Lieutenant General was a Japanese soldier who served in the Imperial Japanese Army. He was known as an expert on Chinese affairs, had close relationships with leading figures in the Kuomintang (KMT)'s National Revolutionary Army during the 1920s, and expressed sympathy for their cause. A violent encounter with KMT forces during the 1928 Jinan incident, however, led him to abandon his pro-KMT stance, and adopt a pessimistic attitude toward China.
He later served as chief military advisor to the Japanese puppet state Manchukuo, and during the Second Sino-Japanese War, he was involved in perpetrating the Nanjing massacre. In the last days of the Second World War, Sasaki was captured by Soviet troops and handed over to the Chinese communists, who interned him at the Fushun War Criminals Management Centre, where he died in 1955. He was a prolific writer, and left detailed accounts of his experiences in China.
Early life Sasaki Tōichi was born in Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture, Japan, on 27 January 1886, and was the eldest son of Major . His family later moved to Hiroshima, where he attended Seibi Primary School, which was affiliated with the Kaikosha, an organisation that provided a number of services to officers of the Imperial Japanese Army. He went on to attend Hiroshima Prefectural First Middle School, and then entered the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in 1902. He graduated in November 1905, and the following June, was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 5th Division of the Imperial Japanese Army.
Military career Early career and travels across China (1911–1921)
In March 1911, the 5th Division was deployed to Manchuria, and this was the first time Sasaki set foot in a foreign country. Sasaki failed to gain admission to the Army War College in December of that year, after the outbreak of the Xinhai Revolution that overthrew the Qing dynasty. He decided instead to remain in Manchuria to learn Mongolian and Chinese. Accordingly, he transferred to the Manchuria , which was charged with guarding the South Manchuria Railway. In February 1912, with a wave of anti-Manchu sentiment sweeping China, Sasaki's battalion was ordered to protect warehouses in Tieling. Sasaki wrote in his Autobiography of a Soldier that he received praise for his orchestration of negotiations with revolutionaries in the area, whereby he arranged for their transit through Tieling without conflict.
Following this incident, Sasaki's interest in China only continued to grow. Having received advice that he would need to graduate the Army War College if he wanted to become a China specialist for the military, Sasaki took the entrance test again in 1914, gaining admission. Upon entrance to the college, Sasaki's performance in subjects unrelated to Chinese studies, in which he had little interest, was so poor that he was in danger of dropping out. Despite this, he successfully completed his course and graduated from the college in November 1917.
In July 1918, he returned to China when he was assigned to the defence force of Japanese-occupied Qingdao in Shandong Province. While in Qingdao, Sasaki was given responsibility for topographical surveys of China. He researched Chinese maps, and went on expeditions to verify topographical features. He travelled to Nanjing and Hankou (part of what is now Wuhan), and planned to visit Henan Province, but contracted the Spanish flu mid-journey and was forced to call off the expedition to convalesce. The following year, he resumed his expeditions, travelling across China on foot to document its topographical features. During this time, he became deeply acquainted with the land, and with the lives of the everyday Chinese.
In September 1919, he was assigned to the Siberian Expeditionary Army, and served in the Japanese intervention in Siberia during the Russian Civil War, based in Manzhouli. Sasaki's role was to serve as a liaison officer between Japanese and Chinese forces under the Sino-Japanese Military Agreement of May 1918, and later, to help provide military assistance to White Russian Cossack leader Grigory Mikhaylovich Semyonov. After Japan cut off assistance to Semyonov in line with the Gongota Agreement of 1920, Sasaki's immediate superior ordered him to help Semyonov escape east to Primorskaya Oblast, contrary to the army's policy. Having completed this mission, the unknowing Sasaki reported to the Japanese command in Vladivostok, upon which he was reprimanded for aiding Semyonov, whose presence in the region could upset Japan's efforts to support the Far Eastern Republic neutral buffer state. Thereafter, Sasaki was effectively demoted, given a job with no duties in Vladivostok, and in June 1921, made to return to Japan to serve as a company leader (an inferior post that he had already served in after graduation from the Army War College). Sasaki wrote that this experience affected him greatly, and that he seriously considered quitting the military, but decided to remain following advice from his friend Sakai Takashi, who then worked in the China Department at the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office. In December 1921, he was appointed to work in the China Department, marking his return to active involvement in Chinese affairs.
As liaison to the Kuomintang (1922–1924)
In August 1922, Sasaki, now holding the rank of major, was approached about his willingness to replace Isogai Rensuke as Japan's military attaché in Guangzhou, which was the base of Sun Yat-sen's Kuomintang (KMT) government. Sasaki eagerly accepted the post, generally considered undesirable as compared to posts in Beijing and Nanjing, which were then under the control of the internationally-recognised Beiyang government. He left Japan for Guangzhou in September 1922, travelling via Taipei and Hong Kong. At the time of Sasaki's arrival, Guangzhou was under the control of Chen Jiongming, who had launched a rebellion against the KMT. Sasaki's office in the Shamian Anglo-French concession area consisted of two rented rooms, and no other Japanese personnel were present. He first encountered Sun Yat-sen after Sun's return to Guangzhou in February 1923, following his forces' recapture of the city. Sasaki eagerly studied the KMT, and developed close relationships with important members of its leadership. He was unique in his interest in the KMT, which was not recognised by the Japanese government, and other Japanese diplomatic and military personnel were not keen on how closely he interacted with them. Sasaki admired Sun as an idealistic revolutionary, who did not fight for his own personal interest like the warlords of the Beiyang government, but in the interest of his country. In contrast, Sasaki viewed the warlord armies as an anti-societal "collection of beggars, thugs, gamblers, and thieves", and considered them the primary obstacle to China's reunification.
