Kazuo Aoyama

Kazuo Aoyama (靑山 和夫, Aoyama Kazuo) was a Japanese communist, and resistance fighter who joined the Chinese resistance against the Empire of Japan during the Second Sino-Japanese War. His involvement was the re-education of captured Japanese soldiers, and psychological warfare against the Empire of Japan for the Kuomintang in the wartime capital of Chongqing which was conducted by the Japanese People's Anti-war Alliance. Unlike his colleague, another Japanese resistance fighter who he had an uneasy relationship with named Wataru Kaji, Aoyama was on good terms with Chiang Kai-shek. Especially with Dai Li's Secret Service. Aoyama operated quite freely in Chongqing, and openly said that he was a Communist without a problem from the anti-communist Kuomintang. Unlike Kaji, who was constantly followed by Dai Li's agents wherever he went. While Aoyama was in Chongqing, he successfully sold a printing plant to the United States Office of War Information (OWI), first offering it for free. Aoyama said that money did not matter to a Communist. However, Neil Brown, the administrative officer of the OWI in Chongqing, was suspicious. He requested that Koji Ariyoshi, a nisei sergeant in the United States Dixie Mission, to feel out Aoyama further for Brown, and Ariyoshi himself knew that Aoyama was not going to give anything for free. Again, Aoyama said that Communists didn't need money so he was not asking any payment from the OWI. The OWI insisted that he had to have money to live, and even the OWI wanted to agree on a price for his printing plant. Two days later, Aoyama sent the OWI a list of his equipment with a price list prevalent in Chongqing's black market. Ariyoshi was not particularly fond of Aoyama, especially with his relationship with Dai Li's agents, which Ariyoshi referred to as "Chinese Gestapo".^[1]

When The JPAA was disbanded by the Kuomintang, and its members were no longer permitted to go to the front lines to broadcast to the Japanese troops, Kaji was replaced as "psychological adviser" by Kazuo Aoyama.^[2]

See also

• Japanese resistance to the Empire of Japan in World War II
• Yuki Ikeda
• Resistance during World War II
• League to Raise the Political Consciousness of Japanese Troops
• Japanese People's Emancipation League
• Sanzo Nosaka
• Shigeki Oka
• Naoki Oka

References

Further reading

• Kuroda, Zenji, (1972). 反戦政略 中国からみた日本戦前・戦中・戦後. Misaki Shobō Publishing. OCLC 44418352.
• 青山和夫, (1957). 謀略熟練工. 妙義出版株式会社.