Nationalisms in Japan

Nationalisms in Japan

Nationalisms in Japan brings together leading specialists in the field to

critically examine different notions and manifestations of ‘nationalism’

in the political, social and cultural contexts of modern and contemporary

Japan. The book encompasses a period of two hundred years, and

includes discussions of the early Japanese national thinkers of the Mito

School, the conscripts in the Russo-Japanese war, Japan’s ambiguous

internationalists of the 1920s, the national extremists in the 1930s, the

Ainu moshiri and its implications, the history textbook controversy of

the 1990s and ends with a contemporary debate of the official visit

made by Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichiro¯ to the highly controversial

Yasukuni Shrine.

This contemporary and interdisciplinary study draws important

conclusions about the evolution of nationalism as a concept in Japan.

Through in-depth analysis by a leading team of scholars, the book

argues persuasively that competing forms of nationalism or more

accurately, nationalisms, can and do exist in Japan at any one time. Its

findings call for a more nuanced and sophisticated study of nationalisms

in Japan. This timely reassessment in the face of recent neo-nationalist

sentiment provides valuable insight and will be essential reading for

academics working on modern Japan and on comparative study of

nationalism.

Naoko Shimazu lectures on modern Japanese history at the School

of History, Classics and Archaeology, Birkbeck College, University of

London. She is the author of Japan, Race and Equality: The Racial

Equality Proposal of 1919 (Routledge, 1998).

Sheffield Centre for Japanese Studies / Routledge Series

Series Editor: Glenn D. Hook

Professor of Japanese Studies, University of Sheffield

This series, published by Routledge in association with the Centre for

Japanese Studies at the University of Sheffield, both makes available

original research on a wide range of subjects dealing with Japan and

provides introductory overviews of key topics in Japanese Studies.

The Internationalization of Japan

Edited by Glenn D. Hook and

Michael Weiner

Race and Migration in Imperial

Japan

Michael Weiner

Japan and the Pacific Free Trade

Area

Pekka Korhonen

Greater China and Japan

Prospects for an economic

partnership?

Robert Taylor

The Steel Industry in Japan

A comparison with the UK

Hasegawa Harukiyo

Race, Resistance and the Ainu of

Japan

Richard Siddle

Japan’s Minorities

The illusion of homogeneity

Edited by Michael Weiner

Japanese Business Management

Restructuring for low growth and

globalization

Edited by Hasegawa Harukiyo and

Glenn D. Hook

Japan and Asia Pacific Integration

Pacific romances 1968–1996

Pekka Korhonen

Japan’s Economic Power and

Security

Japan and North Korea

Christopher W. Hughes

Japan’s Contested Constitution

Documents and analysis

Glenn D. Hook and Gavan

McCormack

Japan’s International Relations

Politics, economics and security

Glenn D. Hook, Julie Gilson,

Christopher Hughes and Hugo

Dobson

Japanese Education Reform

Nakasone’s legacy

Christopher P. Hood

The Political Economy of Japanese

Globalisation

Glenn D. Hook and Hasegawa

Harukiyo

Japan and Okinawa

Structure and subjectivity

Edited by Glenn D. Hook and

Richard Siddle

Japan and Britain in the

Contemporary World

Responses to common issues

Edited by Hugo Dobson and Glenn

D. Hook

Japan and United Nations

Peacekeeping

New pressures, new responses

Hugo Dobson

Japanese Capitalism and Modernity

in a Global Era

Re-fabricating lifetime employment

relations

Peter C. D. Matanle

Nikkeiren and Japanese Capitalism

John Crump

Production Networks in Asia and

Europe

Skill formation and technology

transfer in the automobile industry

Edited by Rogier Busser and Yuri

Sadoi

Japan and the G7/8

1975–2002

Hugo Dobson

The Political Economy of

Reproduction in Japan

Between nation-state and everyday

life

Takeda Hiroko

Grassroots Pacifism in Post-War

Japan

The rebirth of a nation

Mari Yamamoto

Interfirm Networks in the Japanese

Electronics Industry

Ralph Paprzycki

Globalisation and Women in the

Japanese Workforce

Beverley Bishop

Contested Governance in Japan

Sites and issues

Edited by Glenn D. Hook

Japan’s International Relations

Politics, economics and security

Second edition

Glenn D. Hook, Julie Gilson,

Christopher Hughes and Hugo

Dobson

Japan’s Changing Role in

Humanitarian Crises

Yukiko Nishikawa

Japan’s Subnational Governments in

International Affairs

Purnendra Jain

Japan and East Asian Monetary

Regionalism

Towards a proactive leadership role?

