Rethinking the World in East Asia 1850s-1990s

Tanabe Hajime, and the Kyoto School more widely, hit their apogee at a time when Japan sought to drastically expand its overseas territorial possessions, and in their work we can see an attempt at justifying the existence of imperial governments in a time when Europe’s empires began to wane. In his work, The Logic of Species, Tanabe extrapolates the Linnaean categorisation of species and genus and applies it to the organisation and self-identification of humanity, the bottom line being that, for a nation-state (Genus) to exist, it must be multi-ethnic (multi-specific).[1] This assertion underlines the Japanese idea of an empire encompassing multiple ethnicities gaining their national identity by contributing to the state. Tanabe Hajime joined a long list of intellectuals whose work was used by imperial governments to justify their incursion into foreign, often indigenous land. Where he differs however is in the use of logical thought processes and metaphysical analysis, where similar European examples used religious or legal arguments.

Expansion of Japan’s empire was swift and ruthless. Within the decade preceding the outbreak of the second world war in the pacific, Japan brought Manchuria, areas of Northern China, and numerous islands in the pacific under their control. During the war, European colonies in south-East Asia and American colonies in the Pacific Ocean faced a similar fate. It was then the case that the Japanese empire not only covered vast swathes of mainland and Oceanic Asia, but incorporated countless ethnicities ranging from Han Chinese to indigenous pacific islanders. When Tanabe writes, it is important to note that it is against a backdrop of a growing need to establish an intellectual foundation of Japan’s expanding and increasingly multi-ethnic empire.

Tanabe Hajime’s Logic of Species, as discussed, is a philosophical response to the question of identity in human society. Utilising zoological theory, it unites ideas of species and genus with those of ethnic and national identity. To summarise briefly, as this format lacks neither the time nor space to fully analyse this complex work, Tanabe argues that for an ethnic identity to exist and be recognisable, it must be negated. In that it only exists in contrast to other ethnic identities. The role of the state in this context is to be the forum in which multiple ethnicities exist under the same national identity.[2] Taking the nation-state’s existence as fact, the only way for it to exist is to incorporate multiple ethnic identities. The species, (ethnicity) is a personal trait that connects one to a network of cultural markers of identity. However, the genus (the nation-state) is a necessary construction that plays a direct role in the operation of society.

Understanding how and why this work was vital to the intellectual foundation of Japan’s empire allows us to analyse more widely the justifications for imperialism worldwide. We have already discussed the need for intellectual justification for their imperial ambitions, and this isn’t an issue experienced only by Japan. Early forays into empire by European powers required justification, although what was produced was of a different genre and form. Spanish incursions into South America was justified by a series of papal bulls expounding the belief that it was the role of Christians to spread Christianity. Similar justifications on religious grounds were common between the European powers in the early days of their colonial expansion into the Americas. The British empire, as it began to rapidly expand in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, sought legal grounds on which to found their colonial possessions. They settled on the principle of res nullius, a pillar of Roman law in which an ‘unowned’ piece of property can be claimed by those who put it to economic use.[3]

The point of analysing these different approaches to the difficult question of imperial hegemony is not to justify the ends they helped to incur, but to establish a common thread that appears across temporal and geographical contexts. Conquest is rarely given as justification for rule, and it is clear that throughout numerous examples of empire in the modern age, it is rarely enough to cite one’s comparative economic or military power as a reason for their subjugation. Tanabe Hajime, in his work of metaphysical philosophy, contributes to this history of justification, and joins such intellectuals as John Locke and Jules Ferry in their attempts to give reason for the expansion of the English and French empires respectively.

[1] Viren Murthy; Fabian Schafer; Max Ward, Confronting Capital and Empire: Rethinking Kyoto School Philosophy, (Leiden, 2017), p.172.

[2] Naoki Sakai, “Subject and Substrata: On Japanese Imperial Nationalism”, in Cultural Studies, 14:3, (09/11/2010), p.462.

[3] Anthony Pagden, Lords of all the world: Ideologies of Empire in Spain, Britain, and France, c.1500 – c.1800, (Newhaven, 1995), p.45.

