Tanabe Hajime’s Logic of Species Contradiction – Outward Rejection and Inward Support of Ethnic Nationalism

Tanabe Hajime and imperial Japan utilized the Logic of Species argument to criticize and diminish the validity of ethnic nationalism, outwardly supporting individual freedom and the power to negate the nation, but inwardly promoted ethnic nationalism to support their expansionist ambitions.

Modernity made two historically constructed classifications, the nation and ethnicity, appear natural. The ‘territorial nation state’ as the ‘fundamental unit of the modern international world’ conveniently sorted individuals into ‘particular nationalities’.1 This classification of humanity by nationality thus comes across as the intuitive method to do so, yet Naoki Sakai argues that this ‘vision’ has only existed ‘since the seventeenth century’.2 Moreover, individuals are defined primarily by the nation to which they belong, similar to the actual biological classification of humanity, which ‘converge[s] in the topos of the logical algorithm of species and genus’.3 In other words, the classification also appeared natural as it mimicked the actual method of identifying and categorizing living organisms. These perceptions, especially during the 1930s and early 1940s, produced postwar myths and conceptions like tan’itsu minzoku, which stated that ‘Japanese society ha[d] been ethnically homogenous’ since premodernity—whereas the Japanese empire stated it was ‘explicitly created against the principle of ethnic nationalism’.4 Therefore, the classification of individuals into nation-states is a modern concept, which Tanabe Hajime argued was unnatural.

In Tanabe’s Logic of Species, his ontology rejects ethnic essentialism, arguing that identity exists only through a dialectic of belonging and negation. In contrast to the natural assumption, Tanabe insisted that the ‘individual’s belonging to the nation…must be “mediated” by his or her freedom’.5 In essence, ‘immediately’, individuals belong to no nation, and have the freedom to determine and mediate their nation.6 In addition, Tanabe contends that an individual must have their ‘own self-awareness, or jikaku’, prior to any social classification, as they can only be ‘classified into a species’ if they are ‘aware of belonging to’ the species.7 He argues that the freedom to ‘negate and disobey’ the requirements ‘imposed by’ the ‘totemic beliefs’ of a species is the true essential prerequisite for having a part within the species; individuals must be able to join and critique the species to make it relevant.8 Moreover, he holds that species (shu) is not biological and changeable thereby removing the view that it is natural and lifelasting.9 Tanabe uses the notion of genus (rui), which is an ‘essential moment in mediation between the individual and the species’, allowing the individual to exist ‘independent of the species’.10 If individuals can exist outside of the species through the mediating moment of the genus, then they are not inherently and immediately tied to a nation.

The Japanese imperial state appropriated Tanabe’s philosophy to enforce ethnic nationalism even though the philosophy itself denies the natural basis of nationalism. In his lecture at Kyoto Imperial University on May 19, 1943, he used his philosophies to justify patriotic devotion and wartime mobilization, emphasizing that individuals must be ‘committed to the state’s mission’ like himself.11 However, the Logic of Species, which he references ‘refute[s] and discredit[s]…ethnic nationalism’, and directly contrasts his statements, insisting that the individual must negate the nation.12 Tanabe’s arguments made ethnic nationalism impossible, yet they were still used to support Japanese nationalism during the war. As such, even though the Japanese imperial government publicly rejected ethnic nationalism, they still practiced it and had various officials supporting ‘total erasure of ethnic differences within the Japanese nation’ and ‘insistence upon racial purity’.13 For minority populations, this private embrace of ethnic nationalism through the Logic of Species ‘was nothing but an endorsement of colonial violence’, forcing them to be in the nation, stripping them of the promised freedom of individual choice.14

Tanabe argued that no individual belonged to a nation immediately or naturally, and that belonging must be achieved through the exercise of one’s freedom, to critique ethnic nationalism in support of Japanese imperialism. However, what imperial Japan required at the time for its military was the opposite: natural, fixed, and unquestionably loyal individuals, which, in contrast to Tanabe’s argument, was ethnic nationalism. The Japanese government used Tanabe and this rhetoric to justify, through philosophical argument, patriotism, militarism, and expansionism, which Tanabe supported even though it contradicted his philosophies.

  1. Naoki Sakai, ‘Ethnicity and Species: On the Philosophy of the Multiethnic State and Japanese Imperialism’, in Viren Murthy, Fabian Schäfer, and Max Ward (eds), Confronting Capital and Empire: Rethinking Kyoto School Philosophy (Leiden, 2017), p. 146. [↩]
  2. Ibid., p. 144. [↩]
  3. Ibid., p. 147. [↩]
  4. Ibid., p. 148. [↩]
  5. Ibid., p. 154. [↩]
  6. Ibid., p. 154. [↩]
  7. Ibid., p. 157. [↩]
  8. Ibid., p. 160. [↩]
  9. Ibid., p. 155. [↩]
  10. Ibid., pp. 163-165. [↩]
  11. Ibid., p. 151. [↩]
  12. Ibid., p. 170. [↩]
  13. Ibid., pp. 147-148. [↩]
  14. Ibid., p. 172. [↩]

On Trial: Determining the historical complicity of academics in the time of Japanese Empire

Exploring political philosophy in early 20th century Japan raises important questions for the field of intellectual history. With close links between the discourse of political philosophers and the state’s imperial projects, the question of complicity is at the centre of historicising the mechanisms of Japanese oppression. Determining the complicity of political philosophers is tied to the way we approach intellectual history and the questions we choose to ask. While it is difficult to establish a monolithic approach to tracing and determining the complicity of individuals, I believe the attempt to determine the extent of individual complicity is valuable to historical inquiry.

