ON FEBRUARY 14, 1913, the head of the Guomindang (Kuomintang) or Nationalist Party of China Sun Yat-sen arrived in Tokyo. Shibusawa Eiichi was one of the many notables who were at Shimbashi Station to welcome him. On that short wintry day made even colder after the sun had set, Sun alighted from the train in high spirits. His comrades, including Dai Tianchou and He Tianjiong, followed close in his shadow. Sun was 47 that year and despite the long and bitter fight he had been through up until then, he looked healthy and displayed an impressive dignity.

A few years earlier, the story goes, when he had lived in the home of democratic revolutionary Miyazaki Tōten (1871–1922) during his exile in Japan, Sun's face in slumber reminded the members of the Miyazaki household, as well as his comrades, of the majesty of a sleeping lion; the indescribable dignity of his countenance was so impressive that they believed that he would surely lead the Chinese revolution to victory, convincing his followers to keep going despite all the hardships that befell them. He carried the aura of a man endowed with a very special destiny.

This was the man who had overthrown the authority and legacy of the Qing dynasty (1644–1912), and in Japan there were high expectations of the new political forces he led. Eiichi attended many of the numerous welcome parties that were held for Sun for days on end after his arrival.

On the 15th, in a speech at a banquet held at the Peerage Club by the Tōa Dōbunkai (East Asian Common Culture Association), Sun emphasized the importance of friendship between China and Japan and with great earnestness reiterated how absolutely necessary it was for Japan and China to maintain a mutually cooperative relationship, both for the sake of peace and prosperity in East Asia and in order to maintain a balance of power between the forces of the East and the West in Asia. In the face of the often-irrational “Yellow Peril” rhetoric of the time, Sun believed that the West posed a very real “White Peril” for Asia; if nothing were done, the region would be devastated. The only way to prevent the further plunder of Asia was for China and Japan to work together.