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Meiji Japan and East Asia SPECIAL SECTION ON JAPAN IN U.S. AND WORLD jiHHiiW BREAKING COMPANY Meiji Japan and East Asia By Joseph M . Henning n a famous 1885 editorial, ized nation whose strategic Fukuzawa Yukichi urged interests coincided with I.hose I his nation 10 "escape from of' the United States and Great Asia." Japan could not afford to Britain. Second, they identified wait pntiently for China and racial similarities between Korea to develop on their own. themselves and Anglo-Saxons, argued the Meiji era's most influ­ in tum highlighting differences ential scholar. To Japan's lrate­ between themselves and other gic disadvantnge. ·•civilized West­ Enst A),ians. These claims ern peoples·· considered the reached important audiences Japanese to be akin to their back­ and influenced Western opin­ ward neighbors. "If we keep bad ion. Japanese leaders published company," Fukuwwa wrote. "we in leading English-language cannot avoid a bad name. In my journals-making their essays heart l favur breaking off with the accessible today for teachers to bad company of East Asia:·1 use as primary sources in class. This call succinctly captured These essays offer lessons in the full army of Meiji ambition: su·ategy. public diplomacy. and Japan· s leaders had set out to racial ideology in Meiji foreign reform its political and social - relations. (Included below is a institutions and modernize it.~ --- short Ust of' useful sources not industries and military. The ulti­ -- cited in the endnotes.) mnte goal was LO win recognjtion At the turn of the nine- as an equal among the world's 1eenth century. three decades grer1t powers, n process symbol­ after the Meiji Restoration. ized in large part by revision of cabinet ministers and diplo- the unequal treaties that Japan 01:i.ts highlighted the extensive had been compelled to sign by reforms e ffected since the the United States and Europe in change in government. Hoshi the 1850-60s. These treaties Toru, once an activist in the restricted Japanese sovereignty People's Rights movement and by establishing extraterritoriality fapan, as seen by Americans, after the Russo-fapanese War: in modern military now serving in 1897 as Japan·s and limiting tariff rates on unifonn, instructing its ltraditionally attired neighbors. In American Review of miruster to lhe tJnited Statcs,2 Rev,em 32 (October 1905): 416. impons to Japan. Fukuzawa and told readers of Harper's his compatriots believed that Mo111/,/y that his nation's new Japan, for its own tenitorial and economic political and military reforms were not government. judiciary. industries, and security. had to constn1ct a government merely :a , 1eneer of "civilization and public schools were evidence of Japan's and military that would set it apart. from enlighteniment.'' The Japanese contended rapid progress. Just as importantly. he its neighbors and command Western that they had decisively broken company wrote. Japan had enshrined freedom of respec1. The transfonn:11ion of Meiji with Eas,t Asia and shared many affini­ religion in its 1889 constitution: "We Japan into a modem imperial power is a ties-political and racial-with the Uruted may not be a Christian nation in the strict familjar story Lu students of East Asian States and Great Biitain. sense of the expression, but we have history: less familiar. however. are Japan­ Efforts to reshape foreign perception omitted no effo11 to assimilate to our use ese effons LO transform Western opinion. of Japan focused on two issues. First, the substam:e of' Chiistian civilization.'' In English-language publications. Meiji Japanese statesmen and scholars empha­ The Japanese wanted Britons and Ameri­ leaden. took grcm pain!> 10 demonstrate. to ~ i zed that their political and social cans to recognize their new cousins in the Americans and Britons that Japanese reforms had produced a new. Western- Pacific:~ 40 BDHf'ATION ABOl'T ASIA V11l11mc 5. Number 3 WinlerlOO() To rin important degree. wrote, the Japanese went they did. In 1894. Japan had abroad ·'as men. and not as met one of its most pressing numbers:· The qucsuon of goals when British and race was simply in-elevant in American diplomats agreed attempting to undersrnnd to revise the unequaJ Japan: ''the only legitimate treaties and abolish extrater­ test is one that estim::11es the ritoriality. (Japan would not earnestness of effort and win tariff autonomy until the measure of capacity.'