When determining the political leanings of intellectuals there are generally two sets of primary sources to interrogate. Often private correspondence and public discourse both shape our understanding of intellectual figures. In the case of intellectuals whose private correspondence deviates from the claims and allegiances of their public discourse, it’s important to ask whether either one is a more reliable indicator of complicity. In the case of Kitaro Nishida for example, Goto-Jones argues for the privileging of public discourse over private correspondence.1 He argues that despite Nishida’s criticism of the political orthodoxy in his personal diary entries, the fact that his public works were essentially ideological propaganda frame him as complicit in enabling the imperial project.2

Locating Nishida within the academic environment of Kyoto University however, complicates our understanding of his individual agency. Identifying the regulations placed on Kyoto University by the Japanese state blurs distinctions between the academic and the political sphere. John Namjun Kim discusses the blurring of theorists and practitioners as central to the imperial project.3 Japan’s total-war ideology included the mobilising of all the state’s subjects including academics.4 Recognising universities as hotbeds of activism also challenges the notion of the academic sphere as isolated from the politics of the state.5 Recognising this overlap is useful to highlighting the parameters enforced around political discourse by the state.2

Exploring institutional complicity broadens the focal point of intellectual history to go beyond individual intellectuals. It allows us to trace the wider range of forces shaping a published text. For example, with Nishida’s paper Sekai Shinchitsujo No Genri, any analysis should include the actors who initially rejected the paper, the role of Tanabe Juri in reworking the text, as well as Nishida’s motivations in reworking Tanabe’s version years later.6

On the inverse, it is important to interrogate the role of the academic sphere when interrogating state policy. Kim differentiates between imperialism and colonialism by emphasising the ideological nature of imperialism.7 In doing so, he highlights the participation of scholars in imperial subjugation through thinking, writing, and teaching.8

Thus, I think it is important to go beyond an individual scholar or an isolated text when determining complicity. While difficult to concretely determine, the question of complicity is useful to tracing the relations, regulations, and power dynamics shaping state power.

  1. Christopher Goto-Jones, Political Philosophy in Japan: Nishida, the Kyoto School and CoProsperity (Routledge, 2009), p. 85. [↩]
  2. Ibid. [↩] [↩]
  3. John Namjun Kim, The Temporality of Empire: The Imperial Cosmopolitanism of Miki Kiyoshi and Tanabe Hajime in Sven Saaler ed., Pan-Asianism in Modern Japanese History Colonialism, Regionalism and Borders (Routledge, 2007),p. 152 [↩]
  4. Ibid., p.153 [↩]
  5. Goto-Jones, Political Philosophy, p.73. [↩]
  6. Ibid., p.79. [↩]
  7. Kim, The Temporality of Empire [↩]
  8. Ibid. p.152. [↩]

Japanese Philosophy and Empire: The Dangers of Taking Tanabe Hajime out of Context

Tanabe Hajime (1885-1962) was a member of the Kyoto School, an intellectual network of Japanese philosophers in the early 20th century who sought to piece together the best parts of Western thought (particularly Kant and Hegel) with Japanese intellectual tradition.1 His earlier works are characterised by strong imperialist and nationalist rhetoric, some of which he revised and renounced in his later work with the ‘Philosophy as Metanoetics’ in 1945 when he turned to studying religious philosophy in a public cry of repentance.2

American philosopher James Heisig claims that Tanabe’s philosophy should be regarded as a ‘world-class philosophy’.3 He argues that Tanabe’s framework can and should be applied outside of the historical context in which it was created.4 While this may be valuable from a philosopher’s perspective, from a historical standpoint, grounding Tanabe’s work in the hyper-nationalist and cosmopolitan context he was writing in is vital because it demonstrates how outside sociopolitical factors and aspects of Western and Japanese intellectual tradition shaped his worldview (which was then used to justify nationalist expansion). Removing Tanabe’s philosophy from its historical context diminishes its lasting impact on Japan’s imperial legacy and precludes the opportunity for important discussions around colonialism.

