Race and Nation in Japan - Term Paper Example

JAPANESE HISTORY INTRODUCTION During the Tokugawa period (c.1600-1868), it was assumed that inequality existed among groups, various peoples, countries, classes and races. Since the late nineteenth century, myths of origins and narratives about biological descent which were part of an existing racialism, became important elements in the cultural construction of national identity in Japan. Histories written in the linear mode facilitated this process, and Westerners have been involved in their production1. A large number of foreign advisers in Japan were present during the Meiji period (1868-1912). On their return home, they often represented Japanese culture as a potential model for the rest of the world, to enhance their own prospects, by drawing attention to their achievements in Japan. At the same time, they contributed to Japan's national project. In this paper I shall discuss why have concepts of restoration, reform reconstruction and revitalization dominated the thoughts and actions of Japan's ruling elites from the 1850s to the 1930s? How have these ideas manifested themselves in governmental or elite-level policies over the same period? What does the resilience of these ideologies tell us about state-society relations in Japan over the years 1850-1930? In this paper I shall argue about the concepts of restoration, reform reconstruction and revitalization of Japan's ruling elites from the 1850s to the 1930s Japan has been packaged as a potential model over two periods: 1890s to 1930s and 1950s to 1970s. In between these two periods, during the 1930s and 1940s, Japan was considered as having been a failure. Ian Inkster has pointed out that in the earlier period - the period with which this paper is concerned - there was an emphasis on the role of government or the Japanese mentality2. This was certainly so in the case of Dyer. The message was that Western politicians and bureaucrats should act. In the latter period, the significance of the role of Meiji bureaucrats has been downplayed. The message to developing nations even today is that cultural traits, individuality and democracy are the best way of ensuring socioeconomic progress3. Lets analyze Japan through the eyes of the historians to understand the era better. Japan has, throughout this century, meant different things to different people. Through a close reading of one of Historian’s' books, this paper will attempt to identify the historical context in which it was written and read. Historian’s' writing clearly shows how their attitudes to issues, such as race, were transformed into a complex narrative about the origins and history of the Japanese people. As Prasenjit Duara has persuasively argued, "social Darwinism joined race and History to the nation-state". As George Wislon rightly states so that the histories of the nation-states which are written tend to "narrate the evolving unity of the nation" This paper argues that for Historian’s, science educator and clergyman, Japan provided strong evidence of how race was the key to understanding national evolution, and how science could serve as a civilizing influence. Race was equated with nation, and by understanding Japanese racial superiority one could understand the basis for their military and economic success. In this way, Historian’s' writings reveal more about himself and their times, than they do about Japan. Historian’s, in short, argues that human biology (Aryan blood) can account for much of the success of the Japanese, and that power struggles between nations can be viewed as an evolutionary struggle between races. Dyer, the engineer, sees nations as competing with each other too, but in a struggle to be efficient. He attributes Japanese success to their environment, an environment, which he points out, is not unlike that of Britain! Japan however had bushid" (the way of the samurai) which helped galvanize the nation, something which the British could learn from. Lets see the impact of the imperialists during this era. Hired foreigners like Historian’s and Dyer were, in many ways, budding imperialists sponsored by their nations, and were linked with the unequal treaties and trade agreements. The Meiji government sought to regulate the employment of such foreigners. Domains were ordered, from as early as August 1868, to seek permission from the foreign office before hiring what were known as oyatoi gaikokujin (honourable foreign menial or hireling). There were many types of hired foreigners, half being Chinese labourers, and also those who pretended to be professors. Labourers aside, there were two types of professional advisers: general advisers and specialist advisers. In the early Meiji period, the former tended to be more numerous. During the period 1870-1885, the Public Works Ministry (Kôbush&ô) employed 60 per cent of the foreign employees. Increasing numbers became involved in education4. The hired foreigners taught the Japanese, and thus ironically paved the way for a steady reduction in the use of foreign advisers. By the turn of the century, native Japanese were in total control of decision-making. In any year of the Meiji period there tended to be around 8,000 hired foreigners, about half of whom were Chinese day-labourers, and only about 3,000 professional in government service5. The peak period was 1874 and 1875, with 800 new foreign employees in each of these years. Seventy-five per cent of hired foreigners received salaries which were appropriate for upper civil service ranks. The majority of the foreigners were in either the 26-30 or 31-35 year old categories. Most of the professional foreign employees came from the four countries which played the most important part