Storry, Richard;
A History of Modern Japan
Penguin Books, 1969, 300 pages
ISBN 014020475X
topics: | japan | history
A compact yet insightful history. Also very clearly written, though a bit dry.
In the middle of the fourth century, an empress named Jingo organized, and, it is said, took command of, a military expedition to Korea... [not the etym < jingoism] The expedition resulted in the establishment of a Japanese colony on the tip of the Korean peninsula. For the Japanese, the Korean connexion was to have tremendous consequences. Of these the most striking was undoubtedly the introduction of the Chinese script. The Japanese language is now so intimately associated with the use of this script that it is easy to overlook the really formidable technical difficulties that were involved in establishing this association. In their spoken forms Chinese and Japanese differ profoundly. Pure Japanese is a deliciously polysyllabic tongue. Chinese is monosyllabic. The syntax of one language has nothing in common with the other. For this reason, no doubt, the use of Chinese ideographs spread only slowly in Japan. It is probable that the Chinese script was known to some people in Japan as early as the first century A.D. but the official adoption of the script is usually dated from the beginning of the fifth century, and a great many years were to pass before it became known beyond a narrow circle of scribes attached to the ruling imperial family. ... Entire communities of Koreans came to settle in Japan; and they included skilled artisans, such as workers in metals and experts in the culture of silkworms. By the middle of the sixth c. there were more than 100,000 Koreans, and Chinese from Manchuria, domiciled in Japan. For the most part they were much better educated -- either in the literary sense or in their knowledge of artistic or technical skills -- than the Japanese among whom they lived and with whom in course of time they were to be assimilated... Their qualitative importance can be gauged from the fact that by the opening of the eighth century more than one-third of the noble families of Japan claimed continental descent, Korean or Chinese. Receiving so much from Korea, and through Korea, from China, the Japanese were hardly able or ready to exclude from their shores a continental religion that was soon to compete with the indigenous religion [Shinto], though the two would, in the end, complement each other. The religion was Buddhism, and its arrival in Japan can be dated from about the middle of the sixth century. Buddhism never supplanted Shinto. After Buddhism was firmly established and widely disseminated most Japanese were both Buddhists and Shintoists, as they are today. In time those who felt the need of some philosophical justification for such dualism... were able to claim that after all, the Shinto deities were bodhisattvas and that therefore the two religions were fundamentally identical. -- p.168: [After the Tokyo earthquake of 1923 Sept 1] a rumour spread, almost as fast as the raging fires, that Korean nationalists, together with Japanese Communists, had plotted to set up some kind of revolutionary government. As a result many inoffensive Koreans were sought out and killed by frenzied mobs or by gangs of self-styled "patriotic" young men.
Sei-i tai-shogun: barbarian suppressing great general. - p.39 [Awarded to Minamoto Yoritomo in 1192 by the emperor, a boy of 13. From this time it became an office, as opposed to a title in war. "In this sense Yoritomo was the first shogun, or 'generalissimo'.]] Bakufu: Camp office - associated over time with the center of the shogunate or military government. Kamakura Bakufu, 150 years after Yoritomo. Yedo bakufu - Tokugawa period, 1603-1853. kamikaze - divine wind. In 1281, a 150,000 strong Mongol armada invaded Japan. After a beachhead battle in Kyushu for 53 days, a typhoon wiped out the Mongols and their vessels. Since this was seen as the result of prayers in shrines across the land, it was called kamikaze. - p.41 mabiki - thinning out, as with young rice plants. In the context of Tokugawa Japan which saw great hardships to the peasantry, this meant exposing unwanted babies to the elements - "The typical farmhouse could not feed more than a certain number of mouths." - p.76 jingo: Name of Japanese empress who organized, and, it is said, took command of, a military expedition against Korea. mid-4th c. junshi: When a ruler or great lord died certain of his retainers killed themselves so they might escort him to the next world. (General Nogi, victor of Port Arthur in the Russo-J war, committed junshi after the death of Meiji.) - p.149 Moga: Moga was the Japanese contraction of the English words, 'modern girl'. It came to suggest, during the twenties, cloche hats and short skirts, with the 'bob', 'shingle', or even the 'Eton crop.' Mobo: The 'modern boy', who on leaving the university adopted the latest and most flashy Western clothes including, it might be, 'Oxford bags'. Occasionally Mobo and Moga might be seen walking down the Ginza hand in hand. This was very daring; but it was done. - p. 166 fukoku kyohei - rich country and strong army daimyo - "great name" - feudal lord hakama - samurai dress skirt; chomage - samurai topknot p.103 minken - people's rights p.113 narikin - new rich - profiteers Meiji: 1866-1912 Taisho: "Great righteousness" - name adopted by emperor after Meiji (1912) . - p.149
