Tanaka Memorial

The Tanaka Memorial is an alleged Japanese war planning document from 1927, now generally regarded as a forgery, in which Prime Minister Tanaka laid out for the Japanese Emperor the strategy to take over the world. Among important political forgeries it may be ranked somewhere between the Zinoviev letter and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Its strategy may be summarized by the lines (which do not appear literally in the document):

Related Topics:
1927 - Forgery - Tanaka - Emperor - Take over the world - Zinoviev letter - The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

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In order to take over the world, you need to take over China;

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In order to take over China, you need to take over Manchuria (North-eastern China) and Mongolia.

Related Topics:
Manchuria - Mongolia

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It was used by United States wartime propaganda as "Japan's Mein Kampf." The Battle of China, one of Frank Capra's movie series Why We Fight (given the Academy Award as a documentary), uses the Tanaka Memorial as justification for war between the United States and Japan.

Related Topics:
United States - Propaganda - Mein Kampf - The Battle of China - Frank Capra - Why We Fight - Documentary

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As presented in Battle of China, the six sequential steps to achieve Japan's goal of conquests are

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• Conquest of Manchuria (North-eastern China)
• Conquest of rest parts of China
• Conquest of Russian Soviet Far East
• Conquest of Southeast Asian lands
• Establishment of bases in the Pacific
• Conquest of the United States of America

When the Allies searched for documents following the war, they did not find the Tanaka Memorial among them. Now among academic historians, the Memorial is regarded as a forgery, because it has many factual errors, some of which involve the career of Tanaka himself. As the document was initially published by the China Critic, a Nationalist publication at Shanghai, the forgery is generally attributed to a Chinese source.

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There is also some evidence pointing to a forgery by the Soviet Union to encourage war between China and Japan, to advance Soviet interests. Some internal evidence, however, for example a reference to conspiring with Russia against Japan, does argue against its being Soviet propaganda.

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Tanaka Memorial: Further reading ►