Guevara in Japan?

[hemingway]

When i was in Havana a few years ago i bought a set of three pictures. On these pictures you see Che Guevara, presumably as minister of industry, visiting 'Kubota Iron and Machinery Works. LTD.', as a sign on the wall says. It also shows a map of Japan, pinpointing the locations of their factories. (If you want me to, i can scan them and post them in this thread).

What i find remarkable is the fact this meeting has ever taken place. For as, to my knowledge, post-war Japan was heavily influenced by the american government, and so, an official visit by a cuban minister sounds less than plausible.

I once mailed Kubota about this (the company still exists) but they never replied. Also, till this day on i've been unable to find any information on this meeting, let alone trade between cuba and japan, whatsoever.

Who of you happens to know more about this?

[Saint-Just]

I don't know anything about this however, it does not seem too unlikely since Japan were investing in industry quite heavily at the time and therefore it would be a good place to learn about the most modern industrial equipment.

[Sniper_CR]

A short while after the INRA was formed Che was sent by Fidel on a little "goodwill" tour in order to increase diplomatic and commercial relations with emerging industrial nations (Japan,non aligned states of Africa, Asia and Europe, and India and Yugoslavia as well) , this little tour Che was sent on created the impression that Fidel was "casting off"the dirty little commie that the US found so troublesome.

Well anyways he visited these countries trying to improve diplomatic relations and starts some trade ,primarily Cuba's sugar.

In Japan Che spent much of his time touring the highly mechanized factories of companies such as Mitsubishi and Toshiba. The Japanese at that time bought a million tons of sugar on the world market in foreign exchange(a third of it from Cuba), and Che hoped to increase the cuban share.

His idea was to propose that the Japanese could pay anything over their present quota in yen : the money would remain in Japan and be spent by Cuba on Japanese goods.

Che made the proposal but the Japanese Foreign Trade Minister said he couldn't agree to it, saying "That their economy was open and they would buy sugar with out any obligations". Che asked him "You're under pressure from the fair-headed Northerners aren't you? and the Japanese said , "Its true" and Che told him that there was no problem and that he understood the pressure that they were under.

So , No there was no trade commitment between Cuba and Japan, and the Photos you have are of Che when he was touring the factories of Japanese Companies.

BTW can you scan the pictures please , i want to see them :D

[hemingway]

Thank you for your answer, as you can see it took me a little while to reply :cool:

The pictures can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/

Enjoy!

[Janus]

Yes, Che Guevara visited Japan as part of a tour in order to gain trading/diplomatic partners throughout the world. However, not much came out of his visit to Japan.

An interesting incident occured in Japan when one of the members of the Cuban delegation promised the Japanese that Che would come to an event honoring the Japanese soldiers who died in World War II. But Che flatly refused this when his fellow diplomat approached him about it and stated that he would be willing to attend a ceremony in remembrance of the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[Janus]

By the way, I don't mean to be picky or anything but is there anyone here who feels that this would be more appropriate in the Che Guevara forum?