By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

The Japanese Modernization

It has become conventional to study Japanese modernization starting with the Meiji period. The Meiji reforms are often considered as the watershed in Japanese history, a period of transition from feudal and traditional society to a modern nation-state. In contrast, the Tokugawa era is often described as premodern, feudal, and stagnant. Unlike the conventional approach that sees this period as premodern ''tom by revolts, factionalism and civil war," there is now a growing tendency to consider the Tokugawa regime a modern sovereign state even if it did not strictly coincide with characteristics of the Eurocentric notion of modernity.1

The historical roots of Japan's modern national identity can be traced to the late Tokugawa period. While it is not possible to understand the modem Japan without a full understanding of the emergence of idecilogies in the late Meiji period, as pointed out by Carol Gluck,2 the same argument can also be made about the Tokugawa-Meiji connection as well. The late Tokugawa provided the political, economic, social, and ideological context in which Meiji ideologies emerged. Following our investigation about Turkey (an in order to next compair both) we will next examine the background and emergence of two distinct Japanese foreign policy identities: liberal imperialism and pan-Asian imperialism in the Meiji and early Showa periods. These two identities have continued to. influence Japanese foreign policy in the later periods.

 

The Late Tokugawa Period

The alternative modernity of the Tokugawa period did not provide Japan with sufficient power to resist Western pressures to open the country for political and commercial relations. It was concluded early on by many leading Tokugawa bureaucrats that the country needed to Westernize in order to resist the West, an understanding forced upon them by the encroachment of the Western powers on the shores of Japan. From 1739 on, Russian ships were visiting Japanese waters with increasing frequency..In 1808, the disguised English frigate Phaeton was able to make its way to the port of Nagasaki, flying the Dutch flag. Furthermore, the Japanese closely watched the Opium War between Britain and China in 1842 as well as the hostilities between China and France over Vietnam (1883-1885). It was clear to their eyes that China was no match for the power of either Britain or France. Japan’s own inability to stop Western ships, coupled by its witnessing of the total collapse of China, the perceived center of civilization in the old Asian order, in front of the Western powers was a deep shock. As Chang discusses, the image of the West in the Japanese identity passed through five stages.3.According to this five-stages model that was first developed to discuss the experience of China I the West, the stages of the evolution of the image of the West were the following: (1) mental preparedness and alarm, (2) recognition of the superiority of Western weapons and machinery, (3) recognition of the superiority of the Western science, (4) recognition of the superiority of Western socioeconomic systems, and (5) admission of the existence of the Western ethics.4

The Tokugawa period is generally credited for its long-enduring stability. As Marius Jansen notes, it brought, to Japan social stability, economic growth, urban culture, and a remarkable rise in literacy.s However, the system came to the end of its glory after two and a half centuries partly because of the changing nature of the Japanese economy and the demographic pressures on the hierarchical social system. As a result of the deteriorating financial situation, the samurai became poorer, the merchants (shonin) increasingly became richer arid more powerful, and the peasant class had to carry the entire burden of the deteriorating financial situation.6 Daimyo and the samurai were in deep debt to increasingly powerful merchant families like the Mitsui family in Osaka, who played an important role in the overthrow of the Tokugawa regime.7  Under these circumstances, the regime had to confront increasingly serious rural and urban revolts. Amidst these economic and social problems, Western cultural, economic, and military pressures to infiltrate Japan became increasingly intense. The Tokugawa perceived such attempts by the Westerners as a serious national security threat and responded to them harshly. From the very beginning, the Tokugawa regime had followed a closed country (akoku) policy. They expelled the Spanish in 1624 and the Portuguese in 1638. In 1637, the Japanese were forbidden to leave their country without permission from the central government.8 In 1640, an edict was issued to expel all foreigners from Japan except for a small trading station in Nagasaki where the Dutch and Chinese were allowed to have limited residency and trading rights. Many contemporary Japanese scholars believe that this policy of seclusion created an isolationist mentality combined with a strong sense of exclusionism and parochialism that continue to influence present day Japanese foreign policy.9 When finally Commodore Matthew Perry of the United States came to Japan in 1853, he found a weak, divided, and unready Japan. With his black ships behind him, Perry was able to force the regime to abandon its seclusion policy. The Tokugawa officials Were shocked by the power of Perry’s fleet and seriously discussed ways to tackle this challenge. Japan was divided into opposing views about ways to confront the foreigners: some advocated continuation of the policy of akoku (national seclusion), which found its expression in the famous slogan, jo-I (expel the barbarians), whereas others supported the policy of kaikoku (national opening). For instance, Sakuma Shozan, a nationalist samurai from central Japan trained in the Dutch School tradition, understood that China was defeated because of its inflated feeling of superiority to other civilizations that led to their neglect of Western science and mathematics.10 As he noted, in order not to repeat the Chinese mistake, Japan had to open itself and learn from the West. Others, such as Aizawa Seishisai of the Mito S.chool, blamed the lack of preparedness to confront the enemy: ‘’the ancients.. .said that the nation would be blessed if all in the land lived as if the enemy were right on the border.“11 The akoku view defended continuation of the Bakufu policy of seclusion, arguing that opening Japan to foreign influences  order to acquire their techniques would ruin the country: They will give us philosophical instruments, machinery and other curiosities; will take ignorant people in, and, trade being their chief object, they will manage bit by bit to impoverish the country, after which they will- treat us just as they like -perhaps behave with the greatest rudeness and insult us, and end by swallowing up Japan. If we do not drive them away now we shall never have another opportunity.12

The kaikoku group, on the other hand, defended the view that the best defense was through opening the country to contact with the foreigners and learning their skills and tactics. Their response to isolationists was as we are not the equals of foreigners in the mechanical arts, let us have intercourse with foreign countries, learn their drill and tactics, and when we have made the nation as united as one family, we shall be able to go abroad and give lands in foreign countries to those who have distinguished themselves in battle. The soldiers will vie with one another in displaying their intrepidity, and it will not be too late then to declare war. Now we shall have to defend ourselves against these foreign enemies, skilled in the use of mechanical appliances, with our soldiers whose military skill has considerably diminished during a long peace of three hundred years, and we certainly could not feel sure of victory, especially in a naval war.13 As it is understood from this passage, the line of thinking of those who favored kaikoku was no less nationalist. As it was in the case of Ottoman ideologies, Japanese ideologies displayed a great area of convergence. It is hence difficult to consider kaikoku and akoku views as totally distinct from each other; they had a greater degree of permeability than commonly thought. At the core of both views was a strong degree of nationalism. For the kaikoku school, learning from the West was necessary in order to defend the country. They wanted Westernization and modernization in order to become a strong nation. As noted by Notehelfer, the motivation for Westernization was largely defensive: The Japanese were quick to see that if Japan were to be able to rid itself of the unequal treaties forced upon it in the 1850s, the nation would have to become both strong and acceptable to the West-a recognized member of the club of modem nations. And to do so it would have to appear “civilized” and “enlightened,” which, within the context of the late nineteenth century, meant that it would have to appear Westernized. 14Yoshida Shoin, the mentor of key members of the Meiji polital elite including the Hirobumi and Yamagata Aritomo, probably best represented such permeability of views in his personality. He was an advocate of kaikoku before he eventually emerged as the leader of the akoku discourse.11 His master, Sakuma Shozan (1811-1864), advocated opening Japanese ports to foreign trade and was assassinated by radical antiforeign samurai because of it. Yoshida called for adoption of Western techniques in the military and even unsuccessfully attempted to infiltrate Perry’s ship to go to the United States in 1854. Yoshida and his students initially supported the Treaty of Kanagawa signed in March 31, 1854, to allow American ships access to two Japanese ports. Yet they opposed the signing of the Harris Treaty (1858), a commercial agreement with the United States that granted legal immunity to Americans in Japan, agreed to an unfavorable exchange rate system between the two countries and low import duties. The treaty was followed by other unequal treaties with Britain, France, Russia, and the Netherlands. Hence without suffering defeat in a war, the same humiliating conditions were imposed on Japan as on China. This provided ammunition to the antibakufu elements and the revision of Unequal Treaties became a national obsession from this point on. Japan was able to remove its unequal status only forty years later when Mutsu Munemitsu declared the signing of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty in 1894.16 Yet this success was the outcome ofa deep and comprehensive metamorphosis. According to the bakufu rules, the emperor’s consent was necessary for an international agreement like the Harris Treaty; but Ii Naosuke, the acting shogun, did not heed to this rule. The nationalist reaction was huge. Yoshida Shoin judged it as treason and provoked his students in Choshft to react. In their eyes, the government was highly discredited and the only way to restore Japan’s honor was through restoration of the emperor in Kyoto to real power. After all, they argued, the Shogun was the ruler with the permission of the emperor to protect Japan from foreign invasion. Therefore, it could justify its power by expelling the foreigners. Hence the slogan of sonno jo-I (revere the emperor, expel the barbarians), which was once a popular slogan of support for the bakufu policy of isolation, was transformed into a discourse of opposition with the slogan of tobaku (overthrow the bakufu!). The conflict between nationalists and the government was transformed into domestic violence.17