in Japan's foreign relations at the time: Great Britain, France, the USA, and Germany. Certain nationalities developed particular lines of work. The British took over from the French in naval train- ing, German advisers replaced the French in Army training, Americans established a foreign mail service at Yokohama. The most important American project was the technical assistance mission that went to the island of Hokkaido. Their activities included mining, railway construction, agricultural experimentation and related industries6. Meiji leaders recognized that the employment of foreign employees was a necessary, but temporary evil7. It was thus deemed necessary to educate Japanese to replace foreigners as quickly as possible. Historian’s' frustration with the bureaucratic difficulties surrounding their employment in Japan ultimately resulted in their return to the USA. Perhaps their remarks about Japanese cannibalism were an expression of a fear of being controlled or exploited by their formerly barbaric Japanese employers, despite their original intentions of taking advantage of them to make their fortune. Stephen Arata has described this as "reverse colonization", such fears being particularly prevalent at the turn of the century. Accusing the Japanese of almost being cannibals reflects a fear of losing a superior status and perhaps the terror of "going native" (see various papers this volume)8. Such claims focus on what and how people ate, a marker of identity which, as we will see, Historian’s uses to differentiate the savage Ainu from the barbaric Ainu-Japanese. The average length of service of professional advisers to these "barbaric" people was around five years, and Historian’s was not particularly different, working in Japan for a total of three and a half years. He initially taught at the domain school Meishinkan which was located in provincial Fukui, not far from the Sea of Japan9. In 1871, government measures to abolish domains and transfer former feudal lords to the capital encouraged many of their students to pursue study in Tokyo or overseas. Historian’s, too, looked elsewhere10. In January 1872, after having taught in Fukui for nine months, Historian’s made the trip eastwards to Tokyo described at the beginning of this paper, where he took up an appointment teaching chemistry and physics at Daigaku Nanko (School for Western Studies) which had been established in 1870. That college was a forerunner of the Kaisei Gakk" which in turn would become Tokyo University 11 Historian’s was important in promoting Western science, especially chemistry, in Fukui, but with the dispersal of their students, the gains were somewhat diminished. As their biographer suggests, "it would be going too far to claim any seminal or national influence for their efforts"12. Historian’s contributed more to Japan after he left, by writing extensively about their experiences there and the country's history. For Historian’s, teaching, preaching and writing were all linked. To what extent their writings found an audience back in Japan is difficult to gauge. But we should note that Hiroshi Unoura and others have shown that foreign instructors helped introduce the discourse of race into Japan. The cultural authority of their writings and teachings resulted in acceptance of the racial hierarchies they constructed. This was at a seminal time, for it was only after the 1880s that a real sense of nation was inculcated among the population. The nation had to be perceived as a natural community, defined by a common ancestry and culture, hence the important of portraying Japan as a family-state with the Emperor at its head13. Historian’s, an American who lived in Japan from the end of 1870 to 1874, was a man of their lime, perhaps more eloquent than many, but certainly someone who reflected biases common to many other popular writers. As Frances Helbig has written Their was a world of bad guys where the bad guys were so bad they were devils. Yet so closely was he in tune with the American public that very few people noticed anything amiss. Their prejudices were their prejudices - - Instinctively playing upon popular prejudices and beliefs, he sometimes unmoored from their facts in the strong tide of emotional phrases14. Social Darwinist ideas were part of the cultural resources he drew on to engage their audience at the turn of the century, just after Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). Their work joins what Duara calls the "narratives of the nation" which appeared in the early twentieth century to help legitimate the precedence of state over society. Historian’s was not alone in writing such narratives. There were other former Japan hands who made the most of their knowledge gained from Japan as hired foreigners in the late nineteenth century. The way they structure their material shows that Social Darwinism was useful in explaining Japan's emergence in Asia as a powerful player. As we shall see, they found more difficulty in explaining the defeat of a white power - Russia - than the decline of the indigenous Ainu people. Historian’s departed for the USA in July 1874, where he was to go on to write some fifty books and numerous magazine articles, many of which dealt with some aspect of Japan. Historian’s often inserted himself in their writings, more in an attempt at self-promotion than for any enlightened desire for reflexivity. This was part of a strategy to give former foreigners employed in Japan their fair due. It was this desire to give them more recognition which was sometimes criticized. Their book Verbeck of Japan: A Citizen of No Country (1900) was criticized, shortly after publication, for placing the author in the limelight rather than the subject