The New Human Revolution, vol. 13

By Daisaku Ikeda

Through this novelized history of the Soka Gakkai—one of the most dynamic, diverse, and empowering movements in the world today—readers will discover the organization's goals and achievements even as they find inspiring and practical Buddhist wisdom for living happily and compassionately in today's world. The book recounts the stories of ordinary individuals who faced tremendous odds in transforming their lives through the practice of Nichiren Buddhism and in bringing Buddhism's humanistic teachings to the world. This inspiring narrative provides readers with the principles with which they can positively transform their own lives for the better and realize enduring happiness for themselves and others.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
• Release date: Jun 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781946635440

Book preview

Golden Bridge

RELIGION does not exist apart from human beings, nor does it exist apart from human society. Nichiren Daishonin declared, The varied sufferings that all living beings undergo—all these are Nichiren’s own suffering ( OTT , 138).

My friends, look squarely upon the endless chain of calamity and misery afflicting the world! Do not avert your gaze from the vortex of suffering that constitutes reality! We need to speak out courageously and consistently for the happiness and peace of humanity. We need to present the world with wise and insightful discourse. We need to take action. To live is to fight. This is the mission and the great path of Buddhist practitioners.

It was September 1968, and the oppressive heat of summer dragged on. During the last several days, whenever Shin’ichi Yamamoto had a few spare moments amid his busy round of responsibilities, he sat down to work on his speech for the student division general meeting, which would be held on September 8 at the Nihon University Auditorium in Ryogoku, Tokyo. But the words just weren’t coming. Usually, he could produce five or six pages in an hour, but not this time. Though he had already planned the general outline of what he wanted to say, faced with the complex issues involved, he found that after writing just a few lines he would go back and revise or even throw out what he had done and start again.

In recent years, at the headquarters and various youth division general meetings, Shin’ichi had addressed a number of important global and social issues, such as the Vietnam War, and proposed solutions. At the general meeting held on May 3, 1968, he had touched on the problem of nuclear weapons, suggesting that the five nuclear powers of the day (the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, France, and China) gather and discuss prohibiting the manufacture, testing, or use of such weapons. He also proposed that they consider how to dispose of those already in existence.

Shin’ichi’s greatest wish was that all people divided by differences of ideology, nationality, ethnicity, and religion, and trapped in a vicious cycle of mutual hate and distrust, would come together as members of the same global family and create a world of lasting human harmony.

He was thus firmly determined to offer new proposals at the upcoming student division meeting that would open a river of enduring friendship to flow between Japan and China.

SHIN’ICHI was keenly aware that once the Vietnam War was brought to an end, China would become the next focus of world attention. With a population of more than seven hundred million, the People’s Republic of China was the most populous nation on the planet, yet it remained excluded from the United Nations and isolated from the world community. ¹

The Beijing government fiercely opposed the overwhelming power of the United States, and there was no denying that this was a major factor in the political tension and unrest prevalent on the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan, and throughout Southeast Asia. The Vietnam War was a perfect example of how the conflict between the capitalist West and the communist East was being played out in Asia. While the United States was the major supporter of the capitalist powers in the region, on the communist side it was more China than the Soviet Union.

In addition, the recent deterioration in relations between the Soviet Union and China was increasing global tensions. In such a political climate, China essentially found itself surrounded on the north and west by Soviet power, and on the south and east by the United States. To break free from this blockade, China was increasing its military strength and focusing its energies on developing missiles and nuclear warheads.

Peace and economic prosperity would never be realized in Asia as long as China remained isolated from the international community. Nor, as everyone knew, was world peace possible under such circumstances. That is why Shin’ichi had consistently called for China’s prompt admission to the global arena, where it could engage in fair and equal dialogue with the other nations. He was convinced that not only could Japan contribute much to making this happen, but that indeed this was Japan’s international mission.

While being a leader among the free nations of Asia, Japan also had a profound relationship with China on all levels—historically, culturally, ethnically, and geographically. From the days before Japan had existed as a unified state, its development had been powerfully influenced by Chinese civilization. This was common knowledge.

Both Buddhism, which had such a decisive influence on Japanese culture, and the techniques of irrigated rice cultivation, which had been introduced in the Yayoi period,² had come to Japan from China.