Tanabe used principles in ‘Logic of the Specific’, ‘The Logic of National Existence’, and ‘Death and Life’ to rationalise nationalism and the supreme importance of the state, relying on the unchallenged assumption that the nation is the fundamental unit by which society should be organised. ‘In ‘Logic of the Specific’, Tanabe adopts Linnean taxonomy terminology to classify individuals’ social belonging: the species (shu) represents each nationality, and the genus (rui) represents the totality of the international world.5 He also proposes the idea of Japan as a ‘supreme archetype’, a blueprint which should be emulated by other nation-states to become ‘enlightened’.6 This emphasis on the moral, cultural, and intellectual superiority of Japan follows the trend among nationalist Japanese intellectuals to justify colonialism.7 Additionally, in ‘The Logic of National Existence’, Tanabe positions the concept of the nation-state as the ‘prototype of existence’, which further legitimizes the authority and prominence of the Japanese empire.8 In his 1943 lecture ‘Death and Life’, Tanabe encourages his audience to sacrifice their lives for the state and concludes that ‘self-sacrifice for the state’ is essentially a return to individual freedom in ‘The Logic of National Existence’.9 Tanabe’s fixation with nationhood is understandable when considering that for him, the lives and deaths of Japanese people depended on the survival or demise of the nation.10 Far from remaining in the abstract realm, Kim argues that Kyoto philosophers were utilised by the imperial regime to exert force over colonial subjects in the way citizens were subject to military conscription.11
However, Tanabe’s interpretation of his own philosophical framework is inconsistent at times, seemingly swayed by changes in public sentiment and contemporary politics. In ‘A Clarification of the Logic of the Specific’ (1935), he defends against accusations that the ‘logic of the specific’ promotes ‘extreme’ and ‘totalitarian’ nationalism.12 However, as aforementioned, later in 1943 he rationalises individual sacrifice (to the point of death) for the state, so his original work cannot be seen as apolitical. Later in 1945, Tanabe publicly apologises for being complicit in imperial expansion in ‘Philosophy as Metanoetics’, moving away from nationalist rhetoric. He explains his failure to speak out against expansionist policies as partly due to the possibility of creating conflict and division among the Japanese people.13 When considering his back-and-forth views, it is questionable as to whether or not Tanabe’s repentance in ‘Ethics of Metanoia’ is sincere or motivated by self-preservation after his original views became unpopular.

It is difficult to separate Tanabe’s philosophical framework from external factors and from Tanabe as a complex individual. However, it is important to recognise that while Tanabe’s writings partly developed as a way for him to process and react to the traumatic and uncertainty of wartime Japan and may be valuable as a world philosophy, they were also used by the nation to justify colonial violence.

  1. Robert Edgar Carter, “The Kyoto School: An Introduction,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, in Bret W. Davis (ed.), unpaginated, (2019 [↩]
  2. James W. Heisig, Thomas P. Kasulis, and John C. Maraldo, Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook, (University of Hawaii Press, 2011), 688. [↩]
  3. James W. Heisig, “Tanabe’s Logic of the Specific and the Critique of the Global Village,” in The Eastern Buddhist 28, no. 2 (1995), 198, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44362096. [↩]
  4. Ibid., 202. [↩]
  5. Heisig, Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook, 670. [↩]
  6. Ibid. [↩]
  7. Vladimir Tikhonov, Social Darwinism and nationalism in Korea: the beginnings (1880s-1910s): “survival” as an ideology of Korean modernity, (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 10. [↩]
  8. Heisig, Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook, 683 [↩]
  9. John Namjun Kim, ‘The Temporality of Empire: The Imperial Cosmopolitanism of Miki Kiyoshi and Tanabe Hajime’, in Pan-Asianism in modern Japanese history: colonialism, regionalism and borders, in Sven Saaler et al., (London: Routledge, 2007), 210; Naoki Sakai, “Ethnicity and Species: On the Philosophy of the Multiethnic State and Japanese Imperialism,” in Confronting Capital and Empire: Rethinking Kyoto School Philosophy, in Viren Murthy et al. (eds.), (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 153. [↩]
  10. Heisig, Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook, 683. [↩]
  11. Kim, “The Temporality of Empire,” 195. [↩]
  12. Heisig, Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook, 679. [↩]
  13. Ibid., 689. [↩]

The Cold War and Cosmopolitanism

Yan Xishan, former premier for the Republic of China, authored a treatise on the establishment of a Cosmopolitan International government for the purpose of ending war globally. This proposal is titled How to Prevent Warfare and Establish the Foundation of World Unity and was dedicated to the Moral Re-Armament World Assembly. Yan Xishan believed that these American based moral reformists would share his cosmopolitan vision for the betterment of the world. The M.R.A World Assembly maintained a similar world view to Xishan in that they detested communism, but were dissatisfied with the inequality of the capitalist system.1 This shared belief reflects the broader global political tension at the time of publication in 1952. The context of the Korean War and the escalation of the nuclear arms race between the United States and Russia acts as a backdrop of Yan Xishan’s cosmopolitan solution to the problem of dissatisfaction with both capitalism and communism. When conflict had implications for the globe, a universal solution was necessary.