of the book. In 1903, Historian’s retired from their ministerial duties to devote himself to writing and giving lectures. The Japanese Nation in Evolution (1907) was one of the results. While ostensibly about Japan, the book is as much about the development or stagnation of Historian’s' ideas as it might be about the so-called "Mikado's Empire" which he wrote about in the 1870s15. Japan's defeat of China and Russia called into question existing racial classifications. How could the Japanese be elevated so quickly from half barbarians (nigh-cannibals) to imperial power? It was a problem for Western commentators, like Historian’s, and for the Japanese, that outwardly the Japanese seemed to share the yellowness of the people who they sought to dominate. While such racial similarities could be used to advantage in promoting Pan-Asianist concepts such as the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, the Japanese sought to place themselves in a superior position to that of other Asians by articulating European concepts of hierarchy and domination, most notably Social Darwinism. By doing so, they could justify Japanese expansionism. Historian’s' account is one example of how this was articulated for a Western readership. The question of the origins of the Japanese has been highly political, with archaeology and anthropology used to construct relationships, which are sometimes questionable, between Japan's ancient history and contemporary perceptions of its role and status in the world16. Tessa Morris-Suzuki (1996a) has written of how Japanese ethnography at the turn of the century wrote of the indigenous people of Hokkaido and the northern "frontier" as representatives of a prehistoric stage of human development, which Japan had passed through. So too Historian’s. In The Japanese Nation in Evolution, he traces the origins of the Japanese to the Ainu, and thereby claims the Japanese for the Caucasians, creating in them a white tribe of Asia. In doing so, Historian’s legitimates Japanese imperialism as a natural and inevitable process of survival of the fittest. Asian races invited colonization and the Japanese obliged. By using such suspect logic, Historian’s and other Western writers were able to come to terms with Japan's economic and military success (indicators of whiteness). Such success was simply an extension of their own17. The Ainu origins showed that the Japanese were really white not yellow. Therefore, Historian’s attempted to allay fears that the civilized European world would be overrun by primitive Asians. Historian’s de-Asianizes the Japanese. They are not primitive, though still somewhat barbaric. With the help of Americans they will join the "universal brotherhood". The Japanese Nation in Evolution is a prime example of how a scientific racial discourse emerged to account for existing inequalities. As Leo Ching argues, it is the "process of exploitation and discrimination itself that produces and establishes racial identities and differentiation in a system of asymmetrical power relationship, not the other way around”. Japan has, in fact, long been a multicultural nation, with a cultural pluralism which has been somewhat hidden18. The emergence of the newly industrialized economies of Asia suggest that Historian’s' West is no longer the model to follow, nor is their "science" (as opposed to technology) necessarily the key to success. Even before writing The Japanese Nation in Evolution, Historian’s was prone to generalizations about Japan. In their mammoth 700-page book The Mikado's Empire he characterizes the political system in terms of "Mikadoism"; the Emperor system. He sees Japanese history in terms of an unbroken line of emperors, that is one long dynasty rather than many different eras19. This is integral to their argument for the existence of a single dynastic line, for it allows for the cultural integration of Japan, creating a picture of unified identity. Historian’s' Japan was a monocultural and homogeneous nation, where "Mikadoism is the secret of Japanese unity, as of national development"20. In contrast with other commentators on Japan who yearn for a lost past, Historian’s is steadfastly located in the present, with their interest focussed on modern Japan and its evolution from a more savage and pagan state. Thus, even when looking at its history, it is in service to the present. Historian’s views the past as inevitably leading to the present. What historical sources inform Historian’s' book? Historian’s writes of how the Kojiki (Ancient Records of Japan), and Nihongi (Chronicles of Japan) dating back to the eighth century, "have been constantly by me", though he qualifies this with the caveat that in reading them one must check their statements by referring to Chinese and Korean sources, and archaeological and linguistic evidence. Mindful that "myths are easier to make than science", he boasts how their more scientific approach to history will explore shell mounds, placenames, the physiology and physiognomy of the people, as well as "their mental and moral traits", to arrive at a Japanese history focussed more on ordinary human beings. Their attempt to classify human groups, however, is used to set up a hierarchy of dominance. The Ainu-Japanese he sees as the key race into which other ethnic minorities can and should be assimilated. One wonders about the scientific basis of their work. In their earlier book The Mikado's Empire, he makes a case for "The Japanese Origin of the North American Indians". In The Japanese Nation in Evolution, Historian’s goes to pains to emphasize the "scientific" basis for the links between the Japanese and Europeans. For him, race is not necessarily a question of skin colour. There is no