‘Better to be a chicken’s head than an ox’s tail’: Japanese envoy diplomacy in the mediation of Konfrontasi (1965)

ABSTRACT

This article examines a lesser-known episode of the Cold War in Asia, namely Japan’s mediation in the Konfrontasi crisis between Indonesia and Malaysia, focusing on Prime Minister Satō’s appointment of a special envoy, Kawashima Shōjirō, in spring 1965. Drawing on multi-archival research in Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, it shows how Japan’s envoy diplomacy initiative was shaped by unilateralism, partisanship and a brazen diplomatic style that defied ‘low-profile’ expectations and revealed regional leadership aspirations. Kawashima’s (eventually unsuccessful) endeavour played out as a remarkably ‘interventionist’ initiative, mirroring domestic tensions over the definition of Japan’s post-war role in Asia.

KEYWORDS:

• Japan
• Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation
• Cold War in Asia
• third-party intervention
• special envoy
• envoy diplomacy

Introduction

The ‘Konfrontasi’ standoff between Indonesia and Malaysia (1963–6) was in full swing when, in spring 1965, the newly elected Japanese prime minister Satō Eisaku appointed a veteran lawmaker, 75-year-old Kawashima Shōjirō, as a special envoy to mediate the dispute. This article focuses on this little-known diplomatic episode, drawing on multi-archival research in Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. While eventually unsuccessful, Tokyo’s envoy diplomacy in Konfrontasi offers a valuable window into the tensions, aspirations and expectations that accompanied Japan’s definition of its post-war role – before more systematic approaches, such as the Fukuda Doctrine, would emerge as a diplomatic blueprint for its policy towards Southeast Asia.¹

Japanese envoy diplomacy in Konfrontasi came about as the product of two competing visions for post-war Japan, which coexisted within the same political party, the dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The mainstream vision, embraced by the liberal forces that had coalesced around Premier Yoshida Shigeru after the Second World War, prioritised Japan’s commitment to the United States-sponsored Cold War regional architecture, casting its role as a reliable, responsible junior ally. The other, held by more hawkish quarters of the party and championed by special envoy Kawashima, fed into Great Power aspirations reclaiming the recognition of a more distinguished, autonomous place for Japan in Asia. Kawashima’s mediatory endeavour challenged almost all expectations brought upon post-war Japan: passive subservience to the United States; commitment to multilateral diplomatic solutions; uncompromising anticommunism; and a ‘low-profile’ presence on the international scene.

As this article argues, envoy diplomacy in Konfrontasi represented a moment when the anti-mainstream vision for post-war Japan stood out with particular force, briefly skewing government policy towards an unusual assertiveness – to the point of resembling one of the defining phenomena of the global Cold War: third-party intervention. Japanese mediation amounted to a ‘soft’ intervention, lacking the coercive or subversive elements normally associated with it. Tokyo’s initiative was nonetheless driven by aspirations of influence and autonomy.

This article examines the three main ‘interventionist’ features of special envoy Kawashima’s mediatory endeavour: namely, proactive unilateralism; an unapologetically partisan approach favouring one of the disputants; and a brazen, assertive diplomatic style. It is thus articulated in three sections. The first highlights Tokyo’s uneasiness with the involvement of competing diplomatic actors, such as Thailand, which reflected a hierarchical and paternalistic understanding of Japan’s regional role in Southeast Asia. The second section tackles the apparent contradiction of Japan’s partisan approach to mediation, illustrating how Tokyo’s open bias in favour of Indonesia not only defied dominant Western beliefs about Sukarno’s communist leanings, but also responded to long-held strategic interests that underpinned a ‘mediation for mediation’s sake’ approach void of long-term planning. The third and last section zooms in on Satō’s chosen diplomatic approach: envoy diplomacy, a not uncommon feature of Japanese diplomacy.² Examining Kawashima’s negotiation style and diplomatic blunders, which clashed with the purported ‘low profile’ of Japan’s post-war policy towards Southeast Asia, I juxtapose his overconfidence with the underwhelming results of his diplomatic activity.

In the context of the Cold War in Southeast Asia, Konfrontasi was a fertile ground for third-party intervention. Konfrontasi (‘confrontation’ in Bahasa) was a low-intensity conflict between Indonesia and Malaysia, sparked by the opposition of President Sukarno of Indonesia to what he saw as the ‘neo-colonial’ reconfiguration of the Federation of Malaya in 1963 to include, aside from Singapore, also two disputed provinces in Northern Borneo (Sabah and Sarawak).³ In 1965, as tensions escalated when Sukarno withdrew Indonesia from the United Nations and, supported by the powerful Indonesian Communist Party, announced the so-called ‘Beijing-Jakarta Axis’, many in Washington and London feared the imminent concretisation of ‘domino theory’ in Southeast Asia.⁴ If the ‘Bandung spirit’ of the Third World movement under Sukarno’s leadership had already represented ‘a challenge to American foreign policy’, Konfrontasi overlapped with a delicate phase of the Cold War in the region, as the conclusion of the brutal Malayan Insurgency campaign was followed by the escalation of the conflict in Indochina.⁵ Throughout the dispute, the UK honoured the Anglo-Malaysian Defence Agreement by dispatching military assistance to Borneo, while the Information Research Department, the Foreign Office’s propaganda arm, was actively involved in instigating anticommunist activities in Indonesia.⁶ The United States, having just wrapped up its covert involvement in rebellions in Sulawesi and Sumatra (1956–61), was similarly colluding with those reactionary forces within the Indonesian army that would soon topple Sukarno.⁷

Japan’s envoy diplomacy in Konfrontasi coincided with the apex of the conflict. By 1965, the disputing parties had reached a stalemate due to their unwillingness to bend to the opponent’s preconditions to further talks: the withdrawal of British troops from Borneo for Indonesia and the total cessation of guerrilla activity for Malaysia.⁸ Mindful of the Americans’ heightened Cold War sensitivities in Southeast Asia, Prime Minister Satō in his first official visit to Washington in January 1965 vowed to President Lyndon B. Johnson that Japan would do ‘all it can to assist in these [Konfrontasi] problems’ to support the US effort in Vietnam.⁹ Envoy diplomacy must have appeared to Satō as a relatively low-cost option with potentially high returns. Deploying a special envoy would have not only sent a strong message of Japan’s commitment to the United States-led Cold War order in Asia, but also created the conditions for Satō to claim ownership of a historic diplomatic breakthrough in case of success – or to maintain a degree of distance from a highly volatile situation in case of failure. In its inception, therefore, Japan’s envoy diplomacy served first and foremost as a public-relations device, both internationally and domestically. Satō even hinted to the journalists accompanying him to the United States at the possibility of a Japanese envoy for Konfrontasi – a promise he felt he could not backtrack from, after Sukarno’s withdrawal from the United Nations a mere few days later – as ‘he would appear ridiculous if, in spite of what had appeared in the press [on envoy appointment], he did nothing’.¹⁰

Satō picked Kawashima Shōjirō, vice president of the ruling LDP, as his special envoy to mediate in the dispute. Kawashima carried out two missions to Jakarta, in April and August 1965, on occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Bandung Conference and of the Indonesian Independence Day celebrations respectively. While the second trip, shortly preceding the military coup of 30 September 1965, amounted to a merely symbolic visit, Kawashima’s first mission unfolded as an ambitious diplomatic tour of Southeast Asia divided among six days in Jakarta (14–20 April), two days in Kuala Lumpur and one final stop in Bangkok.¹¹ Crucially, even though Kawashima nominally had only representational duties at the Bandung Conference anniversary celebrations, he would exceed the formal remits of this role, taking advantage of the flexibility it provided.¹² Behaving more like an ‘executive agent’ of Premier Satō rather than a symbolic ‘special representative’ of the government, Kawashima’s role came with implicit expectations of a mediatory function, no precise instructions and, thus, an ample margin for individual action.¹³ Japan’s envoy diplomacy, therefore, often oscillated between spurts of Kawashima’s personal initiative and the attempts at supervision (if not outright damage control) by professional diplomats. In fact, Foreign Ministry officials filed Kawashima’s mission under ‘mediation work’ (chōtei kōsaku 調停工作) – just as they complained about his penchant for ‘[going] further than he should […] for political reasons of his own’.¹⁴

Kawashima Shōjirō (川島正次郎, 1890–1970) was a seasoned lawmaker, a self-made man who had risen through the ranks of the party thanks to personal charisma and exceptional people skills. Known as the ‘god of elections’, Kawashima succeeded in retaining his Diet seat from 1928 until his death (with only a self-imposed seven-year intermission during the US occupation).¹⁵ More a Machiavellian backroom operator than a technically minded bureaucrat, he held relatively few cabinet posts throughout his career, and his appointment as vice president of the LDP in 1962 cemented his reputation as the powerful ‘eternal number two’ of Japanese politics.¹⁶ Most importantly, as examined later, Kawashima was the Japanese politician with the closest personal relationship with President Sukarno of Indonesia.

Before delving into Kawashima’s attempt at mediation, it is necessary to consider what his involvement meant in terms of Japan’s self-appointed Cold War identity of ‘bridge’ between East and West, First World and Third World.

Japan in the Cold War: the myth of Kakehashi

On the eve of his first trip to Southeast Asia in April 1965, special envoy Kawashima galvanised the crowd of politicians and journalists gathered at his send-off party at the prime minister’s residence with an optimistic forecast: his mission would mark ‘the beginning of a new foreign policy for Japan’.¹⁷ His confidence was not entirely unwarranted. By 1965, in the midst of an economic boom and riding the success of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the Japanese felt that their country had finally been ‘reborn’ after the war.¹⁸ However, for Prime Minister Satō (elected in November 1964), the foreign and domestic policy agenda was less rosy. He juggled difficult normalisation talks with South Korea, hurdles to his electoral promise of Okinawa reversion, and growing popular discontent with Japan’s support of the United States’ adventurism in Vietnam.¹⁹ His decision to appoint a special envoy departed from his predecessor Ikeda Hayato’s reliance on summitry.²⁰

Kawashima’s mediatory endeavour in Konfrontasi – perhaps due to its underwhelming results – has been largely overlooked in the diplomatic history of modern Japan, being ignored in Anglophone scholarship.²¹ It is also minimally examined in the Japanese, with a few notable exceptions in recent years.²² Yet, Japan’s bid at mediation represented a significant moment in its post-war foreign policy, as its first unilateral political initiative in Asia since the end of the Pacific War. Peacemaker was a role that Japan had adopted since the 1955 Bandung Conference, where it reframed itself as the natural guarantor of peace in the region by virtue of its experience as the only country victim of atomic bombing.²³ This new identity was enshrined in the concept of kakehashi (架け橋): a ‘bridge’ capable of fostering peace in the region while connecting the Free World with the Third World. It is on this kakehashi identity that Satō centred his entire speech at the National Press Club in Washington DC during his official visit in January 1965.²⁴

The ‘bridge’ concept was so successful that, in the 1990s, it was repurposed as the basis for the multilateral, UN-centred foreign policy that underpinned Tokyo’s post-Cold War commitment to ‘mediation diplomacy’ (chūkai gaikō 仲介外交).²⁵ In fact, some scholars have seen in Japan’s mediation in Konfrontasi a precedent for its involvement in UN-sponsored peacekeeping operations in Southeast Asia (such as in Cambodia and East Timor) in the 1990s and early 2000s.²⁶ Some accounts of Japanese mediation in Konfrontasi also frame it within a purported ‘consistently multilateral’ approach to Southeast Asia, or cite it as an example of Tokyo’s ‘honest broker’ role providing ‘good offices to facilitate a peaceful resolution’.²⁷ Such post hoc interpretations of Japan’s mediation in Konfrontasi as the diplomatic duty of a responsible international stakeholder, however, risk uncritically reinforcing a self-serving national narrative.

