Japanese Secret Societies and the Chinese Secret Societies.

China's fate and fortune did not evolve by itself. Note that two countries that had both impacted China enormously would be Russia and Japan. The demise of the Republic of China on mainland China being attributed to the American sellout, though, the actual agents and saboteurs inside the American government were mostly implanted by Russians and the Comintern. The Russians provided the roubles that fomented the world revolution by violence in 20th century. Before the alliance with USSR, Sun Yat-sen was noted for his collusion with Japanese in opposing both Manchu court and Yuan Shi-kai's imperial enthronement. Significant in Chinese revolution would be the Japanese factor, as evidenced by the fact that the ceremony for the convention of Sun Yat-sen's "Tong Meng Hui" [i.e., 'Allied Society of China' or 'Revolutionary Alliance'] was first held inside the building of semi-governmental Japanese " Kokuryukai [black dragon society]". Japanese national policy, however, was to fund and support any Chinese faction and rivalry against the centralized regime for sake of creating chaos and turmoil in China. (Though, Mme Chiang Kai-shek, who personally met Dr Sun Yat-sen's Japanese friends in HK in early 1938 for war mediation, emphasized that among the 72 martyrs buried on Huanghuagang Hill would be one Japanese friend who participated in March 29th, 1911 uprising.)

...Sun Yat-sen left for Guangdong on Aug 2nd, with an intention to treat Guangdong Province as homebase; en route, at a stopover in Mawei of Fujian Prov, a Japanese consulate official informed Sun Yat-sen of the possible Long Jiguang conspiracy in Canton; Sun Yat-sen, together with Hu Hanmin, then changed ship to Taiwan; and thereafter, Sun Yat-sen secretly arrived in Japan and stayed in the home of Toyama Mitsuru, i.e., Japanese spiritual leader of "black dragon society", the successor to Genyosha a secret society. Documents dating to Sept 27th 1913 had shown that Sun Yat-sen was already contemplating on his new party. Chiang Kai-shek, i.e., Jiang Zhiqing, signed the enrolment form from Shanghai on Oct 29th. In July of 1914, Sun officially re-organized KMT into the so-called "Zhonghua Geming Dang", i.e., Chinese Revolutionary Party.

http://www.republicanchina.org/tragedy.html

The Black Dragon Society

The Black Dragon Society (Kyūjitai; 黑龍會; Shinjitai: 黒龍会 ,kokuryūkai?) was a prominent paramilitary, ultra-nationalist right-wing group in Japan.

The Kokuryūkai was founded in 1901 by Uchida Ryohei, and was descended from the Genyōsha. (Uchida was a follower of Genyōsha founder Mitsuru Toyama.) Its name is derived from the Amur River, called Heilongjiang or "Black Dragon River" in Chinese (黑龍江?), read as Kokuryū-kō in Japanese. Its public goal was to support efforts to drive the Russian Empire out of east Asia, south of the Amur River.

The Kokuryūkai initially made strenuous efforts to distance itself from the criminal elements of its predecessor, the Genyōsha. As a result, its membership included Cabinet Ministers and high-ranking military officers as well as professional secret agents. However, as time passed, it found the use of criminal activities to be a convenient 'means to an end' for many of its operations.

The Society published a journal, and operated an espionage training school, from which it dispatched agents to gather intelligence on Russian activities in Russia, Manchuria, Korea and China. It also pressured Japanese politicians to adopt a strong foreign policy. The Kokuryukai also supported Pan-Asianism, and lent financial support to revolutionaries such as Sun Yat-sen, and Emilio Aguinaldo.

During the Russo-Japanese War, annexation of Korea and Siberian Intervention, the Imperial Japanese Army made use of the Kokuryūkai network for espionage, sabotage and assassination. They organized Manchurian guerrillas against the Russians from the Chinese warlords and bandit chieftains in the region, the most important being Marshal Chang Tso-lin. The Black Dragons waged a very successful psychological warfare campaign in conjunction with the Japanese military, spreading disinformation and propaganda throughout the region. They also acted as interpreters for the Japanese army.

The Kokuryūkai assisted the Japanese spy, Colonel Motojiro Akashi. Akashi, who was not directly a member of the Black Dragons, ran successful operations in China, Manchuria, Siberia and established contacts throughout the Muslim world. These contacts in Central Asia were maintained through World War II. The Black Dragons also formed close contact and even alliances with Buddhist sects throughout Asia.

During the 1920s and 1930s, the Kokuryūkai evolved into more of a mainstream political organization, and publicly attacked liberal and leftist thought. Although it never had more than several dozen members at any one time during this period, the close ties of its membership to leading members of the government, military and powerful business leaders gave it a power and influence far greater than most other ultranationalist groups.

Initially directed only against Russia, in the 1930s, the Kokuryūkai expanded its activities around the world, and stationed agents in such diverse places as Ethiopia, Turkey, Morocco, throughout southeast Asia and South America, as well as Europe and the United States.

[edit] The Black Dragon Society and the Internment of Japanese-Americans

The Kokuryūkai was sensationalized by the yellow press and by American wartime propaganda, largely due to its villainous-sounding name of “Black Dragon Society”. Lurid novels and short stories connected it with all manner of nefarious criminal activity, and local government authorities in the United States found it convenient to use its supposed existence as an underground “fifth column” among Americans of Japanese descent as one of the excuses for the Japanese-American Internment during World War II.