Shigeko Hayashi

Japan’s Relations with China

Facing a rising power

Lam Peng-Er

Representing the Other in Modern

Japanese Literature

A critical approach

Edited by Rachael Hutchinson and

Mark Williams

Myth, Protest and Struggle in

Okinawa

Miyume Tanji

Nationalisms in Japan

Edited by Naoko Shimazu

Nationalisms in Japan

Edited by Naoko Shimazu

First published 2006

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2006 selection and editorial matter Naoko Shimazu; individual contributors

for their contributions

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced

or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,

now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and

recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without

permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Nationalisms in Japan Edited by Naoko Shimazu. – 1st ed.

p. cm. – (Sheffield Centre for Japanese Studies/Routledge series)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0–415–40053–8 (hardback : alk. paper)

1. Japan–History–1868– . 2. Nationalism–Japan. I. Shimazu, Naoko, 1964– .

II. Series.

DS881.9.N387 2006

320.540952–dc22 2005033389

ISBN10: 0–415–40053–8 (Print Edition)

ISBN13: 978–0–415–40053–4

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s

collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”

Contents

Notes on contributors ix

Acknowledgements xii

Introduction 1

NAOKO SHIMAZU

1 Japanese national doctrines in international perspective 9

ERICA BENNER

2 Reading the diaries of Japanese conscripts: forging national

consciousness during the Russo-Japanese war 41

NAOKO SHIMAZU

3 Internationalism and nationalism: anti-Western sentiments

in Japanese foreign policy debates, 1918–22 66

HARUMI GOTO-SHIBATA

4 Japanese nationalist extremism, 1921–41, in historical

perspective 85

STEPHEN S. LARGE

5 The making of Ainu moshiri: Japan’s indigenous

nationalism and its cultural fictions 110

RICHARD SIDDLE

6 The battle for hearts and minds: patriotic education in

Japan in the 1990s and beyond 131

CAROLINE ROSE

7 The national politics of the Yasukuni Shrine 155

TETSUYA TAKAHASHI (trans. PHILIP SEATON)

Conclusion

Towards nationalisms in Japan 181

NAOKO SHIMAZU

Index 188

viii Contents

Notes on contributors

Erica Benner is Recurrent Professor of Nationalism Studies at the

Central European University in Budapest, and a Fellow at the Center

for Ethics and Public Affairs, Tulane University. She is the author of

Really Existing Nationalisms (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

1995), and many articles and chapters on political philosophy and

the history of ideas, including ‘Nationality Without Nationalism’

(1997), ‘Nationalism Within Reason’ (1998), ‘The Liberal Limits of

Republican Nationality’ (2000), ‘Is There a Core National Doctrine?’

(2001) and, more recently, a chapter on ‘The Nation-State’, in the

Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Philosophy. She is

currently working on the book, Self-Legislation and Legitimacy

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

Harumi Goto-Shibata is Associate Professor, Center for International

Research and Education, Chiba University, Japan. She received

her DPhil from Oxford University. Her publications include Ahen

to igirisu teikoku: Kokusai kisei no takamari 1906–1943 [The

International Control of Opium and the British Empire, 1906–1943]

(Tokyo: Yamakawa shuppansha, 2005), Japan and Britain in

Shanghai 1925–31 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995) and ‘The

International Opium Conference of 1924–25 and Japan’, Modern

Asian Studies 36: 4 (2002).

