Author: e24

Muruyama Masao has identified Kita Ikki as “the ideological father of Japanese fascism.”¹ The ideology that Kita fathered is an utterly bizarre cocktail of contradictory principles, some of which go directly against the tenets of classical Italian Fascism and German National Socialism.  Kita fused imperial autocracy with democracy,  militant nationalism with cosmopolitan internationalism, technocratic elitism with radical egalitarianism, and market incentives with strict socialism. This blog post will determine the place of Kita’s eccentric ideology within the wider philosophical continuum of fascism.

According to Roger Griffin, the “mythic core” of all fascist ideologies is   “palingenetic ultranationalism.”² What does is palingenetic ultranationalism and where does Kita’s ideology stand in relation to it? To properly understand Griffin’s definition of fascism and its relation to Kita, it must be broken down into its constituent parts. 

Palingenesis is the complete rebirth of a community against the forces of decadence and decay. Rebirth in the fascist context refers not to the restoration of an old social order (as is the case of traditional reactionaries), but the creation of a completely new order that while preserving “essential” social institutions and values is perfectly in line with the inexorable march of modernity.³ There is no doubt that Kita’s vision of Japan’s future is palingenetic in nature. Kita saw Japan as a decaying nation that had to be renewed through the complete destruction of the existing socio-political order and its replacement by a new one: the present ruling classes were to be purged from positions of power, “excess” private capital confiscated en masse by the state, a highly extensive system of state welfare established, and strict social controls enforced, all with the intention of building a new society. But despite all of this radical change, the emperor would remain at the undisputed center of the new order. This was because while the feudal nobility were an archaic relic of the past and the capitalist zaibatsu an unwelcome outgrowth of modernity, the emperor was seen as a timeless and essential pillar of Japanese communal identity; to Kita, without the emperor there could be no Japan.⁴ 

While palingenesis is common to all revolutionary movements, ultranationalism is a distinctive trait of fascism. Ultranationalism is to be distinguished from regular nationalism by its overtly anti-liberal and supremacist nature. As such, fascism is an inherently racist and bigoted ideology.⁵ By contrast, Kita quite explicitly calls for the equal treatment of ethnic minorities and for brotherhood among nations. Yet such sentiments cannot be considered to be truly anti-racist or internationalist. While in principle Kita supported the theoretical equality of nations, in practice he was supremely chauvinistic. Kita believed that many of Japan’s neighboring nations, especially Korea, were so utterly incapable of self-determination as to require foreign domination in order to be “civilized.” Needless to say, Kita believed that Japan was in a superior state of development compared to rest of Asia, and thus had a duty to spread “civilization” throughout the east.⁶ Unlike the Nazis and other fascists, who saw the natural hierarchy of nations as unchanging, Kita saw it as fluid but nonetheless historically essential. Kita thus did not truly believe that all nations should be seen as equal, but that all nations could be made equal if molded in the image of Japan. In this way, Kita’s racism was neither of the exterminationist brand of the Nazis nor the segregationist brand of many modern fascists, but of a distinctly assimilationist brand.

Being fundamentally anti-liberal, fascism in its purest form rejects notions of universal rights, equality, pluralism, and individualism.⁷ This would seem to be a stark contrast with Kita, who believed in the inalienability of certain human rights, including universal male suffrage, and called for radical social and economic equality. At the same time, Kita outright rejected the sanctity of popular will and of the social contract fundamental to liberal democracies. The protection of basic political rights was by no means an endorsement of pluralism; not every voice was deserving of consideration and some voices in fact ought to be suppressed especially in the initial period of transformation. Ultimately, Kita insisted on human rights and equality not for their own sake, but for the specific goal of establishing a cohesive national community. The act of political participation was seen not an exercise of individual sovereignty; rather it was an affirmation of membership in, and loyalty to, the Japanese Nation in much the same vein as military service. The equality of citizens served only to further reinforce and clarify the supreme sovereignty of the emperor.⁶ 

Despite his rhetoric of human rights, equality, and anti-racism, Kita Ikki’s ideology can rightly be placed within the continuum of Japanese Fascism. For all its superficial dissimilarity to more familiar European fascisms, Ikki’s fascism is built on the same mythos of palingenetic ultranationalism. 

