Tanaka Memorial

The authenticity of the document was long accepted and it is still quoted in some Chinese textbooks,[1] but historian John Dower states that "most scholars now agree that it was a masterful anti-Japanese hoax.

[1] Historian Meirion Harries wrote that the Tanaka Memorial "was one of the most successful 'dirty tricks' of the twentieth century – a bogus document so brilliantly conceived that thirty years later Westerners were still taken in by it".

[9] Dr. Haruo Tohmatsu, Professor of Diplomacy and War History of International Relations at the National Defense Academy of Japan, states that "The 'Tanaka Memorial' never existed, but the Dalian conference of that year adopted resolutions that reflected these ideas.

However, instead of ending with the production of a master plan for world domination, the Conference ended with a rough consensus that Japan should support the Kuomintang government of China in its war against the Chinese Communists, as long as the Japanese could convince General Zhang Zuolin to consolidate his base into a virtually autonomous Manchuria, which would serve as a buffer state, and eventually would fall under Japanese domination.

When the Allies searched for incriminating documents to support war crime charges following the surrender of Japan, no drafts or copies of anything which corresponded to the Tanaka Memorial appeared among them; a Japanese language "original" has never been produced despite extensive research efforts.

[14] In 1939, Peter Fleming claimed that he had produced an "update" to the Tanaka Memorial, by writing an imaginary report about a secret Allied strategy conference which was attended by the Kuomintang's leader Chiang Kai-shek, and leaking it to the Japanese.