Instead, this paper offers an alternative interpretation of Japanese mediation as a form of ‘soft intervention’ signalling a claim over a sphere of influence. My analysis borrows from Saadia Touval’s theory of ‘biased mediation’, according to which mediation need not necessarily be impartial or inspired by a high purpose, but is rather often initiated by a self-interested mediator.²⁸ By relying on personal networks and policy conceptualisations that transcended not only the pre-war/post-war divide but also the rigid ideological frameworks of the Cold War, Japan’s mediatory endeavour in Konfrontasi resembled more closely the approach of an aspiring regional power, rather than that of a selfless arbiter.

Tokyo’s involvement in Konfrontasi offers a valuable insight into post-war Japan’s soul-searching, as mediation required a delicate balancing act between two competing political visions for Japan’s role in Asia. While Premier Satō upheld the mainstream conservative line of the ‘Yoshida School’ following the economic-centric, United States-reliant precepts of former premier Yoshida Shigeru, special envoy Kawashima belonged to a different church. A vocal critic of Yoshida, Kawashima was a staunch ally of Kishi Nobusuke (the former Manchukuo administrator and prime minister from 1957 to 1960), whose vision for Japan’s foreign policy did not reject the US alliance, but emphasised the urgency for autonomy and national prestige. Kishi’s – and by association, Kawashima’s – strain of conservatism presented a distinctively emotional tone, describable as ‘national greatness conservatism’, which translated into an acute preoccupation with issues of power and national pride.²⁹ Indonesia had figured prominently in the diplomatic outreach of Kishi, who had finalised the war reparation agreements with Sukarno in 1957, casting Japan’s regional role as the guarantor of anticommunist economic development in Southeast Asia.³⁰ Among the pro-Indonesia faction of the LDP, Kawashima was Kishi’s second-in-command and the eponymous leader of the ‘Kawashima Lobby’, an informal yet influential group of politicians and businessmen who variously profited from the war reparation business during the Sukarno era.³¹

This ‘national greatness conservatism’ was not incompatible with the earlier-described ‘bridge’ narrative. As argued by Reto Hofmann, the kakehashi discourse offered a malleable framework that appealed to mainstream Japanese liberals, like Premier Satō, who were eager to see Japan operate as the ‘third pillar’ of the United States-led global order, just as to more hawkish politicians, like Kishi and Kawashima, who believed in Japan’s twofold mission to mediate between East and West – while ‘civilising the former’ – and to speak for the rest of Asia.³² In this vein, Kawashima presented his Southeast Asia mission as the embodiment of ‘supra-party diplomacy’ (chōtōha gaikō 超党派外交): a proactive, compact foreign policy outlook roughly equivalent to the US principle of ‘politics stops at the water’s edge’.³³ Chōtōha gaikō promised to be the remedy to what many conservatives perceived as the chronic ailment of post-war Japan: rinji gaikō (‘expedient diplomacy’ 臨時外交), the ad hoc, fragmented foreign policy informing post-war Japan’s passivity and indecisiveness on the world stage, summarised by Kawashima as ‘staying silent unless having a fire lit under one’s feet’.³⁴

These two coexisting interpretations of Japan’s identity as a kakehashi determined, in turn, different views of Japan’s role in Cold War Asia. One, embodied by Premier Satō, upheld the Free World’s security architecture in Southeast Asia, casting Japan as a pacifist brokerage power and a reliable regional ‘manager’ in the eyes of its US allies, while the other, championed by Kawashima, responded to a desire to reclaim Japan’s lost Great Power role, prioritising long-held strategic interests. In the case of Konfrontasi mediation, the balance between the two tilted in favour of the latter during 1965, when Kawashima enjoyed enough leeway to leverage his domestic authority in his role as special envoy. This is not to say that Japan’s mediation in Konfrontasi was a one-man show. Satō had openly sanctioned Kawashima’s ambitions of ‘supra-party diplomacy’, and the idea of ‘autonomous foreign policy’ (jishu gaikō 自主外交), rooted in the US-Japan alliance but aimed at advancing Japan’s own security capabilities, was a key part of his own foreign policy vision.³⁵ ‘Better to be a chicken’s head than an ox’s tail’ (‘Keikō gyūgo’ 鶏口牛後) – Premier Satō himself quipped during his first trip to Washington in January 1965.³⁶ Even S-Operation, Satō’s personal advisory group tasked with defining the strategic trajectory of his administration, welcomed Japan’s involvement in mediating the dispute as a desirable ‘political action’ in Asia, recommending the pursuit of ‘individual diplomacy’ (kojin gaikō 個人外交) through an envoy.³⁷

Konfrontasi, however, simply did not rank high enough on Satō’s foreign policy agenda, which at the time was squarely occupied by the Okinawa reversion question. Foreign Minister Shiina Etsusaburō’s peripheral involvement in the matter was similarly justified by his focus on the thorny normalisation talks with South Korea. This left Kawashima exceptional room for individual initiative – often to the dismay of the professional diplomats he was expected to coordinate with. As summed up by the British Embassy in Jakarta in summer 1965, ‘what Kawashima thinks about Indonesia today, Japan thinks tomorrow’.³⁸ The envoy thus served as a catalysing force for those pre-existing biases and attitudes within Japanese foreign policy-making circles that would lend themselves to his ‘interventionist’ approach, as examined in the next sections.

Mediation as an exclusive diplomatic right

Japan’s approach to Konfrontasi was informed by the implicit assertion of Japan’s exclusive diplomatic rights over mediation of the dispute. This assumption echoed pre-war narratives of paternalistic mentorship according to which only Japan, as the most advanced country in Asia, had a special responsibility and exclusive duty to Southeast Asia. In 1976, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ (MOFA) Asia Bureau explicitly referred to Southeast Asia as ‘Japan’s constituency [senkyoku 選挙区], as Africa is for the European Community and Latin America for the US’.³⁹

This stance was reinforced by a parallel assumption of Japan’s moral, if not racial, responsibility to mediation. The British impression was that the Japanese acted as if ‘they as orientals [sic] have a better idea of how to go about it’.⁴⁰ Japan’s claims of some spiritual connection with Southeast Asia were openly laid out in 1964 by the then foreign minister, Ōhira Masayoshi, who in an International Affairs article argued that the ‘nations of Asia’ follow policies that ‘cannot be reasoned out and hurriedly solved by a Western rationalistic approach’.⁴¹ In a speech to the Diet in January of the same year, Ōhira presented Japan as being ‘in a position to understand the desires and difficulties of these neighbor countries’ in virtue of its successful history of industrialisation.⁴²

As a result, Japan’s approach to Konfrontasi was markedly paternalistic. When it came to Sukarno, the Japanese government embraced the so-called ‘proper guidance doctrine’ (Sukaruno ‘zendō’ ron スカルノ善道論), based on the belief that Japan’s benevolent influence could steer Indonesia away from the communist camp.⁴³ Ambassador Shima Shigenobu in London put it more bluntly: they were dealing with nothing short of a ‘problem child’ [in English in the original].⁴⁴ Scholars have observed how the use of family-related vocabulary in Japan’s post-war relationship with Asia betrays the persistence of pre-war hierarchical conceptualisations of its regional identity, with Japan acting as a ‘leader or mentor for its children or younger siblings’.⁴⁵

Special envoy Kawashima himself advocated for the ‘settling of disputes among Asians by Asians’.⁴⁶ This slogan echoed the position encouraged by US Attorney General Robert Kennedy during his 1964 tour of East and Southeast Asia as ‘Special Peace Envoy’.⁴⁷ In Kawashima’s interpretation, this stance meant claiming the management of the dispute as a Japanese prerogative. Tokyo’s desire to monopolise the management of the conflict, instead of turning it into a multilateral regional endeavour, became apparent when another hopeful Asian mediator, Thailand, came to the fore.

