Taking Another Look at the Greater East Asia War

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Poems

I just realized I haven’t written any poems in a really, really long time. I feel kind of embarrassed about my pathetic “poems”, but at the same time I kind of liked writing them, so I tried to write one. I had the first lines of one I wrote ages ago in my head, so I started from there. Here’s the one I wrote on April 21, 2009:

Have you ever felt like a cherry tree
Chopped down as practice for killing a king?
And before you got that tetanus shot
Did you ever imagine how much it would sting?
Have you ever seen two lanterns in the belfry
And made a wild dash for the ocean?
And have you ever found your hands so dry
That you wished you had some Lubriderm lotion?
Have you ever tried real hard and failed
And blamed your next-door neighbor?
And when that was to no avail
Gone and asked them to be your savior?
Have you ever been given so much liberty
You wonder, should you have picked death instead?
Because that way your mind wouldn’t be so dirty
And you’d never get in so far over your head?
Have you ever asked a bunch of questions
Just because you really wanted an answer?
And have you ever born the brunt of agression
Just for asking “would you like sugar in your coffee, sir?”

And here’s the one I wrote just now:

Have you ever felt like a cherry tree
Scattering blossoms around you like snow?
And before you made that wish under the bridge
Did you ever consider how far it might go?
Have you ever fancied yourself a queen
Stuffing your face with crumpets and tea?
Or do you avoid caffeinated beverages
Knowing they’ll just make you have to pee?
Do you wail out your longings from rooftops and parks
Or keep them all bottled up safe in your bedroom?
And when you cry, which I know you do
You’re only human, after all
Do you cry for the fallen cherry tree,
Or the young one yet to fall?

From 2011/05/01. I thought I had lost these two poems forever, which made me super sad, because they were my first two cherry tree poems, but there they were hiding in my drafts folder! Yay!

Why am I so…

If you type “why am I so..” in Japanese into google, the first page of results includes:

Why am I so ugly?
Why am I so wet?
Why do I like Yokoo-san so much?
Why am I so weak?
Why am I so beautiful?
Why am I so happy?
Why does everyone hate me so much?
Why do I get groped so much?
Why do I have so little hair?

In English you get:

Why am I so tired?
Why am I so sad?
Why am I so afraid of being alone?
Why am I so hungry after a big meal?
Why am I so popular?
Why am I so awkward and uncoordinated?
Why am I so unhappy?

I am not going through my drafts and publishing all the ones I like. This is from 2012/12/16.

Reassessment of Ishihara Kanji, pt. 2

Continuation of translation of http://www7.plala.or.jp/machikun/ishiharakanji.htm

After the First World War, the global economy was made up of blocs, and global trade was reduced. Therefore, Japan, which had developed late and had few colonies, was shut out of the global market. Thus, aquisition of a foreign market that the West was not yet invested in was of utmost importance for Japan.

If Harriman had bought the Manchuria Railway, and Manchuria had come under the control of the U.S., it’s likely that Japan could have carried out trade there peaceably, but since Komura unfortunately rejected his proposal, Manchuria remained “no-man’s land”. (At the time Manchuria was in the hands of warlords and not a possession of the Chinese government. The Han race had never ruled Manchuria once in all of history. Therefore, if we think of Manchuria as part of China as we do today, we’ll never be able to comprehend Japan’s position at the time.)

Perhaps it is accurate to say that Ishihara’s construction of Manchukuo was a historical inevitability. By engaging in fair and equal free trade with Manchuria, Japan would have been able to procure both necessary natural resources and a market for exported goods.

However, sadly, Japan’s methods were lacking. Furthermore, even though the government was supposed to be formed under the principle of the five races living in harmony, Japanese bureaucrats took all the highest government posts. Though the latter was not Ishihara’s fault, it was unfortunate that he resorted to trickery in the building of the country. (That’s why the Manchurian Incident ended up being refered to as such, and ended up being considered equivalent to the China Incident, despite the fact that the two were nothing alike.)

Of course he could have done it differently, but in the end, his juniors (Muto Akira and others) copied his forceful tactics and started the second Sino-Japanese war. (There’s a famous story that Ishihara’s successor as head of the war strategy department Muto Akira told Ishihara, “All I did was follow in your footsteps,” and Ishihara was unable to respond.)

Ishihara himself had no intention of invading China. He merely thought that by creating a breakwater against the Soviet Union made up of the five Asian races, it would be good for both the economy and for national defense. However, the Kwantung Army, seeing how easily Ishihara had managed to take Manchuria, rashly thought it would be easy to go ahead and take all of China as well.

They say there’s no “if” when it comes to history, but if the situation in China at the time had proceeded as Ishihara Kanji had expected, how might have things turned out?

Japan would probably never have fallen into the swamp that was the Second Sino-Japanese War, and Manchukuo, the existence of which was denied by the Lytton Report, would probably have been accepted by international society if it had been developed skillfully. (That is to say, if Japan hadn’t gone overboard.)

In that case, tension between Japan and the Soviet Union would probably have continued, but relations between Japan and the U.S. wouldn’t have deteriorated to such an extent. (When Japan started the Sino-Japanese War, in order to cut off the Ensho Route that was holding them back, they had to invade French Indochina, which caused the U.S. to stop exporting oil to Japan; at that point there was no going back.)