EVEN DURING the Edo period, ³ when Japan had been closed off from the rest of the world, the Japanese acquired their moral and political philosophies from Chinese Confucianism. It would also be no exaggeration to say that the majority of the country’s culture, manners, and customs all had Chinese origins. In addition, many important figures, such as the Great Teacher Dengyo, ⁴ were said to be descendants of Chinese immigrants, who had been coming to Japan from ancient times. Furthermore, while separated by the sea, Japan and China still belonged to the same Asian community.

Despite these deep ties and the tremendous cultural debt Japan owed China, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Japan invaded its neighbor and subjected that nation and its people to the most horrible destruction and atrocities. There could be no greater display of ingratitude and arrogance. That was precisely why Shin’ichi Yamamoto, as both a Japanese citizen and a Buddhist, was prepared to give his life to working for the happiness and peace of the people of China and the rest of Asia.

This was also the vow of his mentor, second Soka Gakkai president Josei Toda. At the beginning of 1956, Toda had composed the following poem expressing his sublime determination:

To the people of Asia

who pray for a glimpse of the moon,

through the parting clouds,

let us send instead,

the light of the sun.

Two years later, however, Toda had died, entrusting everything to Shin’ichi. Toda’s feelings toward China were exceptionally strong and profound. From the time Shin’ichi was twenty-two, he received private tutoring from Toda, and his mentor’s lectures on China always reverberated with a special passion.

When Toda talked about Chinese poetry or literature, he became filled with emotion. Vividly recreating each scene, he would explain the thought and philosophy behind it. Through Toda’s lectures, Shin’ichi came to feel a deep and powerful attraction to the lofty ideals and rich spirituality of the Chinese people.

But diplomatic relations between Japan and China had been severed after World War II, and in the more than twenty years since, there were still no signs of normalization taking place any time soon. Shin’ichi keenly felt the need for China to resume its place on the world stage and for the deadlocked relations between Japan and China to be restored as early as possible.

WHY HAD Japan been unable to restore normal diplomatic relations with China after the war? And why had China become alienated from international society? To answer these questions, we must return to the last days of World War II.

In November 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States, Prime Minister Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom, and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek of China met and discussed the postwar fate of the Japanese colonies at the famous Cairo Conference. At that time, it was decided that Taiwan, Manchuria, and other parts of China then under Japanese control would be returned to China.

When the war ended, the United States backed the unification of China by Chiang Kai-shek and his Kuomintang (Nationalist) Party. But with the victory of Mao Zedong’s Communist Party in the Chinese Civil War, the Kuomintang fled to Taiwan. In October 1949, the People’s Republic of China was officially established on the Chinese mainland.

In January 1950, President Harry Truman announced that the United States would not interfere in China’s internal conflict nor provide military aid to the Kuomintang. But when the Korean War broke out that June, the United States changed its policy out of fear of Communist expansion in Asia and declared that the U.S. Seventh Fleet would patrol the Taiwan Strait to protect the island against Communist attack. At the same time, it called on the Kuomintang to desist from carrying out any air or sea assaults on the mainland.

Regarding the status of Taiwan, the United States said that any decision on the matter must await the stabilization of the Pacific region, peace talks with Japan, and deliberations in the United Nations. Despite U.S. claims against interfering in China’s domestic affairs, this was an action that could potentially lead to the realization of a policy of two Chinas or of one China, one Taiwan.

It was against this backdrop that peace talks were carried out between Japan and the Allied nations, under the leadership of the United States. In September 1951, the San Francisco Peace Conference was held to officially end the war with Japan and restore Japan’s independence. But neither the governments of mainland China nor of Taiwan—both of which had been among the greatest victims of Japanese militarism—were invited to the conference.

FIFTY-TWO nations including Japan participated in the conference, but the Eastern bloc nations of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Poland did not sign the treaty. In the end, the only signatories to the Treaty of Peace with Japan were Western Allied nations, making it a one-sided arrangement. Japan additionally concluded a security treaty entrusting its defense to the United States, thereby incorporating it into the anticommunist alliance in the Cold War structure. The United Nations, meanwhile, continued to recognize the Kuomintang government of Taiwan as representing all of China.

With strong pressure from the United States, Japan signed a peace treaty with the Kuomintang in April 1952, a move that resulted in a decisive breach in the relationship between Japan and mainland China. Despite these adverse conditions and the absence of formal diplomatic relations, Premier Zhou Enlai of China came up with a method by which to foster nongovernmental relations between the two nations through economic exchange. In this way, he sought to open the path of China-Japan friendship by influencing government through the private sector.

On the Japanese side as well, there were government and business leaders who made efforts to encourage trade between the two nations. These bore fruit in June 1952 with the establishment of a private trade agreement. But in February 1957, Nobusuke Kishi became Japan’s prime minister and articulated a distinctly hostile policy toward China. On visits to Southeast Asia and the United States, he repeatedly made anticommunist and anti-Chinese statements in public. In particular, during a visit to Taiwan he reportedly confided to Chiang Kai-shek that he would welcome the Kuomintang’s recovery of mainland China, a position that stirred a vehement wave of anti-Japanese sentiment in China.

Just as the words and actions of Kishi were beginning to cast a dark cloud over the prospect of improved Japan-China relations, the Nagasaki Flag Incident took place. In May 1958, during a Chinese stamp fair at a Nagasaki department store, a Japanese youth removed the flag of the People’s Republic of China from the display.

AROUND this time, that flag had become a source of controversy in negotiations regarding the extension of a fourth private trade agreement between Japan and China. The Japanese government refused to allow any Chinese resident trade missions established in Japan to raise their national flag, reasoning that since Japan did not recognize the Communist government as legitimate, it should not be allowed to fly its flag there.

In the Nagasaki Flag Incident, the police quickly released the man who had taken down the flag because he had not damaged it. In other words, instead of treating the flag as a symbol of the Chinese nation, Japan had regarded it as nothing more than physical property. From the Chinese perspective, however, the nation’s pride and honor had been trampled on.

The incident prompted China to halt all economic transactions with Japan. Subsequently, the Beijing government presented three conditions for its Japanese counterpart to adopt toward ameliorating relations between them: (1) cease any actions hostile to China, (2) cease supporting any U.S. efforts aimed at creating two Chinas, and (3) cease obstructing the normalization of bilateral relations.

These were known as the three political principles, regarded by China as the foundation for improving relations with Japan. China also emphasized the inseparability of politics and economics, and it was critical of the Japanese government’s policy of dividing the two and focusing solely on business.

The severance of trade with China was a tremendous blow to Chinese restaurants in Japan, which imported many foodstuffs from China, and to small businesses relying on Chinese raw materials such as lacquer. Hoping to offer some relief, Zhou Enlai established a policy of special considerations that gave trade concessions to small- and medium-sized Japanese firms suffering most from the termination of economic exchange, provided they were introduced through designated friendship associations. Though essentially different from free trade, this system allowed for a slender lifeline between the two nations.

During this tumultuous period, there was a person who worked hard to repair the fissures opening between Japan and China—Japanese Diet member Kenzo Matsumura.

MATSUMURA WAS a man of conviction and integrity. He had studied Chinese while a student at Tokyo’s Waseda University and spent time in China before World War II. After the war, he served in several important government posts, including as minister of welfare, minister of education, and minister of agriculture and forestry. Wishing to observe the new China firsthand as well as to serve as a bridge between Japan and its Asian neighbor, he hoped to visit that nation again in an official capacity.

Zhou also believed that a visit by Matsumura would be important for the future of the two nations, and in the autumn of 1959, he invited Matsumura to make a tour of China. At the time, Matsumura was seventy-six and his host was sixty-one. It would be an intense trip of more than forty days spanning a total distance of ninety-three hundred miles, but Matsumura embarked on it with tremendous energy.

Nothing happens if we sit still. It is crucial that we take action. The courage to meet and speak with people is what changes history.

During his stay, Matsumura met Zhou on four occasions. The Chinese premier voiced his frank disapproval at Japan’s antagonistic attitude toward China, a stance reflecting his strong desire for friendly relations. When he conveyed his profound concern that Japan would remilitarize under enormous U.S. pressure, Matsumura emphatically responded, The Japanese are too wise for that!