Four factors combined to stimulate American interest in Japan. These were the development of trade with China through Canton, the growth of the American whaling industry in the Pacific, the opening-up of California, symbolized by the Gold Rush of 1849, and the progress of steam navigation. The Great Circle Route, the shortest to China from the Pacific coast of America, took vessels very close to, and often in sight of, the shores of Japan. ... One of the purposes of Perry's expedition was to obtain a promise from the Japanese of future good treatment of any shipwrecked Americans. But ... it may be doubted whether the treatment of American nationals in Japan played more than a minor part in the motives behind Commodore Perry's visit to Japan in the summer of 1853. Of much more importance was, for example, the need to secure supplies, including coal, for American ships sailing to and from Canton. There was too, the expectation that a useful trade could be driven with the closed country, and expectation sharpened by the prospect of competition from Great Britain. ... Nobody was more active [towards authorizing a naval expedition] than a certain Arthur E Palmer, an energetic new York commission agent profoundly interested in the steamship trade with the Orient. Similar pressure on Congress came from churches, missionary boards, diplomats, and naval officers. p.85-86 [After Perry, accompanied by two steamships unheard of in Japan, left a letter in 1853, the Japanese decided on a policy of peaceful "no definite answer." However, on Perry's return the next February with seven ships, a treaty was signed in Yokohama opening two ports, Shimoda in the south and Hakodate in Hokkaido, to American traffic, and agreeing to a consul in one of them. This consul, Townsend Harris, playing on Japanese fears of British intrusion, managed to sign a further treaty in June 1857 for extra-territorial rights to American citizens in Japan, and for permanent residence to Americans in both these ports. In Dec 1857, he also managed a much resisted audience with the shogun, whose response was interpreted to Harris thus: "Pleased with the letter sent with the Ambassador from a far distant country, and likewise pleased with the discourse. Intercourse shall be continued for ever."
Knowledge shall be sought for all over the world and thus shall be
strengthened the foundation of the imperial polity.
- Emperor Meiji's 'Charter Oath,' April 1868 - p.103
For among the Japanese there has never been the disdainful indifference
that has often characterized the Chinese attitude towards foreigners.
The Japanese have always been proud to learn.
- p.104
There is no soil within the empire that does not belong to the
Emperor... and no inhabitant who is not a subject of the Emperor, though
in the Middle Ages, the Imperial power declined and the military classes
rose, taking possession of the land and dividing it among themselves as
the prize of their bow and spear. But now that the Imperial power is
restored, how can we retain possession of land that belongs to the
Emperor and govern people who are his subjects? We therefore reverently
offer up all our feudal possessions... so that a uniform rule may
prevail throughout the Empire. Thus the country will be able to rank
equally with the other nations of the world.
- Memorial addressed to the emperor by lords of the four western
fiefdoms, 1868-69. Probably drafted by Kido Koin from Choshu.
Marks the end of the feudal structure in Japan, and also the
willingness of the controllers of power to put the country above
personal interests. p.105
Japanese imitativeness has always alternately irritated and amused the
West. But to learn is to copy. For a backward country, technological
progress must be based of necessity upon imitation. - p.106
[growth of jingoism] The idea of Japanese expansion grew in proportion
to the spread of mass education. - p.113
[1872] The educational plan called for the establishment of nearly
54,000 elementary schools -- or roughly one to every 600 inhabitants --
and the result fifty years later was that the Japanese became what they
still are -- the most highly literate people in Asia
- p.113. (If not the world!) [Also see "The J that can say no"]
The progress of education, together with the system of conscription,
moulded the people into a nation of patriots. - p.113
... that sublimated form of civil war, party politics. p.112
The first sentence of the Japanese Constitution of 1889, framed for the
most part by Ito Hirbumi, based on visits by him to to several European
countries, especially Bismarck's Germany: Japan 'shall be reigned over
and governed by a line of Emperors unbroken for ages eternal.'