When looking at it this way, one could say that Ishihara Kanji had a vision that actually could have led Japan in a slightly more positive direction. If he had had half as much political power as Meiji’s Ito Hirobumi, or if there had been a single politician who had been able to utilize his vision successfully, Japan may not have entered into such a reckless war, and may not have suffered such an ugly defeat.

As you know, Ishihara Kanji was not one to mince words regardless of who he was talking to (though everything he said was just). He even spoke disparagingly of Tojo Hideki, a powerful leader at the time, and eventually was demoted and relegated to the reserves right in the middle of the Sino-Japanese war. Throughout the war he continued to make many remarks, but looking at them now, most of them were right on target.

For instance, he was harshly critical of the navy’s move from Rabaul (Papua New Guinea) to Guadalcanal Island as a dangerous overstepping of the limits of aggression. He also argued from the beginning of the Greater East Asia War that Japan was sure to lose.

If Japan had been able to take advantage of Ishihara’s genius, it would have been able to move in a better direction at least to some extent. In the Meiji period, Japan fully utilized the genius of men like Akiyama Yoshifuru and Akiyama Saneyuki and succeeded in the battles of Mukden and Tsushima during the Russo-Japanese war. That was because there were powerful military leaders and politicians who were able to take advantage of their wisdom. Sadly, in the Showa period in which Ishihara lived, there were no great politicians like Ito Hirobumi, and the army was run by imperial princes and other incompetents. Since it was a case of subordinates having conquered their superiors, there were no leaders who could utilize his genius. (Itagaki Seishiro of the Manchurian Incident may have fit the bill, but in the end Itagaki was simply used by Ishihara.)

Nowadays Ishihara Kanji is notorious as the symbol of the subordinates overcoming their superiors in the old Japanese navy, but his intent was certainly not to lead Japan into destruction. Saying this would probably cause the Kwantung Army to protest that they carried out the China Incident in order to help Japan, not ruin it, but the difference between them and Ishihara was his vision and their lack of one.

The Kwantung Army, having no clear vision, simply barged on into the Chinese heartland as far as they could go. Ishihara, on the other hand, used as little violence as possible and attempted to aquire the smallest amount of land necessary. Even now it’s clear that his thought was logical and reasonable.

Even now Ishihara has a few passionate supporters, but it seems to me that they are seen as nothing more than Ishihara otaku by the rest of Japan. However, I would like to see Ishihara reevaluated as not a mere proponent of aggression, but as a talented country-building project leader or country planner.

Appendix: At the beginning of Showa, then journalist Ishibashi Tanzan, who went on to become prime minister after the war, was a proponent of the “small Japan” discourse, which proposed that Japan should make do with the meager resources within Japan’s historical borders. This was the exact opposite of Ishihara’s view.

Since after the war Japan was able to achieve astounding economic success with only the land originally within its borders, Ishibashi’s views were applauded during Japan’s period of high growth, but looking at his views from the perspective of the early Showa economy, when Japan had to survive as a trading nation just as they do today, one could say that they were strategically unrealistic.

Japan was being held by the scruff of the neck within a global bloc economy, and the procurement of Manchuria was of dire necessity. However, since Manchuria had no proper government, safe and regular trade with them was difficult. For this reason, an advance (not an invasion!) into Manchuria was unavoidable. (This is the “big Japan” discourse.)

Shidehara Kijuro’s proposal of cooperative diplomacy with Britain and the United States was lauded from a political perspective, but from a global economic perspective it was unrealistic. I think that’s why Shidehara did not receive much popular support.

Furthermore, Ishibashi has provided detailed statistical data to prove that colonial policies do not lead to economic growth, but it was based on classical colonial policies, and I don’t think his data would have applied to Ishihara’s idea of building an independent country where the five Asian races could live in harmony.

Notes of Naturemadecomplete: Umm, I’m not sure. I haven’t read any books about this topic. But I went to the gym for the first time in a long time yesterday and now my leg and butt muscles really hurt. Ahhhh, maybe I should translate something else so I have an excuse to just sit on this comfortable couch for the rest of the day.

Reassessment of Ishihara Kanji

Translated from http://www7.plala.or.jp/machikun/ishiharakanji.htm

When we, the generation who has undergone post-war education, hear the name Ishihara Kanji, we immediately think of Manchukuo or the Manchurian Incident. He was central to the construction of Manchukuo, the very existence of which was denied by the League of Nations’ Lytton Report. At the end of the Great East Asia war, the Soviets broke their non-aggression pact with Japan and invaded Manchukuo, leading to many civilian casualties. For these reasons, Manchukuo is viewed negatively in the post-war era.

Ishihara Kanji, as the main builder of Manchukuo, is also viewed negatively. He has somehow become one of the main symbols of evil in the Greater East Asia War, along with the Kwantung Army, which is also hated in the post-war era.