The most militantly antiforeign hans, namely, Choshil and Satsuma, became centers of this opposition. These were two of the richest, militarily the most powerful, and politically the most active domains in Tokugawa Japan. They had engaged in a bitter political competition not only with the central authority but also with each other. In their anti- Western opposition, they were probably more opportunistic than ideological: they provoked and utilized the widespread antiforeign and hence anti-Bakufu sentiments to overthrow the regime. Yet they concluded on their own that the road to gain power was through modernization. They reached this conclusion as a result of their own failure to defeat the Western powers in Japan as well as secret travels of young samurai to Western capitals. Two young Choshft samurai Inoue Kaoru and Ito Hirobumi were among those who visited Britain in a secret expedition, and they came back with advice to their leaders that Westernization was unavoidable and necessary. Like Choshu, Satsuma also understood the need to learn from “the Barbarians.” Satsuma leaders initiated close contacts with Britain and sent a larger group of students to Britain.18 The British, as opposed to the French who had forged an alliance with the bakufu, saw the future of Japan in these fiercely nationalist but also very curious young samurai, an observation which proved to be correct. The French-British rivalry had a direct impact on Japanese modernization by forcing the British to help the opposing daimyo in order to balance the French interests in the maintenance of bakufu authority.19 Meanwhile, for the fiercely antiforeign young samurai, these contacts with the British were essential to gain strength against the bakufu regime. Hence they came to embrace the idea of Westernization more enthusiastically than the bakufu. Under immense pressure from the Satsuma-Choshl1 alliance (Satchodomei), which obtained the permission of the emperor to overthrow the Tokugawa bakufu, Shogun Yoshinobu accepted on November 9, 1867, the restoration of full power to the emperor, who resided in Kyoto, and ten days later offered his own resignation. In this letter of resignation, Y oshinobu accepted the need for a centralized government in order to defend the country against the foreign pressures: Now that foreign intercourse becomes daily more extensive, unless the government is directed from one central authority, the foundations of the state will fall to pieces. If, however, the old order of things be changed, and the administration authority be restored to the Imperial Court, and if national deliberations be conducted on an extensive scale, and the Imperial decision be secured, and if the empire be supported by the efforts of the whole people, then the empire will be able to maintain its rank and dignity among the nations of the earth.20

On January 3, 1868, the allied forces seized the imperial palace in Kyotu and had the emperor declare his restoration to full power. Despite Yoshinobu’s resignation, the allied forces were determined to destroy the shogunate power fully and confronted the bakufu army on January 27, 1868, at the battle of Toba Fushimi, which started the Boshin War. Eventually, in April 1869, the Emperor Meiji moved from Kyoto to Edo, which was renamed Tokyo, or the Eastern Capital. A new and united Japan was established in place of the bakuhan system based on a loose federation of hans.

 

The Meiii Restoration

The Meiji Restoration was basically a response to the Tokugawa regime's failure to resist the West, but it was concluded by the new leaders that the country had no other choice than modernization through Westernization. The Meiji leaders continued kaikoku policies and strongly suppressed resistance from nationalists from among whom they had originated. One particularly important challenge was waged by Saigo Takamori, who unsuccessfully led the Satsuma Rebellion against the new regime. Saigo played a great role in the restoration movement and served the commander of the imperial forces in the Boshin War. His dispute with the Meiji leaders emerged as result of their refusal to accept his proposal to invade Korea because it did not recognize the legitimacy of the Emperor Meiji and because of the government's new economic policy that made it illegal for the samurai to collect rice stipends from villagers. Meiji reformers sought to create a modem unified state of Japan that would be based socially on the homogeneous conception of nation and politically on a centralized system of nation-state (kokumin kokka). This concept was a product of European modernity which emerged after the War of Westphalia. The Meiji leaders set out to Westernize the Japanese state institutions. The Meiji regime defined the purpose of its existence as fukoku kyohei "enriching the nation, strengthening the military." The aim was to create a unified and strong Japanese state through "civilization and progress" (bunmei kaika), which in practice meant implanting Western political institutions around. the Imperial House. Restoring the emperor to power was a promise of the Meiji founders; however, just like the shogunate, they retained real power in their own hands, while making the Imperial House their source of legitimacy. They believed that it would be much easier for the new regime to gain legitimacy if they could rule with a mandate from the emperor. As one of the pioneering Meiji leaders and drafters of the Meiji Constitution, Ito Hirobumi observed, ''though Buddhism once flourished. . . today its influence has declined. Though Shintoism is based on the tradition of our ancestors, as a religion, it is not powerful enough to become the center of union of the country. Thus in our country the one institution which can become the cornerstone of our constitution is the Imperial House.“21

In contrast to the Tokugawa shogunate that officially supported Confucianism, the Meiji leaders accepted Shinto as the official religious doctrine. The Meiji government under the influence of nativists (kokugaku) promoted Shinto as an ideology of national unity that would resist the influence of other faiths and provide a framework of religious unity based on the Shinto concept of saisei itchi (religious ritual and government are one).22 Shinto was practically more useful for the new regime as it highlighted the divine character of the emperor. Buddhism's decline as a result of governmental promotion of Shinto at the expense of Buddhism meant Japan's severing its religious commonalities with East Asia. It was only in the later period of pan-Asianism in the 1930s that the official interest in Buddhism increased, as it came to be recognized as ''the cultural heritage of all Asia [that] allowed the Japanese to affirm their cultural and spritual solidarity with the peoples of the Asian continent.“23 The Meiji government set out to implement policies that would create a unified and homogenous nation, based on Western models. The Meiji government's ambitious project of Westernization required a careful study and first-hand experience of Western institutions. In order to accomplish this task, a large Japanese delegation, the Iwakura Mission, was sent to a long and extensive journey to the United States and Europe in order to negoatiate reversal of the unequal treaties. However, at the end, they saw that this task would not be possible if Japan did not come to the level of the West in science and technology as well as administrative, legal and educational systems. Comprised of fifty officers and sixty stude]1ts, the' group toured Europe and the United States from December 1871 to September 1873. This was an extremely high-profile delegation, including some of the most significant bureaucrats in the Meiji cabinet. In addition to Prince and Minister of State Iwakura Tomomi the delegation included two of ' 'the three" nobles of the restoration," who played the most critical role in overthrowing bakufu and restoring the emperor Toshimichi and Minister of Finance Kido Takayoshi. The other of the three was Saigo Takemori, who had died following his failed samurai uprising. The group also included Ita Hirobumi, who was then the senior councilor of Public Works and later served as prime minister between 1885 and 1901 with intervals. Nearly "half the senior leaders of the new administration were sent abroad for an indefinite period which could not in the nature of things be short.“24 and this indicated the significance the Meiji government was placing on relations with the West. The purpose of this mission was to "study the institutions of the civilized nations, adopt those most suited to Japan, and gradually reform our government and manners, so as to attain the status equal to that of the civi1izCd nations.“25 Ita Hirobumi, in a speech he delivered in San Francisco during the Iwakura Mission, said: our mission, under special instructions from His Majesty, the Emperor, while seeking to protect the rights and interests of our respective nations, will seek to unite them more closely, convinced that we shall appreciate each other more, when we know each other better.26

The obversations of the Iwakura Mission were published in a lengthy report Tokumei Zenken Bei Kairan Jildd (A True Account of the Tour of the Special Embassyto the United States and Europe), authored by historian Kume Kunitake (1839-l93l). Their principal recommendation was the implementation of the constitutionaI system that they had observed in Europe, particularly Prussia, which had a similar trajectory of national unification. The report also stressed Japan's cultural and religious differences from the West and in this sense strongly reflected the feeling that only the science and institutions of the West could be adapted, not its religion and culture. 27 Kume believed that what made the West strong was its moral core rather than its religion: "[The Westerners] accomplish their moral cultivation through the sincerity of their respect for God. This provides the foundation that spurs their striving spirit of study and their mutual harmony. For this reason it is difficult to judge the merits of religion solely on the basis of its forms and doctrines.28 Such a function of religion, he thought, was not limited to any particular religion, as ''What we should respect in a religion is not its argument but its practice.“29 Thus he recommended that morality and religion must be at the center of the new Japan but its source should not be the one that was imported. Only the science, institutions and technique of the West needed to be adopted, as it was contained in the Meiji ideal of development: wakon yosai (Japanese spirit, Western Sciences). Sakuma Shozan first used the phrase ''morality in the East, art in the West," (toyo no dotoku, seiyo no geijutsu) at the end of the Tokugawa period. According to Kozai Yukishige, "wakon" evoked a spirit of the independence and "included within itself the core of national resistance against the colonialism of the European powers.30 However, the Meiji regime's subsequent imperialist outreach was criticized as abandoning wakon yosai and adaptingyokon yosai (Western Spirit, Western Sciences),which was taken to. mean adopting the imperialist spirit, as demonstrated in the SinoJapanese War and the Russo-Japanese War.31Understanding Fukuzawa Yukichi's ideas on civilizatiori requires one to look once more at the intellectual currents of the Tokugawa period. First of all, the notion of civilization was not imported into Japan from the West. The categorisation of the world into the civilized and the baxbarian was part of the Confucian world-order which Japan had borrowed from China. In the old Asian civilizational hieraxchy, China was at the center of civilization, surrounded by other lesser civilized regions (I) in vaxying order of proximity to the civilized core (ka). The eaxly Tokugawa Japanese philosophers who belonged to the Chinese Learning (kangaku) accepted this hieraxchical order which depicted Japan as a lesser civilization to China, whose position was indicated by the Chinese characters of "middle" and "kingdom." China "evoked specific cultural and moral associations and served as a principle to classify and differentiate" what lay outside the domain of civilization.32