Yan Xishan’s proposition for a Cosmopolitan Internal system of government echoes the ideas of K’ang Yu-wei, a late Qing scholar who originated the idea of Ta T’ung Shu or the Great Unity. K’ang Yu-wei’s cosmopolitan vision called for the abolition of the nation state, the family, religion, and all divisions which create suffering.2 Similar to Xishan, K’ang’s worldview is largely influenced by Confucianism. Both align with Mencius’s idea that human nature is inherently good and can be perfected through the cultivation of the individual.3 This perfection of man serves as the basis for the effective establishment of a cosmopolitan world. 

Yan Xishan diverges from K’ang Yu-wei in his reference for establishing his cosmopolitan utopia. Rather than turn towards the United States or Germany as a framework for the unification of states as K’ang does, Xishan turns inwards toward China for a solution. This is likely due to Xishan’s familiarity with American imperial aggression and the destructive consequences of both World Wars. Xishan uses the Golden Mean as the foundation of world unity and rejects American and German models in the process.4 This is a direct recollection of foundational Confucian principles, and the use of Chinese intellectual tradition to establish a new world order outside the confines of Western thought. 

Yan Xishan’s worldview cites conflicting economic interests as the causes of disorder in the world. His proposal largely focuses on economic solutions for the cessation of suffering and the problem of capitalist and communist conflict. He cites the inability of communists and capitalists to find economic harmony as a source of global conflict.5 Yan Xishan’s fear of the spontaneous outbreak of World War III is clearly informed by the proximity and uncertainty of the Korean war.6 For Xishan, Cosmopolitanism is not only a solution to the suffering of the individual, but the ending of the Cold War and the threat of further nuclear destruction in East Asia. In his eyes, the Cosmopolitan solution would ultimately bring peace to the world by establishing a disarmed government, removing the fear of mass nuclear destruction from the equation.  

  1. Boobbyer, Philip. ‘5 Strategy and Organization’. The Spiritual Vision of Frank Buchman, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, 2013, pp. 110-111 [↩]
  2. Kang, Youwei, and Laurence G Thompson. Ta t’ung Shu: The One-World Philosophy of K’ang Yu-Wei. London: Routledge, 2005. p. 37 [↩]
  3. Ibid., p. 46 [↩]
  4. Yan, Xishan. How to Prevent Warfare and Establish Foundation of World Unity, pamphlet, p. 38 [↩]
  5. Ibid., p. 7 [↩]
  6. Ibid., 5 [↩]

The Paradox of Peace: Japan’s Evolving Identity from 1919-1964

       After Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in 1933 and withdrawing from the League of Nations in 1933, the world believed Japan to be rejecting internationalism.¹ The believed rejection of internationalism by Japan was proven to be false as Japan developed the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, a pan-Asian conglomerate with the aim to promote an anti-colonialism from the West.²  From the interwar years through the postwar decades, Japan’s engagement with the world was full of contradictions torn between universal ideals and imperial ambitions. As historians Jessamyn Abel, Tomoko Akami, and Mark Lincicome each show, Japan’s global identity was never simply nationalist or internationalist. It was a constant negotiation between empire and moral legitimacy.

       The three historians all attempt to understand how Japan builds its identity within the global sphere. Abel focuses on the “international minimum” which was Japan’s way of maintaining a baseline of global participation even during times of war.³ The main example of this baseline was the bid from Japan to host the 1940 Tokyo Olympics. Abel frames the Tokyo Olympics as a gesture of goodwill to the international community even though at the time Japan’s imperialism was spreading over Asia. Japan projected an image of peace and enlightenment while simultaneously expanding its empire. The display of Japanese culture on a global scale such as the Kokusai Bunka Shinkoukai sponsoring art and education abroad helped to show that Japan is a key component to bridge the East and the West. Abel concludes that Japan rebranded itself throughout time by using culture as a front to project the image of peace while still expanding the nation’s imperialism throughout Asia.⁴ This use of culture illustrates how Japan reshaped its identity to fit any ideology that the moment required in order to build an identity with the West.

       While Abel traces cultural diplomacy, Tomoko Akami examines international engagement that was meant to foster peace but emphasized global tension. In 1925, The Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR) was created to foster a dialogue between nations around the Pacific Rim.⁵ Japan joined early and eagerly sent scholars and diplomats to discuss trade, diplomacy, and governance. As Japan’s imperialism grew throughout the 1930s, tension grew between the countries and came to a head at the 1926 Yosemite Conference. Japanese representatives defended the nation’s expansions in China stating the expansion as a need for modernization yet this argument illustrates how Japan combined imperialism and internationalism. Akami states, Japan’s participation was a performance of legitimacy as it sought to appear as a civilized and cooperative power, even while defying Western norms.⁶ The IPR revealed how internationalism could reinforce imperial hierarchies rather than dissolve them which illustrates that Japan’s identity in the international stage was centered around imperialism and fake facades of modernization according to Akami.