In reading Susan Glosser’s “Chinese Visions of Family and State”, we are able to register the heavy importance of the personal in spawning the New Culture Movement. The call for industrialisation by mid 20^thcentury young urban males in China simultaneously aimed to dismantle and reconfigure the family unit. Spearheading the project to disentangle themselves from their overbearing fathers, fiscal co-dependency and minimise the inventory of filial obligations, Yi Jiayue and Lou Dunwei cite superficially Marxist theory to figure themselves in the wider national context to achieve those ends. When we read Glosser against Ko, Liu and Karl’s The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory, we can further see that the New Youth’s purported understanding of women’s liberation, industrialisation and the patriarchy is very limited by the male experience it largely drew on. Having intellectual tunnel-vision and clutching at theoretical straws, the proponents’ hang-ups about the family system only made visible young male and elite female urban struggles.

Yi Jiayue’s criticism of patriarchal authority was that it stood in the way of personal freedoms of men such as himself, obstructed progress for the wider Chinese world[1] and that the family institution which it that world was hinged on also inserted itself into “every aspect of [young men’s’ lives”.[2] Since Confucian ideology pervaded all matter of state – making the personal and political synonymous – the New Youth perceived the family unit as symptomatic of national failures and illnesses. Taking remedial action, the New Youth’s advocacy for industrialisation was because of their belief that it was a process capable of destroying the family system that was causing them so much distress.[3]

Interestingly, however, the New Cultural Movement’s belief that it was servicing progress and helping women realise their personhood was largely erroneous or at least exclusive.[4] The main form of progress it was affecting was not just that of young urban males’ everyday-life experiences, but the achievement of placing young Chinese men in some sort of historical moment. The New Culture radicals’ eagerness to participate in history and locate the movement in an international intellectual conversation. Although modernization and industrial mobilization may have distanced men from their family, prevented the creation of “extended families”, their antiquated ideals and led them to deferring the start-up of a new generation because of their renewed focus on factory work or intellectual engagement, as Glosser notes, the New Youth’s understanding of the past was a cursory one which was to the end of reenacting “revolution in the present”.[5] Importantly, the movement neglected the experiences of women in rural society who were adversely affected by the very industrialisation the men urged for. As Ko et al note, “laboring women and [their] rural economic hardship remained largely invisible” and male dominated discussions about the oppressed female position were largely glossed over.[6] Thus, although one may look positively on the Movement’s prohibition of “taking concubines, collecting slaves etc…”, the reality of the situation was that China’s insertion into the capitalist system was detrimental, primarily to women, in numerous ways. The Youth’s desperation for the destruction of the family unit through industrialisation and espousing Marxist ideology to justify that particular route, would thus go on to destroying some families economically. “Women, whose family livelihoods were being ruined” at the hands of “competition in silk and cotton from Japan, British-colonised India, and the revival of the American South” were not considered when rethinking the family and the nation. [7]

Ultimately, we are able to see that the superficial applications of Marxist ideology, a theory which itself focussed on class-based struggle at the expense of treating the women’s plight, in its attempt to ease the burden young urban males were subjected to by their families as well as well as in marking itself as a moment on the Chinese historical timeline. As a result of such exclusivity, the New Culture Movement failed to address the working class struggles of China, the problem of women’s rights and intersection at which those issues compound.

[1] Glosser, Susan L. Chinese Visions of Family and State, 1915-1953. University of California Press, 2003, p.9

[2] Ibid, p.7

[3] Ibid, p.6

[4] Ibid, p.17

[5] Ibid, p.5G

[6] Liu, Lydia He, Rebecca E. Karl, and Dorothy Ko. The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory. Columbia University Press, 2013 p.32

[7] Ibid, p.31-32

With Arishima Takeo’s dissolution of the tenant farm in Niseko (1922), the consequent emergence of a cooperatist farm saw an experimental phase of anarchist living in Hokkaido. Sho Konishi understands that cooperatist activity and the alternative modes of living on the farm as a rejective response to Western notions of progress and modernity.[1] The land which the farmers inhabited was to uniquely serve as fecund ground for many different and coexistent values. The cooperatist ideology encouraged political participation of all farm members, was loose in its outline of viable economic schemes and, chiefly, espoused egalitarian ideals. Popular understandings of anarchism catalogue the ideology as traditionalist, irrational and disordered.[2] However, when we look at the development and embodiment of cooperatist farms, we see that this particular brand of anarchism was a largely equalised ground on which the inhabitants enacted the process of political, governmental and social trial and error. With that expression of trial and error in mind, a conclusive ‘right answer’ was not sought out so much as the process was to be calibrated.

