Pan-Asianism is most frequently defined as a politiocultural movement to unite the countries of Asia in opposition of western influences. Author Eri Hotta outlines three strands of pan-Asianism in Japan in the 1930s: firstly, it emphasized Asian commonalities in the philosophical context of Asian civilization, particularly in China and India, secondly, they sought to create alliances, more narrowly focused to East Asian, and finally, it established Japan as the “Asian alliance leader” in a fight to save the rest of Asia from the West. While these tenants are not significant deviations from other pan-nationalist movements, pan-Asianism is unique in two ways: the conception of Asia as a geographical and cultural entity and the desire to rid Asia of Western imperialism. Pan-Asianist’s definition of Asia is generally limited to South and East Asia, primarily China, Japan, Korea and India. Japan was amongst the first of the Asian nations to engage with pan-Asianism, which to some extent is resultative of their early interaction with the Western powers. Unlike other Asian countries, Japan was never colonized or under imperial rule by a western country but rather was able to establish diplomatic and economic ties with the United States and Western Europe. This allowed Japan to leverage a position amongst the negotiators at the end of the First World War, and also marked Japan as the most powerful, independent Asian country in the inter-war period.
In contrast to the rise of Japanese pan-Asianism’s rise in the 1930s, pan-Germanism had existed long before the World Wars. It arose in the mid-nineteenth century as the question of German unification shaped central Europe’s geopolitical climate. In essence, pan-Germanism sought to unite all Germanic and German-speaking populations; this included large areas in central Europe, including parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where there were large ethnic German populations. Unlike pan-Asianism, which is based upon a rejection of imperialism and is largely geographical, pan-Germanism is largely ethnolinguistically based. It was through a pan-Germanist, nationalist policy that the German Empire was formed from the German States in the second half of the nineteenth century, despite many non-ethnic Germans being included in the population of the German Empire.
Both of these pan-nationalist movements underwent a radicalization in the inter-war period. In Japan, pan-Asianism became synonymous with a desire for the creation of a Japanese empire in Asia. In Germany and Central Europe, pan-Germanism became closely connected to the ethno-nationalist beliefs of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. In both states, a sense of ethnic or cultural superiority was felt and both states felt as if they should have greater status or power within the international community. During the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, the Japanese delegation strongly opposed the creation of the League of Nations as they believed that it was merely a continuation of the status quo, in that it promoted Western Europe and the United States above all else. The Japanese delegation, and by extension, Japan as a whole, felt as if Japan was not given the proper respect that it’s position in the international community afforded it. This mentality contributed significantly to the rise of pan-Asianism in the Japanese context of resisting Western imperialism and creating a Japanese empire.
Pan-Germanism underwent a similar revival in a similar time period. Just as pan-Asianism resurged in Japan as a means to gain power in the region, pan-Germanism provided a reason for German expansion in Europe. The reclamation of ethnic German territories and population formed the backbone of German expansion in Austria and other German-speaking regions. In a similar manner, pan-Asianism was used to justify the Japanese invasion into China in 1937. 1937 proves to be a useful comparison for these two strands of pan-nationalism as in 1937 Japan invaded China in the name of pan-Asian values and in the same year, Nazi Germany began to seriously pursue unification with Austria, resulting in the Anschluss in 1938. Unlike the invasion of China in 1937, the Anschluss was not a direct military conflict, but rather was the result of a popular referendum. To a significant portion of the Austrian population, the Anschluss was the culmination of a long-standing desire to create one German state.
Pan-Germanism, unlike pan-Asianism, had a more universal element to it as it centered on the German language where pan-Asianism was based around a vague sense of geographical location and some degree of shared culture, but not language. However, both of these movements morphed into the basis for empire building in Europe and Asia.
Works Cited.
Hotta, Eri, Pan-Asianism and Japan’s War 1931-1945. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Redlich, Joseph, “German Austria and Nazi Germany”, Foreign Affairs 15, no. 1 (1936), pp. 180-181.
“The Situation of Germany” The New York Times. 1 July 1866.