However, the rise of Japanese nationalism, coupled by China's militaIy weakness against the West, discredited China in the eyes of many Japanese who began turning their interests either to the Japanese Leaxning (kokugaku) or the Western Learning (initially the Dutch Leaxning -rangaku). Increasingly weakened, China's declining military power gradually shattered the image of China as the centre of civilization. When China fell into the hands of the Manchu dynasty, the Chinese Learning scholars felt a need to re1egitimize their stance by distancing imaginary China from contemporary China. For instance, Confucianist Ogyft Sorai claimed that China meant an abstract civilizational center: "'the excessive adulation that exists in Japan is for Chuka and the exemplary moralistic system created by the great sage-kings...and not for the present-day China and its people under the Manchu rule.“33. With the rise of nationalism in Japan, the locus of civilization slowly transferred from China to Japan. Now it was Japan that represented the ''true'' central realm of civilization. In the Meiji period, Japan officially abandoned the Chinese characters in writing "China" as they attested the centrality of China, and instead adopted Shina written in kana as a neutral title for China. It was only after the Second World War that the name for China reverted to its original and the official usage of Shina was abandoned as a result of pressure from the Chinese govemment.34 As Tanaka notes, by stripping China of the Middle Kingdom label, Meiji intellectuals aimed to detach Japan from the Sino-centric Asian civilizational order: Throughout much of Japan's modem period various groups used shina to emphasize difference: nativist (kokugaku) scholars, for example, used shina to separate Japan from the barbari8nlcivilized or outer/inner implication of the term chugoku; early-twentieth-century Chinese revolutionaries used it to distinguish themselves from the Manchus of the Ch'ing dynasty (1644-1912); and in early-twentieth-century Japan, shina emerged as a word that signified China as a troubled place mired in its past, in contrast to Japan, a modern Asian nation.35

The position of the West in this new understanding of civilization also changed. During the Tokugawa period, the Westerners were considered as southern barbarians, but now the West was the center of power. If the meaning of civilization was enlightenment and prosperity, it was no longer to be obtained from China but from the West. As Wakabayashi notes, the nationalist philosophers who drew attention to Japan's antiquity, namely, kokugakusha, did not oppose learning about the West, as it opened the eyes and "discredited Confucianism and Sino-Centric civilization even further.“36 With the rise of Mito Learning in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, Japanese thinkers "cast off the barbarian status they formerly had acknowledged toward China, and now claimed centrality and superiority throughout the world for Japan in her own right.37 Fukuzawa Yukichi's ideas emerged in the context of these intellectual currents. His contribution to debates on civilization was prominent. It will not be an exaggeration to argue that if Meiji, Japan's civilizational reorientation, carried the signature of one single man, he was Fukuzawa Yukichi. Fukuzawa's aim was to shift Japan's perception of civilizational hierarchy from the influence of Sino-centric civilizational order and teach that civilization was a universal property that, in its best form, happened to be located in Europe. Fukuzawa's influence on Japanese identity was so strong that civilization and enlightenment (bunmei kaika) quickly became catchwords of the day. Fukuzawa initially was a Dutch Learning (rangaku) philosopher and believed that studying Dutch would enable the Japanese to learn the essence of the West. Fukuzawa visited the United States on the first Japanese mission to this country. In 1862, he was part of a Japanese delegation to Europe and visited France, Britain, Holland, Germany, Russia and Portugal. These visits allowed him to observe Western, particularly British, political philosophies and systems. He compiled his travel impressions in an influential book titled Seiyo Jijo "Conditions in the West," which was published in three volumes between 1866 and 1869 where he expressed his conviction that only by adopting Western sciences would Japanese society advance. This book reportedly sold over a quarter million copies and established a reputation for its author as an authority on the West. During the early years of the Meiji, he was so much associated with Western ideas that "all books about the West came to be popularly known as Fukuzawa-bon.,,38 With his ,mends who later joined the government, he formed an intellectual group called Meirokusha (Meiji Six Society) named after the sixth year of the Meiji Emperor, which corresponded to the year 1873. The group regularly met to discuss the current social and political problems and published essays on modernization in a periodical called the Meiroku Zashhi (Meiji Six Magazine). The members of this group, who also included leading intellectual-bureaucrats such as Mori Arinori and Nishi Amane, were well versed in Western languages and intellectual movements and played it role in disseminating them during the late Tokugawa era. All members of the group except Fukuzawa Yukichi and Nakamura Keifu were members of the Meiji government, and they too had close relations with and influence upon the Meiji bureaucracy.39

This intellectual group formed the ideological core of a new Japanese government and played a crucial role in changing the civilizational orientation of Japan. Like other advocates of modernization of the time, Fukuzawa Yukichi questioned practical use of Japanese and Chinese classics. He believed that they were not relevant to present social conditions. 40 Yet he quickly distanced himself from a view that only advocating a complete adaptation of the ethics and religion of the West would put Japan on a par with Western civilization. He sharply criticized the view that civilization was to be achieved by giving up Shinto, Confucian, and Buddhist teachings and adopting Christianity in their place. For him, the answer to the question of civilization lay in rationality rather than religion and it was more vital for individuals to be "learned, talented, upright" than whether they should profess a particular religion.41 His criticism of  Confucian and Nativist schools was based on the assertion that they had no relevance to the real needs of people. He was impressed by practical utility of We stem sciences and believed that Learning must aim to be jitsugaku, or "practical learning that is closer to ordinary -human needs.“42 For Fukuzawa, civilization meant a unilinear progress in development: "Now civilization is a relative thing, and it has no limits. It is a gradual progression from the primitive level....................... [It] thus describes the process by which human relations gradually change for the better and take on a definite shape. It is a concept of a unified nation in contrast to a state of primitive isolation and lawlessness.“43 This view was in accordance with the nineteenth-century Euro-centric vision of civilization, which perceived development as a unilinear progression from the noncivilized non- West to the civilized West. 44 In scheme, the level of civilization meant the level of material development, whose achievement required Westernization. Consequently, Fukuzawa classified the countries of the world according to their level of material development and proposed a completely different civilizational hierarchy from that of the Confucian system: When we are talking about civilization in the world today, the nations of Europe and the United States of America are the most highly civilized, while the Asian countries, such as Turkey, China, and Japan, may be called semideveloped countries, and Africa and Australia are to be counted as still primitive lands. These designations are common currency all over the world. While citizens of the nations of the West are the only ones to boast of civilization, the citizens of the semi-developed and primitive lands submit to being designated as such.45

In this view, while Japan was modernizing and Westernizing, it was moving further along that" path of universal civilization currently exemplified by the West: "Hence present-day Europe can only be called the highest level that human intelligence has been able to attain at this juncture in history. Since this is true, in all countries of the world, be they primitive or semi-developed, those who are to give thought to their country's progress in civilization must necessarily take European civilization as the basis of discussion.“46 This idea' was shared by other liberal Japanese. For instance, Tokutomi Soho (1863~1957), who later turned to nationalism after the Sino-Japanese War, believed the West was "civilized" in contrast with "uncivilized" Asia: "One should realize... that there is only one reason why at present the Asian countries are being annihilated by the West: the Asian countries are poor and barbarous, and the West is wealthy and civilized. 47 In the perceptions of the Japanese liberal elite, "achieving diplomatic and economic parity with the imperialist powers required adopting' the West's social and political institutions along with its military, industrial, and managerial technologies.“48

Despite his advocacy of Western civilization, Fukuzawa was equally concerned with achieving political and cultural independence from the West and the preservation of the National Essence (kokutaz), which he understood as "grouping together of people of one race.“49 In fact, cultural independence was only possible through strengthening Japan by Westernization or borrowing from what he perceived as the present center of civilization, the West. Otherwise; "we know that a backward civilization is controlled by an advanced civilization.“50 Fukuzawa was very much worried about the possibility of Japan falling under European imperialism as its Asian neighbors were destined to do: If future developments can be conjectured, China too will certainly become nothing but a garden for Europeans. Wherever the Europeans touch, the land Withers up, as it were; the plants and the trees stop growing. Sometimes even whole populations have been wiped out. As soon as one learns such things and realizes that Japan is also a country in the East, then though we have as yet not been seriously harmed by foreign relations we might well fear the worst to come. 51Hence, Fukuzawa' s Westernism was instrumental in believing that only learning from the West could save Japan from loss of national independence. For him, the answer to the question why Japan was weak could be found in the weakness of its citizenry: "in what I am discussing 'country' refers to both land and citizens together, and 'a country's independence' and a 'a country's civilization' refer to a citizenry taking concerted action to defend. its country, develop its power, and achieve full status."52