Thailand had emerged as a go-between as early as 1963.⁴⁸ It consolidated that position in 1964 when Indonesian foreign minister Subandrio formally asked the Thai government to act as observer in the (short-lived) cease-fire negotiated by Attorney General Kennedy in January 1964.⁴⁹ In early 1965, the Thai channel was revived by the prospect of a secret summit in Bangkok that Thai Foreign Minister Thanat Khoman was planning for May – with US blessing but without Japanese knowledge. Japan caught on this development only thanks to the courtesy of British diplomats, who, realising that the United States had no intention of briefing their Japanese allies, in early 1965 resolved to share confidentially information to save Satō a ‘somewhat embarrassing position’.⁵⁰ Besides being at odds with what some scholars have described as the strengthening of a ‘consultative relationship’ within the US-Japan alliance in the mid 1960s, the United States’ unwillingness to share such crucial information with the Japanese also speaks to the climate of general mistrust for concerted solutions during Konfrontasi.⁵¹

In fact, Thai mediation was deliberately understated, following Thanat’s wish for it to play out as ‘businesslike secret discussions without wide publicity’.⁵² Secrecy was key to Thanat’s mediatory style, and one of the things that frustrated him most was Malaysian premier Abdul Rahman’s leaks to the press, which often provided an excuse for Sukarno to back off from talks citing Malaysian bad faith.⁵³ ‘Diplomacy is not conducted in the marketplace’, lamented Thanat.⁵⁴ By March 1965 he had given in, confiding to the Japanese foreign vice minister Ōda Takio that ‘he did not wish [to] pursue [the] matter further himself but hoped [that the] Japanese would now try’.⁵⁵ Nonetheless, as US Ambassador to Indonesia Howard P. Jones put it, Thanat was ‘somewhat miffed by [the] Japanese initiative which took [the] Malaysian ball right out of his hands’.⁵⁶

On their part, Japanese diplomats had long been observing with concern Thanat’s unusual ‘sense of responsibility’ towards the dispute.⁵⁷ Thanat himself reassured them that he had no intention of ‘maintaining a monopoly over the resolution of this issue’.⁵⁸ Nonetheless, the Japanese started doubting his goodwill when some wording he suggested during a ministerial level meeting (with Indonesia’s Subandrio and the Philippines’ Salvador Lopez) in November 1963 would have cut Japan entirely out of the management of the dispute.⁵⁹ The Bangkok Summit of 5–10 February 1964 further proved to the Japanese the risks of leaving Thanat too much leeway. As Ambassador to Indonesia Furuuchi Hiroo reported, during that summit Thanat repeatedly ‘stepped out of his role as mere chairman’, showing a clear partiality towards Malaysia.⁶⁰ The decision to move the following summit to Tokyo (in June 1964) was precisely due to many participants’ concerns about Thailand’s partiality.⁶¹

It would be an exaggeration to claim that Thailand’s pro-Malaysian tendencies were the only trigger to Satō’s decision to take a more proactive approach to Konfrontasi. However, the rivalry between Japan and Thailand was an open secret: the Malaysian Head of Chancery, Abdullah Bin Ali, even ‘wondered whether Sukarno was deliberately playing off Japan against Thailand’ in spring 1965.⁶² Kawashima’s own statements hint that the Thai channel might have at least contributed to heightening Satō’s sense of urgency for dispatching an envoy. In the records of the meeting between Kawashima and Malaysian premier Abdul Rahman of 20 April 1965, the Japanese special envoy obliquely referred to the fact that Satō’s hesitation at appointing an envoy lasted only until Thanat’s efforts towards mediation materialised.⁶³ Even though Kawashima, during his subsequent stopover in Bangkok, requested ‘Thai cooperation in continuing efforts to reach [a] peaceful settlement’, Japanese diplomats reminded their US counterparts: ‘our interests are not the same as those of Thailand’.⁶⁴ Satō’s envoy appointment, therefore, can be interpreted as a textbook attempt at ‘insulating the conflict from interference’, a common strategy employed by biased mediators when competing actors threaten to hinder their goals.⁶⁵

The envoy option had been on the table for Japan since Premier Ikeda’s official visit to Jakarta in late 1963. Pressed on the matter by Sukarno in January 1964, Ambassador Furuuchi explained that, in principle, Japan had always been willing to send an envoy, but this would depend on ‘time and occasion’: he noted that Japan was not ready to make a gesture of such ‘international significance’, and even justified Ikeda’s unwillingness to appoint one by citing his fear of prompting a ‘rivalry’ with the visit of special envoy Kennedy.⁶⁶ Evidently, when faced with a less mighty rival such as Thailand, Japan did not show the same qualms. On 15 February 1965, Satō vowed that ‘Japan would go all out to reconcile the two contending parties’.⁶⁷

Japan’s determination to serve as the exclusive ‘manager’ of Konfrontasi betrays an aspiration to exert control over a perceived sphere of influence, as it presented – in a watered-down fashion – its two key features: control and exclusion.⁶⁸ Japan in the mid-1960s undoubtedly lacked the power projection capabilities (due to its constitutional constrains on military involvement abroad) and the bargaining power (due to its fraught relations with many countries in the region) to establish a full-fledged hegemonic sphere of influence in Southeast Asia.⁶⁹ Nonetheless, in the case of Konfrontasi, Japan was widely perceived as wanting to replace the UK’s dominant role and ‘fill the vacuum of leader of Asia’s non-Communist nations’, as the Malayan Times put it.⁷⁰ As illustrated in this section, it was ready to do so by pursuing a strikingly unilateral initiative.

The fiction of super partes mediation

The idea of a partisan mediator sounds like a contradiction in terms. According to the classic literature on conflict mediation, a mediating state ‘should have no interest in the dispute other than achievement of a peaceful settlement’.⁷¹ However, acting as a mediator can serve political purposes that often transcend the immediate resolution of the conflict, as first argued by political scientist Saadia Touval: for a self-interested, ‘interventionist’ mediator, ‘effectiveness is usually a secondary consideration’.⁷² The hastiness and incoherence of Japan’s mediatory efforts in Konfrontasi in 1965 are glaring examples of this.

Japan did not have a clear mediation strategy. Its best articulated policy option was that supported by the Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Ōda Takio, whose plan envisaged the creation of a Four Power Conciliation Commission (to be chaired by Japan) and a plebiscite in the disputed territories of Sabah and Sarawak.⁷³ The so-called ‘Ōda Plan’, however, was categorically rejected by Malaysia, due to it failing to demand the cessation of hostilities from the Indonesian side as a precondition to the resumption of talks. By early 1965 its own author was openly asking US and British diplomats for ‘any bright ideas that he could pass on to his politicians’ in order to come up with an alternative.⁷⁴

In Tokyo, the mediator counted more than the mediation. Japanese journalist Hirasawa Kazushige thus commented on Kawashima’s appointment: ‘It is like putting the cart before the horse to choose a mediator before formulating a concrete mediation plan’.⁷⁵ After speaking with Satō, former British secretary of state Patrick Gordon-Walker drew the conclusion that ‘the Japanese have little idea about what should happen if and when the two sides meet; their primary objective is to bring them together’.⁷⁶

On top of that, the choice of Kawashima was justified, rather than by his (non-existent) diplomatic credentials, by his uniquely close ties to Sukarno.⁷⁷ The two men had struck up a friendship in 1962, on the occasion of the Asian Games in Jakarta, when Kawashima (then minister in charge of the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games), refused to cave in to the calls of the international community to withdraw the Japanese delegation from the competition following Indonesia’s arbitrary exclusion of the athletes from Taiwan and Israel, advocating instead for the ‘separation of politics and sports’ (seisupo bunri 政スポ分離).⁷⁸ Kawashima’s unconditional support for the Asian Games, an event that in Sukarno’s eyes represented the coronation of Indonesia as the beacon of Third-Worldism, had won him the ever-lasting appreciation of the Indonesian president, who started addressing him as ‘brother’ (kakamu).⁷⁹

Sukarno had explicitly requested to have Kawashima act as a go-between in Konfrontasi. In early December 1964, he dispatched Chow Chi Mo, a trusted middleman in Japan-Indonesia relations since the wartime era, as his special envoy to Tokyo to plead for Kawashima’s involvement in mediating the dispute.⁸⁰ Kawashima met Chow in Tokyo three times from December 1964 to February 1965, eventually promising him that he would ‘do all he could [in Japanese, “break his bones”] to solve the Indonesia-Malaysia dispute’.⁸¹ Kawashima was credited with being the ‘driving force’ behind Satō’s unusually long premiership.⁸² He could also leverage his position as head of the Kōyū Club, the party faction to which Foreign Minister Shiina also belonged, in order to persuade Satō to dispatch him.⁸³ Personal grudges also played in his favour. After enduring the humiliation of having Sukarno ignore his pleas to reverse his UN withdrawal decision, Satō was unenthusiastic about accepting the invitation to the Bandung Anniversary celebrations in April 1965 and was happy to send Kawashima in his place – to the chagrin of Sukarno, who would have preferred a head of state to attend.⁸⁴

Satō might have disliked Sukarno (he believed him to be a ‘truly untrustworthy person’), but Japan’s approach to mediation was tailored exclusively as a function of its relations with Indonesia, which represented a ‘special’ relationship for Tokyo.⁸⁵ As the fulcrum of Japan’s a key provider of natural resources fuelling the Japanese imperial machine during the Second World War, Indonesia had served as the ‘Second Manchukuo’ of Japan’s Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.⁸⁶ In 1965, the MOFA Asia Bureau still viewed Indonesia as the country in the region ‘with the greatest potential in terms of both human [jinteki 人的] and material [butteki 物的] capital’.⁸⁷ Sukarno had been an enthusiastic ally of the Japanese for most of the 1940s and, after independence, a friendly diplomatic interlocutor and eager recipient of Tokyo’s financial aid. After losing access to the Chinese market due to the Communist takeover of 1949, Southeast Asia – and Indonesia – had emerged as the main target of Japanese investments (channelled mainly through war reparation agreements), making the region a fundamental springboard for Japan’s post-war economic reconstruction. Additionally, as Japan’s industrial recovery relied on increasingly larger oil imports from the Gulf, safeguarding the sea transport lanes controlled by Indonesia became a foremost priority for Japan’s economic and security strategy.⁸⁸ For the most cynical observers, therefore, Kawashima was nothing but the spokesman for the ‘boys in the back room who [saw] their Indonesian investments threatened’ by Konfrontasi.⁸⁹

As for Malaysia, the Japanese government had not hesitated to recognise the newly independent state in 1963. Nevertheless, Japan shared many of Sukarno’s frustrations with the modalities of its creation, as its sovereignty over Northern Borneo had not been based on self-determination.⁹⁰ Japanese diplomats blamed the UK for its sloppy handling of the decolonisation process: Ambassador Furuuchi lamented the ‘stiff way of thinking’ of the British and their ‘truly inadequate’ supervision of the popular consultation in the disputed provinces.⁹¹ Conversely, the frequent use of the term ‘the Malaysia Question’ (Marēshia mondai マレーシア問題) in MOFA documents and by Japanese media greatly irritated the British, who perceived this formulation as implicitly questioning the legitimacy of Malaysia’s existence.⁹²