Stephen S. Large is Reader in Modern Japanese History in the Faculty

of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge. His numerous

publications include The Rise of Labor in Japan: The Yu¯aikai,

1912–1919 (Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 1972), Organized

Workers and Socialist Politics in Interwar Japan (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1981), Emperor Hirohito and Sho¯wa

Japan: A Political Biography (London: Routledge, 1992), and

Emperors of the Rising Sun: Three Biographies (London: Kodansha

International, 1997). He also edited Sho¯wa Japan: Political, Economic

and Social History, 1926–1989, 4 vols (London: Routledge, 1998).

His current research is on the history of nationalist extremism in

Japan, 1900–70.

Caroline Rose is Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies in the Department

of East Asian Studies at the University of Leeds. Her research focus

is contemporary Sino-Japanese relations and she has published two

monographs on the problems relating to the interpretation of history

and on reconciliation in Sino-Japanese relations entitled, Interpreting

History in Sino-Japanese Relations (London: Routledge, 1998) and

Sino-Japanese Relations: Facing the Past, Looking to the Future?

(London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004). She is currently working on a

project which considers the role of trans-national civil society in

reconciliation between China and Japan.

Philip Seaton is a Lecturer in the Institute of Language and Culture

Studies, Hokkaido University. He completed his DPhil on Japanese

war memories in 2004 and has recently published a paper on the

British media’s representation of the textbook and Yasukuni issues

in Japan Forum 17(3). His webpage is www.philipseaton.net

Naoko Shimazu is Senior Lecturer in Japanese History at the School of

History, Classics and Archaeology, Birkbeck College, University of

London. Her first book, Japan, Race and Equality: The Racial

Equality Proposal of 1919 was published by Routledge in 1998. She

is currently working on a monograph, Japanese Society at War:

Death, Memory and the Russo-Japanese War, (Cambridge University

Press, forthcoming). She is also co-editing Re-Imagining Culture in

the Russo-Japanese War with Rosamund Bartlett.

Richard Siddle is Lecturer in Japanese Studies at the School of East Asian

Studies, University of Sheffield. His publications include Race,

Resistance and the Ainu of Japan (London: Routledge, 1996), Japan

and Okinawa: Structure and Subjectivity (co-editor, London:

Routledge, 2003) and numerous articles and book chapters on

identity politics among the Ainu and Okinawans.

Tetsuya Takahashi is Professor of Philosophy and of Culture and

Representations at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences,

University of Tokyo. His publications include Yasukuni Mondai

[Yasukuni Problems] (Tokyo: Chikumashobo¯, 2005), Kyo¯iku to

kokka [Education and the State] (Tokyo: Ko¯dansha, 2004), Sengo

x Contributors

sekinin ron [On the Post-war Responsibility] (Tokyo: Ko¯dansha,

1999 and 2005), Rekishi/Shu¯sei shugi [History/Revisionism] (Tokyo:

Iwanami shoten, 2001), and Rekishi ninshiki ronso¯ [History and

Memory] (editor, Tokyo: Sakuhinsha, 2002).

Contributors xi

Acknowledgements

This book, Nationalisms in Japan, represents the third and the final

volume in the three-volume series published as part of the Sheffield

Centre for Japanese Studies/Routledge Series. The three-volume project

conceived in May 2001 came under the auspices of the British

Association for Japanese Studies (BAJS) in order to enhance intellectual

exchanges and develop new academic networks between scholars in the

United Kingdom and Japan. Glenn Hook edited the first volume,

Contested Governance in Japan: Sites and Issues (Routledge, 2005),

and the second was edited by Rachel Hutchinson and Mark Williams,

Representing the Other in Modern Japanese Literature (Routledge,

2006).

We are particularly grateful for the financial support given by a

number of donors. First and foremost, the Great Britain Sasakawa

Foundation and Mike Barrett, its Chief Executive, were unstinting in

their support for this project. Their generous financial grant enabled

the UK-based participants of this project, Nationalisms in Japan, to

attend the two-day workshop held at Keio University in Tokyo on 12–13

September 2003. Gratitude is also owed to the Toshiba International

Foundation and BAJS for additional financial support to bring the

project to a successful completion. On behalf of the project, we would

also like to extend our very special thanks to Professor Ota Akiko who

generously hosted the workshop in Tokyo.