Sun Yat-sen would later request Sasaki's assistance in devising military strategies, and thus he became one of Sun's military advisors. Sasaki frequently travelled with Sun on his armoured train, and observed the KMT's operations. On one of these train trips, he was introduced to Chiang Kai-shek, though he did not think much of him at the time. In Sasaki's Autobiography of a Soldier, he claims that he proposed the design of what would later become known as the Zhongshan suit, though this cannot be corroborated. In June 1924, on invitation from Japanese-trained General Instructor He Yingqin, Sasaki visited the newly-opened Whampoa Military Academy, and was struck by its resemblance to his alma mater. Around this time, an anti-British strike had paralysed the Shamian concession where Sasaki lived, and he expressed his sympathy for the strikers, who he believed were on the path to restoring sovereignty to China. While Sasaki supported the reunification of China under KMT rule, he always believed that this would not include Manchuria, which, according to Sasaki, Sun Yat-sen indicated would be entrusted to Japan following the defeat of the warlords.
In Tokyo, Beijing and Nanjing (1924–1927)
In August 1924, he returned to Japan to serve in the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and as an instructor at the Army War College. Focusing on future of Sun and the KMT, Sasaki published papers suggesting that the KMT would go on to reunify China in a "fourth revolution". The Japanese military, however, was extremely sceptical of Sun, and Sasaki recalled being teased by Koiso Kuniaki: "Sasaki, where's that revolution of yours?" When Sasaki participated in a lecture held by Ōkawa Shūmei's Emperor Jimmu Society (a right-wing organisation), he referred to Sun with the honorific sensei, which Ōkawa criticised as being absurd, and a verbal argument ensued. Sasaki, who was a prolific writer, later became friends with Ōkawa, and his works were frequently published by Ōkawa's organisations. In November 1924, Sasaki was ordered to return to China to report on the proceedings of a conference between Sun, Beiyang leader Zhang Zuolin, and Duan Qirui in the aftermath of the Second Zhili–Fengtian War. He met Sun in Tianjin, where he found the KMT leader stricken with illness. Sun would go on to die in March of the next year, and Sasaki speculated that this would result in the KMT's unleashing of "a new level of destructiveness".
Continuing to make numerous trips to China, Sasaki was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1926, and in September of that year, was assigned to the Japanese Legation in Beijing as aide to military attaché Honjō Shigeru. Sasaki, who still despised the warlords of the Beiyang government, did not get along with their Japanese military advisors, and actively avoided attending banquets held by Zhang Zuolin. Around this time, Chiang Kai-shek had taken up leadership of the National Revolutionary Army (NRA), begun the Northern Expedition to reunify China, and had attacked Hankou. In a paper published in April 1927, Sasaki wrote of his expectation that the KMT would successfully unite China. He stated that while the Northern Expedition would likely upset Japanese interests in the short term, these should be sacrificed for the sake of Japan's long term interest in the maintenance of peace and stability in East Asia, which would be facilitated by Chinese reunification. Most of his colleagues, however, remained pessimistic.
In March 1927, following the Nanjing incident, which included an attack on the Japanese consulate and the near assassination of the Japanese consul, Sasaki was posted to Nanjing, where it was hoped that his connections with KMT could be used to protect Japanese interests. The Japanese military and Sasaki laid the blame for that incident on radical communist fringes within the KMT, and began to search for a way to co-operate with Chiang Kai-shek, who would soon begin his own conflict with the KMT leftist government in Wuhan. Sasaki was concerned about the destructive force being unleashed by the revolutionary movement, and Iwane Matsui even suggested that he try to become Chiang's military advisor, but Sasaki replied that he would merely be used by Chiang, and declined. During this time, Sasaki would make continued trips between Shanghai, Nanjing, and Wuhan.
Jinan incident and aftermath (1928–1931)
In January 1928, Chiang Kai-shek returned to the position of leader of the Northern Expedition, and restarted the NRA's advance north. Sasaki requested permission to embed with the NRA, and was granted permission to do so from April. The Japanese command was concerned that the advancing NRA, which was approaching the Japanese sphere of influence in Shandong Province, might come into conflict with Japanese forces in the region, and hoped that Sasaki could serve as a liaison between the two sides. During his time in the NRA, the Japanese Shandong Expeditions had heightened anti-Japanese sentiment among the Chinese, and in May, the two sides came into conflict in the Jinan incident.