The “Hokkaido cooperative” resisted subscription to Western ideas of modernity which the wider Japanese state adopted.[1] On the smaller and larger scale, the anarchists sought to enshrine “sōgo fujo” (mutual aid) as a central tenet to an ideal lifestyle. Both interpersonal relations and the organisation of labour were to be characterised as interdependent and harmonious, rather than Darwinist, competitive and tension inducing.[2]However, to the end of that cooperation, conflict was not eschewed. Indeed, discursive conflict was encouraged where it could service democratic decision making and secure future relations. With the “elimination of hierarchy”, society’s reorganisation along horizontal lines naturally saw a greater range of opinions and perspectives on the affairs of the farm as well as its relation to other political actors.[3] The “day-long discussions” which required the result of “every members’ approval” before ratifying decisions demonstrates that the cooperatist farm did not stubbornly and naively aim to develop a utopian and fully agreeable society. Instead, cooperativism decided its idea of a progressive society included compromise, and was even necessary for, consensus. In this way, we can see that the cooperative farm, a society in which many values were cultivated, was without a strict hierarchical order but not disordered.

Economically, while the Hokkaido anarchists sought to distance themselves from the liberal capitalist system projected by the West, the farmers located themselves as “part of and a response to the modern condition”.[4]Therefore, at the time they were disowning personal property, communalising resources and pooling their labour efforts, they were not violently and universally overthrowing the “existing system”.[5] Furthermore, cooperatist modernity was not only subsistent, but, in entrepreneurial and profit seeking spirit, it also allowed for the marketing its agricultural produce.[6] In 1926 when rice prices in Japan fell, there was a sober reality that their trajectory was affected by the international and so the farmers experimented with dairy farming after learning from Utsunomiya farm.[7] This small case illustrates the way in which the anarchists located themselves not as an isolated society far removed from the wider globe, but rather a community, working with the help of others, which could carve out its own path to a modernity they defined on their own terms. Their embracement of agricultural technology was also a nod to the constant trial and error they practiced in developing an ideal, but not insular, society.[8]

Ultimately, the cooperatist farm did not abide by a strict ideological doctrine which prevented it from participating in a particular system or espousing certain ideals. Instead, with its basic aim to operate as an egalitarian society in which interdependent individuals lifted each other up, the definition of modernity was constantly updated in line with the processes which most well lent to that foundation. Understanding the cooperatist farm in this way is important to reconceptualising as forward thinking not only in terms of its ideals, but also as a process which continually revise itself.

[1] Konishi,Sho“OrdinaryFarmersLivingAnarchistTime:ArishimaCooperativeFarminHokkaido.”Modern Asian Studies 47, no. 6 (November 2013), p.1847

[2] Ibid, p.1846

[3] Ibid, p.1845

[4] Ibid, p.1848

[5] Ibid, p.1852

[6] Ibid, p.1863

[7] Ibid, p.1864

[8] Ibid, p.1860

In early 20^th century Chinese intellectual discourse, the thread of utopianism and revolution were weaved into the concepts and movements of both nationalism and anarchism, it was just done in very different patterns. While imperial China and emergent Chinese interests within that political bloc were reorienting themselves to external influences and also internally reorganising society, they were discursively reshaping time and space in revolutionary ways. Indeed, the meaning of revolution and its political legitimacy here are the contested concepts which characteristically define that competition of ideas. In the abstract sense, Arif Dirlik’s analysis of nationalism, utopianism and anarchism helps us treat revolutionary politics in China as a topic which is centred on the discomfort of the individual, political authority, and their divergent visions of the China as a social space in the future