Finally, I would like to thank all the contributors for their partici￾pation in the workshop in September 2003, and for their stimulating

chapters. Special thanks are due also to my colleague, Caroline Rose,

who kindly helped me in the editorial work.

Naoko Shimazu

London, 2005

Introduction

Naoko Shimazu

This edited volume is based on a two-day closed workshop held at

Keio¯ University in September 2003 on ‘Nationalism in Modern and

Contemporary Japan’. It represents the culmination of intensive,

thought-provoking discussions. All contributors benefited from think￾ing aloud about individual case studies related to their own areas of

expertise, but also about the bigger picture of the study of nationalism

in Japan within the comparative context of the study of nationalism in

the modern age.

Added to this was the intellectual challenge of thinking across

disciplinary boundaries in a diverse group. Naoko Shimazu, Harumi

Goto-Shibata and Stephen Large work in the areas of the social,

diplomatic and cultural history of modern Japan. Richard Siddle

straddles the two disciplines of history and social anthropology, while

Caroline Rose has been working on aspects of post-war Sino-Japanese

relations with a focus on education. As this was primarily a gathering

of Japan specialists, it was particularly important for the intellectual

health of the project that we had a non-Japan specialist in Erica Benner,

a specialist on nationalism, who injected a healthy dose of critical

comparative insight. Moreover, the project was substantially strength￾ened by the participation of Tetsuya Takahashi, a philosopher of

Continental European philosophy, who now plays a leading part in

contemporary domestic debate on nationalism in Japan.

Many of the contributors here would not consider themselves

specialists on nationalism. Nevertheless, it is impossible for any of us

who work on modern and contemporary Japan to ignore the social,

political and cultural understanding of the Japanese nation or the

Japanese state without ever having to come to terms with ‘nationalism’

in one way or another. All contributors were asked to bear in mind two

general questions when writing their chapters. The first question was,

‘What do we mean exactly when we talk about nationalism in our

particular case studies?’ This was intended to prevent us all from taking

for granted that we all implicitly understood what we meant by

nationalism. As a qualifier question to this big question, we also asked

ourselves who the ‘nationalists’ were and what they were/are fighting

for and fighting against in each context under investigation. The notion

of agency is critical to engender a sophisticated treatment of our

questions.

Second, we asked, ‘Is there such a thing as general “Japanese

nationalism”?’ Do competing forms of nationalism exist at any one

time and, moreover, do they evolve over time? In other words, do we

need to stop and think more critically when we generalize sweepingly

about ‘Japanese nationalism’ as though we are all talking about one

and the same thing?

Taken together, the individual studies in this book encompass a

chronological period of roughly two hundred years. The book starts

with a discussion of some of the early Japanese national thinkers of

the Mito School, and ends with a contemporary discussion of the

official visits made by Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichiro¯ to the highly

controversial Yasukuni Shrine. One of the objectives of having chap￾ters that range over a wide chronological period was to enable us to

come up with some useful comparative observations about the evo￾lution of nationalism or nationalisms, using Japan as a case study.

Individual investigations

Coming from a specialist on nationalism, Erica Benner’s chapter

(Chapter 1) provides an important conceptual framework for under￾standing Japanese national thinking in early modern and modern

Japan. She contextualizes the development in Japanese national think￾ing within a wider intellectual and comparative context of national

thinking from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century. Her focus

is on the relationship between the national and the international,

and how national thinking can be influenced by any given set of

external factors. She argues persuasively that Japanese national think￾ing reflected similar intellectual concerns in Europe throughout the

period, and that even what is normally perceived as being culturally

specific sources of national thinking in Japan, such as the centrality

of the emperor and its mythical legitimacy, can be seen as being

among the commonly pursued sources of national identity of the eth￾nonationalism type in Europe.

Most importantly, Benner’s work de-mystifies contentious notions

of national identity and national thinking in modern Japan. By estab￾2 Naoko Shimazu