4 2011.3 THE PERCEPTION OF THE PHILIPPINES IN JAPANESE PAN-ASIANISM FROM THE MEIJI-ERA UNTIL THE WAKE OF THE PACIFIC WAR Sven MATTHIESSEN Ⅰ. Introduction Three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, on government for the Southward expansion including 10 December 1941 the Japanese navy started the invasion of the Philippines was to liberate the invading the Philippine main island Luzon. peoples of Southeast Asia from Western oppression This day marked the beginning of the Japanese and unite them in a self-sustaining economic bloc, occupation of the Philippine Islands which was namely the Greater East Asia Co- Prosperity Sphere to last for about almost three years. In spite of the (GEACPS, Daitôa kyôeiken). The underlying lesser role the Philippines might have played in idea of the GEACPS was pan-Asianism (Han the Japanese government’s plans before the war Ajia-shugi), an ideology that propagated the against America became an eminent issue, the liberation and unity of all Asian peoples. In the Philippine archipelago was home to the largest eyes of Japanese pan-Asianists the creation of the Japanese community in Southeast Asia in the GEACPS functioned as a final step in the Asian early 20th century. In the late 1930s about 25000 emancipation process from Western hegemony. Japanese resided in the Philippines, most of them The term was introduced to the public by Japanese in the Davao community in the Southern island Foreign Minister Matsuoka Yôsuke (1880-1946) on of Mindanao, engaging in the cultivation of abaca 1 August 1941 when he proclaimed the necessity (Manila hemp)1. In the wake of the planning of a self-sustaining stability sphere for East Asia. for the Pacific War the Imperial government This Sphere should include amongst others the showed greater interest in the Philippine islands. Philippine Islands3. What makes the Philippines The American military bases in the archipelago a special case in connection with pan-Asianism imposed a direct threat to the Japanese main are the historical and cultural specifics of the islands and therefore the Philippines was archipelago in comparison to its Southeast Asian strategically of great importance2. neighbours. The official justification given by the Japanese The Philippines differed in many ways from 128 the other countries of Southeast Asia by the time Western suppression. According to Japanese pan- of the Japanese invasion. The archipelago’s history Asianist ideologues Japan as the most developed as a Spanish colony for three centuries and as an country of the region had to take the leadership in American dominion for almost four decades had this struggle for Asian independence6. This New produced a society subject to Ibero-American Order (shin chitsujô) for East Asia was one of influences instead of the British, Dutch and the official Japanese objectives in the war against French colonial experiences of other Southeast America. The geographer Noguchi Hôichirô who Asian regions. As part of the Spanish legacy co-wrote Volume 2 of the “Ethnic Nation Series” the great majority of the populace was Catholic in 1943, titled “The Nations of the GEACPS” and most Filipinos respected the Americans as (Daitôa kyôeiken no minzoku) pointed out that teachers instead of considering them occupiers. pan-Asianism was Furthermore, the United States had scheduled the obligation of Japan as the leader of the Philippine independence for 4 July 1946 and GEACPS and a method of self defence. This in the Philippine Commonwealth that had been must not be the method of capitalist imperialist established in 1935, Filipinos already were able exploitation and extortion of the various ethnic to decide their domestic affairs and choose their groups of Asia that Europe and America have own government. Japan that sought to act as employed in the past; rather it is a league a liberator of the Asian continent found itself devoted to the co-existence and co-prosperity confronted with an environment where those who of all the ethnic nations of Greater East Asia7. were to be freed did not feel suppressed. On the contrary, different to for example in Indonesia and However, ideas to unify Asia under Japanese Burma where the Japanese were in the beginning leadership emerged in Japan as early as in the welcomed as liberators from Dutch oppression, in beginning of the Meiji period (1868-1912). Pan- the Philippines the idea of “Asia for the Asians” Asianist movements called for the unification seemed strange to many Filipinos since they saw of the Asian race (“One Asia”) under Japanese themselves less as Asians but rather as belonging leadership. Due to the obvious differences in terms to the Western hemisphere. Most Filipinos did not of culture, language and politics, most advocates feel oppressed by the Americans and they had no of pan-Asianism by then however only referred to desire to be “liberated” by the Japanese. Overall, the unification of the Eastern part of Asia8. the pan–Asianist ideology had to be implemented From February 1941, the Supreme