Focusing on external forces, a Darwinian take on the new national consciousness China was to realise explains that building the state was crucial to China’s survival on the wider global stage.[1] In protection of China, a streamlined and dynamic political system would “ward off the threat to the country’s existence in a new world”.[2] While the idea that an encounter with the West directly caused a national conscience is a one-dimensional one, an appreciation of the global helps us treat the problematique of revolutionary discourse as hinged upon China’s place and mode of operation in a reconfigured world. On this note, Dirlik points to the state’s “ability to represent” the “society over which it rules” as a barometer of its success.[3] Ironically, as a result, subjects became conscious citizens of the state and occupied space in a way that led them to more closely criticise social relationships themselves and vis-à-vis political authority.[4]

Dirlik cites “discomfort” as a key precondition to anarchist revolutionary intellectual discourse in China.[5] The utopian aim to insert itself as a transformer of humanity on the global scale was developed in order to form a nationalist ideology that went beyond creating the state as an end in itself.[6] By locating itself on the globe this way, China set a project to spatially revolutionise the scope of its political legitimacy. However, internally, this understanding of scope did other things. Tan Sitong’s belief that there should exist “one world” where no one “belongs to any state” and where there are “no boundaries” is an anarchist sentiment expressed in response to the incipient nationalist sentiment in China. The belief is based on an almost utopian desire to eliminate power struggles, inequality between the sexes, as well as the rich and the poor, and culture of war which the nation was said to foster.[7] This anarchist resolution of “mutual harmony” provides an alternative vision and treatment of time and space. It was a vision that, in terms of ideals, departed greatly from the nationalist one.

In this way, Chinese political revolution in the early 20^th century was defined differently within nationalist and anarchist discourses. While nationalism sought to bring society closer to the state through political reorganisation, anarchists sought to dismantle the very idea of a politically organised community. These intellectual concepts do diverge in their views of political authority and the end image of the future, but both ideologies have a key interest in re/disorganising society through reflecting on social interests. Through this process, they have also revolutionised the way time and space were thought of in China.

[1] Dirlik, Arif. Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution. University of California Press, 1991, p.48

[2] Ibid,p.47

[3] Ibid, p.50

[4] Ibid, p.49

[5] ibid

[6] ibid

[7] Ibid, p.56

Bibliography: 

It certainly wouldn’t be unreasonable to point out the similarities between K’ang Yu-wei’s ‘Ta t’ung Shu’ and the writings of Karl Marx. Both take the reality of their time and attempt to present a way forward that eliminates suffering, both push for a wholesale shift in the way society is organised, and both found themselves in opposition to their contemporaries. It seems as though, however, a work of social idealism can rarely exist in its own right without a comparison to Marx being drawn. This article attempts to navigate tricky waters and approach the comparison between these two monumental works of social philosophy and establish whether or not it is appropriate for such a comparison to be drawn.

It is clear that K’ang was aware of communist theory, he devotes a small passage to it in Ta t’ung Shu.[1] His sceptism is equally clear however, as he doubts how realistic its aims actually are. Whether or not K’ang was aware of actual Marxist theory is up for debate, after all his mentions of communism are sparing and only seem to analyse it in the frame of ‘what not to do’ rather than as a valid theoretical framework. Laurence Thompson would certainly argue that whilst K’ang had a cursory knowledge of what communism entailed, his knowledge of Marxist theory more widely was non-existent.[2] The question of Karl Marx’s awareness of Ta t’ung Shu certainly is not up for debate, he had died before the work was written, let alone translated into a language he would understand.

A brief discussion ought to be given to the differences between these two individuals as thinkers. Hierarchy was, to Marx, the root of suffering among humans; K’ang was a proponent of the emperor, albeit in a ceremonial sense not unlike the monarchs of the United Kingdom.[3] Hierarchy under K’ang’s One World philosophy was almost ritualistic and was greatly influenced by the maintenance of the emperor as a spiritual figure. There is no question that this would have been an unsurpassable point of contention for Marx, monarchy represents, in the Marxist perspective, all that they sought to dismantle.

I was struck by the difference in scale of these two works, and an analysis of scale brings with it the analysis of the philosophies themselves. It may be argued for example that, as a work of philosophy, Ta t’ung Shu represents a more comprehensive, all-encompassing work that seeks to analyse suffering as a phenomenon with multiple roots, not simply class. K’ang Yu-wei delves into human nature, and concurs with traditional Chinese thought, such as that expressed by Mencius, that man is innately compassionate, and bad deeds are a result of negative stimuli in one’s environment.[4] He specifically cites economic hardship as the root of such deeds as robbery, taking away responsibility from the individual and placing it in the environment in which the individual exists, effectively laying the groundwork for his One World postulation founded on economic equality. Marx, by contrast, made fewer sweeping statements on the nature of humanity, and instead cited the historical precedent of class segregation and class struggle. Where Marx’s utopia comes about following revolution and the abolition of wealth as material possession, K’ang Yu-wei’s ideal is a spiritual exercise wherein the efforts of man are put into the cultivation of a healthy environment and the promotion of things that bring pleasure.

Nevertheless, comparisons are drawn, and for many it would appear as though these two works of social theory produce the same end: a society free of suffering and devoid of class, where an individual works for the good of society and can subsequently expect all that they require in return. To me, however, such a comparison is largely unfounded and is based upon the mere fact that both offer a socialist utopic vision for the future of humanity. Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto offer a materialist view of the development of human society up to the 18^th century and posit a future wherein class struggle necessitates a revolution. Ta t’ung Shu is a work not only of political theory and materialist philosophy, but moral and existential philosophy that borrows ideas from classical Chinese thought and will go on to lend ideas to Maoist communism. The works may be comparable in their end goals, but in their substance, there lacks a sustained thread of similar thought.

[1] Laurence Thompson, K’ang Yu Wei, Ta T’ung Shu and the One World philosophy of K’ang Yu-Wei, (London, 2005). p.51.

[2] Ibid. p.52.

[3] Federico Brusadelli, ‘A tale of two utopias: Kang Youwei’s communism, Mao Zedong’s classicism and the “Accommodating look” of the Marxist Li Zehou’, Asian Studies, 103:5, (2017). p.104.

[4] Thompson, K’ang Yu Wei, p.47.

The theory of kokutai 国体 was a pre-war Japanese concept that envisioned an imperial family with ‘unbroken lineage (bansei ikkei 万世一系)’ to rule Japan as the spiritual, ethical, and political centre of the nation. This ideology formed the core of the Japanese political system from the Meiji Restoration to World War II. It was Aizawa Seishisai 会沢正志斎, one of the leading scholars of the Later Mito Learning (kōki mitogaku 後期水戸学), who developed the concept of kokutai in New Theses (Shinron 新論). In Aizawa’s later years, Yoshida Shōin 吉田松陰 attempted to create his own theory of kokutai after discussing with Aizawa. While both the kokutai theories of the two scholars, whose philosophies greatly influenced the nationalist ideology of ‘revering the emperor and expelling the barbarian (sonnō jōi 尊皇攘夷)’, proposed a state system centred on the emperor, differences arose in response to the changes in domestic order after the arrival of the Black Ships commanded by American Commodore Matthew C. Perry.

Firstly, Aizawa and Yoshida disagree on the perception of kokutai and other countries. According to Aizawa, kokutaiconsists of the principle of loyalty and filial piety (chūkō no genri 忠孝の原理) through ancestral rituals.[1] This means that the subjects are loyal to the emperor as he shows filial piety to the preceding emperors and ancestral gods through rituals, and at the same time, the history of the ancestors’ loyalty to the preceding emperors confirms the present meaning of filial piety. Furthermore, Aizawa regards Japan as a divine country (shinshū 神国) and assumed the rule of all nations by the emperor was eternal and unchanging. While praising Japan as a divine country, he also called it the ‘Land of the Center (chūgoku 中国)’,[2] based on the idea of ‘Little China (shōchūka 小中華)’ and regards the ‘barbarians of the West (seikō no ban’i 西荒の蛮夷)’ who were advancing into the world as a particular threat to kokutai.[3]