In spite of the Japanese government’s close ties with Indonesia and Kawashima’s personal proximity to Sukarno, Malaysia was strikingly open to Japanese mediation. Premier Abdul Rahman even referred to Japan as being ‘eminently qualified to play role of mediator as she is friendly to both countries and sincerely desires peace’.⁹³ As observed by Touval, ‘awareness of the mediator’s bias [does] not prevent his acceptance by the less-favoured side’.⁹⁴ For Malaysia, mediation still represented a more desirable option than direct negotiation (which had reached a stalemate by 1965) or, worse, military escalation. The UK, however, saw a Japanese envoy as a potential threat to their interests in Southeast Asia. As one British diplomat put it – mirroring Japan’s reaction to Thai mediation described in the previous section – they feared that ‘another cook might spoil the broth’.⁹⁵ When Ambassador Saitō Shizuo in Jakarta described Kawashima’s appointment to his British counterpart, Andrew Gilchrist, as particularly suitable because ‘he was a close personal friend of Sukarno’, the latter peevishly inquired whether ‘he was also a close personal friend of the Tunku’s [an honorary title referring to Malaysia’s Abdul Rahman]’.⁹⁶ In fact, Kawashima was not. As Abdul Rahman visited Tokyo in May 1965, he was outraged to find that Kawashima had not come to welcome him in person: ‘[w]hat’s with that guy Kawashima! All that effort begging Sukarno to come to Tokyo and then when I arrive, he won’t even bother to welcome me at the airport or to greet me at my hotel. How rude!’⁹⁷

Most alarming for the UK, however, was Japan’s willingness to accommodate Sukarno. For British diplomats, there was no doubt that the ‘aggressive irrationality of Indonesia’s position’ was but an expression of ‘Javanese colonialism’ – with the result that, in British eyes, the policy of Konfrontasi was the dangerous caprice of an impulsive autocrat, and Japan’s engagement amounted to a textbook case of appeasement.⁹⁸ As Japanese diplomats noted, London seemed to believe that Sukarno was ‘walking the road of Hitler, with every concession only producing more demands’.⁹⁹

The United States shared the British assessment of Sukarno’s ‘impulsive and impetuous’ personality, but were more pragmatic than the UK and its Commonwealth allies.¹⁰⁰ In the October 1963 quadripartite talks between the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, the US position stood out as the least dogmatic. While the United Kingdom was certain that ‘Indonesia’s leaders remained in an expansionist mood’, fuelled by what Australia saw as ‘positive ambitions and perhaps paranoia’, US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs W. Averell Harriman maintained that Sukarno rather ‘should be seen as the product of his environment, a reckless, revolutionary nationalist’ who could be ‘nudge[d] […] in the direction of moderation’.¹⁰¹ The United States’ willingness to engage with Sukarno was certainly influenced by its ambassador to Jakarta, Howard P. Jones, known among his critics as ‘Sukarno’s favourite ambassador’.¹⁰² As the crisis escalated, however, the United States’ patience waned. By July 1965 – while special envoy Kawashima was preparing for his second trip to Jakarta – US intelligence was already weighing the benefits of a post-Sukarno government: ‘[i]f Sukarno dies or becomes incapacitated in the next year or so, the immediate successor government would probably be an ostensibly non-Communist coalition.’¹⁰³

As the prospect of Japanese mediation materialised, the United States was pulled in opposite directions by its allies: ‘[The] British want us to advise [the] Japanese to stay out, while [the] Japanese want us to endorse their entering [the] fray’.¹⁰⁴ However, Washington was not as sceptical as London in regards to Japanese mediation:

[The] Japanese are among few remaining Free World powers not yet in Sukarno’s bad graces, and may yet be in position to play [a] key role at proper time. Well timed Japanese move, for example, might succeed in boxing in Indos [Indonesians] at crucial stage, forcing them [to] take [a] conciliatory step to avoid offending [a] well-meaning (and rich) fellow Asian.¹⁰⁵

Other countries emerged as potential candidates for the role of mediator – Pakistan and Burma, to which Indonesian foreign minister Subandrio reached out – or even Zambia and Ghana.¹⁰⁶ However, the United States was convinced that ‘it is unlikely [that a] more acceptable mediator than Japan will come along’.¹⁰⁷ Despite this support, however, the Americans were determined to fully probe the Thai channel before explicitly encouraging Japan, ‘[i]f this [Thanat’s] activity collapses […], Japanese could then move into resulting vacuum. A Japanese initiative while Bangkok activities [are] still in progress, on other hand, might result in crossed wires and profitless expenditures [of] valuable Japanese influence’ – which resulted in the recommendation, described in the previous section, that ‘[the] Japanese should not be given substance [of the Bangkok channel] at present [February 1965]’.¹⁰⁸

Crucially, US and Japanese diplomats agreed on the assessment of Sukarno’s inescapable domestic political might. In the words of Japanese Ambassador to the UK Shima Shigenobu: ‘[w]e know Sukarno; he is not a good man but there is no other. We must go on hopefully keeping our fingers crossed’.¹⁰⁹ This was a sentiment echoed by US diplomats in Jakarta: ‘[w]e are absolutely convinced that Sukarno remains in control of [the] destiny [of] this nation’.¹¹⁰ As a result, the Japanese pursued a policy of engagement that treated Sukarno as a legitimate and rational interlocutor – albeit ‘vain and egotistical’.¹¹¹ In a memorandum sent to the British Embassy in Tokyo dated December 1963, MOFA made it clear that, from Japan’s point of view, Konfrontasi was neither an irrational choice nor a political whim, but rather a response in line with Sukarno’s idiosyncratic anticolonial nationalism, with no expansionist ambitions.¹¹²

The Japanese assessment of Sukarno’s ideological affiliations was so diametrically opposite to the British that, in Tokyo’s view, Sukarno was, rather than a radical leftist facilitating a communist takeover, a guarantee against Indonesia irreversibly turning red.¹¹³ The distinction made by the MOFA Southeast Asia Division was between the Indonesian government’s ‘façade’ and its ‘real intentions’ (naishin 内心): while Sukarno ‘has long been calling for a strengthening of [Indonesia’s] friendship with Communist China at a superficial level, it can be seen as a fact that down inside he has been extremely cautious when it comes to the People’s Republic’.¹¹⁴ MOFA had reasons to be confident of this interpretation: after all, Japan had unrivalled access to the top echelons of the Indonesian government, with the Japanese ambassador to Jakarta Saitō Shizuo, a former colonial officer at the Military Government Planning Division in Java during the 1940s, enjoying an exclusive direct channel to Sukarno. His reports, known as ‘Saitō news’, were often the only reliable source for Western diplomats to stay abreast of the ever-fluid domestic politics of Indonesia.¹¹⁵

Even in the most heated phases of Konfrontasi, Japanese diplomats did not refrain from arguing that it was only understandable that Sukarno was seeking external support from China, given that Malaysia was doing the same from the United Kingdom.¹¹⁶ Special envoy Kawashima even dared to suggest, in conversation with none other than Malaysian premier Abdul Rahman, that Sukarno’s Konfrontasi was a defensive, rather than aggressive, policy: ‘I personally believe Indonesia would never become Communist. But because of the differences between Malaysia and Indonesia, Malaysia obtains support from Britain and thereby causes Indonesia to lean toward the Communists’.¹¹⁷

Kawashima’s ‘bulldozer diplomacy’

Satō’s decision to appoint a special envoy offers an additional clue to Japan’s post-imperial attitude towards Konfrontasi. Special envoys, and their dispatch in cases of international conflict mediation worldwide, have historically served as conduits for a country’s claim of influence over a foreign territory.¹¹⁸ During the Cold War, the United States and the USSR often appointed special envoys to signal and assert their influence over geopolitical hotspots, such as Latin America or the Balkans respectively. Appointing an envoy was a rather unusual course of action for a country like Japan, whose foreign policy in the early post-war period has been widely characterised as pursuing a cautious, ‘low-posture’ (tei shisei 低姿勢) diplomatic line.¹¹⁹

To do so at the peak of Konfrontasi was even more daring.¹²⁰ Kawashima risked finding himself in an awkward spot vis-à-vis the United States, as Sukarno’s violent antineo-colonialist rhetoric often took anti-US undertones – so much so that Thailand’s Thanat walked out in protest during Sukarno’s inaugural speech at the Bandung anniversary ceremony.¹²¹ Additionally, a mere few weeks before his April trip, the Indonesian parliament had passed a pro-North Korea resolution advocating the withdrawal of foreign troops from the Korean peninsula.¹²² In early 1965, Kawashima himself had seemed to be ‘somewhat reluctant to place his prestige on the line’ to negotiate with Sukarno, especially considering how his previous attempts at steering the Indonesian leader towards moderation (during the Asian Games and Olympics controversies described earlier) had produced little results.¹²³ In spite of this challenging diplomatic environment, Kawashima’s style as a special envoy was everything but understated. In his numerous interviews ahead of his departure, he fed the press with high-sounding descriptions of the goals of his mission – which ranged from the predictable (‘reassert[ing] [Japan’s] commitment to the Ten Principles of Bandung’ and arranging for the provision of development aid) to the staggeringly ambitious – ‘laying the ground for mediation in the Malaysia conflict’ and meeting with Chinese prime minister Zhou Enlai, also in attendance at the Bandung Anniversary celebrations.¹²⁴

Kawashima’s first mission in April 1965 proved to be a minefield of diplomatic blunders – many of which, however, were entirely self-inflicted. First, Kawashima let Sukarno believe that Japan was considering establishing relations with the People’s Republic of China a few hours ahead of their joint luncheon with Zhou (organised by Sukarno).¹²⁵ Then, a few days later in Kuala Lumpur, Kawashima nearly caused a diplomatic scandal when he told Abdul Rahman that he had received permission from Sukarno to convey his impression that Indonesia would stop all guerrilla activity.¹²⁶ This message came across to the Tunku as if ‘President Sukarno had given [Kawashima] the assurance that acts of aggression would cease at the commencement of [his] meeting with President Sukarno’ [emphasis added].¹²⁷ It is unclear whether Kawashima’s (mis)use of the word ‘assurance’ was a deliberate strategy to force the diplomatic deadlock, a genuine misunderstanding, or even a malicious interpretation on Malaysia’s part.¹²⁸ There is also a chance that Kawashima took Sukarno’s elusive commitments for one of his 'gentleman's agreement’ .¹²⁹

When the rumour that Sukarno had de facto agreed to a ceasefire reached the press, Japanese diplomats scrambled to clarify Kawashima’s blunder and deny the factuality of media reports.¹³⁰ Ambassador Saitō ‘was directed to obtain further elucidation from Sukarno and to Kawashima’s chagrin this confirmed that Kawashima’s impression that he had obtained some sort of undertaking from Sukarno had been unduly optimistic’.¹³¹ The British were incredulous at Kawashima’s clumsy handling of his meeting with Abdul Rahman: ‘[Kawashima] had with him a pretty formidable force of advisers and I find it difficult to believe that his visits here [Kuala Lumpur] and to Djakarta had not been preceded by a good deal of careful diplomatic preparation’.¹³²

With this faux pas, Kawashima failed at the most fundamental function of mediation: filtering communication. Manipulation of information is rather than ‘a possibility, well nigh a likelihood’ in mediation.¹³³ However, Kawashima’s references to Sukarno’s ‘assurances’ pushed the limits of acceptable information distortion and ended up compromising his credibility in the eyes of both the Tunku, who immediately questioned Kawashima’s statements, as well as Sukarno, who saw the envoy’s utterances as a risk of losing face. James Llewelyn has assessed Kawashima’s first mission as successful, as it confirmed Abdul Rahman’s willingness to meet Sukarno in Tokyo.¹³⁴ However, it was Sukarno, rather than the Tunku, who had to be persuaded: not only did Kawashima fail to bring him to the negotiating table, but he also lost some of Sukarno’s trust as soon as his clumsily executed bluff was called out. As the US Department of State put it at the time, the ‘key to easing [the] dispute lies in Djakarta, not Kuala Lumpur’.¹³⁵ In fact, when Kawashima briefed Satō upon his return to Tokyo, the premier unceremoniously summed up the envoy’s accomplishments in his diary as ‘for now successful only in insignificant matters’ (‘mazu wa nanimonai dake ni seika ka’ ‘まづは何もないだけに成功か’).¹³⁶

Kawashima’s mediatory style was the furthest thing from the understated and cautious approach of a professional diplomat. He opted for a bold approach, to the point that Thailand’s Thanat described him as seemingly ‘bulldozing’ the parties into negotiation.¹³⁷ Similarly, the British perceived Kawashima as wanting to ‘play [things] up as hard as he can’ in spite of the calls for caution from the Japanese Embassy in Jakarta.¹³⁸ Kawashima’s urgency of bringing Indonesia and Malaysia together was certainly influenced by the imminent Second Asia-Africa Conference, scheduled for June 1965 in Algiers (to which Kawashima was the designated Japanese delegate).¹³⁹ Knowing that Indonesia could have never boycotted the initiative as one of its leaders, Kawashima insisted on using concrete incentives to nudge Sukarno towards a reconciliation with Malaysia, at least for the sake of appearances at the conference.¹⁴⁰ This took the shape of generous, unconditional aid packages from Japan to Indonesia that became known as ‘Kawashima credit’.¹⁴¹

Kawashima’s ‘bulldozer diplomacy’ was not only inspired by a transactional approach, but was also the product of a high degree of wishful thinking, oblivious to the risks of poor strategic planning and overconfident in the results that personal relationships could bring to the diplomatic table. In the words of a British diplomat: ‘The Japanese attitude to Indonesia is […] “catching at straws”. In their efforts to mediate […] the Japanese seem likely to take most note of the things they want to hear’.¹⁴² The Americans were equally taken aback by the fact that ‘[Kawashima’s] mission [is] being handled according [to] dictates of domestic Japanese political factors and Kawashima[’s] personal ambition rather more than on basis [of] coldly analytical view of dispute and Indo[nesian] intentions’.¹⁴³

Kawashima’s brashness denotes a confidence that jars with the image of Japan as a timid nation committed to a ‘low-profile’ foreign policy after the Second World War. Moreover, the fact that his mission, rather than being devised as a backchannel operation (as often is the case with mediation, including the Thai channel mentioned earlier), was publicised by the government and received extensive (and enthusiastic) media coverage in Japan, points at Tokyo’s willingness to take big risks by relying on ‘one-man diplomacy’. The Asahi Shimbun hailed Kawashima as the man who ‘opened a path’ to the resolution of the conflict and the Tokyo Shimbun praised him a ‘deus ex machina’.¹⁴⁴ On the ground, however, Kawashima’s endeavour came to resemble the description that British diplomats made of the visit of erstwhile envoy Robert Kennedy: ‘a lighting tour of the area that produced infinite self-advertisement for the traveller, and no real agreement on anything’.¹⁴⁵

Ultimately, Japan’s mediation followed a script of ‘mediation for mediation’s sake’, whereby the mediator’s benefits – from Satō’s show of commitment to the United States to Kawashima’s dream of ‘supra-party diplomacy’, passing through the economic stakes of Japanese business in Indonesia safeguarded by the Kawashima Lobby – outweighed the stated goal of conflict resolution.

Conclusion

For all his talk about Japan’s ‘new’ diplomacy, Kawashima’s mediation in Konfrontasi found an unmercifully ironic ending. While his dispatch to Southeast Asia in April 1965 promised to usher in the proactive, independent diplomacy of a ‘reborn Japan’, in practice, Tokyo’s envoy diplomacy gamble proved to be nothing but a novel iteration of that very same rinji gaikō (‘expedient diplomacy’) that politicians like Kawashima had so harshly criticised, amounting to a botched mix of wishful thinking, bad timing and lack of long-term planning. Other factors contributed to undermining the effectiveness of Japan’s mediation in Konfrontasi, such as the silent disapproval of MOFA, the relatively low position of the issue in Satō’s agenda of foreign policy priorities, and even the lack of intraparty discipline within the LDP.¹⁴⁶

While underwhelming in its execution, however, Japan’s attempt at mediation was ambitious in its inception, revealing enduring aspirations of national prestige and influence projection. This article re-examined Japan’s envoy diplomacy in Konfrontasi as a variation on the most frequent of Cold War themes – third-party intervention – by teasing out its three key features. The first was Japan’s unilateral approach to conflict mediation, which was bolstered by a paternalistic claim to regional leadership that assigned Tokyo the exclusive management of Konfrontasi. Secondly, a pragmatic approach aimed at safeguarding Japan’s own geostrategic interests as much as honouring personal loyalties, which translated into MOFA’s non-conformist assessment of Sukarno’s ideological leanings, as much as into an openly partisan stance in favour of Indonesia. Thirdly, the use of an executive tool of diplomatic power projection such as envoy diplomacy, which Kawashima pursued in a brazen, transactional and risk-taking style.

A testament to the importance of individual agency and personality in foreign policy, Kawashima’s endeavour offers an insight into the peculiar modes and methods of diplomacy in the Cold War, as well as into the competing political visions that coexisted in post-war Japan. These were embodied, on the one hand, by Premier Satō’s desire to prove his government’s commitment to the United States’ Cold War architecture in Southeast Asia, and, on the other, by Kawashima’s revindication of Japan’s leadership role in the region. Ultimately, Japan’s botched attempt at mediation in Konfrontasi was a reflection of its ambiguous kakehashi (‘bridge’) identity, torn between latent Great Power aspirations and post-war low-profile expectations – one piece in the country’s soul-searching for its role in Asia during the Cold War.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers of Cold War History for their helpful comments, as well as the three members of the journal’s board, who offered preliminary recommendations. I am also grateful for the generous feedback I received on earlier versions of this paper from the participants of the 2021 edition of the European Summer School on the Global Cold War, in particular Dr Sean Fear and Professor Leopoldo Nuti, as well as from the broader community of the Cold War Research Network (CWRN). Lastly, my appreciation goes to my mentors at Cambridge – my supervisor, Dr John Nilsson-Wright, and advisor, Professsor Barak Kushner – for their helpful feedback and constant encouragement.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work, based on my doctoral research, was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Training Programme (AHRC DTP) under Grant no. AH/L503897, and by the Cambridge Trust under the ‘Cambridge Toshiba Japan and World Graduate Scholarship’. Additionally, archival research in Japan and the US was supported, respectively, by the AHRC DTP under Research Training Support Grant no. AH/L503897/1, and by the AHRC International Placement Scheme at the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress, Washington DC, under grant no. AH/V004387/1.

Notes

¹ Lam Peng Er, ed., Japan’s Relations with Southeast Asia: The Fukuda Doctrine and Beyond (New York: Routledge, 2013). Adopted in 1977, the Fukuda Doctrine became the blueprint for Japan’s relations with Southeast Asia, based on the principles of pacifism, ‘heart-to-heart’ dialogue and equal partnership.

² Hattori Ryūji, Satō Eisaku: Saichō Futō Seiken e no Michi (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun Shuppan, 2017), Chapter 5. Satō in particular often relied on personal agents to advance his foreign policy agenda, such as in the case of the scholar Wakaizumi Kei in the Okinawa reversion negotiations (1967–9).

³ J. A. C. Mackie, Konfrontasi: The Indonesia-Malaysia Dispute 1963–1966 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1974), 150–1. The sovereignty over Northern Borneo was also disputed by the Philippines. In the June 1963 Manila Summit, Malaya, the Philippines and Indonesia had attempted to settle their competing claims in the name of Malay brotherhood, forming the short-lived ‘Maphilindo’ association.

⁴ Taomo Zhou, ‘Ambivalent Alliance: Chinese Policy towards Indonesia, 1960–1965’, The China Quarterly 221 (2015): 208–28. In reality, Beijing’s influence on Sukarno was far more limited than what was claimed by the successive Suharto regime.

⁵ Odd Arne Westad, The Cold War: A World History (New York: Basic Books, 2019), 327; and Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper, Forgotten Wars: Freedom and Revolution in Southeast Asia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010), 534–5.

⁶ David Easter, Britain and the Confrontation with Indonesia, 1960–66 (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2004), 1. The British involvement entailed the deployment of over 54,000 servicemen, making Konfrontasi ‘Britain’s forgotten post 1945 war’. Paul Lashmar, Nicholas Gilby and James Oliver, ‘Slaughter in Indonesia: Britain’s Secret Propaganda War’, The Guardian, 17 October 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/17/slaughter-in-indonesia-britains-secret-propaganda-war (accessed 20 October 2021).

⁷ Audrey R. Kahin and George McT. Kahin, Subversion as Foreign Policy: The Secret Eisenhower and Dulles Debacle in Indonesia (New York: The New Press, 1995); and Ang Cheng Guan, Southeast Asia’s Cold War: An Interpretive History (Honolulu: University of Hawai′i Press, 2018), 119. The October 1964 Political Action Paper by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) aimed at countering communist influence in Indonesia by supporting anti-Sukarno elements and identifying his potential successor.

⁸ Mackie, Konfrontasi, 225.

⁹ Memorandum of Conversation, 12 January 1965. FRUS, 1964–68, Volume XXIX, Part 2, Japan, ed. Karen L. Gatz (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 2006), Doc. 41. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v29p2/d41 (accessed 14 October 2021).

¹⁰ Amb. Shima Shigenobu (London), quoted in MacLehose (FO) to Amb. Rundall, tel. 111, 2 February 1965, FO 371/181495, The National Archives, Kew, Richmond (henceforth TNA).

¹¹ MOFA Asia Bureau, ‘List of representatives attending the ceremony for the 10th anniversary of the Asia-Africa Conference’, A’.7.1.0.12–7–2 (Vol. I), Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Tokyo (henceforth DA-MOFAJ).

¹² Item no. 029, Cabinet Meeting on Personnel no. 173, 8 April 1965, Hei 4 Sō 00533100, National Archives of Japan, Tokyo. Kawashima’s appointment as ‘special envoy’ (tokuha taishi 特派大使) to the 10^th Anniversary of the Asia-Africa Conference was approved by the Cabinet on 8 April 1965.

¹³ For more on this important distinction, see: Kenneth J. Grieb, ‘Ambassadors, Executive Agents and Special Representatives’, in Encyclopaedia of American Foreign Policy, ed. Alexander DeConde, Richard Dean Burns and Fredrik Lodgevall, 2nd ed., vol 1. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2002), 29–48.

¹⁴ Telegram from Bentley to Hanbury-Tenison, IM 1042/95, 23 April 1965, FO 371/181499, TNA.

¹⁵ Hayashi Masaharu, Kawashima Shōjirō (Chiba: Hanazono Tsūshinsha, 1971), 233–4.

¹⁶ Kōsaka Masataka, ‘Satō Eisaku: “Machi no Seiji” no Kyojitsu’, in Sengo Nihon no Saishōtachi, ed. Watanabe Akio (Tokyo: Chūōkōronsha, 1995), 204.

¹⁷ ‘Chōtōha Gaikō ni Michi Hiraku: Kawashima Tokushi, Kansōkai de Aisatsu’, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, 13 April 1965.

¹⁸ Fukunaga Fumio, Sengo Nihon no Saisei: 1945–1964 Nen (Tokyo: Maruzen: 2004).

¹⁹ Thomas R. H. Havens, Fire Across the Sea: the Vietnam War and Japan, 1965–1975 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 32. The anti-Vietnam War group beheiren (Citizens’ Federation for Peace in Vietnam), including prominent Japanese intellectuals, was established in April 1965.

²⁰ For more on Japan’s Konfrontasi policy during the Ikeda administration, see: Oliviero Frattolillo, Reassessing Japan’s Cold War: Ikeda Hayato’s Foreign Politics and Proactivism During the 1960s (London: Routledge, 2019), Chapter 3.

²¹ Japan’s involvement in Konfrontasi has been written off in virtually all main accounts of the conflict, such as Mackie, Konfrontasi; Matthew Jones, Conflict and Confrontation in Southeast Asia, 1961–1965: Britain, the United States, Indonesia and the Creation of Malaysia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); and John Subritzky, Confronting Sukarno: British, American, Australian and New Zealand Diplomacy in the Malaysian-Indonesia Confrontation, 1961–65 (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 2000).

²² It suffices to say that the most comprehensive account of Kawashima’s attempt at mediation was published more than 40 years ago: Nishihara Masashi, The Japanese and Sukarno’s Indonesia: Tokyo-Jakarta Relations, 1951–1966 (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1976). For recent research on Konfrontasi see: Miyagi Taizō, Sengo Ajia Chitsujo no Mosaku to Nihon: ‘Umi no Ajia’ no Sengoshi, 1957–1966 (Tokyo: Sōbunsha, 2004); Sengo Nihon no Ajia Gaikō (Kyoto: Minerva Shobo, 2015); and James Llewelyn, ‘Japan’s Return to International Diplomacy and Southeast Asia: Japanese Mediation in Konfrontasi, 1963–66’, Asian Studies Review 30, no. 4 (2006): 355–74.

²³ Kweku Ampiah, The Political and Moral Imperatives of the Bandung Conference of 1955: The Reactions of the US, UK and Japan (Folkestone, Kent: Global Oriental, 2007), 167–97.

²⁴ ‘Japan finds herself as the point of contact between the East and the West. In a dual sense, Japan stands as a link between East and West, that is, in the sense of standing between the Communist and Free countries, and in the sense of standing between the Orient and the Occident.’ ‘Prime Minister Sato Addresses National Press Club’, Japan Report 11, no. 1 (20 January 1965): 3–5.

²⁵ Soeya Yoshihide, Sengo Nihon Gaikōshi (Tokyo: Keio Gijuku Daigaku Shuppankai, 2019), 119.

²⁶ Irie Toshihiro, ‘Ikeda – Satō Seikenki no “Kokusaiteki Heiwa Iji Katsudō” Sanka Mondai: Kongō Hanran – Marēsha Funsō to Jieitai Haken no Kentō’, Gunji Shigaku 42, nos 3–4 (2007): 111–29.

²⁷ James Llewelyn, ‘Diplomatic Divergence: The Japanese and British Responses to Indonesia’s Confrontation of Malaysia 1963–66’, Asia Europe Journal 4, no. 4 (2006): 601 and 587; and James Llewelyn, ‘Japan’s Return to International Diplomacy and Southeast Asia’, 360.

²⁸ Saadia Touval, ‘Mediation and Foreign Policy’, International Studies Review 5, no. 4 (2003): 91–5; and Saadia Touval and I. William Zartman eds., International Mediation in Theory and Practice (Boulder: Westview Press, 1985).

²⁹ Tobias S. Harris, The Iconoclast: Shinzō Abe and the New Japan (London: C. Hurst & Company, 2020), 27.

³⁰ Llewelyn, ‘Japan’s Cold War Diplomacy and its Return to Southeast Asia’, Asia-Pacific Review 21, no. 2 (2014): 90.

³¹ Nishihara, The Japanese and Sukarno’s Indonesia, 106–7.

³² Reto Hofmann, ‘The Conservative Imaginary: Moral Re-armament and the Internationalism of the Japanese Right, 1945–1962’, Japan Forum 33, no. 1 (2021): 95.

³³ In April 1965, Kawashima led a 10-people delegation made up of members from across the political spectrum, including a Deputy Special Envoy (Ōno Katsumi, a retired diplomat), four members of the House of Representatives, and five officers from MOFA, with the addition of 12 journalists. MOFA Asia Bureau, ‘List of representatives attending the ceremony for the 10th anniversary of the Asia-Africa Conference’, A’.7.1.0.12–7–2 (Vol. I), DA-MOFAJ.

³⁴ ‘Kono Hito to Ichijikan. A. A. Kaigi ni Nozomu Nihon no Shimei’, Ekonomisuto 43, no. 28 (June 1965): 51.

³⁵ Hattori, Satō Eisaku: Saichō Futō Seiken e no Michi, 191.

³⁶ ‘Prime Minister Sato Addresses National Press Club’, Japan Report 11, no. 1 (20 January 1965): 3–5.

³⁷ S[atō] – OP[eration], ‘Mareishia Funsō wo Meguru Nihon no Yakuwari ni tsuite no Teian’, 23 January 1965, in Kusuda Minoru Papers, Part I Section E, Japan Digital Archives Center Database. http://j-dac.jp/KUSUDA/kaidai_index.html (accessed 16 November 2021).

³⁸ Telegram from FO to Tokyo, no. 889, 31 August 1965, FO 262/2136, TNA.

³⁹ Andrea Pressello, ‘The Fukuda Doctrine and Japan’s Role in Shaping Post-Vietnam War Southeast Asia’, Japanese Studies 34, no. 1 (2014): 43.

⁴⁰ Background note to Brief for Lord Carington’s Interview with the Japanese Ambassador, attached to Peck to Stratton, DH 1391/2, 13 January 1964, FO 371/176005, TNA.

⁴¹ Ōhira Masayoshi, ‘Diplomacy for Peace: The Aims of Japanese Foreign Policy’, International Affairs 40, no. 1 (1964): 395.

⁴² ‘Text of Foreign Minister’s Policy Speech’, The Japan Times, January 22, 1964, clipping attached to Cortazzi to Bentley (FO), 1013/1/64, 24 January 1964, FO 371/176005, TNA.

⁴³ Kōsuke Yoshitsugu, Ikeda Seikenki no Nihon Gaikō to Reisen: Sengo Nihon Gaikō no Zahyōjiku, 1960–1964 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2009), 197.

⁴⁴ Amb. Shima (London) to MOFA, tel. 642, 10 May 1965, A’7.1.0.12, DA-MOFAJ.

⁴⁵ Kenn Nakata Steffensen, ‘Post-Cold War Changes in Japanese International Identity: Implications for Japan’s Influence in Asia’, in Japanese Influences and Presences in Asia, ed. Marie Söderberg and Ian Reader (Richmond: Curzon, 2000): 150.

⁴⁶ Kawashima’s Press Conference in Jakarta on 19 April 1965, quoted in Rodgers (Jakarta) to FO, tel. 822, 20 April 1965, FO 371/181500, TNA.

⁴⁷ Instructions from the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to Attorney General Kennedy, 14 January 1964. FRUS, 1964–68, Volume XXVI, Indonesia; Malaysia-Singapore; Philippines, ed. Edward Keefer (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 2000), Doc. 166. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v26/d16 (accessed 19 October 2021). Kennedy’s mission was ‘to convince Sukarno of the inevitable consequences of the policy of military confrontation’ against Malaysia.

⁴⁸ Quadripartite Meeting on Indonesia and Malaysia, Working Group Meeting, 17 October 1963, Department of State. Library of Congress, W. Averell Harriman Papers, Box 497 Folder 3. The United States’ support for Thai mediation dated back to the early stages of Konfrontasi, as Thanat was encouraged to ‘strive to achieve whatever measures might alleviate the current impasse’.

⁴⁹ US Embassy Jakarta to US Department of State, Telegram no. 1593, 31 January 1964, file POL 32–1 INDON-MALAYSIA, 1964–66 Central Foreign Policy Files, RG 59, Box 2321, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD (henceforth NARA).

⁵⁰ FO to Tokyo, tel. 213, 26 February 1965, FO 371/181496, TNA.

⁵¹ Nick Kapur, Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018), 71.

⁵² Department of State to US Embassy Kuala Lumpur, Telegram no. 711, 25 February 1965, file POL 32–1 INDON-MALAYSIA, 1964–66 Subject-Numeric Files (henceforth SNF), RG 59, Box 2324, NARA.

⁵³ US Embassy Bangkok (Martin) to Department of State, Telegram no. 1388, 19 March 1965, file POL 32–1 INDON-MALAYSIA, 1964–66 SNF, RG 59, Box 2325, NARA.

⁵⁴ Quoted in telegram from Rumbold (Bangkok) to FO, no. 236, 12 March 1965, FO 371/181,498, TNA.

⁵⁵ US Embassy Tokyo (Reischauer) to Department of State, Telegram no. 3072, 30 March 1965, file POL 32–1 INDON-MALAYSIA, 1964–66 SNF, RG 59, Box 2325, NARA.

⁵⁶ US Embassy Jakarta (Jones) to Department of State, Telegram no. 2299, 22 April 1965, file POL 32–1 INDON-MALAYSIA, 1964–66 SNF, RG 59, Box 2325, NARA.

⁵⁷ Amb. Kasuya (Bangkok) to MOFA, tel. 182, 2 March 1965, A’.7.1.0.12–4 (Vol. I), DA-MOFAJ.

⁵⁸ Amb. Shimazu (Bangkok) to MOFA, no. 198, 31 October 1964, A’.7.1.0.12–4 (Vol. I), DA-MOFAJ.

⁵⁹ ‘Joint Communique issued by Thai foreign minister Thanat Khoman, Philippines foreign secretary Salvador P. Lopez and Indonesian foreign minister Subandrio on 18th November 1963’, in A’.7.1.0.12–4 (Vol. I), DA-MOFAJ.

⁶⁰ Amb. Furuuchi (Jakarta) to MOFA, tel. 135, 21 February 1964, A’.7.1.0.12–4 (Vol. II), DA-MOFAJ.

⁶¹ Amb. Furuuchi (Jakarta) to MOFA, tel. 116, 15 February 1964, A’.7.1.0.12–5 (Vol. II), DA-MOFAJ.

⁶² US Embassy Bangkok (Martin) to Department of State, Telegram no. 1388, 19 March 1965, file POL 32–1 INDON-MALAYSIA, 1964–66 SNF, RG 59, Box 2325, NARA.

⁶³ Government of Malaysia, ‘Record of Conversation No. 25/65 between The Honorable the Prime Minister and Mr. Shojiro Kawashima, Special Envoy of the Prime Minister of Japan’, attached to Chargé d’Affaires ad interim Hayashi (Kuala Lumpur) to MOFA, tel. 353, 13 May 1965, A’.7.1.0.12–7–2 (Vol. II), DA-MOFAJ.

⁶⁴ US Embassy Bangkok to Department of State, Telegram no. 1638, 25 April 1965, file POL 32–1 INDON-MALAYSIA, 1964–66 SNF, RG 59, Box 2325, NARA.

⁶⁵ Saadia Touval, The Peace Brokers: Mediators in the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1948–1979 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 8.

⁶⁶ Amb. Furuuchi (Jakarta) to MOFA, tel. 42, 22 January 1964, A’7.1.0.12, DA-MOFAJ.

⁶⁷ Amb. Rundall to FO, tel. 116, 17 February 1965, FO 371/181496, TNA.

⁶⁸ As identified by Van Jackson, ‘Understanding Spheres of Influence in International Politics’, European Journal of International Security 10 (2019): 1–19.

⁶⁹ Miyagi Taizō, Japan’s Quest for Stability in Southeast Asia: Navigating the Turning Points in Post-War Asia (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017), 39. Kishi’s tour of Southeast Asia in May 1957, albeit largely successful, was met by violent anti-Japanese protests. Ōba Mie, Ajia Taiheiyō Chiiki Keisei e no Dōtei: Kyōkai Kokka Nichigō no Aidentiti Mosaku to Chiiki Shugi (Tokyo: Minerva Shobō, 2004), 25. Ōba argues that control or influence over a ‘region’ is a constant feature of Japan’s security and foreign policy due to the country’s position in the world as a ‘liminal nation’ (kyōkai kokka).

⁷⁰ Clipping from the Malayan Times, included in Amb. Kai (Kuala Lumpur) to MOFA, tel. 247, 22 April 1965, A’.7.1.0.12–7–2 (Vol. II), DA-MOFAJ.

⁷¹ Marvin C. Ott, ‘Mediation as a Method of Conflict Resolution: Two Cases’, International Organization 2, no. 4 (1972): 597.

⁷² Touval, ‘Mediation and Foreign Policy’, 91–5.

⁷³ Amb. Rundall to FO, tel. 65, 29 January 1965, FO 371/181495, TNA.

⁷⁴ Telegram from Rundall to FO, no. 298, 27 April 1965, FO 371/181499, TNA.

⁷⁵ Clipping from The Japan Times, ‘Politics in Review’, 19 February 1965, attached to Amb. Kai (Kuala Lumpur) to head of MOFA Asia Bureau, 15 March 1965, A’7.1.0.12, DA-MOFAJ.

⁷⁶ Amb. Rundall to FO, tel. 302, 29 April 1965, FO 371/181500, TNA.

⁷⁷ Kawashima’s political career had been entirely focused on the domestic, with very few appointments in the realm of foreign policy. It was only in his last years as LDP vice-president that he assumed more representational roles abroad, often as a ‘reward’ for a distinguished career, travelling widely as a government representative (to India and Burma in September 1965; the Middle East in February 1966; the Soviet Union in May 1967; and South America in August 1968). In none of these instances, however, did he pursue a proactive personal initiative as he did in Konfrontasi.

⁷⁸ Obata Shin’ichi, Seikai Issunsaki wa Yami: Aru Kawashima Tantō Kisha no Shuki (Tokyo: Kihosha, 1972), 44. Kawashima’s slogan (a shorthand for seiji supōtsu bunri) parroted the famous policy of seikei bunri (‘separation of politics and economics’) that guided Sino-Japanese relations in the post-war period.

⁷⁹ Tri Joko Waluyo, ‘Peranan Jepang dalam Konfrontasi Indonesia-Malaysia, 1963–1966’ (Master’s dissertation, University of Riau, 1996), 37.

⁸⁰ Chow Chi Mo, Sukaruno Daitōryō no Tokushi: Sū Shibo Kaisōroku, ed. Masuda Atō (Tokyo: Chūōkoronsha, 1981). Chow, an ethnic Hakka Chinese Indonesian, had collaborated with the Japanese occupation forces in Xiamen, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Jakarta, later joining the Indonesian nationalist movement. After the war he established a textile trading business between Indonesia and Japan, becoming exceptionally well connected to political and business circles in both countries. In 1957, he liaised in the settlement of the war reparations package between Sukarno and Kishi ahead of the latter’s official visit to Jakarta.

⁸¹ Ibid., 206.

⁸² Kōsaka, ‘Satō Eisaku: “Machi no Seiji” no Kyojitsu’, 204.

⁸³ Chow, Sukaruno Daitōryō no Tokushi, 199.

⁸⁴ Ibid., 217.

⁸⁵ Satō Eisaku, Satō Eisaku Nikki, vol. 2 (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun, 1998), 263 (diary entry, 14 April 1965); MOFA Asia Bureau, Southeast Asia Division ‘Wagakuni no Tai Indoneshia Seisaku no Arikata’, 27 January 1966, A’7.1.0.12, DA-MOFAJ.

⁸⁶ Gotō Ken’ichi, Tensions of Empire: Japan and Southeast Asia in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, ed. Paul H. Kratoska (Athens: Ohio University Press; Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2003), 57; and Miyagi, Japan’s Quest for Stability in Southeast Asia, 40.

⁸⁷ MOFA Asia Bureau, Southeast Asia Division, ‘Wagakuni no Tai Indoneshia Seisaku’, 23 February 1965, A’7.1.0.12, Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Tokyo (henceforth DA-MOFAJ).

⁸⁸ Llewelyn, ‘Japan’s Return to International Diplomacy and Southeast Asia’, 356.

⁸⁹ Amb. Rundall to Peck (FO), 10321/85/65, 26 February 1965, FO 371/181496, TNA.

⁹⁰ Kahin and Kahin, Subversion as Foreign Policy, 221. Malayan premier Abdul Rahman, backed by the British government, had announced the creation of a new Malaysian State before a UN mission completed its popular consultations in Sabah and Sarawak.

⁹¹ Amb. Furuuchi (Jakarta) to MOFA, tel. 78, 1 February 1964, A’.7.1.0.12–5 (Vol. II), DA-MOFAJ.

⁹² FO to Tokyo, tel. 489, 30 April 1965, FO 371/181500, TNA.

⁹³ US Embassy Tokyo to US Department of State, Telegram no. 3543, 3 May 1965, file POL 32–1 INDON-MALAYSIA, 1964–66 SNF, RG 59, Box 2325, NARA.

⁹⁴ Touval, The Peace Brokers, 325–6.

⁹⁵ Peck to Caccia, 28 January 1964, DH 103145/10, FO 371/176005, TNA.

⁹⁶ Gilchrist to FO, tel. 407, 19 February 1965, FO 371/181496, TNA. Gilchrist quipped: ‘the same man, not a friend of either, ought to visit both places [Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur]’.

⁹⁷ As recounted by the Japanese ambassador to Malaysia, who accompanied Abdul Rahman on his trip, in Kai Fumihiko, Kokkyō wo Koeta Yūjō: Waga Gaikō Hiwa (Tokyo: Tokyo Shimbun Shuppankyoku, 1990), 60.

⁹⁸ Gilchrist to Peck, 1046/65, 13 January 1965, FO 371/181495, TNA; ‘A Commentary on the Memorandum “The Malaysia Question and Indonesia” Prepared by the Asian Affairs Bureau of the Japanese Foreign Ministry’, attached to Peck to Cheke (FO), 13 January 1964, FO 371/176005, TNA.

⁹⁹ Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Ōda, Report on the Mission to Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur, 20 November 1963, A’7.1.0.12, DA-MOFAJ.

¹⁰⁰ Memorandum of Conversation, 12 January 1965. FRUS, 1964–68, Vol. XXIX, Part 2, Japan, Doc. 41.

¹⁰¹ US Department of State, Quadripartite Talks on Indonesia and Malaysia, Summary of First Meeting, 16 October 1963. Library of Congress, W. Averell Harriman Papers, Box 497 Folder 3.

¹⁰² US Embassy Jakarta to US Department of State, Telegram no. 1908, 14 March 1964, file POL INDON-US, 1964–66 SNF, RG 59, Box 2327, NARA. One unnamed Western ambassador described Jones as the ‘most loyal member of Sukarno cabinet’ in an article published in March 1964 on Djakarta UPI.

¹⁰³ US Department of State, National Intelligence Memorandum: Prospects for Indonesia and Malaysia, 1 July 1965. FRUS, 1964–68, Vol. XXVI, Indonesia; Malaysia-Singapore; Philippines, ed. Edward Keefer (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 2000), Doc. 126. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v26/d126 (accessed 14 October 2021).

¹⁰⁴ Department of State to US Embassy Tokyo, Telegram no. 2122, 23 February 1965, file POL 32–1 INDON-MALAYSIA, 1964–66 SNF, RG 59, Box 2324, NARA.

¹⁰⁵ Ibid.

¹⁰⁶ US Embassy Bangkok to Department of State, Telegram no. 1013, 1 February 1965, file POL 32–1 INDON-MALAYSIA, 1964–66 SNF, RG 59, Box 2324, NARA. As relayed by Thanat, ‘Subandrio had felt Japan too big a country for intermediary role and might have ideas of exacting some price in return for its services’. US Embassy Lusaka to Department of State, Airgram no. A-569, 29 January 1965, file POL 32–1 INDON-MALAYSIA, 1964–66 SNF, RG 59, Box 2324, NARA. US Embassy Kuala Lumpur to Department of State, Airgram no. A-693, 16 March 1965, file POL 32–1 INDON-MALAYSIA, 1964–66 SNF, RG 59, Box 2325, NARA. In March 1965, President Kwame Nkrumah offered Ghana’s good offices to mediate in the dispute.

¹⁰⁷ US Embassy Jakarta to Department of State, Telegram no. 1639, 22 February 1965, file POL 32–1 INDON-MALAYSIA, 1964–66 SNF, RG 59, Box 2324, NARA.

¹⁰⁸ Department of State to US Embassy Tokyo, Telegram no. 2122, 23 February 1965, file POL 32–1 INDON-MALAYSIA, 1964–66 SNF, RG 59, Box 2324, NARA.

¹⁰⁹ Quoted in correspondence from Amb. Rundall to Peck (FO), 7 February 1964, FO 371/176005, TNA.

¹¹⁰ US Embassy Jakarta to Department of State, Telegram no. 1418, 20 January 1965, file POL 32–1 INDON-MALAYSIA, 1964–66 SNF, RG 59, Box 2324, NARA.

¹¹¹ Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘The Malaysia Question and Indonesia’, translation of document received on 28 December 1963, attached to Cheke to Peck, 1059/2/64, 3 January 1964, FO 371/176005, TNA.

¹¹² Ibid.

¹¹³ Sukarno’s sincere commitment to communism has been widely disproven, and interpreted rather as a tool of populism (Julia Lovell, Maoism: A Global History [London: The Bodley Head, 2019], 170–1), informed by a syncretic ‘colonial hybridity’ (James R. Rush, ‘Sukarno: Anticipating an Asian Century’, in Makers of Modern Asia, ed. Ramachandra Guha, 172–98 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014), 180).

¹¹⁴ MOFA Asia Bureau, Southeast Asia Division, Report on ‘Sukarno-Rahman Meeting’, 5 June 1963, A’.7.1.0.12–5 (Vol. I), DA-MOFAJ.

¹¹⁵ Gotō, Tensions of Empire, 84.

¹¹⁶ Amb. Furuuchi (Jakarta) to MOFA, tel. 135, 21 February 1964, A’.7.1.0.12–4 (Vol. II), DA-MOFAJ.

¹¹⁷ Government of Malaysia, ‘Record of Conversation No. 25/65 between The Honorable the Prime Minister and Mr. Shojiro Kawashima, Special Envoy of the Prime Minister of Japan’, attached to Hayashi (Kuala Lumpur) to MOFA, tel. 353, 13 May 1965, A’.7.1.0.12–7–2 (Vol. II), DA-MOFAJ.

¹¹⁸ Nineteenth-century US history offers several examples of the intertwined nature of envoy diplomacy and imperial expansion, with envoys being regularly dispatched to territories that the United States would either incorporate (e.g. Native American territories, Hawai′i) or meddle in during civil conflicts (e.g. Mexico and Santo Domingo). See for instance: Kenneth J. Grieb, ‘The Lind Mission to Mexico’, Caribbean Studies 7, no. 4 (1968): 25–43.

¹¹⁹ Soeya Yoshihide, Nihon no Gaikō: ‘Sengo’ wo Yomitoku (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 2017), 20.

¹²⁰ Prior to Kawashima, Satō dispatched another lawmaker, Ogasa Kōshō, to Jakarta in January 1965. However, Ogasa (also from the Kawashima faction) visited Indonesia as a representative of the LDP, not of the Japanese government, and was only on a ‘fact-finding’ mission. Telegram from Amb. Shima (London) to MOFA, no. 182, 2 February 1965, A’.7.1.0.12–7–2 (Vol. I), DA-MOFAJ.

¹²¹ US Embassy Jakarta to US Department of State, Telegram no. 2307, 24 April 1965, file POL 2 INDON, 1964–66 Central Foreign Policy Files, RG 59, Box 2308, NARA.

¹²² Benjamin R. Young, Guns, Guerrillas, and the Great Leader: North Korea and the Third World (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2021), 19–26. Indonesia and North Korea had successfully pursued close economic and diplomatic relations since the 1950s, with Pyongyang backing Konfrontasi.

¹²³ US Embassy Jakarta to Department of State, Telegram no. 1498, 1 February 1965, file POL 32–1 INDON-MALAYSIA, 1964–66 SNF, RG 59, Box 2324, USNA.

¹²⁴ Miura Ryōichi, ‘Marēshia Funsō Chōtei: AA Kaigi Shikiten e no Hōfu. Kawashima Tokuha Taishi ni Kiku’, Mainichi Shimbun (Morning Edition), 11 April 1965.

¹²⁵ Foreign Minister Shiina to Special Envoy Kawashima via Amb. Saitō (Jakarta), tel. 372, 19 April 1965, A’.7.1.0.12–7–2 (Vol. II), DA-MOFAJ.

¹²⁶ Special Envoy Kawashima’s Report on meeting with President Sukarno, attached to Foreign Minister Shiina to ambassadors in the United States, United Kingdom and the Philippines, tel. 1033, 24 April 1965, A’.7.1.0.12–7–2 (Vol. II), DA-MOFAJ.

¹²⁷ Excerpt of Letter from Tunku Abdul Rahman to Prime Minister Satō handed over to Kawashima, attached to Lord Head to CRO, tel. 716, 22 April 1965, FO 371/181499, TNA.

¹²⁸ Llewelyn’s interpretation of some archival documents makes him argue that Kawashima’s use of the word ‘assurance’ was a strategy deliberately devised by him with the backing of ambassadors Kai (in Kuala Lumpur) and Saitō (in Jakarta) – a bluff meant to trick Sukarno into accepting to meet Abdul Rahman in Tokyo. Llewelyn, ‘Japan’s Return to International Diplomacy and Southeast Asia’, 367. However, considering the reaction of Japanese diplomats, who were left scrambling to contain the diplomatic fallout, as well as Kawashima’s idiosyncratic impulsiveness and diplomatic inexperience, it remains unclear to what extent the envoy’s words faithfully reflected any previous consultation.

¹²⁹ MOFA Asia Bureau, Summary of First Meeting of Vice Foreign Ministers of 18 June, 19 June 1964, A’.7.1.0.12-5 (Vol. II), DA-MOFAJ.

¹³⁰ Amb. Rundall to FO, tel. 306, 30 April 1965, FO 371/181499, TNA. Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Ōda Takio told Rundall that Kawashima had overdressed any commitment given him by Sukarno. Amb. Kasuya (Bangkok) to MOFA, no. 353, 22 April 1965, A’.7.1.0.12–7–2 (Vol. II), DA-MOFAJ.

¹³¹ Telegram from FO to Kuala Lumpur, tel. 1311, 30 April 1965, FO 371/181499, TNA.

¹³² Bentley (Kuala Lumpur) to Hanbury-Tenison (FO), IM 1042/95, 23 April 1965, FO 371/181499, TNA.

¹³³ Touval, The Peace Brokers, 13.

¹³⁴ Llewelyn, ‘Japan’s Return to International Diplomacy and Southeast Asia’, 367.

¹³⁵ Department of State to US Embassy Tokyo, Telegram no. 2122, 23 February 1965, file POL 32–1 INDON-MALAYSIA, 1964–66 SNF, RG 59, Box 2324, NARA.

¹³⁶ Satō, Satō Eisaku Nikki, Vol. 2, 267 (diary entry, 26 April 1965).

¹³⁷ Quoted in Loomes (Bangkok) to Office of the High Commissioner for Australia in London, tel. 346, 27 April 1965, FO 371/181499, TNA.

¹³⁸ Written note by FO (dated 22 April 1965), in Rodgers (Jakarta) to FO, DH/KL 1214, 20 April 1965, FO 371/181499, TNA.

¹³⁹ The conference was eventually postponed due to the June 1965 military coup in Algeria.

¹⁴⁰ US Embassy Jakarta (Jones) to Department of State, Telegram no. 2348, 28 April 1965, file POL 32–1 INDON-MALAYSIA, 1964–66 SNF, RG 59, Box 2325, NARA.

¹⁴¹ Nishihara, The Japanese and Sukarno’s Indonesia, 144.

¹⁴² Cheke (Tokyo) to FO, (1059/18/65)G, 29 January 1965, FO 371/181495, TNA.

¹⁴³ US Embassy Jakarta (Jones) to Department of State, Telegram no. 2348, 28 April 1965, file POL 32–1 INDON-MALAYSIA, 1964–66 SNF, RG 59, Box 2325, NARA.

¹⁴⁴ Clipping from Asahi Shimbun, ‘Seifu no Degata Hitotsu’, 26 April 1965, included in A’.7.1.0.12–7–2 (Vol. II), DA-MOFAJ; clipping from Tokyo Shimbun, ‘Junchō na Suberidashi. Nihon wa, “Toki no Ujigami”’, 17 April 1965, included in A’.7.1.0.12–7–2 (Vol. II), DA-MOFAJ.

¹⁴⁵ Comment by Cable, in Amb. Rundall to Peck, 7 February 1964, FO 371/176005, TNA.

¹⁴⁶ Telegram from Gilchrist to FO, no. 980, 8 May 1965, FO 371/181500, TNA. In defiance to calls for a united diplomatic front, a parliamentary delegation led by Utsunomiya Tokuma, an unruly pro-Beijing LDP lawmaker, visited Indonesia during Kawashima’s mission in April 1965, causing ‘much embarrassment’ to the Japanese diplomats in Jakarta.