Towards the end of the eighties there developed a pronounced revival of
Confucian sentiment within the governing class, in reaction to the
passion for Western things and ideas. This was reflected in the famous
Rescript on Education, promulgated by the emperor in 1890, which
acquired, as was intended ... the authority of holy writ ... a copy of
the rescript, together with portraits of the emperor and his consort,
was kept by every school in a secure place -- in many schools this was
in fact a small shrine -- and was brought out on days of national
commemoration to be read aloud by the college or school principal with
great reverence to a respectful assembly of pupils. The rescript adjured
the children and young people of Japan to observe the Confucian
obligations of filial piety, obedience, and benevolence in their various
relationships and to offer themselves 'courageously to the State' should
emergency arise... the prestige of this document in the eyes of the
masses can scarcely be exaggerated. - p.119
---
I'm glad I was injured by a progressive western invention and not by a
sword or some such old-fashioned device.
- Shigenobu Okuma, Japanese foreign minister, injured in a bomb attack
1889.
In its determination to build up 'a rich country and a strong army' the government never considered leaving industrial development to private initiative... New industries could not be nourished behind a high wall of protective duties, for thanks to the treaty system Japan was restricted to a scale of low tariffs. - p.121 The zaibatsu were the chief beneficiaries of a policy adopted by the government some years after the Restoration. Having promoted and managed new industrial enterprises, the government handed most of them over, at almost ridiculously low rates, to a few private companies, [which became the zaibatsu]. Since they owed so much to the government, they were bound to it by ties of obligation that Japanese have always found difficult to break; and in any case there was ususlally a close identity of interests between the zaibatsu and the political oligarchy... On the other hand, business rivalries among these financial cliques - between Mitsui and Mitsubishi for example - led them to be very closely associated with certain individual members of the oligarchy. - p. 123 Shinko-zaibatsu: new business groups that grew in Manchuria out of the army's professed socialist stance and its dislike of the established zaibatsu that had become aligned with the parties, Mitsui with the Seiyukai and Mitsubishi with Minseito. [p.172] The army encouraged new groups, such as Nissan, that flourished after the army expansionism in Manchukuo and Inner Mongolia. After the UN condemnation of this move, Japan left the League of Nations. [p.193-4] --- [The 'Triple Intervention' was a concession won by Russia, France and Germany, from Japan after it won some valuable prizes after its adventurism against China in the Korean peninsula, including the Liaotung peninsula with the fortress of Port Arthur. Three days after the Treaty of Shimonoseki (1895) Liaotung was surrendered by Japan under the advise of the ministers of the three western nations since it was a threat to the 'peace of the East'.] There was massive popular indignation against the action of Russia, France, and Germany. But the Emperor Meiji told his people that they must bear the unbearable - his grandson used the same words in 1945 - and the command was obeyed. [the western nations, which had been respected, were now] distrusted, despised even, as hypocrites. For within five years, Germany seized Tsingtau, France secured the lease of Kwangchow Bay, and Great Britain the lease of Wei-hai-wei and Hong Kong, and Russia obtained control of Port Arthur and the Liaotung Peninsula. - p.127 I will be the word of the people. I will be the bleeding mouth from which the gag has been snatched. I will say everything. - p.147, Katayama Sen, in a socialist periodical After 1915 [diplomatic bullying of China] Japan never recovered, in the eyes of the American people, the moral prestige - so high in 1905 - that was lost at that time. From now on it was Japan that was cast in the role of the bully; and even when the Japanese behaved well towards China, as they did at various times during the 1920s, they never got the credit for it. In terms of propaganda the Chinese ... swept the field. - p.154 The rich were now much despised; and the prime minister had lost his early popularity, being regarded, unfairly perhaps, as sharing some responsibility for corruption scandals affecting at least three of his cabinet ministers as well as a number of members of the Diet. (1921) - p.161 The late Taisho and early Showa periods - the twenties - are often referred to by the Japanese as the era of "Ero, Guro, Nansensu" - namely, eroticism, grotesquerie, and nonsense. - p.166
