal and void". The statement recalled Chiang Kai-shek's post-war policy of "repaying injury with kindness" — repatriating more than two million Japanese prisoners and waiving reparations and the right to occupy Japan — and said the government was confident the Tanaka government's mistaken policy would not affect the Japanese people's gratitude to President Chiang, and that it would continue to "maintain friendship" with all anti-communist, democratic Japanese. The University of Tokyo historian Kawashima Shin notes that this friendship clause paved the way for maintaining economic and cultural ties after the break.
INR Intelligence Note (29 September 1972; FRUS 1969–1976, vol. XIX, part 2, doc. 136)	An Intelligence Note issued by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research on the day of the communiqué judged that it "closely follows a mid-August version leaked in the Mainichi newspaper and contains no real surprises", and that two of China's so-called "three principles" were, "as expected, fudged". The reference to Article 8 of the Potsdam Declaration, it said, "amounts to an indirect Japanese renunciation of any residual claim to Taiwan"; the communiqué was silent on abrogating the Japan–ROC treaty, and Ohira's statement that the treaty had "lost the significance of its existence" was seen as "presumed compensation for this calculated vagueness". The note added that Chinese officials had told Japanese visitors privately that the US–Japan Security Treaty was not an obstacle to improved relations.
Inoue Masaya, "How Did Japan Decide to Sever the Diplomatic Relations with Taiwan?" (World Congress of Taiwan Studies paper, Academia Sinica)	Drawing on newly declassified records and interviews, the Japanese diplomatic historian Inoue Masaya argues that while earlier studies stressed Tanaka's political leadership, the government's basic policy of "putting an end to diplomatic relations with the ROC while keeping practical relations with Taiwan" had already been formulated by the Sato cabinet in its last days; the Foreign Ministry had expected negotiations to take years, and it was the PRC's drastic policy change after Tanaka took office that eased the way, so that Tanaka's "political leadership" was "premised by the PRC's drastic policy change". On Taiwan, Kuriyama Takakazu, head of the Foreign Ministry's Treaties Division, devised the formula of citing Article 8 of the Potsdam Declaration while avoiding the Cairo Declaration: Japan maintained that Taiwan's legal status was undecided while giving China a "political message" that it did not support Taiwan independence — "a modus vivendi over the Taiwan issue, which still continues today".
Ji Pengfei, "When Drinking Water, Remember Those Who Dug the Well" (People's Daily, 26 September 1993)	Ji Pengfei, then foreign minister, recalled in 1993 that at the first meeting Tanaka asked to issue the joint statement on the 29th and said frankly that "to seek normalisation, Japan can only end its relations with Taiwan of its own accord, but confusion must be avoided". Zhou said China–Japan friendship "is not exclusive"; China had objections to the US–Japan Security Treaty but "will not mention it in the joint statement". At the second meeting Zhou said: "To establish relations, as Foreign Minister Ohira said, means breaking with Chiang Kai-shek, and the Japan–Taiwan treaty will lapse of itself… The word need not appear in the communiqué this time, but we cannot be made to recognise the treaty's existence or legality." Ji wrote that the communiqué was signed "in only 81 days" from 7 July.

Key Milestones

1952-04-28
Japan signs treaty with the ROC
Japan signs a peace treaty with the Republic of China government on Taiwan and maintains diplomatic relations.
1972-07-07
Tanaka cabinet formed
Tanaka Kakuei forms a cabinet and pledges to speed up normalisation; Zhou Enlai publicly welcomes this on the 9th.
1972-07-27
Takeiri–Zhou talks
Through the 29th; Zhou reads out the main points of a draft statement, leaving aside the US–Japan Security Treaty and renouncing reparations.
1972-08-04
Takeiri memo handed to Tanaka
Takeiri hands the record of the talks and his notes of the draft to Tanaka and Ohira.
1972-09-25
Tanaka arrives in Beijing
At the welcoming banquet that evening, Tanaka's phrase "caused great trouble" draws Chinese objections.
1972-09-27
Mao receives Tanaka
Mao Zedong receives Tanaka Kakuei.
1972-09-29
Joint communiqué signed; relations established
Ohira declares the Japan–ROC treaty ended; Taipei announces the severance of relations the same day.
1972-12-01
Interchange Association and AEAR set up
Japan and Taiwan maintain practical ties through private bodies; the Japanese embassy in Taipei closes on the 15th.
1978-08-12
Treaty of Peace and Friendship signed
Huang Hua and Sonoda Sunao sign in Beijing; the treaty includes an anti-hegemony clause.
1978-10-23
Treaty enters into force
Instruments of ratification are exchanged in Tokyo during Deng Xiaoping's visit to Japan.

Last verified: 2026-10-19