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

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. were typically shown in ing to Kennan. reporting from Korea. top hats and constitutions of civiliLecl cowardly retreat. From these perspec­ imperial Japan was en lightening its East statesmen. tives. Japan stood racially equal to West­ Asian neighbors. who were the "rotten To explain such accomplishments. ern nations and superior to the backward product of a decayed Oriental civiliza­ notable American supporters of Japan Chinese, Taiwanese. and Korean- new tion:· And in the Atlantic Mo!llhly. Uni­ resorted to racial factors. again lendi.ng colonial subjects to whom it was bringing tarian missionary Arthur May Knapp support to the claim of Japanese leaders. the enlightenment of civilization.11 observed 1lhat Japan had ·aved the Kore­ Knapp and Kennan concluded that In its campaign to join the circle of ans from tJ1eir own failures. which previ­ the Japanese. in their capacity fo r imperial powers. Meiji Japan enjoyed sig­ ously had left them vulnerable to the progress. were ·•Aryans to all intents and nificant successes. On the battlefield. claw~ of the Russian bear. Echoing purposes." Fu rt her championing the Japan demonstrated its modem military Japanese statesmen, these Americans cause was William E lliot Griffis. prowess against China and Russia. taking declared that Japan was indeed beginning the most prolific American writer and the colonies to which it believed itself w ·'Occidentalize" its neighbors.9 lecturer on Japan in the late-uineteenth entitled. Ln diplomatic negotiations, Japan British and American editorial car­ and early-twenti eth centuries. He convinced European and American toons. which teachers also might use as informed Americans that tbe Japanese statesmen that effective political and primary sources for in-class discussion. were ..I.he most un-Mongolian people in military reform entitled it to sovereign graphicallly depict Japan· s tum-of-the­ Asia.'' a composite race with little rela­ equality. winning revised treaties and the century success in breaking company tion to the Chinese. Believing that the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. with East Asia. On page 4 1. China is Japanese and Anglo-Saxons shared In Western public opinion. too. Meiji bewildered by British shopkeeper John ancient Aryan roots, Griffis revealed that Japan left notable marks. Prominent Bull's am1y of locomotives and cannons. the secret behind the success of the American experts began to argue in the failing to eyuip itself with these weapons Japanese was the ·'white blood" that ran early twentieth century that Japanese even after its humiliating defeat in 1895 in their veins. 111 The work of Kaneko. strategjc interests complemented those of by Japan's newly modernized rrulitary. A Okuma, and their colleagues seemed to the United States and Great Britain. decade later (p.1ge 40), China ant.I Kurea have paid off. Naval officer and historiun Alfred Thayer sLi ll stubbornly clin.g to outdated tradi­ Although they were able to recruit Mahan argued that all three na tions tion. as s1ignified by thei.r attire. Now, important foreign a!Lies in their campaign shared the strategic goal of maintaining however. seated at schoolchildren· s to reshape opinion abroad. this victory international access to the markets of East desks. they receive remedi3.l instruction was limited in scope and duration. In the Asia-an objective opposed by Russia. in miJitary science from victorious Japan. last years of the nineteenth Century, when President Theodore Roosevelt agreed Recognize:d as a sovereign equal of the both the United States and Japan began