 His belief that a strong Japan would emerged on the basis of a strong citizenry made him a liberal nationalist. According to Maruyama Masao, "Fukuzawa Yukichi resolved to devote his life to 'making all the people comprehend the idea of 'nation' (kunl)."53 In Gakumon no Susume (Encouragement for Learning), which appeared shortly after the Meiji Restoration, he called for the development of national consciousness: "In order to defend our nation against foreign powers, it is necessary to fill the entire nation with the spirit of freedom and independence. Everyone throughout the nation, without distinctions such as noble and base, high and low, must be personally responsible for the nation.“54 As a reflection of his view of civilization, Fukuzawa wanted Japan not only to learn from the West but also to orient itself towards the West and away from Asia. He famously put forward his datsu-A-Ron "escape from Asia" doctrine, which was the title of his famous article published in March 1885 in Jiji Shinto. Here Fukuzawa urged Japan to distance itself from China and Korea and treat them as Westerners would do: Not only were we able to cast aside Japan's old conventions, but we also succeeded in creating a new axle toward progress in Asia. Our basic assumptions could be summarized in two words: "Good-bye Asia (Datsila).".. .Japan is located in the eastern extremities of Asia, but the spirit of her people ha[s] already moved away ftom the old conventions of Asia to the Western civilization. Unfortunately for Japan, there are two neighboring countries. One is called China and another Korea....................... These two peoples do not know how to progress either personally or as a nation. In this day and age with transportation becoming so convenient, they cannot be blind to the manifestations of Western civilization. What must we do today? We do not have time to wait for the enlightenment of our neighbors so that we can work together toward the development of Asia. It is better for us to leave the ranks of Asian nations and cast our lot with civilized nations of the West. As for the way of dealitig with China and Korea, no special treatment is necessary just because they happen to be our neighbors. We simply follow the manner of the Westerners in knowing how to treat them. Any person who cherishes a bad mend cannot esca~his bad notoriety. We simply erase from our minds our bad mends in Asia.55 In Fukuzawa's mind, distancing Japan from Asia did not imply a policy of non-interference or lack of interest Japan should look to the West and -"civilize" based on the Western model; yet, at the same time, being equipped with the material power of modernization, it would return to Asians and teach them what he regarded as civilization. Through his support of the Sino-Japanese War and later the Korean invasion, Fukuzawa endorsed liberal imperialism, which meant that as Japan attained "civilization," it had the right "to civilize" the rest of Asia. This appeared to be contradictory to his earlier advocacy of an Asian unity against the West under the Japanese leadership. 56 Yet these two views, liberal imperialism and pan-Asian imperialism, were essentially the off-shoot of the same ideology, which was developed as a result of Japan's psychological distancing itself from Asia as a result of its modernization. Japanese imperialism had its origins in Japan's new contacts with the West. In the wake of these contacts, visionaries and reformers like Hayashi Shihei, Sato Nobuhiro, and Yoshida Shoin began to advocate territorial expansion through an imagining of a new relationship with the outside world based on their interpretation of what the Westerners themselves were doing. 57

Japan wanted to Westernize in order to defend itself against the West, but it quickly found itself in a dilemma: The defensive modernization ended Japan's self sufficiency and required copying Western imperialism. The early proponents of Westernism in Tokugawa Japan, particularly Honda Toshiaki, advocated that the ideal of the fukoku kyohei "enriching the nation and strengthening the military" required four imperatives: gunpowder, metals, shipping, and colonization. 58 Yet these elements would be insufficient without a "national spirit" (kokutaJ) that would make both poor and rich feel that they were "masters in their own house.“59 Now that Japan became united with a national sprit and its society homogenous, it was ready to move on. The necessary ideological tool for Japanese imperialism was provided by a civilizational discourse that sipulated that Japan had a mission to bring civilization and modernization to those nations that lacked them. The starting ground for this mission was Korea and China, which offered Japan vital economic resources required for its defensive modernization. The Meiji Restoration profoundly changed Japan's self-perception and civilizational orientation. Yet Japan's de-coupling itself from the East would not be possible without proving itself superior to the perceived center of East Asian civilization, namely, China. Defeating China would be an important psychological step in this new imagining of Japan as a modernized, de-Orientalized, and superior military power in Asia. Japan and China came to a collision course because of their competition over Korea, which had been a tributary state to China. In 1875, the Qing dynasty in China allowed Japan to recognize Korea as an independent country, while continuing to exert its own influence. During this period, Korean public opinion was sharply divided into two camps: the modernizers who look at Japan as their model and the conservatives who wished closer relations with China. Following the assassination of a leading pro-Japanese Korean reformer in Shanghai, the antiforeigner Tonghak movement started a massive uprising in late 1893. The Tonghak or "Eastern Learning" was an antiforeigner religious movement that had emerged in reaction to Western influences in the early 1860s and believed in a syncretic religion of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism.60 The Korean government asked for China to help suppress the revolt. When the Chinese forces were sent to Korea and continued to remain in the peninsula despite Japanese demands to withdraw them, Japan sent its own forces and seized the Royal Palace in June 1894.

Japan established a new government in Korea and proposed a plan for reforming the Korean administrative system. When China rejected this, the battle started in August. 1894. This was the first war of the Meiji regime. The effective modernization of the army and the navy helped Japan crush the Chinese forces in a dramatic show of force. Japan defeated its old master of civilization. China finally conceded victory to Japan and signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki in April 1895, which granted independence to Korea and put it under Japan's control. The war against China was supported by the nationalist as well as by the presumably moderate press. Among others, Chuo Shinbun wrote that "Japan's mission is to extent her sway over the continent of Asia. We are not designed by Heaven to remain cooped up within these narrow islands.“61 The liberal modernist Fukuzawa Yukichi also supported the war. In his Jiji Shinpo editorial, Fulrozawa expressed his concerns about the situation in Korea, arguing that if the Korean government were not able to suppress the revolt, the situation would be exploited by the Chinese and the Western powers. Thus, he claimed, it was mandatory for Japan to protect Korean independence and its own prestige by intervening.62 Another leading liberal intellectual Tokutomi Sohl also approved Japan's motives in waging war against China. For Tokutomi, the war was necessary "to exonerate Japan's past and present, demonstrate its glorious heritage and establish a proud national identity that the Western world would aclmowledge.',63 Mutsu Munemutsu, Japan's foreign minister during the war, claimed that the victory of Japan over China not only proved Japanese military superiority but also demonstrated its ability to adopt and utilize the civilization of Europe.64

However, Japan was not able to enjoy its victory for long, as it was embarrassed by the Triple Intervention when Russia, France, and Germany forced Japan to return the Liaotong peninsula that it had gained in the war. The sense of disillusionment was enormous: the spoils of Japanese victory were being taken away by an alliance of the Western powers to which it felt closer than to China. The Japanese "came to lmow that it would only be through military might that the West would respect Japan. To gain the respect of the West, Japan participated in the Western efforts to suppress the Chinese anticolonialist uprising, the Boxer Uprising. This was symbolically an interesting incident in which Japan joined its forces with the West against a nationalist movement in Asia. The Boxer Uprising was mobilized with the slogan of "support the Empress, expel the Foreigners." This was a familiar slogan to the ears of the founders of the Meiji regime. Japanese leaders concluded that international politics was very complicated as characterized by an intense power struggle in Europe and thus Japan needed to play the game according to its rules, that is by forming alliances. After lengthy debates over choosing Britain or Russia as their ally, the Japanese finally favored Britain. The Anglo Japanese Alliance that was formed between two island nations tied Japan to a Western power and allowed it to be recognized as an equal power to reckon with Japan benefited from the Anglo-Japanese Alliance during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. Russia was the leading country in the Triple Intervention after the Sino Japanese War, and conflicting interests of Japan and Russia over China made their clash inevitable. The alliance with Britain ensured the British neutrality during this war. However, Britain who was very much deterested in the Russian defeat in Asia did not watch the war passively and helped Japan with massive loans generated in London, New York, and Berlin.65 As a result of its victory over Russia, Japan proved itself as equal to the imperial European powers, especially after acquiring a dominant influence in Korea, which finally led to annexation of Korea. The war forced Russia to postpone its ambitious expansionist desires in the Pacific. Russia leased Port Arthur, relinquished its railway interests in southern Manchuria, and gave up the island of Sakhalin south of the 50th parallel. 66

Japan's remarkable victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) proved that it was now a power to be respected. The defeat of Russia was particularly important as a major defeat of a "European" power by an "Asian" nation. As Motoyama states, the Russo-Japanese War restored Japan's self-confidence enormously: During and after the Russo-Japanese War, national self-awareness among the populace was much stronger than it had been after the previous conflict. At the time of the war with China, Japan was under strong pressure from the Powers, as was evidenced by the Tripartite Intervention, and was not fully able to feel itself a member of the world community. After the Russo Japanese War, however, the Japanese people were seized with a sense of pride, convinced that Japan was not inferior to the civilized nations. Casting aside their long-standing passive attitude, the Japanese quickly prepared themselves to play an active role in the world.67

Despite this success at the battlefield, the Japanese public felt once again deceived by the terms of the Portsmouth Treaty that concluded the war. Following the conclusion of the treaty, there were massive public demonstrations in Tokyo, known as Hibiya anti Treaty Riot of 1905. In the eyes of many right-wing groups, the treaty did not bring the expected reparations or territorial gain. The riot that broke out when the police tried to prevent a public demonstration in Hibiya Park of Tokyo on September 5, 1905, effectively paralyzed Tokyo for three days. It was followed by riots in Yokohama and Kobe and smaller scale incidents in many parts of the country.68 The public outcry against the Portsmouth Treaty was an expression of disappointment with the government, but it ironically also demonstrated the power of nationalism, which the Meiji modernization strived to create around the idea of a strong nation-state. Proving the success of the nation-building process, people in Japan were expressing their sentiments for a national cause rather than for their respective domains. Despite the disappointment in Japan, the news of Japan's victory over Russia was received with joy and nourished hopes in many parts of colonized world, particularly the Muslim world, that Japan would eventually emerge as the leader of the continent.69 Many thought that Japan repaired the historically tarnished image of Asia against the West. Yet, Japan's self-perception was rather that Japan, not Russia, belonged to the "civilized" world and thus closer to the West. Japan was not fighting to prove the power of Asia against a Western power. In its subsequent occupation of Korea and later the entire East Asian continent, Japan was merely acting as though it was a stranger; Japan psychologically was far removed from any sense of identification with Asia. In a policy paper presented to Prime Minister Saionji Kimmochi, General Yamagata Aritomo stated that Japan's victory over Russia did not amount to a victory of Asian civilization over Western civilization.70