necessary distinction between the Oriental and Occidental, the brown man and the white man. That the "yellow brain", and the Japanese heart are ultimately different from those of the Yankee or the Briton, is the notion of tradition, not the fact of science21. Throughout The Japanese Nation in Evolution, Historian’s is keen to differentiate the Japanese from the Chinese, whom he considers as being effete and arrogant. For the Japanese who had formerly employed him, it was important that the West be able to distinguish between the two, for it helped to justify Japan's new role as colonial power. Historian’s blatantly states that "the Japanese are more Aryan than Chinese”22. Chinese cultural influence, in this schema of things, is considered to have stymied Japanese originality. Japanese identity is constructed by negating what is Chinese. Historian’s argues that romanization of the Japanese language would make knowledge more accessible to people, both in Japan and overseas. Chinese influence had rendered Japanese education too "scholastic". The Japanese needed to use their hands and undergo manual training and build up technical skills, not unlike the American model of development which he was acquainted with. He praises the Imperial College of Engineering, and the British teachers such as Henry Dyer who had worked there, for they embodied such ideas, ideas which he had helped to plant. Romanization of the language would, he argued, further promote "the cause of universal brotherhood". The Japanese are, after all, in their opinion white. "Roman script is in closer accord with Japanese genius and history than is the ideograph writing of China". Chinese script is criticized for having facilitated the spread of Buddhism in Japan. Historian’s considers the borrowing of Chinese writings and models as having been "a mere matter of environment and geography". Japan is, by virtue of race and evolution, "the epitome and residuary legatee of all Asia". By virtue of their hybridity, they are entitled to cross racial boundaries again in pursuit of empire. He goes so far to suggest that the Japanese "are not only the most improvable race in Asia, but possibly even in the world". It is thus a combination of the hybridity of the Japanese and those atoms of superior Aryan blood which have been mixed in, which predispose them to success.23 Step by step the Tokiosic Government proceeded to assert the legitimate rights of Japan, by annexing formally and incorporating in the Empire what by blood, language, and history, had long been a part of Japan. Cumulatively, they show how former Japan hands attempted to contribute to policymaking by drawing on their experience of Japan, in the hope that they might prove useful in a discussion of current day issues. They continued to be useful to Japan for they helped map out a place for the Japanese in the world, sometimes at the expense of other people such as the Chinese and the Ainu who had their place in the racial hierarchy mapped out for them. In the same way that the so-called post-World War II Japanese economic "miracle" gave rise to a flood of literature on how Japan succeeded, Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese War generated such a literature as well.24 CONCLUSION How useful is Japan as a development model for developing nations now? Despite the role that foreign employees played in the industrialization of Japan, one could argue that Japan's ability to rid itself of them and so avoid foreign domination by limiting foreign influence over its economy may have been a major factor. Furthermore, the timing of Japan's Meiji industrialization was favourable as Japan could adopt and assimilate advanced technology in a way that developing countries no longer can do. That is, the technological gap which Japan bridged was relatively easy to do, in the days of railways, textile mills, coal mining, and iron smelting. Japan thus came to engage in international trade and to continually borrow and adapt techniques in a process which became almost autonomous. It did, however, rely on growing domestic demand and a growing world market share. Technology is now much more complex and the gap between advanced and developing countries had widened greatly25. The Japanese sought to establish a racial hierarchy too, using progress in science to indicate difference. During the Meiji period it enabled them to discover how "backward" they were and how much they had to catch up. In time, it would also indicate how far they had come, a convenient way of distinguishing themselves from other, less "civilized" races, who outwardly seemed very similar to themselves, perhaps too close for comfort26. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Arata, S. D. (1990), "The occidental tourist: Dracula and the anxiety of reverse colonization", Victorian Studies, 33: 4, 621-45. 2. Beauchamp, F. R. 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(1990), "Domesticating imperialism: curiy and cookbooks in Victorian England", Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 16: 2-3, 51-68, History and Anthropology, 1999 c 1999 CPA (Overseas Publishers Association) NV. Vol. 11, No. 2-3, pp. 235-255 Published by license under 40. Kerry Smith : A time of crisis: Japan the great depression and rural revitalization, Cambridge: Harvard university press 2001 41. James Morley: Japan erupts the London naval conference and the Manchurian incident, 1928-1932, New York, Colombia press 1974 42. Yale Maxon control of Japanese foreign policy: A study of civil-military rivalry 1957 43. Imperial rescript for enjoining sincere and strenuous life issued on 11 November 1923, taken from the Japan yearbook 1924-25, earthquake edition (Tokyo, 1925) Read More