       Similarly to Abel and Akami, Mark Lincicome uncovers how Japan’s schools and universities became ideal for shaping “international” citizens and uses education as a global identity. After World War I, international education was promoted and students were taught to value peace, cultural understanding, and global citizenship.⁷ But by the 1930s, these ideals were absorbed into the state’s nationalist mission. Under imperial rule, the “global citizen” became an imperial subject who represented Japan’s cultural superiority abroad and brought “civilization” to colonized Asia.⁵ Lincicome’s insight illustrates how Japan used education as another front to cover imperialistic colonization of Asia similar to Akami’s view on Japan’s modernization. The very language of peace and world citizenship that Japan used after 1945 had imperial roots and ideals didn’t vanish; they simply rebranded just as seen in Abel’s view on Japan using culture to project ideals of peace. 

       Throughout the three works, all of the historians portray an image of Japan that ties its identity to facades of peace and global cooperation. Abel’s Japan uses culture to maintain international visibility and a connection with the West even after Japan left the League of Nations. Akami illustrates how Japan uses opportunities of international cooperation and discussion to put on a false image of peace and cooperation between countries. Lincicome combines the two views into one by illustrating how Japan uses education as a part of culture to enforce global ideals that serve the nation. Abel, Akami, and Lincicome remind us that nations rarely reinvent themselves from scratch. They evolve through the reinterpretation of old ideals. Japan’s imperial past was not erased by defeat: it was rewritten through the language of internationalism.

  1. The Japanese Embassy to the State. September 24, 1931.
  2. Beasley, W. G. “The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.” In Japanese Imperialism 1894–1945, 233-50. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.
  3. Abel, Jessamyn R. The International Minimum: Creativity and Contradiction in Japan’s Global Engagement, 1933–1964. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2015. Introduction.
  4. Abel, Jessamyn R. Chapter 3, “Cultural Diplomacy for Peace and War,” pp. 81–107.
  5. Akami, Tomoko. Internationalizing the Pacific: The United States, Japan and the Institute of Pacific Relations in War and Peace, 1919–1945. London: Routledge, 2002. Introduction, pp. 1–16.
  6. Akami, Tomoko. Chapter 8, “The IPR and the Sino-Japanese War, 1936–9,” pp. 200–239.
  7. Lincicome, Mark Elwood. Imperial Subjects as Global Citizens: Nationalism, Internationalism, and Education in Japan. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009. Chapters 3–4.



The Birth of the Japan’s Cooperative Movement: Shinagawa, Hirata, and Cooperative Credit Society Law Bill

During the Meiji era, Viscount Shinagawa Yajirō and Count Hirata Tosuke studied European cooperative models, particularly the Schulze-Delitzsch and Raiffeisen systems, as a means to address Japan’s rural economic challenges. Confronted with widespread tenant indebtedness, falling agricultural incomes, and increasing commercialization, they sought to adapt these foreign models to support farmers through affordable credit and collective cooperation. Despite their limited legislative success, I argue that their efforts exerted a far greater influence on the development of Japan’s cooperative movement than is commonly acknowledged, and that these initiatives ultimately laid the groundwork for the enactment of Japan’s first comprehensive cooperative law in 1900.1

During the 1870s and 1880s, Yajirō and Tosuke travelled to Germany and studied social and economic systems. What captured their attention were the Schulze-Delitzsch and Raiffeisen models of savings and credit cooperatives. The Schulze-Delitzsch model, developed by Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch, sought to protect “the independence of our lower-middle-class tradespeople” against “the monstrous development of big industry,” and advocated for credit, warehousing, producing, marketing, and consumer cooperatives.2 F.W. Raiffeisen developed his own version – one that crucially extended the concept of cooperatives to rural and farming communities and one that encouraged a single cooperative for each village.3

Shinagawa and Hirata recognized that similar institutions could benefit Japan’s countryside. By the mid-1880s, about 70% of the working population was employed in agriculture, with the sector making 40% of the nation’s gross national product.4 Farmers faced a decrease in net agricultural income of 17 to 22% caused by the new land tax as well as frequent fluctuations in rice prices.5 Japan, like Germany, also saw an increase in commercialisation. Tenants typically paid rent in kind for rice land, with rates fixed annually based on expected harvests and adjusted only if yields dropped below 10%. Increasingly during the Meiji period (1868-1912), tenants began to supply their own capital borrowing from landlords and hiring additional labour.6 Amidst this context, Viscount Shinagawa and Count Hirata recognised that the Raiffeisen and Schulze-Delitzsch cooperative models could be introduced, to supply cheaper credit to farmers.7

In 1891, as Shinagawa became Minister of the Interior and Hirata joined the Legislative Bureau, the pair drafted a Cooperative Credit Society Bill based on the German models. The bill was proposed to the Second Imperial Diet in 1891 but failed to be enacted when the Lower House was dissolved after a budget crisis. Six years later, the same bill was presented to the Tenth Imperial Diet as the First Industrial Cooperative Bill. Again, although deliberated, the bill was shelved when the Diet session ended early.8

This process was accompanied by a heavy campaign of propaganda led by Shinagawa and Hirata advertising the benefits of cooperative societies. Ogata argues that there was much collaboration between Shinagawa and Hirata, and the Hotokusha, an altruistic mutual savings and credit society founded in 1843.8 The drafters formed two pioneer societies in 1892 in Kakegawa and Mitsuke in Shikzuoka Prefecture, a stronghold of the Hotokusha. The propaganda campaign was also helped by Mr. Fukuzumi, and the pioneer societies were organized by Mr. Okada and Mr. Ito, all of whom were leading spirits of the Hotokusha Movement. Ogata also cites evidence of a meeting between Hirata and Mr Fukuzumi to integrate the German system of credit cooperatives with “the high moral and ethical principle of the Hotokusha.”9

According to Fisher, the bill was criticised on two main grounds. The first was its perceived foreignness.10 An ‘almost exact imitation’ of the German Co-operative Law, more native organisations like the Hotokusha found the law alien from their system (which functioned more as a charitable social institution).8 The second reason was the failure of many of the credit societies’ new ventures, which Fisher accords as unsurprising given the lack of competent and trustworthy management.

By 1896, however, official surveys recorded 101 credit societies; two years later, 144 societies with over 21,000 members and assets exceeding 922,000 yen were in operation. Around this time, the forerunners of marketing and purchasing cooperatives also appeared, helping farmers collectively buy seeds, fertilizers, tools and machinery. 

Recognizing this momentum, the government decided to provide a comprehensive legal framework for cooperative activity. In 1897, a new bill, this time sponsored by the Department of Agriculture and Commerce, was presented to the House of Peers. Drawing inspiration from both the Rochdale consumer cooperative model in Britain and the German Raiffeisen credit model, the proposed law covered multiple types of cooperatives: credit, purchasing, marketing, and production cooperatives, which could manage shared equipment, hospitals, or kitchens. The law was finally enacted in March 1900.  

Hirata worked for the 1900 bill as a member of the House of Peers, and Shinagawa witnessed the bill turn into law just a few days before his death. 8

  1. G.M. Fisher, ‘The Cooperative Movement in Japan’, Pacific Affairs, 11:4 (1938). [↩]
  2. H. Schulze-Delitzsch, Assoziationsbuch fiir deutsche Handwerker und Arbeiter (Leipzig, 1853), p. 56. [↩]
  3. B. Fairbairn, ‘The Rise and Fall of Consumer Cooperation in Germany ‘ in E. Furlough and C. Strikwerda (eds) Consumers against Capitalism? Consumer Cooperation in Europe, North America, and Japan, 1840-1990 (Oxford, 1999), pp 270-273. [↩]
  4. B.R. Tomlinson, ‘Rural Society and Agricultural Development in Japan, 1870–1920: An Overview,’ Rural History 6:1 (1995), p. 46. [↩]
  5. Ibid, pp. 49, 51. [↩]
  6. M.V. Madane, Agricultural Cooperatives in Japan: The Dynamics of Their Development (International Co-operative Alliance, 1990), p. 54. [↩]
  7. Fisher, ‘The Cooperative Movement in Japan’, p. 479. [↩]
  8. Ibid. [↩] [↩] [↩] [↩]
  9. K. Ogata, The Co-operative Movement in Japan, (London, 1923), p. 46. [↩]
  10. Fisher, ‘The Cooperative Movement in Japan’, p. 479. [↩]

Esperanto: Linguistic Constructions of the International

In an increasingly globalized world, transnational communication is a given. The mechanics of transnational communication however, were not as straightforward when the international community first began organising. Early efforts to enable this communication were centred around the language Esperanto – the most widespread planned or artificial language.1 Iacobelli and Leary explore Esperanto to argue that language is central to transnational activity.2

A global outlook and a tendency towards expansion characterised early 20th c. Japan.3 This extended to the broader population beyond just people in power. The Esperanto community in Japan reflected this tendency. Rhetoric in Japan was centred around the notion of a new international order, one where Japan would the correct the material civilisation of the West with the spiritual civilisation of the East.4 Thus, Esperanto as a medium for construction of the international was a compelling force. Japanese notions of the international hinged on an interaction between East and West, guided by Japan at the forefront.5 I will be arguing that an interrogation of Esperanto reveals the challenges characterising this vision for the international.

There has been increasing academic recognition of the use of Esperanto in Asia.6 Decentring the study of Esperanto from Europe is useful to undermine the universal nature of terms like ‘the international’ and ‘global’. Though Esperanto was conceived as a medium for international communication, it is a language of European intellectual and cultural origin, drawing from European languages for much of its semantic and structural content.7

Esperanto gained a large following in Japan.5 The largest Esperanto speaking community outside of Europe was in Japan.5 Critiques of Japanese constructions of modernity like Takeuchi Yoshimi argue that with time, Japanese notions of modernization were increasingly equated with Europeanisation.8The frictions of Esperanto reveal the challenges of extricating modernity from European hegemony.

These challenges shaped interactions across Japanese society. The Japanese Esperanto community shifts the focus of Esperanto as an international language away from halls of power. The Esperanto speaking community transcended the world of diplomats and policy-makers. Ordinary people were also increasingly interested in engaging with the world beyond national borders – in ‘thinking and feeling beyond the nation’.9

Tracing the Japanese Esperanto community highlights a large network of actors engaging with the language.10 Motivations for doing so ranged from pragmatism to idealism.5 For some, it reflected attempts to master a European language to gain access to a wide array of disciplines. For others religious and political views (across the political spectrum), motivated a desire to engage with the international and work towards a fairer, more equal world.5

Iacobelli and Leary emphasise the need to recognise and acknowledge the difficulties involved in transnational communication — the frictions of language creating obstacles to expressing the higher level meanings these encounters sought to express.5 It raises the question of how successfully Japanese thinkers were able to synthesise East and West, to translate the Eastern spirituality they heralded into terms that could speak to the scientific frameworks of the West, and to transform Western structures of modern welfare and political control within Eastern contexts.11

Was Esperanto a sufficient medium shape the international order through transnational engagement? I believe the Japanese community of Esperanto revealed attempts to construct agency within the international for actors who were previously merely subjects of the international. The difficulties of transnational communication revealed by the use of Esperanto however, reflect a failure to transcend the existing hierarchies and power structures of the Western dominated international order.

  1. A Language for Asia? Transnational Encounters in the Japanese Esperanto Movement, 1906-28, in Pedro Iacobelli and Danton Leary (ed.), Transnational Japan as History: Empire, Migration,
    and Social Movements (Basingstoke, 2015), pp. 167-185, pp. 167-168. [↩]
  2. Ibid., p.167. [↩]
  3. Prasenjit Duara, Sovereignty and Authenticity: Manchukuo and the East Asian Modern (Lanham, 2004 [↩]
  4. Ibid., p.104. [↩]
  5. Ibid. [↩] [↩] [↩] [↩] [↩] [↩]
  6. Iacobelli and Leary, A Language for Asia?, p.168. [↩]
  7. Ibid., p.167. [↩]
  8. Takeuchi Yoshimi, What Is Modernity?: Writings of Takeuchi Yoshimi (New York, 2005), p. 47. [↩]
  9. Ibid., p.168. [↩]
  10. Ibid. p.169. [↩]
  11. Prasenjit, Sovereignty and Authenticity, p.104, 114. [↩]

Vasiliy Eroshenko: Esperanto as a Tool for Thriving with a Disability

Born in what is now Ukraine in 1890, Vasiliy Eroshenko was an important figure in the history of blind activism in Japan. His story is one that has close ties with the Japanese Esperanto movement. After a bout of measles left him blind at a young age, Eroshenko learned about how people of other countries lived by listening to his sighted friends read him books about foreign nations.1 He was advised to learn Esperanto and study music in England but shortly after decided to move to Japan at age twenty-four to train as a masseuse (a common viable career option for the blind).2 The Tokyo Eroshenko lived and studied in (between 1914 and 1921) was a hub of transnational activity, a vibrant mixture of foreign and Japanese students, creatives, missionaries, and activists.3 Although not all individuals in Eroshenko’s circle were Esperantists and he was a part of a variety of groups; Esperanto provided the means by which Eroshenko, a blind, disabled man, was able to form a strong support network, make meaningful connections, find fulfilment through activism, pursue his interests, and support himself.

First, Eroshenko’s knowledge of Esperanto allowed him to communicate and find community, which is vital when navigating a new space. Tanabe Kunio (a fellow Esperantist and graduate of the Tokyo School for the Blind) recalls that Eroshenko ‘received every possible assistance from Japanese Esperanto scholars’, who guided him through the streets and helped him find an apartment.4 Eroshenko also made use of this support network when traveling to Siam, Burma, and India after the breakout of the Russian Revolution made his position as a foreigner in Asia uncertain.5 Because of Esperanto’s association with leftist radical politics, Eroshenko was arrested and deported out of Japan. Although they were unsuccessful, his friends did appeal and campaign for his release.6

Besides the practical benefits of having a support network, Eroshenko’s involvement in Esperanto also allowed him to form meaningful connections, befriending individuals who had similar values and lived experiences. For example, one of his good friends, the playwright Akita Ujaku, helped him with his writing and introduced him to a network of other creatives and members of the intelligentsia.7;8 In a Soviet radio broadcast about Esperanto, Akita shares a story that mirrors Eroshenko’s, saying that once he [Akita] made Esperanto friends and teachers in Moscow, he ‘“was able to use their linguistic aid to enter the real life of Moscow…I was able to make contact with workers’ daily lives, home, factory, and club lives”’.9 Eroshenko too benefited from this linguistic aid.

Additionally, Eroshenko’s connections and Esperanto skillset allowed him to pursue his intellectual interests and find fulfilment through activism. His connection with Esperanto and subsequent friendship with Akita led him to develop his talent for writing.8 Akita translated Eroshenko’s Esperanto writings into Japanese and provided him with cultural information when the two saw plays together. As for his activism, Eroshenko was part of the Japanese Congress for the Blind (an advocacy group), taught music and Esperanto courses to blind students, and later helped teach and organise schools for the blind among other activities.10 It can be reasonably said that without knowing Esperanto upon his arrival to Japan, he would have had much more difficulty gaining a footing and thus contributing to the blind activist cause there.