The great victory of our nation aver Russia seems to. have stimulated the Chinese people. It convinced the Chinese people that they are not inferior to the white people. It has also spurred them to. recapture the special interests which the Western nations and Japan are enjoying in China. However, Japan's victory over one of the strongest Western powers do.es no.t pro.ve that the coloured people are stranger than the white people. On the contrary, it proves the greatness of Western civilization. Japan's victory over Russia means that coloured people who. have acquired Western civilization defeated white people who. have no.t tried hard to develop it. 70 The Meiji period was successful in fulfilling its promise of canceling the unequal treaties by the end of the twentieth century and securing independence. With the death of the Meiji emperor in 1912, Japan had officially entered into. a new era, the Taisho era (1912-1926), which was characterized by a dynamic intellectual productivity, relative peace, and democracy. During the Taisho. period, Japan stayed in its course of pro Western foreign policy that came to. be known. as Shidehara diplomacy. Foreign Minister Shidehara, who. was to serve as the first prime minister after the Second World War, sought to strengthen Japan through strang economic and diplomatic relations with the West (obei kyocho) and then utilize these relations to. expand Japan's sphere of influence in Asia. Hara Kei, Japan's prime minister between September 1918 and November 1921, was an advocate of pro-Western foreign policy and wanted to forge closer ties with the West after Japan's two wartime prime ministers Okuma and Terauchi had followed expansionist policies, alienating Japan from Britain and the United States. Yet the liberal foreign policy orientation, represented by the leading political party, Minseito, came under increasing criticism from the nationalist groups and the opposition party, Seiyokai. Japan's diplomatic failures in getting the Western endorsement of its imperialist drive largely discredited the liberals, in many cases converting them to the nationalist line.71

While Japan was firmly committed to positioning itself with the West and to shape its policies accordingly, the Western powers themselves were increasingly more wary of accepting Japan into their imperialist camp. Its alliance with Britain had allowed Japan to cast itself as a significant and equal power as a member of the club of the "civilized nations." Due to this alliance, Japan was considered to be one of the victorious powers in the First World War and was invited to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 that formed the League of Nations as one of its five founders. It became one of the four permanent members of the Council of the League of Nations, alongside Britain, France, and Italy. This was the kind of international prestige that Japan had been looking for since the unequal treaties. However, two c;vents shattered Japan's confidence about its integration into the Western civilization: its failure to get a clause on racial equality to be included in the League of Nations covenant, and the ending of further Japanese immigration to the United States as a result of 1924 Immigration Act. While it is unimaginable to argue the opposite in today's political terms, in 1920s it was widely accepted by the Western public opinion that races were not equal. As Shimazu suggests, the pejorative idea of racism as such was not really existent before the interwar period because Anglo-Saxon society was so deeply imbued with what we would consider today to be racist values. For instance, it was universally recognised that there was some sort of scientific basis in believing in the differing capabilities of men.72

In the view of many Japanese, on the other hand, racial equality did not necessarily signify an equality of all peoples of the world; it was rather recognition for its imperial drive for equal status with the Western powers. Karl Kiyoshi Kawakami, a resident of the United States who functioned as a propandist for Japan in English language press, echoed Japan's motivations:

What Japan will insist upon is nothing more than a fair and just treatment for the Japanese who are entitled to travel or reside in those countries... .she [does not] urge that all Asiatic peoples be put upon an equal footing, if the Western governments find it more practicable to deal with the Japanese independently of other Asiatic races. For Japan certainly has no ambition to be the champion and mouthpiece for her numerous and ponderous neighbors on the continent....................... [Japan] would fain leave it for the Western statesmen to decide whether she should be put in a class separate from other Asiatic peoples.73

The proposal of Japan was rejected by the Western powers, primarily Britain and Australia. The primary reason for the rejection of the clause other than sheer racism was immigration. The Triple Intervention after the Sino-Japanese War had laid the foundations of anti-Western feelings among the Japanese elite, including many liberals. Suspicions about the West grew even stronger after the spoils of victory of Japan over Russia were denied. Now the Racial Equality Clause debate and the U.S. immigration laws fueled a deep mistrust of the West that Japan was not part of the racially structured international system. They came to the conclusion that to survive a future war between the white and yellow races, Japan must assume a regional stance of "Asia for Asians.“74

This led to  psychological misgivings over Japan's pro-Western identity and paved the way for the rise of Asianist ideas in the late 1920s and 1930s.75 Byf'the 1930s, most Japanese leaders had come to the conclusion that the liberal outlook of 1920s in Japanese foreign policy was not beneficial to Japanese interests. They came to regard these years as "a decade of futile attempts at peaceful expansion through international co operation.“76 On top of Japan's disillusionment in the realm of foreign affairs came the traumatic experience of the Greater Kanto Earthquake of 1923. The earthquake and ensuing fires killed 143.000 people and destroyed much of the greater Tokyo area. The shock of the quake and its aftermath we~t much further than the immediate physical damage. The earthquake caused an economic recession. The approaching global economic crisis and the recession caused by the earthquake led, in 1927, to a devastating banking crisis. Nationalist mobs quickly exploited people's psychological shock and mobilized them to attack Korean immigrants who were accused of contaminating the drinking water system with poison and of helping spread fires. Nationalist, anti-Western, and imperialist ideas grew in strength in this context Japan's cult-like "secret societies" all combined to fuel a national paranoia according to which Japan was being suffocated by the "ABCD powers" (America, Britian, China, an~ the Dutch). Japan had to confront these powers in order to claims its rightful presence in world politics. Hence the discourse on the West was changing from civilization to imperialism. By the late 1920s, Japan was in a deep economic and political crisis. Two Japanese parties, SeiyUkai and Minseit6, were largely considered as under the total influence of two zaibatsu combines, Mitsui' and Mitsubishi, respectively. These' combines financed the activities of the parties and influenced their decisions regarding monetary policies. At their insistence Japan maintained a convertible currency, and they made huge gains through speculative activities that undermined governmental efforts to maintain monetary stability.77 Hence there was a growing mistrust of party politics among increasingly frustrated military officers who pressured for an expansionist foreign policy. Following the coming to power of SeiyUkai leader Tanaka Giichi in 1927, Japan moved to implement expansionist policies by sending troops to China on three occasions in 1927 and 1928. A former leader of the Choshll clan in Japanese politics and a career general, Tanaka adopted a proactive policy in regard to China in the context of emerging challenge mounted by the Chinese nationalist movement led by Chiang Kai-Shek. This marked the shift from the liberal Shidehara diplomacy to nationalist and expansionist Tanaka diplomacy and prepared the later triumph of anti-West em pan-Asian expansionism. Tanaka's expeditions provoked strong reactions in China. In 1927, Chinese nationalists circulated what they claimed to be a document (Tanaka Memorial) allegedly presented to the Emperor of Japan by Tanaka, outlining strategy of occupying Manchuria.78.

Eventually, the murder of the Manchurian warlord and Japan's ally ChangTso-lin by the conspiratorial Kwantung army officers brought about the fall of the Tanaka government in 1929. Minseito managed to return to power in 1929 and scaled down Japan's military involvement in Manchuria. However, it faced the opposition of the increasingly independent military and the Kwantung Army. In September 1931, the Manchurian Incident erupted when the Kwantung Army attacked the Chinese troops. Foreign Minister Shidehara claimed that he learned of the incident from the newspaper the following morning, a statement highlighting the fact that the military began to take the matters in its own hand.79 By taking an action independently of the government, the military forced Japan into a conflict from which it could not exit and consequently intensified militarization of the country. Meanwhile, numerous "secret groups" with links in the military carried out a campaign of assassinations. In the 1932 elections, Seiyokai came back to power. In March 1932, the Kwantung Army established the puppet state of Manchuko, which provoked a serious conflict with the League of Nations. Although Seiy Okai endorsed this action, prime minister Inukai Tsuyoshi was assassinated by young naval officers for attempting to curb army actions in Manchuria, an event commonly referred to as May 15 incident (go-ichigo jiken). While the plot failed to secure a martial law as perpetrators were punished albeit lightly and order was restored, the incident marked the beginning of direct military control of Japanese politics, a process that would lead Japan to the Second World War.