However, if one were to look at various aspects of Ishihara Kanji’s life, they would see that he was actually a pacifist who opposed the Greater East Asia War. In creating Manchukuo, he had no intent of infringing upon China. By creating an independent country where the five Asian races (Japanese, Manchurian, Chinese, Korean, Mongolian) could live in harmony, he hoped he could create a barrier against the Soviet Union.

In the Portsmouth Treaty signed after the Russo-Japanese war, Japan failed to eliminate Soviet influence in northern Manchuria. In building Manchukuo, Ishihara wanted to create a buffer zone between Japan and the Soviet Union. He must have wanted to take the initiative in filling the hole left in Japan’s national defense after the Russo-Japanese war.

In textbooks in Japan today, Ishihara’s achievements are portrayed in a negative light; they imply that he conspired to carry out the Manchurian Incident so that he could build Manchukuo. However, when thinking of it as a single project one can’t deny how amazing it is that he it carried out on his own. He practically created an entire country just using his own leadership! (And nowadays most of us can barely build a house by ourselves.)

Ishihara probably wasn’t suited for working as a member of an organization, but as a project leader, he was unusually skilled.

Looking back at history, I don’t think Ishihara’s construction of Manchukuo itself was a mistake. From Meiji through Showa, people’s fear of Russia was even greater than people’s current fear of the threat of North Korea. Despite all the blood shed in the Russo-Japanese war, which was carried out in an attempt to assuage that fear, Japan didn’t manage to eliminate Soviet influence in Manchuria.

Thus, I believe that the desire to build a buffer zone (a protection against Russia) was common to all Japanese people at that time.

In reality, after the Russo-Japanese war, Japan should have just sold all of Manchuria to the American railroad baron Harriman as soon as he came looking to buy the Manchurian Railway. If it had, America would have provided protection against the Soviet Union, and in exchange for reparations Japan would have received a large amount of funds.

In addition, it would have been infinitely preferable to hide under the American umbrella than to live in fear of the Soviet threat. Inoue Kaoru and the other Senior Statesmen realized that and attempted to negotiate with Harriman, but Komura Jutaro, thinking such a thing would be an insult to the heroic spirits of the Japanese soldiers who died in the Russo-Japanese war, turned down Harriman’s proposal. It can’t be denied that that was a factor in the worsening of relations between Japan and America.

From an economic point of view, Manchukuo was necessary to Japan at that time. It was invaluable to Japan as both a source of natural resources and a market for exported goods. (Matsuoka Yosuke’s claim that “the Manmo are Japan’s lifeline” was not necessarily false.)

To be continued. I believe “Manmo” are the Japanese emigrants who were sent by the Japanese government to parts of Manchuria and Mongolia after the Manchurian Incident, but I’m not entirely sure. I’ll try to figure it out later.

Edit: Actually it just refers to Manchuria and Mongolia in general. Sorry for the confusion, nonexistent people who read my blog.

Three Views of History, pt. 2

Continue of translation from http://www7.plala.or.jp/machikun/essayv.htm

2. The Shiba View of History

The Shiba view of history is what managed to overturn this dominant view of history that prevailed in postwar Japan. Shiba Ryotaro depicts Meiji Japan in a particularly positive light. When I grew up and read Shiba’s works, I realized, “Hey, Meiji Japan was such a fun and positive place. So then what’s with all the stuff I learned as history before?” The Shiba view of history is as follows.

The Meiji period up until the Russo-Japanese war was a good time for Japan historically. With the Meiji Restoration, a centralized government was formed, they worked to become a prosperous country with a strong army, and Japan went from being a small Eastern country to being a world power on par with other world powers. (Although they did suffer.) It’s true that the rural people were poor, but rather than that being a result of exploitation by the ruling class, as Marxism would have it, it’s just that Japan was lacking in resources in general. It’s not poverty that should be lamented, but inequality. Everyone was poor, but for the strength of the country every citizen banded together as one and worked as hard as they could. That was the Meiji era up until the Russo-Japanese war.

However, as Japan progressed, a conflict with Russia, which was continually extending its reach further and further into East Asia, was inevitable. At the time Japanese people thought that the Korean peninsula was a lifeline for them, but looking at the international situation at the time, one can see it was an inevitability. There was no choice but to prevent Russia from exerting power on the Korean peninsula. However, Russia tried to get involved in Korea. Japan had no choice but to fight. Therefore, the Russo-Japanese war was not a planned war, but rather a defensive war. (Shiba writes that if Japan had given into Russia’s demands, his own last name would probably now end with “-sky”.)

However, the Russo-Japanese war changed the Japanese people. The pride of having defeated a country as big as Russia got the better of them. A symbol of that is the Hibiya Incendiary Incident that occurred after the signing of the Portsmouth Treaty. After that Japan started meddling in the Chinese continent. Eventually this led to a conflict with the Anglo-Saxons (Britain and America) who had special rights in China, which led to the Pacific War. Therefore, it must be said that the Pacific war was a war of aggression. In other words, from the Russo-Japanese war until the twentieth year of Showa (1945) when Japan lost the Pacific war, Japan mutated into an abnormal country. After the war Japan went back to how it had been during the Meiji period, and things were good.

This is the gist of the Shiba view of history. The crux of Shiba’s view of history is that only the first 20 years of Showa were really a bad time for Japan. Another important quality of Shiba’s view is that unlike the progressive view that states that the outbreak of the Pacific war was caused by a few individual leaders, it was actually the responsibility of all the Japanese people.

When Shiba’s most famous work, “The Cloud over the Hill,” was published in the fourth decade of Showa (late 1960s), his view of history garnered much support from the salarymen who at the time were supporting Japan and it’s economic growth. His view that Meiji had been a good and positive era in Japan’s history was greeted with passionate approval from those who had grown up learning a view of history poisoned by progressive ideology. I, too, upon reading Shiba’s works, felt like a cloud in front of my eyes had been cleared away.

3. The Libertarian View of History

Recently, a new view, which I call the libertarian view of history, has emerged. The thought of Fujioka Nobukatsu and Watanabe Shokichi is representative of this view. This view proposes that since the Meiji period Japan’s history has followed a cohesive path and nothing about it was bad. This view asserts that not only the Russo-Japanese war but also the Pacific war were defensive wars. Of course, the 1911 annexation of Korea was a lawful annexation sanctioned by all the other foreign countries, and considering the world situation at the time, it was a necessary move for Japan. The Nanking Massacre of course never happened, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident was a fabrication of the Chinese Communist Party, and so on and so forth.

This new Libertarian view of history probably resulted from the weakening of the Left following the fall of the Soviet Union. After the war, the Japanese education system came to be completely dominated by powerful Leftist forces like the Japanese Teacher’s Union. It could be observed that following the decline power of Communist ideology around the world, negative reactions to this Leftist ideological domination of the education system joined together and developed into a powerful movement. In other words, this view of history did not just appear suddenly out of nowhere; rather, it was the surfacing of a view of history that had just been oppressed previously. It’s not clear how influential this Libertarian view of history will become in the future, but it seems clear that it is a direct continuation of the Imperial view of history held before the war (in which Japan was a holy land ruled by the Imperial family), and it seems likely that it will develop into a legitimate view of history. (Additionally, according to Fujioka Nobukatsu, this Libertarian view is similar to the Shiba view and does not necessarily affirm the period between the Russo-Japanese and Pacific wars, but in reality, it seems that many supporters of this view veer away from the core values of its original proponents. Therefore, I here describe the universally accepted definition of “the Libertarian view of history.”)

4. The Various Views of History

Every person should be able to decide independently which view of history they choose to believe. No one should have any single view of history forced on them. Therefore, I feel that the extremely biased history education fed by the Japanese Teacher’s Union and others to middle- and high-schoolers who are unable to make reasoned decisions for themselves is extremely problematic. It will be difficult, but I would like to see a removal of bias from history textbooks, and teachers should be extremely careful not to push their own view of history on their students.

Therefore, as I wrote in my article, “Does History Consist of Memorization?”, it can’t be helped if the study of history in high schools develops an overemphasis on memorization and becomes boring. Rather than history education that overtly propounds a specific view of history with lessons like “thinking about the Nanking Massacre,” an education based on facts and memorization would be much more beneficial for the children.

Appendix: the Machida View of History.

Here I will explain my own view of history. I, Machida, will add a slight correction to the Shiba view of history. That is, I affirm the period between the Russo-Japanese war and the Manchurian Incident, but I hold a negative view of the period between the second Sino-Japanese war and the Pacific war.

Japan’s decision to build the country of Manchukuo could not be helped. At the time, the global economy was made up of blocs, and Japan was pushed out of the world market. Japan needed a large market in a nearby area. In addition, in order to defend against a Russia that was consistently progressing southward, Japan needed a line of defense in this area.

At the time, Chinese power did not reach as far as Manchuria. It was literally “no-man’s land.” Therefore, building a country there could not be considered an infringement of sovereignty under international law.

Originally, American capital had a stake in this area. After the Russo-Japanese war, the American railroad king Harriman proposed joint operation of the South Manchuria railway. Japan failed to take advantage of this offer, but if they had agreed, they most likely could have entered into a peaceful relationship with America and would not have needed to risk the danger inherent in building the country of Manchukuo.

Since the end of the war, Manchukuo has usually been referred to as a puppet regime, but Ishihara Kanji, the mastermind behind its construction, had no intention of making it such. He proposed “harmony between the five races of the world” and desired to build Manchukuo as an independent country. From the perspective of quality of human resources, it’s inevitable that the central government was mostly made up of Japanese people.

If Japan had only stopped moving further into the continent after Manchukuo, I don’t think the Great East Asia War would have occurred. Japan would have conducted trade with Manchukuo on a basis of equality, importing natural resources from Manchukuo and providing them with processed goods.

Manchukuo was judged unfavorably in the Lytton Report, but that was based on the subjective perspective of Britain and America, and was not a fair assessment. If Japan had followed Ishihara Kanji’s plans and carried out equal and peaceful trade with Manchukuo and had not desired to gain military influence on the continent, Britain and America would have had no choice but to accept the existence of Manchukuo. The aggressive tactics carried out by Ishihara and others in the building of the country would have been accepted as no different from Western imperialism. (In the past, Britain and America had done quite horrible things and created many colonies. Japan wasn’t even creating colonies, so in that sense, America and Britain were really in no position to judge.)