The organization was mentioned as an influence on the black nationalist organizations which were convicted of sedition in 1942, most notably Mittie Maud Lena Gordon's Peace Movement for Ethiopia. The other two organizations said to be influenced were the Brotherhood of Liberty for the Black People of America and the Temple of Islam.[1]

On 27 March 1942 FBI agents arrested members of the Black Dragon Society in the San Joaquin Valley of California.[2]

The Kokuryūkai was officially disbanded by order of the American Occupation authorities in 1946. According to Brian Daizen Victoria's book Zen War Stories, the Black Dragon Society was reconstituted in 1961 as the Black Dragon Club (Kokuryū-Kurabu.) The Club never had more than 150 members to succeed in the goals of the former Black Dragon Society.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Dragon_Society

Genyōsha

The Dark/Black Ocean Society (玄洋社 ,Gen'yōsha?) was an influential ultranationalist group and secret society active in Meiji, Taishō and early Shōwa period Japan.

Foundation as the Koyōsha

Originally founded, as the “Koyōsha”, by Hiraoka Kotarō (1851-1906), a wealthy ex-samurai and mine-owner, with mining interests in Manchuria, Toyama Mitsuru, and other former samurai of the Fukuoka Domain, it agitated for a return to the old feudal Japanese order with special privileges and government stipends for the samurai class. [1] The Koyōsha participated in the various ex-samurai uprising in Kyūshū against the early Meiji government, but after the suppression of the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877, it abandoned its original goals, joined the Freedom and People's Rights Movement, and formed a political organization to agitate for a national parliament instead.

[edit] Foundation as the Gen'yōsha

In 1881, the Koyōsha changed its direction again. This time, the declared aims of the Gen'yōsha were honorable and noble: “to honor the Imperial Family, respect the Empire” and “to guard the rights of the people”. However, its true agenda was to agitate for Japanese military expansion and conquest of the Asian continent. The true agenda was reflected in its new name of Gen’yōsha, taken after the Genkainada strait which separates Japan from Korea. [2]

The tactics which the Gen'yōsha was prepared to use to achieve its goals was also far from noble. It began as a terrorist organization, and although it continued to recruit disaffected ex-samurai, it also attracted figures involved in organized crime to assist in its campaigns of violence and assassination against foreigners and liberal politicians. [3]

In 1889, the Gen'yōsha strongly criticized the unequal treaty revision plan drafted by foreign minister Okuma Shigenobu. A Gen'yōsha member threw a bomb which wounded him severely. [4] In the election of 1892, the Gen'yōsha mounted a campaign of intimidation and violence with the tacit support of the Matsukata administration to influence the outcome of the election.

One of the primary targets of the Gen'yōsha were the many Chinese secret societies, some of which were very hostile to Japan. However, the Chinese secret societies had a shared goal with the Gen'yōsha in wanting the overthrow of the Qing dynasty. [5] In 1881, Mitsuru Toyama sent over 100 men into China to gather information and to infiltrate these secret societies. One of the first and most detailed histories of the secret societies was written by Gen'yōsha member Hiraya Amane, who assisted in the establishment of the Gen'yōsha's Chinese headquarters in Hangzhou. The Gen'yōsha not only provided funds and weapons to the secret societies, but also arranged for refuge in Japan for leaders exposed by the Qing government. The Gen’yosha established a large network of brothels across China (and later throughout Southeast Asia) to provide meeting locations, and also to gather information. In addition to being a profitable side-business, the brothels provided opportunities to gather useful information for the later blackmail or subversion of patrons. However, although blackmail and bribery were often resorted to, more often information was obtained by employing prostitutes highly skilled in extracting information for their clients. The Gen'yōsha even established a training school for such agents in Sapporo in Hokkaidō.

Another sphere of Gen'yōsha activity was Korea. The Gen'yōsha established a task force to prepare detailed topographical survey maps of Korea in secret, in anticipation of a future Japanese invasion. The Gen'yōsha also actively supported the Donghak Movement, knowing that the uprising was likely to draw China and Japan into a war. The assassination of Queen Min of Korea in 1895 is believed to have been conducted by Gen'yosha members, at the instigation of the Japanese Minister in Seoul, Miura Goro.[6]

Originally ignored by the Japanese military, during the First Sino-Japanese War and Russo-Japanese War, both the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy found the Gen'yōsha’s extensive intelligence gathering network throughout East Asia to be invaluable. The Gen'yōsha network was also useful for the military in conducting sabotage activities behind enemy lines.

After the annexation of Korea in 1910, the Gen'yōsha continued to support efforts towards Pan-Asianism. Domestically, it formed a political party called the Dai Nippon Seianto (Greater Japan Production Party) to combat the influence of socialism in worker trade unions.

Towards its later years, the Gen'yōsha was far removed from its origins as a secret society, but had evolved almost to the mainstream of Japanese politics. A number of cabinet ministers and members of the Japanese Diet were known members, and mainstream political leaders, such as Hirota Koki and Nakano Seigo emerged from its ranks. It continued to exert considerable influence on the politics and foreign policy of Japan until the end of World War II.

The Gen'yōsha was disbanded by the American authorities during the Occupation of Japan.

[edit] Legacy

The Gen'yōsha was the forerunner of a number of organizations which inherited and developed its ideology. It also set the stage for the post-World War II ties between right-wing politicians and yakuza organized crime syndicates.

Although modern yakuza share many of Gen'yōsha's political and social philosophies, and although many of Gen'yōsha's members were drawn from yakuza ranks, the Gen'yōsha was primarily a political organization that often used criminal means to attain its goals, and was not a yakuza itself, as some authors have claimed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geny%C5%8Dsha