Kiyoshi Kawakami

Kiyoshi Kawakami

Kiyoshi "Karl" Kawakami (河上 清, Kawakami Kiyoshi?, 8 August 1873 - 12 October 1949) was a Japanese Christian journalist who published several books in the United States and the United Kingdom. He was born in Yonezawa, educated in the law in Japan, and was for a short time engaged in newspaper work in that country.

He sometimes wrote under the name of K. K. Kawakami. Although Japanese do not have middle names, he is said to have been a socialist in his youth, when he apparently adopted the middle name "Karl" (from Karl Marx).

In 1901 he travelled to the United States and studied at the universities of Iowa and Wisconsin. In 1905, engaged in journalism, he traveled extensively in China, Siberia, and Russia. He was a correspondent for leading newspapers in Tokyo and a frequent contributor to American magazines and newspapers.

Kawakami's prewar writings sought to whitewash the Japanese military and economic penetration and invasion of China and Manchuria, presenting Japanese actions as aimed at saving China from chaos and disintegration. At the same time, however, they presented China as "scheming" to distort and obstruct Japanese goodwill in order to turn Western opinion against Japan. He was regarded in the United States as an apologist for Japanese imperialism and was briefly arrested after the outbreak of war. Some of his writings were included in the massive, ten volume series "Japanese Propaganda: Selected Readings: A Collection" edited by Peter O'Connor of Musashino University and published by the University of Hawaii Press in 2004.