Thus, when considering Japan’s national prosperity and the global situation at the time, it is impossible to continue to espouse the view that the construction of Manchukuo was a military invasion. The problem was what happened afterwards.

Unfortunately, Japan ended up breaking loose from Ishihara Kanji’s influence and infringing on the sovereignty of China. This led to war between Japan and China, which turned into a catastrophe. Japan came to view Chiang Kai-shek as an enemy, and incurred the wrath of his supporters, Britain and America.

A table depicting positive and negative opinions in each of the views of history:

Progressive view of history: negative portrayal of Japan up until the Greater East Asia war; positive portrayal of Japan since the end of the Greater East Asia war.
Shiba view of history: positive portrayal of Japan until the Russo-Japanese war; negative portrayal of Japan from the Russo-Japanese war until the Greater East Asia war; positive portrayal of Japan since the end of the Greater east Asia war.
Libertarian view of history: Positive portrayal of Japan throughout.
Machida view of history: Positive portrayal of Japan except between the Manchurian Incident and the Greater East Asia war.

Notes of Naturemadecomplete: The following is all my biased and uneducated opinion so feel free to scorn me. I don’t agree with any of these views. How can we decide retroactively what was right and wrong? Who decides what a country is “allowed” to do or isn’t? Since the U.S. has been SO ridiculously hypocritical and despicable in its dealings with Japan and others, I’ve come to give Japan a lot of leeway, which I definitely didn’t used to. Basically, “principles” don’t work and there is no such thing as objectivity in practice. So while the concept of international law is all nice and good, it has never actually been carried out in a completely fair and just way, because such a thing would simple be impossible. A certain someone named, I forget but I won’t look it up because I don’t like him, but some guy I don’t like claimed that there are three different realms, the normal human realm and two spiritual realms, let’s call them the A realm and the C realm. According to him, the A realm is all about emotion and subjectivity, and the C realm is all about objectivity and higher principles. I think the concept of the C realm is a load of bullshit, and so did Motoori Norinaga, who criticized the “karagokoro” (“Chinese heart”) of Neo-Confucian teachings in the 18th century, which claimed to provide a rational and objective basis for morality based on higher principles, and proposed that everything is all about subjective emotion and story-telling. So he was like a post-modernist to the Neo-Confucian modernists or something, I don’t know. Anyway, my opinion is that I don’t think the concept of objectivity is bad, but it must be realized that its perfect achievement is literally impossible. So we should always aim for objectivity, while realizing that we’ll never actually attain it. Kind of like how we should always strive for perfection in what we do, while still understanding that we’ll never achieve it. That’s just how humans grow and learn and get good at stuff. Umm, so, I kind of 話をずらしてしまいましたが、got off topic, but I don’t think it’s possible to say “this is how history was, and this was good, and this was bad, and that’s final!” It’s impossible to grow and learn and improve if you think you’re already perfectly right. I also don’t believe in ideology, but I’m not a moral relativist because being mean is bad and mean people should go to their rooms and think about what they’ve done and stuff like that. Anyway, Motoori Norinaga was pretty cool, but he also said “Japan is better than China just because it’s Japan!” which doesn’t make much sense.

I also don’t think it can ever be accurate to define a mode of thought, or a “view of history” in this case, in such a simplified and concrete way. Within every school of thought, each individual has a slightly different perspective, and even each individual has conflicting views within their own mind. Also, these are certainly not the only “views” of history: some people think Japan is STILL bad, some people think it was great from Meiji until the end of the war and THEN it got bad, some people think it was good until the Russo-Japanese war and then got and stayed bad, etc. I think looking at periods of history as “good” and “bad” is silly. So there.

Three Views of History

Translated from http://www7.plala.or.jp/machikun/essayv.htm

In present-day Japan, ways of viewing history can be divided into roughly three categories. On this page I want to take a look at these different views of history. The three views are as follows: 1) the progressive view of history; 2) the Shiba view of history; 3) the libertarian view of history.

1. The progressive view of history
This is the view of history originally propounded by Marxist scholars. After the war, these scholars were referred to as the “progressive school” and “progressive intellectuals,” which is where the name came from.

Marxism comprehends human history as constantly progressing forward towards the future. Human history begins with primitive collectivism, then moves through feudalism, absolute monarchy, capitalism, imperialism, and eventually, through a violent revolution, inevitably reaches communism. They believe that when communism has been achieved throughout the entire world, the human race no longer has a need for progress; a utopia will be achieved where there are no rich or poor, everyone is nice to each other, and of course wars and other forms of conflict are entirely absent. The following is a description of the progressive view of history based on this Marxist foundation.

The further back you go in human history, the more miserable people’s lives were. For instance, in the Edo period, the peasants suffered from oppressive taxes, lived in fear of cruel, power-hungry elites, and were forced to live not knowing if they would see another day. Even in the Meiji period this stayed the same, and although things did become better, the proletariat, forced to live in abject poverty due to contraditions in the structure of society, carried out a miserable existence.

