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):

In order to take over the world, you need to take over China;
In order to take over China, you need to take over Manchuria and Mongolia.

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.

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

• Conquest of Manchuria
• Conquest of Soviet Far East
• Conquest of China
• Attack on Indochina
• Attack on the United States of America
• Conquest other areas in Mainland Asia

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. There is also some evidence pointing to a forgery by Soviet Union to encourage war between China and Japan, to advance Soviet interests; however, some internal evidence (e.g., a reference to conspiring with Russia against Japan) argues against its being Soviet propaganda.

Further reading

• Stein, Gordon Encyclopedia of Hoaxes, Gale Group, 1993. (On itself) ISBN 0810384140
• Dower, John W. War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War, Pantheon Books, 1986. (On US propaganda) ISBN 039450030X ISBN 0394751728
• Harries, Meirion & Susie, Sheathing the Sword: The Demilitarization of Japan, New York: Macmillan, 1987. (On the Tokyo Trial and the Memorial) ISBN 0025483404 ISBN 0241121116 ISBN 0434313785
• Allen S. Whiting, China Eyes Japan, University of California Press, 1989. ISBN 0520065115

External links

No one has produced a reputable, sober presentation of either side of the case on the Web. Whoever can do so should replace the following summary of received opinion:

• encyclopedia.com