There once was a person named Shiro Minamimura, who died in 2024 at age 95.

Nicknamed “the back-channel mediator in Japan-China diplomacy” for his unwavering commitment to exchanges between the two countries from the time before the normalization of diplomatic relations in 1972, Minamimura cultivated deep personal connections in the political circles of both countries.

He won the trust and respect of many people as their “go-to adviser.”

Minamimura once shared with me a deeply personal experience about his own “point of origin.”

It happened in 1956, he said, when he was a young man attending the first post-World War II “Japanese Products........

© The Asahi Shimbun