Command in the arguably most Western-orientated country of the Japanese Imperial Army conducted specific of the region4. The Japanese propaganda therefore research on how to administer occupied territories. mostly fell on deaf ears and the Japanese were In these plans it considered the independence of confronted with more hostility against themselves Burma and the Philippines within a GEACPS9. than in any other country of the region5. This independence meant that the Philippine The strong and positive relationship between government was to be run by Filipinos; however, the Philippine population and the Americans made the Philippines would become part of an economic it difficult for the Japanese invaders to win over the bloc where it was no longer dependent on trade Filipinos for their slogan of “Asia for the Asians”. with America but subject to Japanese domination. Disseminating the idea of a GEACPS, Japan This domination the pan-Asianists justified sought to unify Asia and free the continent from with Japan taking the burden of liberating the THE PERCEPTION OF THE PHILIPPINES IN JAPANESE PAN-ASIANISM 129 FROM THE MEIJI-ERA UNTIL THE WAKE OF THE PACIFIC WAR 4 2011.3 suppressed East Asian countries10. be doubted that the Japanese army repeatedly However, the Japanese administrators failed mistreated Filipinos and ignored Philippine in winning over the Filipinos for the cause of culture. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the the establishment of the GEACPS. The vast ideological background of the Japanese invasion majority of the Philippine population considered of the Philippines by examining the perception of the Japanese army from the very beginning of the the archipelago in Japanese pan-Asianist thought occupation on rather an oppressor than a liberating from the early Meiji era until the wake of the force. The overall positive attitude towards the Pacific War. First the development of Japanese Americans among the Philippine population along pan-Asianism in the respective time period will be with the perspective of guaranteed independence examined followed by a section on the differing for 1946 made it almost a mission impossible for views on Southeast Asia and the Philippines within the Japanese Military Administration to convince the pan-Asianist community by the wake of the the Filipinos that their country would be better Pacific War. off as a part of the GEACPS. It also cannot Ⅱ. Diverging Views Melting into One—the Perception of the Philippines in Japanese Pan-Asianist and Nationalist Thought, 1886-1931 The purpose of this section is to describe the with the Great Powers. Fukumoto along with development of Japanese pan-Asianism from the the nationalist Kuga Katsunan (1857-1907) co- idea of a Sino-centric bloc to the GEACPS along founded the nationalist newspaper “Nihon” (Japan) with the perception of the Philippines in both pan- in 1889 that was critical towards the policy of the Asianist and nationalist thought from the Meiji era Meiji administration and warned of an ongoing (1868-1912) to the Manchurian Incident. It was Westernization of Japan. “Nihon” found wide during this time span that Japan emerged from a proliferation in Japan and made Fukumoto become developing country to the strongest economical an influential political commentator in the country. and military power in the Far East. In 1908 he was even elected a member of the Japanese nationalists took interest in the South Lower House. Fukumoto represented the typical Seas (Nan’yô)11 and thus also the Philippines as nationalist stance towards Southward expansion early as by the beginning of the Meiji Restoration and was determined to accomplish the work of his when they considered Southward expansion as old friend Sugenuma Teifû who was one of the the only possible answer to the thread the Western pioneer advocates of a Japanese colonisation of the powers imposed on Japan. A prominent example Philippine archipelago. In the face of the decline for a Japanese nationalist advocating expansim of the Spanish Empire, Fukumoto considered it to the South and colonisation of the Philippines likely to happen that another Western power would was the journalist, political scientist and politician take the Spaniards’ place which would ultimately Fukumoto Nichinan (1857-1921). To Fukumoto threaten Japan12. Fukumoto did not advocate a colonisation of the Philippines was a measure to military invasion of the archipelago but argued for secure Japan’s independence by avoiding contact taking over the islands by Japanese settlements and 130 trade. In 1889 he published his book Firipin guntô the Philippines as well as the efforts of the Meiji ni okeru nihonjin (The Philippine Archipelago government to enhance the relationship: with Regards to the Japanese) providing an By the way, in ancient times 3000 Japanese account of the Philippines as a Spanish colony and established a Japanese city in the centre of describing perspectives for a Japanese colonisation Luzon, a mountain away from the capital of the islands.