Moments of subversion and resistance: Unintended consequences of

nationalist/imperialist ideas in the Japanese Empire

Atsuko IchijoKingston University

Ultimate aim• To bring the focus of analysis of the workings of imperialist nationalism to the agency and subjectivity of the oppressed/subjugated

Three ‘moments’ I:The world-historical standpoint

Three ‘moments’ II:the East Asian Community initiative

Three ‘moments’ III:内内 内一体

Nationalism as a totalising ideology

• Prasenjit Duara (1996; 1999): • the novelty of nationalism as a form of consciousness in its insistence on the co-extensiveness of political and cultural communities, a totalised vision of a community;

• a totalising view of a community is not new in India and China where culturalism traditionally provided ‘totalizing representations and narratives of community’, hence nationalism was not new in the nineteenth century East

Brief historical outline

• 1868 Meiji Restoration• 1875 St Petersburg Treaty with Russia

• 1879 Incorporation of the Ryukyu Kingdom

• 1985 Colonisation of Taiwan• 1910 Annexation of Korea• 1932 Establishment of Manchukuo• 1937 Second Sino-Japanese War

The world-historical standpoint I

• ‘The World-Historical Standpoint and Japan’ symposium in November 1941’

• Participants: Kōsaka Masaaki, Kōyama Iwao, Nishitani Kenji and Suzuki Shigetaka;

• How to deal with world history in philosophy pursued by Kyoto School

The world-historical standpoint II

• The contemporary situation as a world-historical era in which the Western-centric world would disintegrate;

• Japan was to take the lead in this new era of history as a fully self-aware subject;

• The Second Sino-Japanese war to reveal ‘world-historical significance’; leading to ‘Asian Awakening’

The world-historical standpoint III

• Potential to reject imperialist, self-expanding nationalism;

• moralische Energie (moral energy); multi-culturalism and multi-polarism;

• Could be utilised to subvert Japanese imperialism

Civilisational discourse

• Increased interest in alternative civilisations;

• Sun Yat-sen’s attempt - the idea of wangdao

( 内内 );• Tachibana Shiraki in building Manchukuo;

• 内内内内

The East Asian Community initiative I

• 3 November 1938: Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro’s ‘the construction of a new East Asian order’ statement;

• 22 December 1938: the statement on the normalisation of the Japanese-Sino relations;

• Showa Kenkyukai including Miki Kiyoshi;• The universality and cosmopolitanism of the initiative would facilitate the solution of problems of capitalism and Western hegemony.

The East Asian Community initiative II

• Some left-wing Korean intellectuals saw opportunities for social reform in the initiative;

• the initiative as an invitation to nurture and articulate agency among the subjugated in the new world order;

• Challenges to Western hegemony and anti-capitalist undertone.

Examples of Korean intellectuals I

• So In-Sik ( 内内内 ): the philosophy of world history -> the initiative having the potential to overcome totalitarianism;

Examples of Korean intellectuals II

• Kim Myung-Sik ( 内内内 ), Cha Cha-Jong ( 内内内 ) and In Chong-Sik ( 内内内 )

• Accepted the construction of a new China by the Japanese military as the basis of the realisation of the East Asian order;

• The necessity to reform Japan;• The idea of the common ancestry of Japanese and Korean nations;

• Korean society was in need of radical change and the war as an opportunity to carry out social reform.

In place of conclusion• These ideas contained a risk of being re-read by the oppressed and subjugated in Korea, Taiwan, China and Southeast Asia, for it invites the oppressed and subjugated in the Empire to identify with Japan as a way of overcoming modernity, a modernity of the West; preparing space for the oppressed and subjugated to develop their agency using the ideas of the oppressor.