It was a stimulating exchange. Because both men were in earnest, their words were forceful. Because both were sincere, they spoke directly and openly, giving free rein to their ideas. Through their dialogue, they each perceived the other’s heartfelt desire to work for improved Japan-China relations and their genuine commitment in doing so.

Zhou was eagerly seeking more individuals who could significantly contribute to the normalization of relations between the two countries. In a train on their way to see the Miyun Dam, Matsumura told him about Tatsunosuke Takasaki. Takasaki had attended the Bandung Conference⁵ held in Bandung, Indonesia, in April 1955 as Japan’s representative, and the premier was familiar with him.

TAKASAKI, one of Kansai’s foremost business leaders, was known as an enterprising individual whose gaze was always directed keenly on the future. Before World War II, he had founded Toyo Seikan Kaisha, and he had also been president of Manchuria Heavy Industry. A passionate man, he was in Manchuria (northeastern China) when the war ended and risked his life negotiating with the commander in chief of the occupying Soviet forces to secure the lives of the Japanese residents there.

After the war, he served as president of the Electric Power Development Company and as the director of the Japan Fisheries Association, and he was also involved in fishing rights negotiations with the Soviet Union. When Ichiro Hatoyama became Japan’s prime minister in 1954, Takasaki joined his cabinet as director general of the Economic Planning Agency from 1954 to 1956. In the cabinet of Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, he served as minister of international trade and industry from 1958 to 1959.

After Matsumura recommended Takasaki as a person who could help with improving Japan-China relations, ties between Takasaki and Zhou Enlai were strengthened, and eventually a new path of trade between the two nations was opened.

Meanwhile, in 1960, Prime Minister Kishi, who maintained a hostile position, railroaded Japan into the unpopular revised U.S.-Japan Security Treaty. The public outcry was so vociferous that Kishi’s cabinet was forced to resign. Hayato Ikeda replaced him as prime minister in July of that year. Under Ikeda, Japan entered a period of startling economic growth, and relations with China also improved.

Zhou also indicated a willingness to resume bilateral trade relations, articulating three principles of trade based on the earlier three political principles: (1) the conclusion of intergovernmental trade accords, (2) civilian trade agreements, and (3) trade with individual Japanese companies on the basis of special considerations.

Zhou believed that trade agreements must essentially be made between the two governments, because without such guarantees private trade would be extremely unstable. At the same time, however, he made arrangements so that even in the absence of official trade agreements, as long as individual businesses honored the three political principles, they would be recognized as a friendly company and granted trade concessions. This was called friendship trade. In addition, the Chinese government announced its intention to continue offering aid based on special considerations to Japanese companies adversely affected by the suspension in bilateral trade.

PREMIER ZHOU’S three principles of trade breathed fresh life into the ailing Japanese economic world, with many companies eager to do business with China. In October 1960, Tatsunosuke Takasaki visited China with business representatives from Japan, and the following year a delegation from Beijing reciprocated.

In September 1962, Matsumura formed another delegation and flew to China to further open trade routes between the two countries. Prime Minister Ikeda had entrusted him with everything regarding Japan-China relations. On that trip, Matsumura met with Zhou three times, reconfirming Japan’s commitment to strictly observing the three political principles and the three principles of trade. A new agreement was also reached stating that both nations would take gradual and cumulative steps toward normalization of economic and diplomatic relations.

In October, as a concrete first move in that direction, Takasaki led a delegation of forty-two business leaders to China. After negotiations with his Chinese counterpart Liao Chengzhi,⁶ Takasaki signed a general trade memorandum with China establishing a method of deferred payment for bilateral trade. Known as the L-T Memorandum, after the initials of Liao and Takasaki, this agreement created a trade route that could serve as a window for government-level talks leading to the normalization of relations. The L-T Memorandum stimulated exchange between the two countries, and Japan-China relations entered a new stage.

During this time of blossoming friendship, Zhou turned his attention to the Soka Gakkai as a new, emerging organization of the people in Japan. During their visits to China, both Matsumura and Takasaki spoke to the premier about the burgeoning lay Buddhist group. Matsumura emphasized the importance of exchange with the Soka Gakkai as a way of making friends in Japan, and Takasaki said that while at present it was not a strong force in society, as an organization of ordinary people, it could not be overlooked.

