Colonialism in Japan

1 From the moment Japan began to implement its colonial policies, critical voices emerged within the country over this new means of dominating overseas populations. This little‑known yet clearly expressed criticism of colonialism became increasingly audible during the so‑called Taishō democracy (1912‑1926) before gradually being stifled once more at the end of the 1930s. Unlike the views expressed in favour of political freedom, which were enthusiastically received by Japanese society, criticism of imperialism and colonialism garnered little support. Following in the tradition of the Freedom and Popular Rights Movement of the 1880s, the middle classes identified with the calls for greater freedom and democracy, and partly concurred with working‑class aspirations to better living conditions. However, the vast majority of the population believed that there was something to be gained—in addition to national pride—from the country’s expansionist adventures that culminated in the creation of a colonial empire.

2 The Korean independence movement, Chinese boycott of Japanese products or failure of Japan’s military campaign in Siberia might have encouraged Japan to take a more cautious approach to foreign policy and critically examine its own colonial practices. Indeed, there was hesitation among Japan’s ruling circles as to how to govern the colonies. In 1919, the debate that had lain dormant since Japan’s first experiments in colonisation, in Taiwan at the end of the nineteenth century, finally burst into the public arena. Should colonial governments be left to the army or placed under civil administration? Was the aim of colonisation strategic (keeping Westerners at a distance), economic (increasing Japan’s wealth by exploiting the colonies) or rather civilising, by expanding Japan’s borders and culturally assimilating the conquered populations? And was it even possible for these populations to be assimilated, for that matter? Debate raged as to the how or even why to colonise but no one, at least not within the ruling circles, questioned colonisation itself.

3 In Taiwan, Japanese efforts to take control of the island as of 1895 had met with a resistance that it would take time to eradicate. The government of the new colony had thus naturally been placed in the hands of the army, something which did not prevent high ranking civil servants such as Gotō Shinpei 後藤新平 (1857‑1929) and Nitobe Inazō 新渡戸稲造 (1862‑1933) from enjoying a certain amount of leeway in subsequent years, with Nitobe notably being tasked by Gotō with developing an agricultural policy for subtropical regions. Similarly, the annexation of Korea came about in a context of extreme tension following the assassination of the previous Japanese Resident‑General of Korea and guerrilla activities against Japan. The military therefore had control of the colonial administrative system. Prime Minister Hara Takashi 原敬 (1918‑21), when appointing his new cabinet, was for his part opposed to the army controlling the colonies and in favour of snatching back power by imposing a civil administration.

1 To borrow the expression used by the economist and specialist in colonial policies Yanaihara Tadao (...)
4In the aftermath of the anti‑Japanese protests that raged across Korea in the spring of 1919, criticism of the army, which controlled the country and had chosen the path of brutal repression, even reached within government ranks in Tokyo. The Korean reaction was interpreted as a show of discontent with the Japanese military government in Korea rather than a genuine national demand for independence. Following a period of violent repression, the colonial regime made concessions by abandoning militarism (budan shugi 武断主義) and henceforth advocating a more tolerant policy aimed at replacing army personnel with senior civil servants, who were theoretically less violent and more conciliating (bunchi shugi 文治主義). Welcomed by the Koreans with some relief, this new and less repressive colonial government showed a willingness to allow a Korean cultural discourse (bunka seiji 文化政治) to develop. While throughout Japan there was talk of Japan and Korea sharing the same political destiny (nissen dōchi 日鮮同治), over on the peninsula this policy was quickly suspected of being nothing more than an attempt to crush the fledgling Korean national identity. It chiefly succeeded in dividing the Korean nationalist movement into moderate “cultural” nationalism on the one hand and pro‑independence radicalism on the other. A “desperate instability” hailing from the inmost depths of Korean society was visible in the face of Japan’s thirst for assimilation.1

5  Doubts quickly surfaced in Japan itself as to whether it was possible to assimilate colonial populations. Remember that one of the characteristics of Japanese colonialism is to have constantly wavered between a policy of assimilation, dōka seisaku 同化政策 (Taiwanese and Koreans would one day become fully‑fledged Japanese), and one of non‑assimilation, dōka seisaku hantai ron 同化政策反対論, based on the idea of an immutable and uniquely Japanese character and thus the impossibility of turning colonial peoples into Japanese subjects in their own right.

2 “Theory on Japanese‑Korean Common Ancestry” (Nissen dōsoron 日鮮同祖論). These issues are elaborated upo (...)