42 Eout;. Tl()N Anot I ASIA Volume 5, Number 3 Winter2000 NOTES ··Japan and the United States: Are the Japanese acquiring colonies in the Pacific, influen­ ---- Mongolian'!" Nortb American Review 197 tial figures in both countries began to L Fukuzawa Yukichi. ·'Dm.w-a ro11," quoted in (June 1913): 721-33; promolional pamphlet. express growing doubts about the future Kennet111 B. Pyle, Tl1e New Genemtitm /11 Meiji Folder 4, Bo~ 1.2, Group I. William Elliot of American-Japanese relations. As Akira Ja1,c111: Pro/J/ems of C11/111ral lde111i1y, Griffis Collection. Special Collections and /lt85-Jll95 (Stnnfortl: Stanford University Press. University Archives, Rutgers University lriye and others have demonstrated, real 1969). IA9. See also Miwa Kimi1nda. "Fukuza, Libraries. See also Joseph M. Henning, 0111- and potential friction in commercial and wa Yukichi's 'Departure from Asiu': A Prelude poMs of Civilization: Race. Religion, and the strategic relations produced a new to the S,ino-Japanese War." in Japan's M0Tokyo: tions rNew York: New York University Press. estrangement. War scares and physical Sophia University, 1968). 1-26. 2000), 149-64. 2. Japan and the United States did not begin attacks on Japanese residents of Califor­ ll . Akira lriy~. "Japan as a Competitor, exchanjging diplomats at the rank of ambas­ 1895- 1917." in M11111a/ Images: Essays i11 cia erupted repeatedly in the years fol­ sador until 1906, Americ:1111-Jop,mese Relations, ed. idem (Cam­ lowing Japan's victory over Russia. 3. Hoshi T6ru, "The New Japan;• Harper's bridge: Harvard University Press. 1975), These were. in fact, the very trends that Mo11th/y 95 (November 18971: 894-5. 73-99: Shiiichi Saeki. "Images of the United 4. Kurino Shin'ichiro. ·'The Oriental War:· North States as u Hypothetical Enemy," in ibid., Japanese statesmen, in their English-lan­ American Revie1,• 159 (November 1894): guage essays. hoped to reverse. Kennan. 100-14: Kimitada Miwa. ''Japanese Images of 530-6: Takahim Kogon\ "Japan in lhe Sister, War with dw United States.'' in ibid,, 115-37: Knapp. and Griffis also had a similar hood of Nations: • /111lependent 53 (July 4. William L. Neumann. America E11co1111ters 190 I I: I 551; Fuku1.awa quoted in Donald goal in mfod: they emphasized affi nities Japal): From Perry /0 MacArt/111r (New York: between Americans and Japanese in Keene. ·•The Sino-Japane.se War of 1894-95 Harper Colophon Books, I 965}, II 2- 34. and It~ Cultural Effects in Jupan." in Traditio11 deliberate attempts to counter the increas­ and M()demiic11io11 in Japa11eve Culture, ed. OTHER ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ingly vocal American movement against Donald H. Shively (Princeton: Princeton Uni­ 11 PRIMARY SOURCES Japanese i mmigration. versity Press. 1971 ), I 27; Kaneko Kentnrii. Two events symbolize the ultimate ' 'The Far East after the War:· World's Work 9 Asakawa Kan'ichi. The R11.m1-Japo11ese Co11jlict, failure of these efforts. After World War (February 1905): 5868. 11.r Ctum!.< a11d Jssues. Boston: Houghton. Mifflin S. Okuma Shigenobu, ' 'The Industrial Revolution and Co., 1904. I, the Japanese delegation 10 (he Paris io Japan," North Arneric,111 Rt'view 171 Griffis. Williarn Elliot. Tile Japanese Nt1/io11 i11 Peace Conference proposed the inclusion (November 1900): 678--9. 69 I: Kaneko. ''Japan Evol111iu11: Steps i11 tlw Progress of o Great People. of a racial equality clause in the League of and the United Starcs- Panncrs," North Ameri­ New York; Thomas Y. CroweU and Co., 1907. Nations Covenant. Japan. however, could t·m1 Re,dew 184 (March 1907); 6;13; idem, "The lyenag~. [sic] Toyokichi. ·•Japan's Claim.,, Against not overcome the opposition mounted by Par Ea.~t after the War," 5869-70. Russia." /11 depe11de111 56 (February 11. 1904): 303-6. Australia, Great Britain, and the United 6. Hoshi. ''111e New J,1pan," 897-S (emphasis in originaJI). Jordan. DaviJ Starr. "Japan's Task in Korea," States, whose leaders feared the potential 7. Okuma. "A Summary of tile Hlstory of Jupan." American Reviell' nfReviews 46 (July 1912}: 81-2. effects on their nations' immigration poli­ in Fifi,~ Years of New Japan. 2d ed .. comp. Kaneko Kentaro. '"The Characteristics of the Japan­ cies. At the conference in 1919, President idem. ed. Marcus B. Huish (London: Smith, ese People," Natio11a/ Geographic Mt1gai i11e 16 Woodrow Wilson's opposition con­ Elder. and Co.. 1910). 1:1 1-16: anonymous (March I 9()5}: 93- 100. - -. ·'The Yellow Peril is the Go)dl.'n Opportu­ tributed to the demise of the clause and Japane:1c writer. "Ethnology of Japan." Open Cmm 2'.0 (May 1906); 299, nity for Japan." North American Review 179 was an accurate reflection of mainstream 8. Hoshi. 'The New Japan," 897; Shinoda Masa­ (November 190Boston: Little. At the turn of the century, Japan had Jap1111 's Early Modern W11r,1· (Worcc~tcr. Brown, and Co., 1900. Ma~s.: Worcester Art Mu.,eum. 1991). Mutsu Hirokichi. "A Japanese View of Certain won Western recognition as a fully sover­ 9. Alfred Thuyer Mahun, The Problem ofAsia 011d Jopane~c-AJllerican Relations,'' O,·erland MQ11tlily, eign power but in the twentieth century //s !Jfi"·/ upon l11tema1io1JOI Pnlicies ( Boston: 2d series. 32 (November 1898): 406-14. could not completely shed the ostensible Little, Brown, and Co., I 900), Jti,;, 41-.:I, Okuma Shigenobu. "Japanese Problems," North stigma of East Asia. Fukuzawa's concern 113-:.!2, 150: Theodore Roosevelt to Mahan, American Review 180 (February 1905): 161-5. had been prescient indeed: association March I 8, l 9()1, 'nie Letters of Theodore Ro1J­ Takahira Kogor6. '"Why Japan RM ists Russia," North Americw, Rrview 178 (March 1904); 321-7. with "the bad company of East Asia'' con­ seve/t, ,ed. Eltmg E. Morrison et al. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, I 95 I), 3:23; Ro<;>­ tinued to work against Japan. To escape, sevell lo George Kennan. May 6. 1905, ibid .. Japanese leaders had attempted to bend 4:1168-70: Kennan, 'The Kore.in People: The JOSEPH M. HENNING is an Assistant Proressor racial and cultural ideologies to their Product of a Decayed Civilization." 0111/ook 81 at Saint Vincent College at Latrobe, Pennsylva­ advantage. They found, however, that the (Octoloer 2 I, 1905): 409- 10; Arthur May nia, where he teaches East Asian and World History. He also has worked as an assistant to bars of American and European racism Knapp, "Japan's Ambition.'' ;\tlw,tic Mo11tlily 105 (January 1910): 71-3. Congressman Richard A. Gephardt. In lune quickly snapped back into place. ■ IO. Knapp1, Fe11dal and Modem Jap«11 (Boston: 2000, New York University Press published Joseph Knight Co. 1897). I :5: Kennan. •·can h1s first book, Outposts of C/Vi/izatlon: Race, We Understand the Japanese?" Outlook IOI Re/fgion, and the Formative Years of American­ (August IO, 19 I 2}: 822; William Elliot Griffis, Japanese Relations.

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