In the latter part of the Meiji era the Russo-Japanese war occured, initiated of course by Japanese imperialism. Japan’s aggressive ideology led to the deployment of troops on the Chinese mainland. Ergo, the Russo-Japanese war was clearly a war of aggression on the part of Japan. After the Russo-Japanese war Japanese ideology became more and more focused on aggression and expansion, and of course the culmination of this was the Pacific War. That was, needless to say, also a war of aggression on the part of Japan. Furthermore it is thought that the Pacific War was arranged by a small number of powerful leaders as a tactic used to maintain their power. The people of Japan had no desire for war and all responsibility for the war lies in these few leaders. (This way of thinking just so happens to correlate perfectly with the view perpetuated by Allies at the Tokyo Tribunal. This is why the “progressive view of history” is also called the “Tokyo Tribunal view of history.”)

After the Pacific War ended, modern Japanese history finally took a turn for the better. Ideally a communist revolution would have been carried out in the second decade of Showa (shortly after the war), and the Emperor system would have been abolished, but unfortunately due to tyrannical despotism this was unable to occur. (Actually, a communist revolution was necessary, but it was prevented by those in power. Thus, Japan had no choice but to become a capitalist country.) This is the general outline of the progressive view of history.

After the war this way of thinking, due in part to the rise in power of the Japanese Teacher’s Union, came to dominate post-war Japanese education. For instance, I’m sure you all learned about the Russo-Japanese war in junior high school, but did you learn the names of its heroes Togo Heihachiro, Kodama Gentaro, and Nogi Maresuke? (Actually Nogi was not a hero, but I will not get into that here. Please see my “aa, nihyakusankochi” page for more.) I have no memory of learning those names. Instead, I remember learning Yosano Akiko’s famous anti-war poem, “you died and are no longer here,” which was always in the textbooks; and Uchimura Kanzo’s anti-war thought. Those kinds of things indirectly teach us that the Russo-Japanese war was a war of aggression.

In this way, the progressive view of history caused a great bias in post-war Japanese education. I recall learning history and always feeling sick of reading the dark, pessimistic passages about the years between the Russo-Japanese war and the Pacific war. In my childish naivete, I remember thinking, “wow, after the Pacific War, Japan finally became a real country.”

To be continued…

Tojo Hideki and Matsuoka Yosuke, pt. 2

Continuation of translation from http://www.geocities.jp/machi0822jp/toujyoumatuoka.htm

If the Tokyo Tribunal had never existed, and a citizen’s trial had been held, the two would surely have plead in the above-stated fashion.

The War that Nobody Wanted

Winston Churchill called the Second World War “the unnecessary war”. One part of that, the Greater East Asia war, was certainly “the war that nobody wanted” from the Japanese point of view. At the Tokyo Tribunal, every single defendant said that they had not wanted to go to war, which shocked the allied forces. At the Nuremburg Trials, the Allies had succeeded in blaming all war crimes on Hitler and the Nazis. Thus, they thought they would be able to label everyone at the Tokyo Tribunal as Class A war criminals in the same way.

However, the Japanese war leaders did not argue thusly in an attempt to escape culpability. They truly felt that way from the bottom of their hearts, and Tojo Hideki and Matsuoka Yosuke were no exception.

However, the Tokyo Tribunal had to find some way to turn them into war criminals. So they distorted the truth. The allied forces decided that being a war-time leader was equivalent to being a war-monger. Tojo and Matsuoka were the victims of this.

Though their positions may have been different, both Tojo and Matsuoka wanted to avoid war with the United States. Nevertheless, as a result of the Tokyo Tribunal, both men were portrayed as lovers and promoters of war, and were forced to bear all the hatred of the war-hating post-war Japanese people. This was an extremely unfortunate thing not just for these two men, but for Japan as a whole.

While Japanese people were concerning themselves with this, the Tokyo Tribunal view of history spread to China and Korea, if not further. (Rather, it was actively exported by those on the Left.) This view of history also provided a foundation for anti-Japanese education in China, which has become especially influential since the Tianmen Square incident.

Calling for the Rehabilitation of Tojo and Matsuoka

Even in today’s Japan, writing this kind of thing will get me accused of being a right-winger. However, I think it’s important for Japan’s diplomatic relations with neighboring countries to restore the image of Tojo and Matsuoka. A correct view of the two, untainted by the Tokyo Tribunal, should be comprehended by specialist scholars and officially publicized.

These two, who have been declared the instigators of the war throughout the 60 years following the war, actually wanted nothing but peace. All they did was take a turn in the wrong direction (in Matsuoka’s case) and end up in a position of power at an unfortunate time (in Tojo’s case). This should be proven clearly by scholars and declared officially to Korea and China.

If people in other countries only understood the true intentions of Tojo and Matsuoka, they would likely also understand that none of the men classified as Class A war criminals actually wanted to go to war. In that case, China and Korea would have no choice but to change their view of history. They would have to understand that all the Japanese people were both oppressors and victims of the war. That unlike in Nazi Germany, there weren’t any individuals who actively wanted to go to war. I truly believe that such an understanding would be a great advantage at least to Japan in future diplomatic relations.

But first, let’s start closer to home. We Japanese need to start reevaluating these two in a more positive light.