 

1.  Masao Maruyama and Ivan Morris, “The Ideology and Dynamics of Japanese Fascism,” essay, in Thought and Behaviour in Modern Japanese Politics (London etc.: Oxford University Press, 1969), 28. [↩]
2. Roger Griffin, “The Palingenetic Core of Fascist Ideology,” essay, in Che Cos’è Il Fascismo? Interpretazioni e Prospecttive Di Richerche (Rome: Ideazione Editrice, 2003), 97–122. [↩]
3. Griffin, “The Palingenetic Core of Fascist Ideology”; Roger Griffin, “1. Staging the Nation’s Rebirth,” Fascism and Theatre, December 31, 2022, 13–7, https://doi.org/10.1515/9781785330476-002. [↩]
4. Ikki Kita, General Outline of Measures for the Reorganization of Japan (Shanghai, 1919). [↩]
5. Roger Griffin, “Nationalism,” in World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia. Volume 1 A-K, ed. Cyprian P. Blamires and Paul Jackson (Santa Barbara , CA: ABC-CLIO, 2006). [↩]
6. Ikki Kita, General Outline of Measures for the Reorganization of Japan [↩] [↩]
7. Griffin, “Staging the Nation’s Rebirth,” 7 [↩]

Confucian scholar Jiang Qing (not to be confused with the wife of Mao Zedong) makes no secret of his belief that democracy, liberal, socialist or otherwise, is not the way forward for China in terms of its political development. Jiang argues that democracy, especially in the Chinese case, fails to maintain the Confucian ideal of social harmony. In place of the model of popular sovereignty espoused by democracy, Jiang argues that political authority ought to be based squarely on what he calls the “Way of Humane Authority,” a fundamentally undemocratic system dominated by a what is essentially a constitutional monarchy dominated by a Confucian theocracy. Though adapted for the modern age, the Way of Humane Authority represents a fundamentally anti-modern and reactionary strand of Confucian thought.

The main concern of the Way of Humane Authority is the issue of legitimation. To Jiang, how authority is to be legitimized is far more important than how it is to be implemented: implementation is but the means by which legitimate authority is realized. While the implementation of authority is heavily dependent on circumstance, the legitimization of authority is timeless and universal. Thus, legitimate authority can in theory be implemented through a variety of systems of government depending on the context.¹

Jiang identifies three forms of political legitimacy: spiritual legitimacy, cultural legitimacy, and popular legitimacy. Spiritual legitimacy is based on the power of morality and faith. Cultural legitimacy is based on the power of tradition and history. Popular legitimacy is based on the power of the people. Effective implementation of the Way must be based on maintaining proper balance between all three forms of legitimacy.  If too much  emphasis is placed on a single form of legitimacy, disharmony and calamity is the result.  This is not to say that all forms of legitimacy are equal, however, as will be soon shown; indeed Jiang’s conception of balance is strictly vertical and not horizontal in nature.²

While monarchy has historically been the means through which legitimate authority has been realized in China, Jiang argues that the present circumstances no longer support such a system and that any future system must be based on the tripartite separation of powers. But in contrast to western democracies where this separation is based on executive, legislative, and judicial authority, Jiang proposes separation along the lines of spiritual, cultural, and popular authority. The highest branch of government in Jiang’s model is the Academy. The academy is entirely the domain of spiritual authority. Its main function is to ensure that the rest of the government continues to uphold a Confucian values and traditions. To fulfill its role, the Academy is granted six powers: the power of supervision and remonstrance, the power of education and examination, the power over rituals of state, the power of recall, the power of mediation between the other bodies of state, and the power to uphold morality.³

The next branch of government is the tricameral parliament. In this parliament each of the three forms of authority is represented. Spiritual authority is represented by a body of qualified scholars chosen either by recommendation or examination. Popular authority is represented by an assembly of representatives elected in the same manner as in the West. Cultural authority is to be represented by a body of hereditary nobles selected from prestigious lineages (i.e. descendents of great men). Each house of parliament can propose legislation, but it must pass at least two of the three houses. Importantly, the house representing spiritual authority has unlimited veto power.⁴

The third branch is the office of a hereditary monarch, who is the symbolic head of state. This office is hereditary because Jiang believes that elected leaders lack cultural legitimacy. Jiang proposes that in China’s case, the monarch should be a descendent of Confucius, on account of the House of Kong’s universal prestige. While the monarch plays no role in common matters of government, he has supreme authority in transcendent matters of state. The monarch has the power to make war and peace, sign legislation into law, appoint civil and military officers, declare emergencies, and pardon criminals.⁵

It is quite evident that in Jiang’s proposed model of government, disproportionate power is given to spiritual authorities, and very little is given to popular authorities. Not only do spiritual authorities have complete control over the most important branch of government, but also wield significant power in another. Meanwhile, popular authority is only represented in one part of a single branch of government. Even cultural authority would have a greater share of power, being not only represented in parliament, but also embodied in the monarch. Thus, Jiang’s imagined government is one where effective judicial, supervisory, examinatory, and legislative power is concentrated into the hands of a Confucian scholarly elite, with most of the remaining powers in the hands of a hereditary aristocracy. The common people receive only a token share of power. This system ultimately more closely resembles an idealized version of an old European monarchy than anything modern or anything Chinese.