 

The Triumph of Pan-Asian Imperialism

Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars were important milestones in Japan's quest for world power. With its victories over China and Russia, Japan proved itself as the most formidable power in Asia. This was credited as the success of the Meiji Westernization and reorientation of Japanese civilizational identity. Yet Japan could not obtain recognition of its status from the West as an equal power in the imperialist club. It became increasingly clear to the Japanese that race was the major factor for its failure to, obtain such recognition. Despite Japan's claim of carrying the flag of Western civilization in Asia, its expansion over Asia caused a conflict of interests with Western colonialism. Japan now became the threat in Western perceptions and it was forced back into isolation. Under these circumstances, nationalist and expansionist ideas gained strength. The new justification for expansionism was the ideology of pan- Asianism, which existed alongside the Westemist/liberal Meiji imperialism but was largely discredited in the context of the successes of the Meiji. Many Japanese flirted with the idea of "liberating" Asia under the flag ofJapan, particularly following the Russo-Japanese war. In 1936, Amau Eiji of the Japanese Foreign Ministry issued the Amau Doctrine, proclaiming Japan as the "guardian of peace, and order in East Asia." In this role, Japan claimed the right to oppose Western support to China and asserted that China did not have the right to "avail herself of the influence of any other country to resist Japan."80

This was a direct challenge to the Open Door Policy declared by the u.s. Secretary of State John Hay in 1899. Basically the goal was to prevent any single power, most particularly Japan, from gaining exclusive colonial control over China. According. to this doctrine, all nations would have equal trading rights in China and Western spheres of interest in China would not become colonial possessions. In 1922, the Nine-Power treaty signed at the Washington Naval Conference endorsed the open door policy and pledged mutual respect for Chinese territorial integrity and independence. Hay stated in 1900 that "the policy of the United States is to seek a solution which may bring about permanent safety and peace to China, preserve Chinese territorial integrity and administrative entity, protect all rights guaranteed to friendly powers by treaty and international law and safeguard trade with all parts of China."81 However, as other parts of Asia were already colonized by the Western powers, Japan came to increasingly dislike the Open Door Policy as an exclusive denial of its colonial expansion. In this context, ideas of an anti- Western, Japan-centric Asian order gained currency among members of Japanese political and intellectual elite. The civilizational discourse of the Meiji era was replaced by the racial discourse in the period of the war and became hegemonic by the 1930s. The idea ofa "same script, same race" (dobun doshu) was the basis of this version of Asianism. Yet common culture and same race did not mean in the perception of Japanese pan-Asianists a perfect equality of Japan and China. For them, "Japanese must assume the dominant position in order to 'educate' and 'lead' the Chinese in the right direction.,,82 Tokutomi Soho, once a quintessential liberal who converted to the nationalist cause later, expressed these feelings: The countries of the white men are already extending into the forefront of Japan. They have already encroached on China, India and Persia. Japan is not so far from Europe. Most of the countries in the east from Suez, excluding Japan, have been dominated by them. Coping with such a situation, can we have a hope of equal treatment between the white man and the yellow man? No ... Although Chinese, like us, also belong to the world of the yellow man, they always humble themselves before the white man and indulge themselves by leading a comfortable life. We, Japanese, should take care of the yellow man in general, Chinese in particular. We should claim that the mission of the Japense Empire is to fully implement an Asian Monroe Doctrine. „Although we say that Asians should handle their own affairs by themselves, there are no other Asian people than the Japanese who are entitled to perform this mission. Therefore, an Asian Monroe Doctrine means in reality a Monroe Doctrine led by the Japanese....................... We should end the dominance of the white man in Asia.“83.

Japan's assistance to the Chinese revolutionary movement led by Sun-Jat Sen to overthrow the Qing monarchy was a part of Japan's Asianist strategy. Japanese activists such as Miyazaki Toten assisted the efforts of helping Chinese revolutionaries in the name of fighting the common enemy of the West.84 In Japanese understanding of this new Asian order, there was no return to the China-centered old Asian order. Japan had to be the center of Asia..Hence, the Meiji perception of Asia in the Japanese imagination did not change in this new period; Asianism refused to recognize Asia as the equal of Japan. Japanese Asianists subscribed to a new Asian civilizational order in which Japan as the central power was waging a war of independence on behalf of all Asia. It should be noted, however, that Asianist ideology did not exist in sharp contrast to the liberal ideology, particularly to the degree of Japan's centrality. Owy the discourse of Japanese imperialism has changed from the view that Japan had the right to expand into Asia as a member of the "civilized" world so that it was Japan's obligation to liberate Asia from Western imperialism by means of invading it. There were times when the most Western-oriented and liberal philosophers expressed Asianist ideas, while the most Asianist thinkers expressed anti-Asian opinions. However, these two views did not stand in complete opposition of each other in the mentality of many Japanese. For instance, Fukuzawa Yukichi, the ideologue of Westemization who famously advocated Japan's de Asianization, argued for Japanese leadership (meishu) in Asia in the 1880s. Regardless of their ideological orientation, Meiji intellectuals and policymakers always agreed that Japan was superior to other Asian nations. In this sense, the degree of Asianism was determined by the degree of identification with the West. Japan's disillusionment with China as a result of China's perceived inferiority against the West convinced Fukuzawa Yukichi and many others to completely give up any perception of civilizational common identification with the Chinese and Koreans. Japan represented the contemporary civilization and was thus entitled to bring it to Asians, if necessary by force. The model for this liberal imperialism was provided by the West, who justified colonial expansionism under the pretext of "civilizing mission." On the other hand, Asianists thought that Asia could be united only under Japan's leadership. Hence they supported Japan's expansion into Asia in order to unite ,Asians against the Western aggression. They believed that Japanese aggression to achieve this goal did not mean the same as the Western aggression was imperialism, while Japan represented Asian civilization and it was its defender. It was in this context of the shift of imperialist discourse that Asianist philosophy became highly popular. While Fukuzawa was the architect of transformation of the Meiji civilizational identity, Okakura became the prime ideologue of Asian unity and sought for a civilizational authenticity in Japanese identity. The gist of Okakura's indirectly political writings was the idea of a common Asian civilization. He believed that Asian civilization was one single unit of which Japan was an integral part. Although Okakura's views did not immediately become popular when he published his books, they gained traction, as Japan and the Japanese psyche slowly drifted away from the West under the influence of many factors explained above. Okakura came from a highly surprising background to be the ideologue of Asianism. He grew up among English-speaking missionaries in Yokohama and had a far better command of English than Japanese. He maintained very strong links with the United States throughout his life, spending a significant portion of his life in the United States and accepted positions in elite institutions such as the Boston Museum of Art in 1904 and received an honorary MA degree from Harvard in 1911. Perhaps it is also true that this background saved him from a sense of inferiority against the West and allowed him to confront the West with a stronger sense of self-confidence.85

Okakura's wish was to create a sense of cultural confidence in the Japanese people. He tried to do so by emphasizing the value of Japanese and Asian culture. He was deeply disturbed by the tendency to cherish Western culture at the expense of Japanese culture. Despite Okakura's earnest attempts to create a sense of civilizational pride in Japan rooted in Asia, the Asianist strand among Japanese elites primarily remained as an anti systemic ideology in the context of Japan's proven success against China and Russia. Japanese Asianism was intellectually inspired-by Okukura Tenshin's "Asia is one" discourse. Yet in political practice, political expression of Asianismowes much to two other ideologues: Kita IKki (1883-1937) and Okawa Shfunei (1886-1957). Kita Ikki, a revolutionary intellectual who developed an outline for reconstruction of Japan on the principles of socialism and Asian nationalism, has influenced many key leaders, most prominently Kishi Nobusuke whose influence in Japanese politics still continues. While Maruyama Masao, one of Japan's most important postwar liberal thinkers, considers Kita Ikki "the ideological father of Japanese fascism"; many dispute whether his extreme nationalism could be called fascism.86 His nationalism did not center on the Imperial Household; rather he was opposed to the way the Imperial Household became the principal building block of the Meiji Japan. In his "General Outline for National Reconstruction" which he wrote in 1919 while in exile in Shanghai, Kita Ikki laid down a blueprint for a comprehensive socialist revolution in Japan. The book was banned in Japan but widely read by leading activists and young military officers. In this book, Kita foresaw an inevitable conflict with the West, which required, in his opinion, an imminent action in the form of political violence, in order to establish a new social order that would liberal Asia from Western domination.87 Kita believes that the liberation of Asia required Japan's leadership, and that leadership would also provide Japan access to new territories: Truly, our seven hundred million brothers in China and India have no path to independence other than that offered by our guidance and protection. And for our Japan, whose population had doubled within the past fifty years, great areas adequate to support a population of at least two hundred and forty or fifty millions will be absolutely necessary a hundred years from now. For a nation, one hundred years are like a hundred days for an individual.88

Okawa Shomei, another influential Asianist ideologue advocating the idea of Japan's expansion into Asia, shared with other Asianists the dream of revival of Asia and its liberation from Western domination.89 However, Okawa's contribution to Japanese Asianism was his broadening of the concept of Asia to include the Islamic world. To illustrate his comprehensive perception of Asianism, Okawa' s major work, Fukko Ajia Shomondai, covered problems of countries ranging from Turkey to Afghanistan and Russian Central Asia.90 This led to forging an alliance between Japanese pan-Asianists and several pan-Islamic ideologues. In Indonesia, Japan trained Hizbullah paramilitary forces to fight Dutch colonialism. What made Kita and Okawa different from Okakura and many other Asianist intellectuals was their degree of activism. They were intellectual activists who firmly believed that Japan had to take up its responsibility of liberating Asia and that it was first. necessary to "correct" the Japanese political system through action. They formed political groups to support this ideology. The increasing militarization of Japanese politics prepared the background conditions in which their ideas could be implemented. Their ideas were articulated in the context of growing hostility with the colonial Western powers over Asia and eventually the Second World War that served as the appropriate context for the rise of Japanese nationalism. An important milestone in Japanese Asianism was the proclamation of the idea of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere (Daitoa kyoei ken). In 1938, Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro declared Japan's desire to create a New Order in East Asia (toa shinchitsujo). According to this idea, Japan together with the Manchuko and Komintang government in China would join their forces to fight against Communism and Western imperialism. Later in 1940, Konoe expanded this concept to "new order in Greater East Asia" to include Southeast Asia. Konoe also secured a pact with Germany to strengthen the position of Japan in Asia. Both Japan and Germany hoped that the alliance would "neutralize the Soviet Union. .. and prevent the United States from entering the war in Europe or interfering in Southeast Asia. 9l The Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere was formally announced by Foreign Minister Matsuoka Yosuke in August 1940, as a plan to create a bloc of Asian nations independent of Western influence. According to the "Draft of General Plan," a document produced in 1942 by Japanese Total War Research Institute, a body responsible to army and cabinet, the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere consisted of three stages: The Inner Sphere-the vital sphere for the empire-includes Japan, Manchuria, North China, the lower Yangtze Area and the Russian Maritime area. The Smaller Co-Prosperity Sphere--the smaller self-supplying sphere of East Asia-includes the inner sphere plus Eastern Siberia, China, Indo-China and the South Seas. The Greater Co-Prosperity Sphere-the larger self-supplying sphere of East Asia-includes the smaller co-prosperity sphere, plus Australia, India, and island groups in the Pacific, Japan would play the central role in this plan, both as a leader and a stabilizer. However, for Japan to play such a role, it was essential for it to experience a spiritual transformation: "Since the Japanese empire is the center and pioneer of Oriental moral and cultural reconstruction, the officials and people of this country must return to the spirit of the Orient and acquire a thorough understanding of the spirit of the national moral character.“93

Initially, many Asian leaders of independence movements endorsed the idea. However, Asian nationalists, particularly the Chinese, were not convinced that their liberation would be achieved through the hands of the Japanese. As Akira Iriye argues, "Asian nationalism had been inspired less by Japan's pan-Asianism than by the Wilsonian principle of self-determination and by the Soviet-initiated anti-imperialism.“94 In 1943, several Asian leaders gathered for the Assembly of Greater East Asiatic Nations in Tokyo. The joint declaration of the assembly stated that “The countries of Greater East Asia, with a view to contributing to the cause of world peace, undertake to cooperate toward prosecuting the War of Greater East Asia to a successful conclusion, liberating their region from the yoke of British-American domination and assuring their self-existence and self-defense and in constructing a Greater East Asia.“95

However, Japan's own occupation of Asia and the treatment of Asians confirmed the fear of many Asians that Japanese colonization was no better than that of Europeans. This experience of Japanese occupation has left a long-lasting effect on the mentality of all Asians, and to this day Japan's position within Asia is influenced by the historical memory created by the experience of Japanese occupation.

 

Conclusion of P.1

Observing the collapse of China at the hands of the rising Western powers by the end of the nineteenth century, Japan developed a sense of urgency and panic, which ultimately led to search for a new orientation and identity. Having witnessed China's miserable situation following the Opium War in 1842, the image of China as the center of civilization in the mindset of the Japanese was completely destroyed. Japan had to find a way to develop itself in order to defend itself against the encroaching West. With this extreme sense of insecurity, the Bakufu regime understood that it could not continue its isolation and embarked upon a policy of opening itself to the West in order to modernize. However, this did not save the Tokugawa from collapsing at the hand of the nationalist samurai who demanded restoration of the emperor, expulsion of foreigtlers and the abolition of all treaties signed with the Western powers. These nationalist samurai, particularly those from Satsuma and Choshft, succeeded in overthrowing the Bakufu regime. However, they failed to implement their nationalist agenda because they too came to the same conclusion that Japan's defense needed modernization through learning and borrowing weapons, science and technology, administrative institutions and finally ethics from the West. The most important philosopher of the Meiji era, Fukuzawa Yukichi, claimed that Japan's survival as an independent nation depended on its replacement of its sense of civilizational belonging. Hence Japan became detached from the Sino-Centric Asian order and developed a one-sided sense of identification with the West. Fukuzawa advised Japan to treat Asia as the Westerners were treating it. This way Japan entered a new period in which it perceived itself as having the mission of carrying "the civilization" into Asia. This was Japan's liberal imperialism, which was itself a copy of Western justification of colonialism through "the civilizing mission." In the implementation stage of this new mission, Japan confronted and defeated first China. It allied itself with Britain and defeated Russia, its primary competitor in Northeast Asia. These victories of an unexpected Japanese power drew the reaction of European powers. The self-image of Japan as though it was the representative of the Western civilization in Asia came to be rejected by these powers who gradually developed a sense of insecurity to their interests because of Japan's rise. The European powers, now including Anglo Saxon powers, started to see Japan as their most visible threat in Asia to their colonial interests. However, Japan managed to avoid confrontation with any colonial European power. In contrast, Japan entered the First World War as their ally and received an invitation to participate in the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 that formed the League of Nations. Japan's first confrontation with the Western powers came to be realized during these negotiations when Japan insisted to make racial equality a part of the League of Nations convention. Rejection of this proposal by the Western powers was a shock for Japan. Coupled by other events such as the racial restrictions on immigration into the United States, this racial equality clause incident was a turning point in the evolution of the image of the West in the Japanese identity. Japan~s rejection by the West as an equal colonial power led to a deep soul searching among many liberal Japanese intellectuals such as Tokutomi Soha. With the discrediting of liberal ideology~ the Asianist ideology that was dormant but not popular because of the successes of the Meiji reforms gained popularity. While Asianism replaced the Meiji liberalism it borrowed certain elements from the liberal ideology. First of al1~ Asianism did not restore in the Japanese identity the image of Asia in the old Asian order~ which located China at the center of civilization. On the contrary like the Meiji liberals, the Japanese Asianists considered themselves at the center of Asia. In contrast to the Meiji liberalism‘s image of Japan as a missionary of Western civilization the Asianist perception of Japan was that of defender of Asia against the Western imperialism. This task was so grave that it could not be left to the Chinese. Second, the Meiji liberalism depended on good relations with European powers, most particularly Britain. The Japanese Asianism was not a nosta1gic~ romatic ideology. It calculated its best interests and concluded that Japan needed to shift its ally in Europe from Britain to Germany. Finally, Asianism had to deal with the damage that the Meiji liberalism left in relations with Asian nations. Consequently, Asianists could not find support for their idea of Japan-centered Asian unity despite some early contacts and alliances of convenience with Chinese nationalists. Japanese Asianists had to convince other Asians that they would save them ftom imperialism, but when they failed they applied brute force during the Second World War. In this way they managed to magnify the effects of Japanese imperialism that left long-lasting effects that have continued to serve as the largest obstacle in Japan‘s relations with Asia to this day. The Meiji defensive modernization and the resulting shift in Japan's sense of civilizational belonging had created Japan's psychological detachment from Asia as well as that of Asia from Japan. Asianism, on the other hand, not only failed to mend these wounds but also resulted in further deepening of them.

 

Notes

1 Peter F. Komicki, "General Introduction," in Meiji Japan: Political, Economic and Social History, 1868-1912, ed. Peter F. Kornicki (London: Routledge, 1998), xiv.

2 Carol Gluck, Japan's Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985).

3 Richard T. Chang, From Prejudice to Tolerance; a Study of the Japanese Image of the West 1826-1864, Monumenta Nipponica Monographs. (Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 1970).

4 Ssu-yu Teng and John King Fairbank, China's Response to the West; a Documentary Survey, 1839-1923 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954).

5 Marius B. Jansen and Gilbert Rozman, Japan in Transition, from Tokugawa to Meiji (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 13.

6 Mikiso Hane, Modern Japan: A Historical Survey (Boulder: Westview Press, 1986), 5657.

7 E. Herbert Norman and John W. Dower, Origins of the Modern Japanese State: Selected Writings of E. H. Norman, 1st ed. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1975), 156.

8 Ibid., 120.

9 Mayumi Itoh, Globalization of Japan: Japanese Sa/roku Mentality and U.S. Efforts to Open Japan, 1st ed. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998), 13; also Robert Hellyer, "Historical. and Contemporary Perspectives on the Sakoku Theme in Japanese Foreign Relations: 1600-2000," Social Science Japan Journal 5, no. 2 (2002).

10 James L. McClain, Japan, a Modern History, 1st ed. (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2002), 141.

11 William Theodore De Bary, Arthur Tiedemann, and Carol Gluck, Sources of Japanese Tradition: Volume 2, 1600 to 2000, 2nd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 618.

12 Toyokichi Iyenaga. "The Constitutional Development of Japan: 1853-1881." (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1891), http://www.gutenberg.orgletext/12355 (accessed December 02, 2004).

13 Ibid.

14 F. G. Notehelfer, "On Idealism and Realism in the Thought ofOkakura Tenshin," Journal of Japanese Studies 16, no. 2 (1990): 310.

15 On Yoshida Shain's contribution to Japanese nationalism and modernization, see Thomas M. Huber, The Revolutionary Origins of Modern Japan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1981), 7-91.

16 Louis G. Perez, Japan Comes of Age: Mutsu Munemitsu and the Revision of the Unequal Treaties (Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1999).

17 lechika Y oshiki, Bakumatsu Seiji to T6baku Undo (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1995).

18 See Andrew Cobbing and Takaaki Inuzuka, The Satsuma Students in Britain: Japan's Early searchfor The "Essence of the West", Meiji Japan Series; 9. (Richmond: Japan Library, 2000).

19 Conrad D. Totman, The Collapse of the Tokugawa Bakufu, 1862-1868 (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1980).

20 De Bary, Tiedemann, and Gluck, Sources of Japanese Tradition: Volume 2, 1600 to 2000, 670.

21 Joseph Pittau, Political Thought in Early Meiji Japan, 1868-1889 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967), 177-78.

22 Nobutaka Inoue, "The Formation of Sect Shinto in Modernizing Japan," Japanese JournalofReligious Studies 29, no. 34 (2002): 409.

23 Robert H. Sharf, "The Zen of ,Japanese Nationalism," History of Religions 33, no. 1 (1993): 5.

24 Ian H. Nish, The Iwakura Mission in America and Europe: ANew Assessment, xii, 228
P vols. (Richmond: Japan Library, 1998), 2.

25 "Imperial Letter to Emperors and presidents on the Despatch of the Iwakura Mission, November 4,1871," in Alfred Stead, Japan by the Japanese; a Survey by Its Highest Authorities (London: W. Heinemann, 1904), 155-56.

26 John Reddie Black, Young Japan: Yokohama and Yedo (London: TrUbner, 1880), 358.

27 Peter Duus, The Japanese DiscQvery of America: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford Books, 1997), 176.

28 Ibid.

29 Ibid., 178.

30 KOzai Yukishige, Wakon-ron Nato (Notes on Wakon), Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1984,. p. 84, quoted in Nozomu Kawamura, "The Concept of Modernization Re-Examined from the Japanese Experience," in The Japanese Trajectory: Modernization and Beyond, ed. Gavan McCormack and Y oshio Sugimoto (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 270.

31 Ibid., 271.

32 Harry D. Harootunian, "The Functions. of China in Tokugawa Thought," in The Chinese and the Japanese: Essays in Political and Cultural Interactions, ed. Akira lriye. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980), 12.

33 Quoted by Sushila Narsimhan, Japanese Perceptions of China in the Nineteenth Century: Influence of Fukuzawa Yu/cichi (New Delhi: Phoenix Pub. House, 1999), 7.

34 See Joshua A. Fogel, "The Sino-Japanese Con1roversy over Shinaas a Toponym for China," in The Cultural Dimension of Sino -Japanese Relations: Essays on the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Armonk: M;E. Sharpe, 1995).

35 Stefan Tanaka, Japan's Orient: Rendering Pasts into History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 3-4.

36 Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi and Yasushi Aizawa, Anti-Foreignism and Western Learning in Early-Modern Japan: The New Theses of 1825 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986), 51.

37 Ibid., 57.

38 Carmen Blacker, The Japanese Enlightenment, a Study of the Writings of Fukuzawa Yu/dchi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964), 27.

39 Roger F. Hackett, ''Nishi Amane-a Tokugawa-Meiji Bureaucrat," The Journal of Asian Studies 18, no. 2 (1959): 218.

40 Yukichi Fukuzawa, An Outline of a Theory of Civilization {Tokyo: Sophia University, 1973), 179.

41 Ibid., 97.

42 An Encouragement of Learning, trans. D.A. Dilworth and U. Hirano (Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 1969), 2.

43 Fukuzawa, An Outline of a Theory of Civilization, 35.

44 Rumi Sakamoto, "Japan, Hybridity and the Creation of Colonialist Discourse," Theory, Culture & Society 13, no. 3 (1996): 116; also see Prasenjit Duara, "The Discourse of Civilization and Decolonization," Journal of World History 15, no. 1 (2004).

45 Fukuzawa, An Outline of a Theory of Civilization, 13.

46 Ibid., 15.

47 Iichiro T okutomi et al., The "Future Japan (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1989), 78.

48 DavidL. Howell, Geographies of Identity in Nineteenth-Century Japan (Berkeley: University of Califomia Press, 2005), 157.

49 Haeley Graham, "Kokutai," in Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1983), 262-63.

50 Fukuzawa, An Outline of a Theory of Civilization, 171.

51 Ibid., 189.

52 Ibid.

53 Masao Maruyama, Thought and Behaviour in Modem Japanese Politics (London: Oxford University Press, 1966, 146).

54 Quoted in Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), 310.

55 David John Lu, Japan: A Documentary History (Armonk: M.B. Sharpe, 1997),351-53.

56 Kyu Sun Han, "A Comparative Study of the Anti-Confucianism of Fukuzawa Yukichi and Yi Kwang-Su" (ph.D. dissertation, University of Newcastle upon the Tyne, 1996), 99.

57 Peter Duus, The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 18951910 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 2.

58 Donald Keene, The Japanese Discovery of Europe: Honda Toshiaki and Other Discoverers, 1720-1798 (New York: Grove Press, 1954), 162-70.

59 Ibid., 179.

60 Kenneth M. Wells, South Korea's Minjung Movement: The Culture and Politics of Dissidence, Studies from the Center for Korean Studies (Honolulu: University of Hawaii" Press, 1995), 69.

61 Charles Nelson Spinks, "Origin of Japanese Interests in Manchuria," The Far Eastern Quarterly 2, no. 3 (1943): 265.

62 Duus, The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1895-1910, 6667.

63 Narsimhan, Japanese Perceptions of China in the Nineteenth Century: Influence of Fukuzawa Yukichi, 150.

64 Ibid., 156.

65 John B. Welfield, An Empire in Eclipse: Japan in the Postwar American Alliance System, a Study in the Interaction of Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy (London: Atlantic Highlands, 1988), 13.

66 Ibid.

67 Yukihiko Motoyama, J. S. A. Elisonas, and Richard Rubinger, Proliferating Talent: Essays on Politics, Thought, and Education in the Meiji Era (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1997), 385.

68 Andrew Gordon, "The Crowd and Politics in ImperialJapan: Tokyo 1905-1918," Past and Present, no. 121 (1988): 142.

69 On the impact of Japanese victory over Russia, see Klaus Kreiser, "Der Japanische Sieg fiber Russland (1905) und sein Echo unter den Muslimen," Die Welt des Islams 21 (1984).

70 Narsimhan,Japanese Perceptions of China in the Nineteenth Century: Influence of Fukuzawa Yukichi, 197.

71 Naoko Shimazu, Japan, Race and Equality: The Racial Equality Proposal of 1919 (London: Routledge, 1998), 38.

72 Ibid., 120.

73 Kiyoshi Karl Kawakami, Japan and World Peace (New York,: Macmillan, 1919), 5556 Also see Kiyoshi Karl Kawakami, Japan in World Politics (New York: Macmillan, 1917).

74 Noriko Kawamura, Turbulence in the Pacific: Japanese-U.S. Relations During World War I (Westport,Conn. Praeger, 2000), 6.

75 Shimazu, Japan, Race and Equality: The Racial Equality Proposal of 1919.

76 Akira Iriye, "The Failure of Military Expansionism," in Dilemmas oj Growth in Prewar Japan, ed. James William Morley and George M. Beckmann (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), 107.

77 Louise Young, Japan's Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 189.

78 An English translation of this document appeared in 1929. Giichi Tanaka, The Memorial of Premier Tanaka; or, a Japanese Secret Design for the Conquest of China as Well as the United States and the Rest of the World (New York: World Peace Movement, 1929) According to many scholars, the Tanaka Memorial was forged.by the Chinese nationalists even though a Japanese' occupation of Manchuria took place in 1931.

79 Yoog, Japan- Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism, 119-20.

80 Dorothy J. Perkins, Japan Goes to War: A Chronology of Japanese Military Expansion from the Meiji Era to The Attack on Pearl Harbor (1868-1941) (Darby: Diane Publishing,1997), 117.

81 Robyn Lim, The Geopolitics of East Asia: The Search for Equilibrium (London: Routledge, 2003), 34.

82 Kazuki Sato, "'Same Language, Same Race': The Dilemma of Kanbun in Modem Japan," in The Construction of Racial Identities in China and Japan: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Frank Dikotter (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997), 131.

83 Susumu Takahashi, "The Global Meaning of Japan: The State's Persistently Precarious Position in the World Order," in The Political Economy of Japanese Globalization, ed. Glenn D. Hook and Harukiyo Hasegawa (London: Routledge, 2001), 24 On Tokutomi, see John D. Pierson, Tokutomi SoM, 1863-1957, a Journalist for Modern Japan ' (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980).

84 Toten Miyazaki, My Thirty-Three Years' Dream: The Autobiography of Miyazaki Toten (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982).

85 See Notehelfer, "On Idealism and Realism in the Thought of Okakura Tenshin."

86 Maruyama, Thought and Behaviour in Modern Japanese Politics, 28.

87 Tetsuo Najita, Japan: The Intellectual Foundations of Modern Japanese Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 132.

88 De Bary, Tiedemann, and Gluck, Sources of Japanese Tradition: Volume 2, 1600'to 2000, 961.

89 For more information on Okawa, see Cemil Aydin, "The Politics of Civilizational Identities: Asia, West and Islam in the Pan-Asianist Thought of Okawa Shumei" (ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University, 2002) Also, Shimazu, Japan, Race and Equality: The Racial Equality Proposal of 1919, 177.

90 Shumei Okawa, Fuk/ro Ajia No Shomondai (Tokyo: Chuo Koronsha, 1993).

91 Nicholas Tarlirtg, A Sudden Rampage: The Japanese Occupation of Southeast Asia, 1941-1945 (London: C. Hurst, 2001), 59.

92 De Bary, Tiedemann, and Gluck, Sources of Japanese Tradition: Volume 2, 1600 to 2000, 1011.

93 Ibid.

94 Akira Iriye, Japan and the Wider World: From the Mid-Nineteenth Century to the Present (London: Longman, 1997), 91.

95 Japanese Ministry of Greater East Asia, Addresses before the Assembly of Greater East Asiatic Nations, Tokyo, 1943~ pp. 63-65. Quoted in Lu, Japan: A Documentary History, 423-24.

For updates click homepage here