Notes of Naturemadecomplete. The following is all my opinion and I take full responsibility blah blah blah. I have spent the past couple of weeks reading a book of translations of meetings that took place between the Japanese government and armed forces (meetings where decisions about wars and foreign policy etc. were made) between 1940-1941, particularly in the months leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. So I feel very justified in having many opinions. First of all, Matsuoka. I feel so sad for him. He was by far my favorite person in the book, because of course it’s always important to have a favorite person in a book. He was so vocal in his opinions and got so annoyed at certain obnoxious incompetent people (like, ahem, Nomura Kichisaburo) and I absolutely don’t think he wanted Japan to go to war with the U.S. In Tojo’s case, I don’t think he really cared, and I think he may have been a sociopath. In saying that I don’t mean to compare him to Hannibal Lecter or whatever–apparently one out of every 25 people is a sociopath, including probably my brother. They are just people who have no empathy for others. Anyway, it’s really irrelevant whether or not he was, because if being a sociopath makes someone a Class A war criminal, then one in every 25 people would be a Class A war criminal, and that would just be weird. But anyway, it wasn’t like Tojo jumped up and was like “Yes! We must war! asjflksdjfa;!” No, he was just like, “um, ok, so I guess I’m prime minister now, and it looks like we’re all set to go to war, so, let’s get on with it.” By the time war with the U.S. became a real posibility Matsuoka had already been kicked out of the government because nobody liked him. That also made me sad.
There actually is one person who I would like to place all the blame for the war on, and that is Sugiyama Hajime, who killed himself right after Japan surrendered and therefore had no opportunity to be classified as a Class A war criminal. He was absolutely a war-monger, extremely eager to go to war with the U.S. and anyone else who happened to be in his way, and completely delusional about the whole thing. When everyone else expressed unease about the fact that Japan was very likely to lose the war, he was like, “no way! We have yamato damashii! We’re sure to win!” He was the Army Chief of Staff. And ultimately, I think the fact that he, and the armed forces in general, had so much power in the government was a big reason the war occured. However, it’s not just Japan’s fault. The U.S. was already essentially carrying out economic warfare against Japan, as well as financially and militarily supporting Japan’s “enemy” in China. Which brings us to the “pre-Pacific war” issues, namely the “China incident” as it is so euphemistically called. The essay I translated doesn’t mention Japan’s incursions into China and Korea (and Taiwan and Manchuria if you consider them separately) at all. And those are the things that make China and Korea mad, not the fact that Japan went to war with the U.S. So when he said that the Tokyo Tribunal view of history was actively exported to China and Korea, I think that’s probably accurate–not by the left, though, but by…oh, fine, maybe it was the “left”, whatever that means, but only the ones who were American-propaganda-brainwashed idiots, which sadly was probably all of them. Anyway, basically Japan wanted to create a “New Order in East Asia” in which it played the role of leader, and I think a lot of the people who wanted that were actually very kind-hearted, idealistic, good people. Basically, the U.S. and Britain and some other European countries were recklessly taking over all of Asia, pretending they had all these moral principles when actually they just wanted to dominate the world and make things convenient for them. And Japan was like, well, this sucks for us, we gotta fight back! And the U.S. was like nonono, because we say so, and we have atomic bombs! Haha! The end. No, not the end, of course not! Because the future is something we actively work to create, not just something that randomly happens, and so my new goal in life is to actively work to create the future, not just sit around crying about how sad it is that nobody liked Matsuoka.

Tojo Hideki and Matsuoka Yosuke

Translated from http://www.geocities.jp/machi0822jp/toujyoumatuoka.htm

These two men have a terrible reputation in post-war Japan. Both were classified as “Class A” war criminals at the Tokyo Tribunal; on Tojo was placed responsibility for starting the Greater East Asia War, and on Matsuoka that of being the “leader” of the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy.

To start with my conclusion, these two men certainly bear a great deal of responsibility for the war. Even if the Tokyo Tribunal had not been carried out, it is likely that a citizen’s tribunal would have been held, and they would have been forced to take moral responsibility for their actions. (It is impossible to place full blame for a war on one or a few individuals, but they would bear moral responsibility.)

But if they had the right to plead their case, even if many Japanese people sought to place moral responsibility on them, at least their true feelings would have been understood. At the very least it would have been understood that they were completely different from Hitler in that they were not war-mongers.

The Spell of the Tokyo Tribunal

It could rightly be said that post-war Japan began with the Tokyo Tribunal. It decided everything that would happen in Japan’s future. It cast an unbreakable spell on the people of post-war Japan.

This “Tribunal” was carried out unilaterally by the winning countries, and there was virtually no chance for the accused to plead their cases. This “Tribunal” cast the leaders of the war as war-mongers and placed all the blame for the war squarely on their shoulders.

The Tokyo Tribunal planted in Japanese people’s minds a view of history in which the war was something the country’s leaders, not it’s people, wanted; hence Japan’s population, aside from a small number of government and military leaders, were entirely blameless. Thus the “Tokyo Tribunal view of history” was concocted and became the dominant perspective in post-war Japan.