[Saigo Takamori was a legendary 'patriot' from Satsuma, who resigned from govt and eventually led an armed rebellion manned by the Samurai class against the conscripted Imperial army led by Yamagata Aritomo of Choshu, who was to remain a leading national figure on the right for decades. After 30K casualties on both sides, the rebellion was suppressed and] Saigo, wounded, was beheaded on the battlefield, at his own request, by a close friend. ... From his point of view, of course, Saigo's armed protest was no rebellion. He was not resisting the imperial will, for this was misdirected by 'evil advisors'... - p.111-112. [Chang Tso-Lin, warlord of Manchuria, killed in rly carriage explosion 1928?, part of an adventurist plot by Japanese officers to seize Manchria without authorization]. When Tanaka [PM] discovered what had taken place he was eager, with the full support of the emperor, to have those concerned tried and punished, by court-martial if necessary. In fact the emperor was profoundly disturbed, and this added to Tanaka's anxieties; for he found that the Chief of the General Staff and other senior officers were stubbornly opposed to any severe disciplinary action being taken... on the grounds that it would harm the prestige of the army. And so indiscipline was overlooked and another evil precedent established. - p.176 [March Incident: A coup d'etat was planned in 1931 to install the minister of War, General Ugaki, the PM in a military government, but was abandoned after Ugaki indicated his unequivocal disapproval.] Some senor officers were implicated, besides the young hot-heads. The example they set was deplorable; and as these senior officers held key appointments (one of them was Vice-Chief of the General Staff) it seemed almost out of the question that they should be punished for their part in a conspiracy that was, after all, abandoned. ... Efforts were made to hush up the entire affair, and so indiscipline of a most dangerous kind was totally condoned. - p.180 kurai tanima - the dark valley. The period between 1931 and 1941, the decade immediately preceding the outbreak of the Pacific war. gekokujo - the overpowering of seniors by juniors. [The prospect of insubordination / civil war] horrified senior officers and cabinet ministers, causing them to shrink from the really firm action that was required... and found themselfes in a position of being in effect blackmailed by the threats of a lunatic fringe of 'Young Turks' - p.184 [A plot for liquidating the govt in one blow by bombing from the air was hatched in 1933. Luckily, it was foiled just in time.] No mention was made of the affair until 1935, two years after it had occurred. The trial of the accused did not begin until 1937 and was not completed until 1941. when a judgement was given that (in the words of the Japan Times) was 'a triumph of law in Japan and a briliiant piece of political adjustment'. The accused received short terms of imprisonment, with immediate remission of sentence. - p.196
During the early hours of 26 February 1936, in a severe snowstorm, detachments from two infantry regiments of the First Division, together with some sympathizers from the Guards Division, left their barracks. They split [up and attacked many] public men; and before daylight there were some terrible scenes as doors were forced and the victims, nearly all of them old men, shot down. Admiral Okada [PM] escaped death, his brother-in-law being mistaken for him. Two former premiers, Saito and Takahashi, and Mazaki's successor as Inspector General were killed. The Grand Chamberlain, Admiral Suzuki, was dangerously wounded and was left to die. ... An effort was made to catch the aged Saionji at his country villa; but he got word in advance and was not at home. ... There was no officer above the rank of captain. - p. 199 [see John Toland's detailed description of Okada's survival] In the universities conformist pressure, though in some ways less directly overpowering, made it increasingly hazardous for academic staff to retain the self-respect that comes from intellectual integrity. - p.195. [In the extensive aerial incendiary bombing of early 1945, all the cities were laid waste except for Kyoto.] For mile after mile the huge urban area from Tokyo throught Kawasaki to Yokohoma presented the spectacle of charred wood and ashes with scarcely a building standing. ... Among the large cities only Kyoto was untouched - thanks, it is said, to persistent representations in Washington by the Curator of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. -p.228
"The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage. ... We have resolved to pave the way for a grand peace for all the generations to come by enduring the unendurable and suffering what is insufferable." - p.237 Close on midnight on 14 August 1945, the emperor recorded his rescript terminating the war. It was to be broadcast the following day. In the very early hours of 15 August an attempt was made to seize and destroy this record. ... They proceeded to surround the palace and search anxiously for the record. This they were unable to find. Meanwhile, word [reached the] headquarters in Tokyo and the general in command very courageously went at once to the palace. By the sheer force of his personality and the eloquence of what he said ... he persuaded the insurgent leaders that they had behaved in a wholly wrong-headed manner. They admitted their error, and four of them committed suicide on the spot. -p.236
[MacArthur's SCAP (Sup Commdr Allied Powers) told the government] that the constitution would have to be amended very radically and that this ought to be done as quickly as possible. Accordingly the Shidehara cabinet appointed a committee to draft the necessary revisions; but its suggestions did not satisfy General Headquarters. They did not go far enough ... towards removing the undemocratic principles expressed and implied in the Meiji Constitution. So MacArthur's own staff produced a document, in effect an entirely new Constitution, and this was ... [under a verbal ultimatum] accepted by the Diet with only minor alterations. --bio Richard Storry was a fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford