Nagasaki Flag Incident
The Nagasaki flag incident ( Japanese 長崎 国旗 事件 , Nagasaki kokki jiken , Chinese 長崎 國旗 事件 / 长崎 国旗 事件 , Pinyin Chángqí guóqí shìjiàn ) is an event on May 2, 1958 , in which a Japanese ultra-nationalist group ( Uyoku ) the Flag of the People's Republic of China stolen from a trade fair in Nagasaki, straining Sino-Japanese relations in the early stages of normalization.
This incident took place against the background of normalization negotiations between Japan and the People's Republic of China . The Chinese negotiator in the then foreign relations office Liao Chengzhi had received Ikeda Masanosuke in Beijing in February 1958 to discuss trade and the flagging of the People's Republic. The Chinese side took a very tough stance in these negotiations. Mao Zedong's great leap forward had just begun, the promise of quick economic success and the rejection of the need for international cooperation. The Japanese government only ratified the outcome of the negotiations under certain conditions in order to avoid de facto recognition of the People's Republic. After World War II, Japan established diplomatic relations with the Republic of China in Taiwan and signed a peace treaty in 1952. The Chinese side was outraged, which in Japan was considered disproportionate.
The flag incident had significant diplomatic ramifications, as the political leadership of the People's Republic blamed the Japanese government for failing to ensure adequate security. The perpetrator was convicted of property damage and not, as Beijing requested, of desecrating the national symbols of another state . Beijing used the incident as an excuse not to implement the trade agreement - it was the fourth such non-state agreement - to unilaterally terminate all other trade agreements and to cancel further talks.
Against the background of the changing international situation - the Soviet head of state Nikita Sergejewitsch Khrushchev had visited US President Eisenhower to defuse the tensions between the superpowers, the Sino-Soviet rift was looming and relations with China's southern neighbors deteriorated both sides resumed talks the following year. The talks led to the Liao Takasaki Memorandum in 1962.
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c Kurt Werner Radtke: China's relations with Japan: 1945-83; the role of Liao Chengzhi . Manchester University Press, Manchester 1990, ISBN 0-7190-2795-0 , pp. 123-125 .