User talk:Ganmpt2000/Takeo Imai

Introduction
Takeo Imai (23 February 1898 - 12 June 1982) was a Japanese Major General who was born in the Nagano Prefecture and played a notable role during the Sino-Japanese war and the Japanese invasion of the Philippines during World War II. He served as a Vice-Chief of the General Staff of the China Expeditionary Army, as well as worked for the Japanese embassy in Beiping following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. Taking on important military roles in China and the Philippines, he was a significant actor throughout Japan’s invasion of China and held an important role in negotiating and maintaining peace between the two countries. He was particularly influential in his responsibility of postwar processing and allowing for smooth demobilisation transitions.(cite 2)

Education and Family
Takeo was the fourth and youngest son in the family, with five other siblings.

He attended Jinjou Elementary School, Nagano Junior High School in 1915 and the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in 1918 and graduated from Army War College in 1928. He first worked as an infantry soldier in Toyoma before joining the infantry regiment in Hoeryong, Korea.(cite 3)

Takeo Imai’s eldest son Hiroshi died of white blood disease at 6 and his second son Nobuo passed away due to subarachnoid haemorrhage at 17. His second daughter Takako died on June 12th 1982. He had three sons and two daughters.(cite 4)

Military Career
Takeo was a military official of a respected rank who was best known for taking a peaceful and mediating stance in Japan and China’s conflictual relations in the late 1930s into the mid-1940s. He kept influential posts, from belonging to the Toyoma Infantry 69th Regiment as the position of Army Captain and Japan's invasion of China until its signing of the Surrender Instrument in August 1945.(cite 5)

Takeo’s primary military involvements were peace-keeping in the Sino-Japanese war, although he spent a year fighting in the Philippines for the start of the Pacific War.

In December of 1935, Takeo was based at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, and his first major undertaking was the Marco Polo Incident.

China
On 7th July 1937, Takeo was a major player in the Marco Polo Incident near Beijing. This war represented the National Revolutionary Army of China and the Imperial Army of Japan. As a non-expansionist, his goal was to negotiate with Chinese leaders. He established a short-lived ceasefire, which was a recurring event throughout these Chinese and Japanese negotiations until Japanese Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe’s Cabinet decided to send troops into mainland China a few days later. At this point, the ceasefire was broken and the Second Sino-Japanese War began.

During this time, Imai was assigned intelligence expert for Japan’s military. He would gather information regarding China’s efforts and plans well after the Marco Polo Incident.

From late 1937 and into 1939, wherein he was promoted to Colonel, he would meet with Chinese ambassadors to negotiate peace relations.(cite 6)

On November 3rd, 1938, Japanese officials, among whom Takeo Imai was a part, were chosen to engage in talks with officials in China with regards to Japan’s invasion of China.(cite 7) These officials would not represent Japan in these talks but identified solely under their own name to protect Japan's intentions and stature. By this time, Japan was in control of Hong Kong, Shanghai and multiple other powerful cities and harbours. Due to this, China hoped that Japan was coming to the end of their invasions, but six negotiations between the two states followed without an overall consensus.

In early March 1940, after a string of both official and unofficial negotiations between Chinese and Japanese officials, Takeo laid out Chinese demands in Hong Kong. He made five conditions for peace-enablement, which are as follows:


 * China ceases anti-Japanese policies and initiatives
 * Acknowledgement of Manchuria state
 * Make conclusive agreements with defence policies between Sino-Japanese relations
 * Permitted Japanese base and presence in China
 * Mongolia becomes a region of special administration.

The Philippines
In August 1942, Takeo took his troops to invade the Philippines, remaining there until August 31st, 1943. This was part of a plan to reinforce Japan’s movements headed to Southeast Asia to gain control of the oil and natural resources available in the island country. Takeo’s actions are remembered for a particular incident in the Philippines, during the Bataan Death March in which he was ordered to shoot 1000 US and Hito prisoners of war who had surrendered on the Bataan Peninsula. He refused to undertake this order demanded by Chief of Staff Masanobu Tsuji, stating that his father had failed to reject the assignment in the duel with Tsuji. Takeo, on the other hand, would disregard his commander’s orders due to its violations with the. An advocate for peace, his endeavours as a soldier were drawn here and he would not kill any of these prisoners of war.(cite 8)

The Japanese were seeing increasing losses in their battles by 1944, spurring Takeo to visit Nanking, China, to try to reach a conclusive agreement with the Chinese government. However, with severe losses in the Japanese infantry, Japan’s power within Asia no longer had credence and therefore China was gaining increased authority in this relation.

On the 15th of August 1945, Japan surrendered to the United States.(cite 9) Representing Japan, Takeo travelled to Hunan province to officially surrender.

Retirement and Death
In August 1945 (Showa 20), after the Japanese government accepted the Potsdam Declaration of the Allied Forces, under the direction of the commander of the China Expeditionary Army, Yasuji Okamura, Hunan was designated by the Chinese side for preliminary negotiations at the end of the war on August 21. He went to the land of Shikou in the province and negotiated a stoppage of the China Expeditionary Army with the commanders of the Chinese army, He Yingqin. Immediately after the reception ceremony of the China Expeditionary Army held in Nanjing on September 9, Imai, who was clearly stated by He Yingqin that "Imai is not a war criminal," remained in Nanjing for about a year and a half, and became the head of the general liaison team in Japan. Major General Imai is one of the representatives of the Army, “Chian Kei-Shek”, and is known for Wang Jingwei and direct peace work with the Chongqing National Government. He was engaged in the reinstatement of military generals and the support activities of those who were designated as war criminals by the Chinese side, and cleaned up after the Sino-Japanese War.(cite 10)

Taeko Imai remained in Nanjing for a period of time after the end of the War. His position at the time was as Vice-Chief of the China Expeditionary Army; working in external affairs and postwar processing as a representative of Japan. He was demobilised in January of 1947, when he returned to Japan and remained there until his death in June 1982 (84 years old).(cite 11)  It is worth mentioning that Takeo’s memoir was an important record of the secret, unofficial negotiations between China and Japan as no official records of those negotiations were kept.(cite 12)