1. Qing Jiang et al., “The Way of the Humane Authority,” essay, in A Confucian Constitutional Order: How China’s Ancient Past Can Shape Its Political Future (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), 29–32. [↩]
2. Jiang et al., “The Way of the Humane Authority,” 28-40 [↩]
3. Qing Jiang et al., “The Supervisory System of Confucian Constitutionalism,” essay, in A Confucian Constitutional Order: How China’s Ancient Past Can Shape Its Political Future (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), 44-64 [↩]
4. Jiang et al., “The Way of the Humane Authority,” 40-3 [↩]
5. Qing Jiang et al., “A Confucian Constitutionalist State,” essay, in A Confucian Constitutional Order: How China’s Ancient Past Can Shape Its Political Future (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), 71–96. [↩]

Heyin Zhen was a prominent Chinese feminist and anarchist thinker in the early 20th century. Heyin was adamant that gender equality could not be equated with gender liberation. To her, gender equality could only change the nature of gender oppression. True female liberation could only be achieved the complete liberation of all humans and the destruction of all hierarchies and unequal relations.

Heyin argued that traditional patriarchal values regarded women as commodities to be exploited by men for the sake of procreation and parenthood. As such, women were confined to the house and regarded as slaves; indeed all manor of customs and language were developed to uphold this status of confinement. At the same time, Heyin noted that men too suffered from oppression under the patriarchy. Because women were confined to the home, men were forced to shoulder all the financial burden of family.¹

For Heyin, the oppression of labor suffered by men was no lesser evil compared to the oppression of confinement suffered by women. As such , Heyin rejected the idea that women could be liberated simply through the assumption of male gender roles. She noted that lower-class women were long forced to shoulder part of the financial burden alongside the men; such an experience was anything but liberating.² For these same reasons, Heyin was very critical of the male-led gender reform movements in China at the time, as did not truly care about the rights of women, and only sought to use gender reform to further their own interests. Heyin listed three purported ulterior motives of the male reformers.  First, Chinese men saw that the colonial powers were strong and thus sought to emulate them; it just so happened that women in these countries had more freedoms than in China. Second, the economic hardships of the late Qing meant that keeping women out of the labor force was no longer sustainable even for the middle class, thus women were encouraged to “free” themselves from domestic confinement and make their own living. Finally, having long struggled to support their households, these men sought to transfer their burden over to women in the name of “equality.”³  

In attacking the male gender reformers, Heyin asserted that the patriarchy could not and would not reform itself out of existence. Indeed, any “feminist” reform championed would be invariably tailored to ensure the continued existence of the patriarchy. Such reforms, though giving the appearance of emancipating women, in reality allowed men to continue their exploitation of women in a modern environment. If men could not be trusted to free women, the logical conclusion would be that women would have to lead their own liberation. Yet even here Heyin urges caution. 

Heyin was no less critical of contemporary female reformers than she was of their male counterparts. She argued that the reforms championed by such women only created a superficial parity between men and women without actually removing the underlying oppression. Heyin was especially critical of the women’s suffrage movement. Heyin argued that only a small minority of (upper class) women would actually be empowered by the right to vote and this empowered minority would only contribute another layer to the oppression of the unempowered majority. Heyin’s rejection of such tokenization encompassed not only gender, but class as well. She asserted that even the most progressive champions of the masses (i.e. socialists) became just as oppressive as every other member of the ruling class soon as they achieved power.³ Heyin’s attitude towards politics amounted to a wholesale rejection of authority, regardless of who wielded it. To her, any relationship, political or otherwise, that involved one party asserting power over another other was inherently oppressive and worthy of being opposed. Being equal in name only could by no means be called “liberation” if there was no equality in practice. Heyin thus believed that the only true liberation for women was total liberation: liberation not only from the patriarchy, but also from all other forms of oppression and exploitation.  

