Abstract
This study interprets and analyzes the development of Japan’s so-called “external territories (gaichi)” in the first half of the twentieth century—particularly the expansion of state-led development projects in Manchuria—by focusing on the ideological transformation of the concept of “technology (gijutsu)” as generated through the engineers’ movement and by reformist bureaucrats, drawing primarily on documentary research. The documentary investigation demonstrates the historical fact that the narrative of technology came to play a certain role in national development projects through the following trajectory. Under the pressures exerted by the great powers during Japan’s modernization, scientific knowledge was subordinated to practical utility， fused with technology, and incorporated into state policy according to the criterion of serving national interests. Nevertheless, engineers at the time occupied a low social and institutional status, and in an effort to improve these conditions, figures such as Rintarō Naoki and Takenosuke Miyamoto launched the engineers’ movement. It was in the external territories—most notably Manchuria, where institutional constraints were far weaker than in the Japanese metropole—that this movement ultimately bore fruit. As a “new frontier,” these territories were opened to engineers, enabling technology to acquire a dynamic and central position as the driving force of development. Moreover, reform-minded bureaucrats constructed a narrative framework that linked technology to the conception of a national-defense state and to the formation of an East Asian order, through conceptual maneuvers involving terms such as “synthetic technology (sougou-gijutsu),” “technology for Asian development (koua-gijutsu),” and “economic technology (keizai-gijutsu).” Through this interpretive analysis, this study reveals that the narrative formation of technology operated as a principle that joined scientific rationality with an ethnic mission, integrating political divisions and orienting them toward development. In this sense, technology at the time was not merely an instrument for policy execution; rather, as this study makes clear, it assumed ideological and normative functions that directed the state’s survival strategy and mobilized national resources to drive development.