On the other hand, Yoshida initially recognises that kokutai is the emperor military subjugation of others and argues that it was the duty of the shogun to assist the emperor to govern by defeating foreign enemies. In addition, based on the national consciousness, he criticises the situation that shoguns and feudal lords were only defending their strongholds and argued that the people should cooperate to protect the nation. However, when Japan was overwhelmed by the dominant military power of the United States, which made it difficult for Japan to maintain its isolationist system, Yoshida shifted his theory of kokutai. He acknowledges that each country has an individual kokutai (national polity) and advocates that superior ‘righteousness of imperial ruler and ruled (皇朝君臣の義)’ to all nations was Japanese unique fundamental principle, kokutai.[4]

Secondly, the difference between the two theories of kokutai can also be traced in their attitudes toward the shogunate. Aizawa’s theory of kokutai was an ideology built on the premise of the Tokugawa feudal system in order for the regime to reorganise its order in response to internal and external crises. In contrast, Yoshida sees the emperor as the permanent sovereign and prioritises the role of all people in Japan as imperial subjects. He argues that people are to devote themselves to the emperor while also serving their feudal lord, and their loyalty to the feudal lord means to promote him to be faithful to the emperor.[5]

The difference between the two theories of statehood can be attributed to the threat of foreign powers, which became increasingly realistic at the end of the Edo period. Aizawa formulates kokutai theory based on the ‘theory of social hierarchy (taigi meibum ron 大義名分論)’, which derives from Neo-Confucianism, with the assumption of governance by the shogunate. However, Yoshida’s theory of kokutai, which he advocated after witnessing the powerful military power of the United States and experiencing a shake in the legitimacy of the shogunate, contained a stronger element of ‘theory of delegation of power (taisei inin ron 大政委任論)’ of National Learning (kokugaku 国学), which assumes that the authority of the shogunate originates from itself but is merely delegated by the emperor. Thus, in comparison to Aizawa, his vision of the national body proved to be an advantageous theory for building a political system with the emperor at the centre, as it undermined the legitimacy of the shogunate’s rule of Japan.

In conclusion, while both the national state proposed by Aizawa and Yoshida are built on the premise of loyalty to the emperor and share some elements of Neo-Confucianist ‘theory of social hierarchy’, they differ in their interpretation of kokutai and other countries, as well as in their attitudes towards the Tokugawa regime. The worsening of Tokugawa Japan’s domestic and foreign situation and the destabilisation of the political order resulted in the transition in the theory of kokutai from Aizawa to Yoshida.

Bibliography

Anderson, Emily (ed.), Belief and Practice in Imperial Japan and Colonial Korea (London, 2017).

Yoshida, Toshizumi 吉田俊純, Mitogaku No Kenkyū: Meiji-ishin-shi No Saikentō 水戸学の研究—明治維新史の再検討 (Tokyo, 2016).

Yamaguchi-ken Kyōikukai 山口県教育会 (ed.), Yoshida Shōin Zenshū Dai 2 Kan 吉田松陰全集第2巻 (Tokyo, 1934).

Yamaguchi-ken Kyōikukai 山口県教育会 (ed.), Yoshida Shōin Zenshū Dai 3 Kan 吉田松陰全集第3巻 (Tokyo, 1939).

Imai, Usaburo 今井宇三郎, Seya, Yoshihiko 瀬谷義彦, Bitō, Masahide 尾藤正英 (eds.), Nihon Shisō Shi Taikei 53: Mitogaku 日本思想史体系53 水戸学 (Tokyo, 1973).

Yoshida, Tsunekichi 吉田常吉 et al. (eds.), Nihon Shisō Shi Taikei 54: Yoshida Shōin 日本思想史体系54 吉田松陰(Tokyo, 1978).

[1] Usaburo Imai, Yoshihiko Seya and Masahide Bitō (eds.), Nihon Shisō Shi Taikei 53: Mitogaku (Tokyo, 1973), pp. 51–53.

[2] Ibid., p. 65.

[3] Ibid., p. 50.

[4] Yamaguchi-ken Kyōikukai (ed.), Yoshida Shōin Zenshū Dai 2 Kan (Tokyo, 1934), p.479–480.

[5] Yamaguchi-ken Kyōikukai (ed.), Yoshida Shōin Zenshū Dai 2 Kan (Tokyo, 1939), p. 566.