1. Zhen Heyin, “On the Question of Women’s Liberation,” Tianyi Bao, 1907. [↩]
2. Ibid. [↩]
3. Ibid [↩] [↩]

Although Rujia is in the modern day inextricably associated with Kongzi, traditional accounts have generally rejected the notion that the philosopher invented an entirely new school of thought. Kongzi himself is said to have remarked “I am a transmitter and not an innovator; trusting and adoring the ancients, I would dare to compare myself to the old Peng.”¹ Among Rujia Scholars, the ancient ways that Kongzi sought to transmit are best embodied in a canon of Five Classics. Among the canonical Classics is the Shujing, or the Book of Documents.

The Shujing is purportedly an anthology of court records going back to the reign of the mythical Emperor Yao. These records are collectively supposed to provide insight into the ancient ways that Kongzi and other Rujia scholars sought to emulate. In reality, however, many of the “records” are far younger than they are purported to be, as evidenced by archaeology as well as linguistic analyses of the text. A further 21 entries, though formerly viewed as authentic, have been since classed as apocrypha of the early centuries CE.²  The oldest stratum of the authentic Shujing consists of Five Proclamations by the Duke of Zhou on behalf of the underage King Cheng of Zhou. Although they date to several hundred years before Kongzi’s time, the Proclamations promote certain values that are very similar to those later embraced by Kongzi and his successors. 

The Proclamations continually emphasize the importance of the present monarch following in the footsteps of his forbears, completing whatever unfinished business that they had started and constantly looking to their example for guidance. At the same time, the Proclamations also call for the maintenance of the institutions of the deposed Shang Dynasty to at least some extent: “The punishments shall be determined by what were the regular laws of Yin (Shang)/ “Your Majesty, commence the rites of Yin and sacrifice in the new city…” The Proclamations likewise call for the reigning monarch to follow the examples of the former Shang kings who were righteous.³

This submission of the reigning monarch to the guidance of his predecessors can be said to reflect an extension of the central Rujia value of filial piety. As later stated by Kongzi, a son’s duties to his father do not end with the death of the latter, but continue beyond the grave: “If for three years [the son] does not abandon the ways of his [late] father, he may be called filial.”⁴ In the context of kingship, this is translated into the expectation that the reigning monarch should pursue more or less the same policies as his predecessors. Having ruled in the prior generations, the kings of the former Shang Dynasty can likewise be seen as spiritual fathers to the current Zhou monarch; thus, their legacy too must be honored. This means that the ruling king should preserve the institutions of the previous dynasty and continue to follow the example of its rulers. 

The calls to preserve the institutions of Shang are also very much in line with later Rujia attitudes towards tradition and innovation. Kongzi and other Rujia scholars were greatly concerned with preserving the supposed ways of wise rulers from antiquity. Indeed, the reason why the Classics including the Shujing were so prized was that they were believed to be primary sources on these ancient traditions. In practice, this meant that Rujia scholars generally preferred adhering to time-honored traditions to engaging in institutional innovation. The belief was that these ancient rulers behaved and governed in accordance with the natural order of the world; it was for this reason that their reigns were so long and prosperous. Conversely, the troubles of Kongzi’s own time were caused by the abandonment of the ways of the ancients under later Zhou rulers.  The Proclamations likewise call on the reigning monarch to look to the example of former Shang kings precisely because the latter were supposed to have governed in accordance with the will of Heaven. While the Shang kings governed well, their house remained in power and the realm prospered. But when the last Shang king, Di Xin, disregarded the will of Heaven, the realm fell into disorder and decline before the Heaven-fearing kings of Zhou stepped in and replaced the Shang.⁵ 

The model of kingship portrayed in the Proclamations of Zhou bears striking parallels to that which was promoted by Kongzi and his disciples centuries later. Kongzi, who was well versed in the Shujing (at least in its contemporary form) would almost certainly been familiar with the Proclamations.⁶ It is very likely that the content of the Proclamations had a profound impact on the Kongzi’s beliefs. These beliefs would be passed on to the philosopher’s students from them to posterity. Thus, Kongzi was not wrong when describing himself as a “transmitter and not an innovator.” 

 

 

 

 

1. Analects 7.1 [↩]
2. Michael Nylan, “The Documents (Shu 书),” essay, in The Five “Confucian” Classics (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014), 123–36. [↩]
3.  Qiu Kong and James Legge, “Zhou Shu,” essay, in Book of Documents One of the Five Classics of Ancient Chinese Literature Compilede by Confucius. English Translation by James Legge (1815-1897) (North Charleston, SC, USA: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform Dragon Reader, 2016). [↩]
4. Analects 1.11 [↩]
5. Legge, “Zhou Shu” [↩]
6. Analects 7.18 [↩]