6 Advocates of assimilation were driven by a kind of ideal in which the Japanese nation was assigned a civilising role. Colonial peoples were Japanese citizens who were simply unaware of it. In fact, it was in their interest to become Japanese in order to enjoy the benefits of modernisation as part of Greater Japan. Encouraged by this ideal, in the late 1930s they began to accelerate the process of remoulding colonial peoples into sovereign subjects (kōminka 皇民化), a process otherwise known as “imperialisation”. Pseudo‑scientific theories on the shared ancestry of the Japanese and Koreans were often used to give weight to their aspirations.2 Some even went as far as suggesting, at the end of the 1930s, that the two populations intermarry (Japanese men with Korean women) in order to encourage the assimilation of the peninsula into Japan (naisen ittai 内鮮一体). The purported advantage of this policy was to guarantee a lasting peace between Japan and Korea by creating a mixed nation (kongō minzoku ron 混合民族論).

3 Oguma Eiji, op. cit., p. 239.

7 Proponents of non‑assimilation, who were often close to the ruling circles of the army, were colonialists for economic and strategic reasons and their national pride meant that they were hardly likely to imagine that colonial populations could be assimilated, much less that they could intermarry with metropolitan Japanese. However, their fears over the possibility of a colonial uprising that would weaken positions outside of Japan’s zone of control made them inclined to advocate leaving the colonial populations to determine their own affairs, a policy known as minzoku jiketsu seisaku 民族自決政策. This explains why the assimilationists at times adopted harsher political stands with regards the colonial populations than those who believed in the uniqueness of the Japanese “race” and were quick to develop—as in the case of Tōgō Minoru 東郷実—a theorisation of “racial differentiation” akin to apartheid (bunka seisaku 分化政策).3 Local elites within the colonies occasionally took advantage of this contradiction by supporting alternately one camp or the other.

4 In 1914, Itagaki Taisuke, a believer in “racial harmony”, instigated an abortive movement to extend (...)
5 On this affair, known as the “Ōsaka Incident”, see Lionel Babicz, Le Japon face à la Corée à l’époq (...)
6 Tsurumi Shunsuke 鶴見俊輔, Senjiki Nihon no seishinshi 1931‑1945 戦時期日本の精神史, Iwanami Shoten 岩波書店, 1982, (...)

8 Furthermore, remember that from the mid‑1880s Japanese advocates of freedom and popular rights nurtured the idea that because Japan was changing and looking ahead to the future it had an obligation to help its neighbours, and in particular Korea, bring an end to immobilism. In 1884, Liberal Party (Jiyūtō 自由党) leaders Gotō Shōjirō 後藤象二郎 (1838‑1897) and Itagaki Taisuke 板垣退助 (1837‑1919) made plans for a military coup in Korea designed to rid the peninsula of the traditionalism of the ruling monarchy which was an impediment to civilisation.4 Gotō even entertained dreams of becoming prime minister of a liberated Korea! The following year, Ōi Kentarō 大井憲太郎 (1843‑1922), leader of the Liberal Party’s most radical wing, in turn considered using armed force to prise Korea from the hands of conservatives and overthrow the government via military means.5 The intellectual Tsurumi Shunsuke (1922‑2015) points out that at the end of the nineteenth century political factions on both sides of the divide agreed that civilisation must be imposed, if necessary by force.6 In 1905, the journalist and historian Takekoshi Yosaburō 竹越与三郎 (1865‑1950) wrote the following in an essay on the colonial government in Taiwan ten years after annexation:

7 Quoted by Yanaihara Tadao, Teikokushugi ka no Taiwan, seidoku 帝国主義下の台湾精読 (Taiwan under Imperialism: (...)
Western nations have long believed that on their shoulders alone rested the responsibility of colonizing the yet‑unopened portions of the globe and extending to the inhabitants the benefits of civilization; but now we Japanese, rising from the ocean in the extreme Orient, wish as a nation to take part in this great and glorious work. Could we also, unknowingly, carry on our shoulders the yellow man’s burden? The answer will depend on our success or failure in Taiwan.7

