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Katsuji Nakazawa is a Tokyo-based senior staff and editorial writer at Nikkei. He spent seven years in China as a correspondent and later as China bureau chief. He was the 2014 recipient of the Vaughn-Ueda International Journalist prize.
Tokyo became the cradle of the Chinese revolution 120 years ago. This is historical truth, though the fact has been almost forgotten — and inconvenient to Chinese President Xi Jinping's administration.
Aug. 20 marked the 120th anniversary of the creation of the Tongmenghui of China in Tokyo. The political association, also known as the Chinese United League, played a leading role in the 1911 Revolution.
Also known as the Xinhai or Hsin-hai Revolution, it overthrew China's last imperial dynasty, the Qing dynasty, and established the Republic of China in 1912.
Without the formation of the Tongmenghui, the Republic of China might not have been founded in 1912, and the foundation of the People's Republic of China, which took place in 1949, might have taken a different form.
The 120th anniversary of the Tongmenghui's establishment came five days after Japan marked the 80th anniversary of its World War II surrender, on Aug. 15, under Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.
It also came two weeks before China is due to hold a massive military parade in Beijing, on Sept. 3, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of its victory in "the Chinese people's war of resistance against Japanese aggression and the world anti-fascist war."
Various revolutionary organizations finally joined forces in Tokyo on Aug. 20, 1905, including the Xingzhonghui, or Revive China Society, and the Huaxinghui, or China Revival Society, to form the Tongmenghui.
The Xingzhonghui had been established in Hawaii by Sun Yat-sen, who was the driving force behind the 1911 Revolution, while the Huaxinghui had been led by Huang Xing and Song Jiaoren.
The Tokyo gathering lasted for more than three hours. It ended after Sun was elected as the head of the unified Chinese revolutionary group and after the association's principles were adopted.
The event was held at a Western-style house and attended by more than 100 people, including some from Qing. It is said to have been raining heavily during the event.
Tokyo was a perfect location for the group to prepare for a revolution, as it offered a safe distance and haven from the Qing dynasty's crackdown.
The Tongmenghui's establishment came three months after Japan's victory in the Battle of Tsushima, also known in Japan as the Battle of the Sea of Japan. The major naval battle was fought in May 1905 during the Russo-Japanese War.
When the Tongmenghui was established, the Portsmouth Peace Conference was already underway in the U.S. state of Maine, where President Theodore Roosevelt mediated an end to the war.
The exact venue for the Tongmenghui formation event had long been a mystery. In his diary, Song, who was trying to pursue a parliamentary democracy, wrote only that the venue was "Sakamoto House," located in "Reinanzaka, Akasaka-ku." Akasaka-ku, or Akasaka Ward, once existed and is part of what is now Tokyo's Minato Ward.
But Song's description was inaccurate. It emerged later that the actual location of "Sakamoto House" was "3, Aoi-cho, Akasaka-ku." It was a Western-style house within the grounds of Kihachiro Okura's mansion.
Okura founded the Okura Zaibatsu (family-run conglomerate). He is also well-known as a civilian who financially supported Sun.
The Western-style house had been rented out to a person by the name of Sakamoto. It is a historical fact discovered and proved by the late Bunji Kubota, who was a professor emeritus at Japan Women's University.
Hotel Okura Tokyo opened on the site of Okura's mansion in 1962, ahead of the Tokyo Olympics two years later. In 2019, and after four years of reconstruction, the tony inn reopened as The Okura Tokyo.
At the instigation of Kubota and others, a monument was erected in 2019 in a corner of The Okura Tokyo to show that it was the birthplace of the Tongmenghui. The monument is conspicuously placed, facing a road.
That Tokyo was the cradle of the Chinese revolution is inconvenient for the Xi administration, which is stressing the 80th anniversary of China's victory in the anti-Japanese war as a key part of the Chinese Communist Party's history.
Most ordinary Chinese do not know that Tokyo was the birthplace of the country they live in today; this fact is neither part of their education nor drummed into them through propaganda. Therefore, it is natural that not many Chinese visit the Tongmenghui monument.
The Tongmenghui was born with the help of Japanese civilians like Toten Miyazaki, Shokichi Umeya and Okura himself.
Miyazaki, who supported Sun with all his might, scrambled for communication with Huang and other revolutionaries, while Umeya, a trailblazer in the Japanese movie business, helped Sun financially.
There is a monument dedicated to Sun inside the grounds of Hakusan Shrine, in Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward. According to the inscription, Sun promised himself there that he would successfully carry out a revolution in his home country.
Sun made this pledge in mid-May 1910 while sitting on a stone inside the shrine grounds with Miyazaki. As he did, a meteor appeared, drawing an arc in the night sky, the inscription says.
The meteor is believed to have been Halley's comet, which famously appeared in 1910. At the time, Sun was staying at Miyazaki's house in what was then Koishikawaharamachi, near Hakusan Shrine.
Sun and Soong Ching-ling tied the knot and spent their newly married life in Tokyo. Umeya and other supporters took care of the couple. Soong later became a vice president of the People's Republic of China.
Strangely, this year also marks the 100th anniversary of Sun's death.
In addition to Sun and his fellow revolutionaries, Lu Xun, Zhou Enlai and many others came to Japan from mainland China in the early 20th century, marking the first wave of Chinese migration to Japan.
Lu, one of modern China's most influential writers, made his way to Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, to study medicine, while Zhou, who became premier of the People's Republic of China, studied in Tokyo during his youth.
Many of the Chinese who came to Japan between the last days of the Qing dynasty and the early days of the Republic of China were intellectuals concerned about the future of their country. Many were also wealthy.
The second wave of Chinese migration to Japan began in the 1980s, following the establishment of diplomatic relations between the People's Republic of China and Japan.
This wave consisted of many Chinese who worked while studying in Japan. At the time, the affluence of bubble-era Japan fascinated people in China, which was still developing.
But China itself would go on to achieve surprisingly rapid growth, overtaking Japan as the world's second-largest economy, after the U.S., in 2010.
Now, 15 years on, and Japan is experiencing a third wave of Chinese migration. This one is huge. Chinese are settling down in Japan in droves, going on home- and property-buying sprees, and transferring their assets from China to Japan.
This latest wave is being accelerated by China's current political and economic situation under the Xi administration. It is safe to call it an exodus of wealthy people and intellectuals who hate the situation they are leaving behind.
While the Xi administration is tightening the screws on Chinese people politically, it is also struggling to resuscitate an economy suffering through years of real estate doldrums.
The term run ri has become a buzz phrase in China. It describes the current phenomenon of wealthy and intellectual Chinese "running" to Japan in search of a better life and future.
The Chinese character "run" means "profit" but in this case has a double meaning, one that comes from how it is pronounced under the Pinyin system, like the English word. In the buzz phrase, "ri" means "Japan."
Intellectuals have made up both the first and third waves of Chinese migration to Japan. Coincidentally, those coming to Japan now tend to choose living in Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward — where Sun Yat-sen once stayed — as it offers a preferable environment for educating their children.
Twelve decades on from the birth of the Chinese United League and Japan is once again reprising its role as a cradle. But what will it help nurture this time?
by Dapper-Material5930