· 1911.) Going further. Great By these standards, he Britain and fap;\n signed a observed. the Japanese and military alliance on equal Chinese were as dissimilar as terms in 1902- the first any two peoples could he.6 between a Western and un .. Some of l-loshi·s col­ Asian nation. In the tre:u y, leagues. however. believed the British also recognized Lhat race was nol only rele­ Japan·._ political and com­ vant but also could be mercial interests in Korea. wielded 10 Japan's advan­ Such accomplishments gave tage. Continuing to look for the Japanese other means of similarities between Japan underscoring not only their and the olher powers. Meiji kinship with the West lenders identified significant but also their di fferenccs parallels in their racial her­ with East Asia. Kurino itage and Lbat of British and Shin'ichiro, Hoshi's prede­ China, as seen by Britons, aft,er the Sino-Japanese War: unwilling or unable to recognize American Anglo-Saxons. the value of technological innovation5 offered by John Bull. In American Review of cessor as minister 10 Wash- Reviews 14 (October 1896): 405. Okuma insisted that ancienl ington, infonned Americans Japan. like England, had that Japan. alone among Asian nalions. strength depended on free trade: thu:-1 the successfully incorporated a variety of had acquired "the benefits of western Japanese would eagerly continue LO racial types-Malayan. Mongolian. and l.ricl civilization." The result? Japanese import American and European goods. Korean-which had fused into a. single diplomats pointed out that Japan was Lhe oppose protective tariffs, and support the nation. Just as Saxon. Danish. and first nmion to be accepted as a sovereign open do,or policy on trade in China. In Norman elements had together formed equal by ··the sisterhood of civilized fact, they noted pointedly, the Japanese ''the great Anglo-Saxon nalionality," he states''; m, such, it now had a uni4ue were wii:ting to shed Lheir own blood in wrote. Japan had winnowed out the responsibility. Because China and Korea the defense of international commerce. weaknesses and sharpened the strengths remained mired in conservatism. corrup­ By fighting Russia. fapan had preserved of its racial compooeots. An anonymous tion. and incomperence, Japan now Lhe open door for trade in Manchuria. a Japanese writer in the Chicago journal aspire<l to introduce lO them the blessings region that Saint Petersburg coveted for Open C(lll/'I even contended that the of modem civilization and progress. To its own exclusive commercial interests. ancient seafaring Phoenicians had con­ enlighten Korea, Fukuzawa argued, first Japan· s viclory. Kaneko proclaimed, tributed to Japan's racial stock. This required the eliminution of regressive meant continued access and profits for hybrid heritage seemed to explain mod­ Chinese innuence there: tbus Lhe Sino­ British and American business as well as ern Japan· s success in joining the circle Japanese W:.u: (1894-5) was a "banle for Japanese:: Japan was not a competitor but of world powers.7 the sake of world culture." Japan, fonner a proxy for Anglo-American interests in The Japanese also publicly used these cabinel minister Kaneko Kentaro assert­ East Asi:a.5 ideas to emphasize racial differences ed. would ·'Occiden1alize" the Orient.4 lmmiigration posed another Lhorny between themselves and their neighbors. Having underscored the benelics of problem for Japanese diplomats. Ai; The robust ethnological backgrounds Japanese progress, Meiji statesmen aJso movements against Japanese immigration of the Anglo-Saxon nalions and Japao wanted to ensure that their victories over flared irn tbe United States and Canada. contrasted sharply wich the racial and China and Russia ( 1904-5) would not Japan ccmtinued its a11emp1s 10 disassoci­ cultural stagnation that the Japanese inflame foreign fear of Japanese ambi­ ate itsellf from East Asia. Hoshi tried to believed to characterize China, Taiwan, t ion. To many Americans, this new extinguish American racism against and Korea. This emphasis on ostensible power in Lhe Pacific. however Western­ Japanes,~ immigrants by distinguishing physical differences emerged in Japanese ized it might be, posed a challenge to them from the Chinese. who had been popular culture as well. In woodblock U.S. commercial and immigration poli­ prohibited from immigrating to 1he prints (nil'hikie) produced during the cies. Kaneko and fellow states man United States by the Chinese Exclusion Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese and Okum::1 Shigenobu led the way in assur­ Act of II 882. Because Japan had never Chinese appeared as entirely different ing the American public U1a1 Japan· s new penniued a '"coolie' system·· of labor. be creatures. ks DonaJd Keene has pointed 41 SPECIAL SECTION ON JAPAN IN U.S. AND WORLD iiHt·WM 11'ir&ILYf ~M Mlm'Jfil!I! With Ruslian autocracy 35 the 50le anachron11m, lapan now sits as an eqiual alon95ide the constitutional governments of Europe and lhe United States. In American Review of Reviews 32 (December 1905): 670. out, these prints depicted Japanese sol­ with Mahan's analysis and was familiar Western powers (page 42). Japan also is diers, with European facial features and also wilh the views of jow·naljst George. now entitled to sit alongside its European military haircuts. fighting heroieally: the Kenn:m, with whom he corresponded and American brothers, all-except Chinese. however. wilh grotesque faces during the· Russo-Japanese War. Accord­ despotic Russia-brandishing the and pigtails.
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