The “Tokyo Tribunal view of history” was part of a Marxist materialist view of history. A materialist perspective view history as a constant battle between a powerful, evil minority of leaders and the innocent masses. This perspective coincided perfectly with the Tokyo Tribunal view of history. One reason the Tokyo Tribunal view of history gained such powerful influence in post-war Japan was that it was tied to the Marxist materialist perspective which had been suppressed by the Emperor-centered view of history before the war. It was also a reaction against the Emperor-centered view of history which had become much despised.

From a materialist view, Tojo and Matsuoka were viewed as precisely those “evil, powerful leaders”. Matsuoka, a war-lover who led Japan towards a war with America by concluding the Tripartite Pact, and Tojo, who as Prime Minister forcefully dragged the Japanese people into war: these two became the ringleaders of a plot to lead the innocent, peaceful Japanese people to ruin. The Tokyo Tribunal only reinforced this view.

Were Tojo and Matsuoka really war-lovers?

However, as stated previously, if Tojo and Matsuoka were allowed the opportunity to plead their cases, the pleas would probably go something like this.

Tojo Hideki: I certainly had many strong views during my time in the army. But that was true of everyone in the army at the time. They weren’t just my own personal views. It’s almost as if I’m being accused of being a dictator, but dictatorship involves forcing everyone around you to follow you against their will. All I did was assemble the views of all those around me; I did not force my views on anyone. I was certainly not a dictator.

I became Prime Minister without planning to; I sympathized with those below me and tried at the very least to avoid going to war against the United States. However, at the point when I became Prime Minister, war was already inevitable. That would have been the case even if an utter pacifist had become Prime Minister. At that point the only thing that could have prevented the war would have been the divine word of the Emperor. However we were still in a state of peace, and the Emperor, as a constitutional monarch, could not wield such unilateral power. If he had done that, he would have become an absolute monarch.

The reason the Emperor was able to unilaterally declare an end to the war was that Japan was in a state of crisis. I don’t want you to confuse those two situations. Thus, Emperor Hirohito bears no responsibility for the war. I don’t want you do judge the Emperor ex post facto.

Of course I take responsibility as the Prime Minister at the time the war started. However, I did not go to war because I wanted to. I absolutely did not want to go to war, but at that point there was no other option. This is all I want to say.

Matsuoka Yosuke: I wanted to avoid a clash between Japan and the United States. I grew up in the United States and I knew how relentless they are. In forming an alliance with Germany, I hoped to restrain the United States. I thought that if Japan and Germany were allied, the U.S. would not come after either of us. I also thought that it would be impossible for Japan to form an alliance with the U.S. because Roosevelt was determined to convince the war-weary American people to go to war by forcing Japan to make the first move.

I thought the Soviet Union was the enemy. That’s why I signed the nonagression treaty with Stalin. However, knowing Stalin couldn’t be trusted, I made it clear that I thought that we needed to maintain a firm stance towards the Soviet Union.

Nonetheless, Japan struck south in spite of my better judgement. At that point, I knew that we were screwed. With Singapore and the Philippines in the south seas, there was no way America would keep quiet. I always thought we should avoid moving south and just reinforce our position in the north against the USSR I thought that that way, America would not join the war, we could work together with Hitler to defeat the USSR, and the axis would win, allowing Japan and Germany to become the leading world powers without the U.S. getting involved.

I am convinced that the reason America placed economic sanctions on Japan is because we invaded the south, not because we signed the Tripartite Pact. However, I can’t deny that the Tripartite Pact was a cause of the war against the United States. I am responsible for that.

Furthermore, it seems that the Japanese people currently believe that I dogmatically declared Japan’s withdrawal from the League of Nations, but nothing could be further from the truth. I knew that it would be disastrous for us to withdraw. It would leave us isolated on the world stage.

However, the Foreign Ministry ordered me to declare our withdrawal. The decision was related to operations being carried out in Jehol by the army at the time. If those operations were successful, there was a chance that the League of Nations would place economic sanctions on Japan. If that happened, it would be the end for Japan. Therefore, the Foreign Ministry came up with a scheme to have me withdraw from the League of Nations in order to prevent economic sanctions. Japan was a democratic country at the time. I am not Hitler. All I did was act in accordance with the country’s policies.

I thought the Japanese people would turn their backs on me after I declared withdrawal from the League of Nations, but I was met with cheers and applause. My actions at the time didn’t just reflect the will of the Foreign Ministry; they reflected the will of the people. I want you to understand that.

In conclusion, I take full responsibility, but I certainly did not actively plan to lead Japan into war with the United States. Quite the opposite in fact. I just want that to be understood.

To be continued because I am very tired…

I think it’s bad!

Have you ever felt like a cherry tree
Replacing your blossoms with bushy green leaves
Looming before the sunset
And over the eaves
Of the houses and yards
In the cities and towns
Not like the people
With their smiles and frowns
But more like the Buddha
With his all-knowing sneer
Saying things that he knew
No one wanted to hear
Like that there is no essence
Or anything at all
And that nothing is big
And that nothing is small
And that no one knows why
The rain falls and sun shines
But if you sit still
And stand in long lines
You might have an epiphany
Or maybe a vision
And learn to bask in
Their scorn and derision.