People's Diplomacy: The Japan-China Friendship Association and Critical War Memory in the 1950s

This article examines the place of Sino-Japanese relations in Japan's domestic struggles over war memory in the early 1950s, when the door to an official reconciliation with China had just closed following the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty. It focuses on the Japan-China Friendship Association as a lens through which to understand the role of civic organization in carving out a public space for memories of Japanese wartime aggression as part of special interest politics.