THE SOKA GAKKAI was a rapidly growing organization that showed people how to develop their inner potential and inspired them with courage and hope. Both Matsumura and Takasaki watched its development with great interest. They were also aware that its president, Shin’ichi Yamamoto, on occasion advocated United Nations’ recognition of the People’s Republic of China.

Takasaki in particular lived near the Soka Gakkai Headquarters in Shinanomachi, Tokyo, and he often observed Soka Gakkai members cheerfully making their way to activities. This helped him deepen his understanding and appreciation of the organization.

As Zhou found out more about the Soka Gakkai from Matsumura and Takasaki, he developed a strong interest in it as a group that had emerged from among the people, provided a support network for them, and revitalized their lives. But the information available in China about the Soka Gakkai was scarce and one sided. Though the organization had gained wide popular support and grown with tremendous speed, all the data that could be gathered on the Soka Gakkai labeled it as militaristic and violent.

Wanting to know the truth, Zhou commissioned an inquiry into the organization. His intentions were communicated to the Chinese Foreign Affairs Office of the State Council, which was responsible for foreign relations. The task was then delegated to the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs, a nongovernmental agency working with Japan in light of the lack of formal diplomatic relations between the two countries. While the CPIFA had been aware of the existence of the Soka Gakkai, it had not regarded it as an organization requiring the attention of the Foreign Affairs Office.

The CPIFA staff members who began to collect information on the Soka Gakkai were astonished by its rapid growth. They were also surprised to learn that the religion it was based on was not one concerned only with attaining peace and tranquillity in this life or comfort in the next. Rather, it was actively working to improve Japanese society, having established the Clean Government Political Federation and other socially minded organizations. This information convinced them of the Soka Gakkai’s importance.

To make the result of their investigation available to China’s top leadership, the CPIFA published it in book form in November 1963 through the World Culture Publishing House in Beijing.

TITLED The Soka Gakkai, the report covered the group’s history, the teachings it upheld, its organizational structure and activities, the social class of its members, and its financial resources. It thoroughly described how Soka Gakkai founder and first president Tsunesaburo Makiguchi had been arrested and imprisoned by Japan’s militarist government during World War II on charges of violating the Peace Preservation Law and of lèse-majesté and had died in prison championing his beliefs. It also detailed the yearly growth rate of the Soka Gakkai’s membership, the number of youth members, and other information.

There were some errors in the report as well. For example, it said that the Soka Gakkai was actually a sociopolitical movement operating under the banner of religion. Given the information available at the time, however, such misconceptions were probably unavoidable. The only obtainable printed material beyond Soka Gakkai publications were prejudiced accounts calling the Soka Gakkai a violent religion or comparing its emergence to the ascent of Germany’s Nazi Party. With analysis based on such biased information, it was only natural that errors and misunderstandings might arise. Added to that, of course, was the preconceived communist belief that religion is the opiate of the people. Still, seeking to remain as objective as possible, the report refrained from drawing an unbalanced conclusion.

After reviewing the report, Zhou instructed the CPIFA to continue gathering information on and studying the Soka Gakkai. Perhaps he intuited that the organization was actually very different from the superficial and shallow criticisms leveled at it in Japan. He was calmly seeking a real picture of the Soka Gakkai, an organization that was profoundly changing people’s lives and enabling them to tap into their potential, an organization that was growing at a remarkable pace. Whenever he met with Japanese people, the Chinese premier would ask detailed questions about the Soka Gakkai.

Shin’ichi Yamamoto and Tatsunosuke Takasaki first met in September 1963 when Takasaki visited the newly built Soka Gakkai Headquarters. At that time, Takasaki was seventy-eight and Shin’ichi was thirty-five.

AFTER TALKING to Shin’ichi about China and Premier Zhou, Takasaki sat up straight and said to him with unwavering determination: Japan must normalize relations and realize friendship with China. But the road is long. It will still take many years, and I may not live to see it happen. We need people with fresh energy and commitment in order to achieve it.

With his eyes fixed on Shin’ichi, he then added forcefully, I want you to work for Japan-China friendship!

His voice was both resolute and entreating, and his eyes shone with earnestness behind his glasses.

Struck deeply by Takasaki’s