8 Kōtoku Shūsui, L’Impérialisme, le spectre du xxe siècle (Imperialism, the Ghost of the 20th century (...)

9 For his part, the socialist (and future anarchist) Kōtoku Shūsui 幸徳秋水 (1871‑1911) began to voice criticism of imperialism in 1901, deeming it a warmongering activity that encouraged militaristic and despotic tendencies. He paid little attention, however, to the subject of colonialism and drew no parallels between imperialism and colonial exploitation as such.8 Consequently, it was only gradually, at the beginning of the 1910s, that the first critics emerged. Later, the influence of the Russian Revolution, the right to self‑determination, the social unrest that swept the country and the spread of democratic ideals led some to launch a direct attack on imperialism and its immediate and tangible consequence: colonialism. The socialists, communists and anarchists showed an unwavering and instinctive distrust of colonialism, considering it to be linked to imperialism and warmongering just as Kōtoku had argued. Nevertheless, solidarity with colonial peoples appeared to be secondary in their struggle and rare were those who made anti‑colonialism a priority. For their part, certain liberals drew on an economic analysis to show that the financial cost of running the colonies exceeded any profits generated. Considered immoral, brutal and irresponsible by some, for others Japan’s colonial policies were above all costly and ineffective. Lying between these two positions championed, as we shall see, by some eminent individuals, was a whole spectrum of intermediate positions in which indignation at times coloured the economic debate. Others took offense at the colonial governments’ ignorance of local cultures and criticised their desire to deny or destroy these in the name of what was presented as a modern and civilised colonial policy.

Denouncing Repression and Promoting Indigenous Cultures
15 The pro‑independence or nationalist movements that broke out in Korea and China in the spring of 1919 were portrayed in Japan’s mainstream media as essentially anti‑Japanese in nature and consequently garnered little sympathy in the home islands. Some Japanese newspapers even suggested that the Koreans had been manipulated by Western Christian missionaries hostile to Japan’s presence on the peninsula.

9 To use the term employed by Andrew Gordon in his book Labor and Imperial Democracy in Prewar Japan,(...)
10 Matsuo Takayoshi 松尾尊 (texts established and annotated by), Yoshino Sakuzō shū 吉野作造集 (The Collected (...)

16 One of the first people to denounce this simplistic analysis of the movements sweeping the continent was Yoshino Sakuzō 吉野作造 (1878‑1933), a professor of political science at Tokyo Imperial University. Beginning in 1905, Yoshino advocated the “constitutionalism at home, imperialism abroad” doctrine (uchi ni rikkenshugi, soto ni teikokushugi 内に立憲 主義、外に帝国主義); however, his stays in China and Korea in addition to his own political reflection gradually led him to distance himself from the positions he had defended in his youth. This political U‑turn took place between 1916 and 1918 and was rooted in a certain confidence in the rise of democratic forces within Japan, as well as in China and Korea. Yoshino argued for a democracy that would be compatible with the Constitution of 1889 and could be developed within the framework of the imperial system. He called it minpon shugi 民本主義, or imperial democracy.9 Henceforth, his proclaimed ideal was to “achieve democracy at home and establish racial equality abroad (uchi ni minpon shugi no tettei, soto ni kokusai byōdōshugi no kakuritsu 内に民本主義の徹底、外に国際平等主義の確立) and he argued in favour of the right of colonial peoples to self‑determination (minzoku jiketsu 民族自決).10

11 And this despite the fact that between 1904 and 1906 he had been the private tutor of the son of Yu (...)
12 Published in Yoshino Sakuzō senshū 吉野作造選集 (The Selected Writings of Yoshino Sakuzō), volume 7, Iwan (...)
13 “Taishigaikō konponsaku no kettei ni kansuru Nihon seiryaku no konmei” 対支外交根本策の決定に関する日本政略の混迷 (Japan (...)
14 Japan’s kenpeitai has often been compared to the German Gestapo during the Second World War.

17 Like many Japanese political observers, Yoshino Sakuzō had been highly impressed with the Chinese nationalist revolution of 1911 in which the country was proclaimed a republic. He felt a connection to the Chinese revolutionaries11 and even wrote a history of the Chinese revolution which he published in 1917.12 In articles published over subsequent years he began to criticise the Japanese government’s heavy‑handed approach on the continent and advocated a rapprochement between Japan and the young Chinese nationalists who “held the country’s future in their hands”.13 Moreover, he became increasingly critical of the methods used by the kenpeitai 憲兵隊, Japan’s military police famous for its operations in overseas territories.14 He regretfully expressed serious doubts as to the ultimate possibility of assimilating the Korean people into the Japanese nation, arguing that the Korean peninsula had long possessed its own civilisation quite distinct from that of Japan.

