In the introduction to his monologues, the Shôwa emperor suggested that the remote cause of the “Greater East Asia War” was racial discrimination in the wake of the First World War. But connecting the “humiliation” of the rejection of the Japanese proposal for racial equality at Versailles and American government's Japanese Exclusion Act in 1924 with the invasion of Kota Bahru on the Malay Peninsula and the attack on Pearl Harbor nearly two decades later requires a huge ahistorical leap. Why did an illogical and sensational ideology that proclaimed a “holy war” against the “devilish Americans and British” gain ascendancy in 1930s Japan? The purpose of this essay is to concretely analyze the influence of pan-Asianism, the communal mentality that began to pervade Japan during the interwar period. These sentiments, as embodied in the words “atmosphere” (
kûki) and “feeling” (
kibun) are essential in understanding Japanese politics and foreign relations of this time.
This paper focuses specifically on institutions that contributed to a global collision of culture, religion, and commercial interests. It considers the Great East Asia Society, which, led by General Matsui Iwane, became a huge non-governmental network. It also examines religious alliances as represented by Buddhism and business groups, which sought to increase the commercial competitiveness of enterprises such as light industry. I argue that pan-Asianism became a political movement that provided the momentum for the creation of new political institutions that threatened existing political parties and provided a platform for national political organizations that pushed for political equality and participation within and beyond Japan. Furthermore, this essay looks at the activities of Taiwanese, Chinese, and Indian merchants who operated on the peripheries of the Chinese, British, and Japanese empires and contributed to the global reorganization of economic relations in the aftermath of the world depression.
How did these elements contribute to the “Greater East Asia War”? This essay describes the gradual transformation and growth of pan-Asianism by considering three events related to the rise of pan-Asianism. The first two were meetings of the All Asian Race Conference, first at Nagasaki in 1926, which took place after the implementation of the Japanese Exclusion Act in the United States, and then at Dairen in 1934, which followed Japan's creation of the Manchurian puppet-state and the Japan's withdrawal from the League of Nations. The third incident was an anti-British demonstration at Kobe in 1939 that occurred during Japan's embargo against British and French concessions at Tientsin. In short, this paper argues that pan-Asianism helped lead Japan to the “Greater East Asia War.”
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