18 Yoshino warmly welcomed Chinese and Korean students to his classes and seminars, and invited them into his home for open discussion, something which in the context was not always simple. He travelled to China and Korea once again in 1916 and it was with this trip that the first doubts began to surface:

15 Yoshino Sakuzō, “Mankan o shisatsu shite” 満韓を視察して (Observations from Manchuria and Korea), Chūō Kōr (...)
I have met many Koreans this year and listening to what they have to say, it is clear that, contrary to expectation, many speak of the current injustice of the Japanese political authorities in their country. Whether this injustice is real or not matters little, but we would be wrong to ignore what they say.15

19 The nationalist and social upsurge in China and Korea at the end of the First World War led Yoshino to distance himself more clearly from Japan’s policy. In October 1918 he wrote a short article in which he quoted comments made by the professor of colonial studies at Kyoto imperial University, Yamamoto Miono 山本美越乃 (1874‑1941), who in the daily newspaper Osaka Mainichi Shinbun 大阪毎日新聞 explained that the Koreans “had always possessed their own culture” and that it was “futile to ignore their customs, institutions and mores when governing them”. Yoshino then took on a prophetic air, concluding that:

16 “Chōsen tōchisaku” 朝鮮統治策 (The Domination of Korea), October 1918, published in Chūō Kōron, reproduc (...)
The Korean issue will shortly become Japan’s main political concern: we must realise that thanks to the war, Korea’s nationalist factions have grown significantly.16

17 Known as the March 1st Movement of 1919. Following the death of the Korean Emperor who had been dep (...)
18 The Reimeikai 黎明会 (Dawn Society) was run between 1918 and 1920 by a group of academics, liberals an (...)
19 Taishō shisō shū 大正思想集 (Taishō Period Thought: Collected Writings), Book II, edition put together b (...)

20 Following the Korean nationalist movement of March 1919, which saw a rash of anti‑Japanese protests,17 Yoshino Sakuzō decided to invite his Korean students to Reimeikai18 meetings and gave them the opportunity to argue for the independence of their country, to the applause of the listening audience. He explained that Japan must also learn to see things from a Korean perspective if it was to understand the events taking place. He was backed by a small but significant section of public opinion. At one of these meetings, university professor Fukuda Tokuzō 福田徳三 (1874‑1930) declared outright that “Korea did not belong to the militarist cliques” and that it “was high time constitutional law was applied there”.19 However, Yoshino’s writings also attracted a growing hostility from nationalist quarters.

21 A few weeks later, during the Chinese May Fourth movement of 1919, Yoshino Sakuzō was one of the rare intellectuals to speak out in the Japanese press in favour of the Chinese nationalists boycotting Japanese products. He explained that these movements “that had made the Japanese somewhat nervous” targeted the Tokyo bureaucracy and the military and financial cliques rather than the Japanese people itself:

20 Yoshino Sakuzō, “Pekin gakuseidan no kōdō o manba suru nakare” 北京学生団の行動を漫罵する勿れ (Do Not Disparage th (...)
For many years I have fought to free my beloved country from the hands of the bureaucratic and military cliques. I do not get the impression that the Peking students are at this moment doing anything different. I can only wish such a movement success.20

21 In 1918, a group of students and disciples of Yoshino founded an association called the Shinjinkai (...)
22 Taishō shisō shū ii, ibid., p. 444.
23 As Michel Vié points out, this is less than the repression carried out by the French in Sétif and G (...)
24 “Suigen gyakusatsu jiken” 水原虐殺事件 (The Suwŏn Massacre), Chūō Kōron, July 1919, in Yoshino Sakuzō sen (...)
25 Paull Hobom Shin, The Korean Colony in Chientao, A Study of Japanese Imperialism and Militant Korea (...)
26 See in particular Yoshino’s article published in the February 1921 issue of Chūō Kōron, in Yoshino (...)

22 Following on from this, Yoshino succeeded in inviting a delegation of teachers and students from Beijing University to Tokyo “to help foster a better understanding between the young of both countries”. It was also around this time that a large number of pro‑democracy journalists and professors travelled to Manchuria, Beijing and Shanghai in an attempt to understand the events taking place on the continent. In May 1920 the Chinese visitors spoke in public to explain the substance of the May Fourth movement to Reimeikai members and the Shinjinkai.21 The students welcomed them with interest and questioned them at length. Much the same can be said of the interest of these societies in reflecting on colonial problems, in particular Korea. They pronounced themselves in favour of an “improvement” (kaizen 改善) in Japan’s policy on the peninsula.22 Note that any issues of the Shinjinkai’s journal that dealt with Korea were censured and banned from publication. Yoshino condemned the repressive tactics used by the colonial government in Korea in 1919 (leading to 8,000 deaths and 45,000 arrests),23 describing them as “inadmissible” and “immoral”,24 in particular the massacres committed by Japanese police at Suwŏn in 1919 and the district of Jiandao 間島 (in an area of Manchuria heavily populated by Koreans)25 in October 1920. These incidents were passed over in silence by both the government and the press.26 In articles supporting the demands of the Korean movement, Yoshino argued for the protesters to receive in response the abolition of the colonial government’s discrimination against Koreans, an end to military rule, freedom of expression, and the abandonment of Japan’s assimilation policy.