Eroshenko was also able to make a living teaching Esperanto. For instance, he taught at the Tokyo Public School for the Blind and was invited by an Esperantist to take up a position lecturing at Waseda University.11 After his deportation, he was able to make ends meet teaching Esperanto in China.5 Also, Akita helped edit and popularise Eroshenko’s fairy tales to improve his financial situation.12

The popularity and use of Esperanto as a lingua franca amongst intelligentsia and radical groups in Japan is a common thread throughout Eroshenko’s interactions in Japan. Eroshenko faced multiple layers of social oppression as a blind man, living through persecution, multiple arrests, deportation, and living in a foreign land. However, he was able to utilise existing Esperanto networks in East Asia to support himself financially, physically, and emotionally. Language in the early twentieth century was an integral feature of both transnational activity and of Eroshenko’s individual life.

  1. Julia V. Patlan, “On Tanabe Kunio’s Article ‘Familiarizing with the Achievements, Learning from Our Pioneers. Vasiliy Yeroshenko: Staying in Japan and His Friends,’” in Вісник Університету Ім. А. Нобеля. Серія Філологічні Науки 1, no. 17 (Alfred Nobel University: Dnipro, 2019), 107, https://doi.org/10.32342/2523-4463-2019-0-16-10. [↩]
  2. Patlan, “On Tanabe Kunio’s Article,” 107-108. [↩]
  3. Ian Rapley, “A Language for Asia? Transnational Encounters in the Japanese Esperanto Movement, 1906–28,” in Transnational Japan As History, Pedro Iacobelli, Danton Leary, and Shinnosuke Takahashi (ed.), (United States: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 173, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-56879-3_8. [↩]
  4. Patlan, “On Tanabe Kunio’s Article,” 108. [↩]
  5. Rapley, “A Language for Asia?” 175. [↩] [↩]
  6. Ibid. [↩]
  7. Ibid, 173. [↩]
  8. Patlan, “On Tanabe Kunio’s Article,” 111. [↩] [↩]
  9. Rapley, “A Language for Asia?” 181. [↩]
  10. Ibid, 112. [↩]
  11. Ibid, 114. [↩]
  12. Patlan, “On Tanabe Kunio’s Article,” 115. [↩]

A Language for the People: Esperanto and the Defeat of ‘Worldism’ in East Asia

In the early twentieth century, the language of Esperanto found its most vibrant communities not in its European birthplace, but in East Asia. By the 1930s, China and Japan had cultivated Esperanto movements that far surpassed their Western counterparts in both ideological fervour and social reach1. Esperanto is often dismissed as a utopian failure in the face of English’s global ascendency2. However, this dismissal understates the language’s profound historical significance in specific regional contexts. In East Asia, Esperanto was not a practical failure but a potent ideological vehicle manifesting a homegrown philosophy known as ‘worldism’, which envisioned a political order transcending the nation-state system and centring on a global community of ordinary people. This movement represented a direct challenge to the ideological foundations of the Western imperial order.3

 

The appeal of Esperanto in East Asia emerged from a trenchant critique of the prevailing international system.4 As Japan and China grappled with Western imperialism and modernisation, intellectuals such as Japan’s Kōtoku Shūsui and China’s Kang Youwei articulated a powerful alternative. They argued that genuine peace was unattainable within a competitive framework of sovereign nation-states, a system they saw as inherently violent and exploitative. Instead, they envisioned a new global polity built around heimin, or common people. For these thinkers, Esperanto was not conceived as a bolstering international language for state diplomacy, but explicitly as a sōdaidō, a great way of commonality, for grassroots, transnational solidarity.5 This critical distinction framed the language not merely as a tool, but as an act of resistance. For Japanese activists, its adoption was a conscious rejection of their nation’s emulation and participation in a Western-dominated imperial system.

 

This ideological commitment manifested in concrete organisational practices that distinguished East Asian Esperanto movements from their European counterparts. Rapley documents how Japanese Esperantists deliberately targeted working-class communities, establishing study groups in factories, labour unions, and proletarian cultural associations rather than limiting themselves to middle-class intellectual circles as in the European context.6 Chinese Esperantists embedded language instruction within anarchist and socialist organising, treating fluency as both a practical skill for transnational coordination and a symbolic commitment to transcending nationalist ideology.7 This integration of linguistic practice with radical political organising demonstrates that East Asian Esperanto was not simply an educational movement but a form of politics, an attempt to create, in the present, the social relations that activists hoped would characterise a future world order.

 

The movement’s eventual decline illuminates both its achievements and limitations. As Rapley documents, the rise of militaristic nationalism in 1930s Japan systematically suppressed Esperanto organisations, viewing their transnational orientation as incompatible with wartime mobilisation8 . The historical significance extends beyond its practical failure. As Konishi argues, recovering this history challenges teleological narratives that treat the Westphalian system of sovereign nation-states as an inevitable endpoint of political development.9 The Esperantists’ vision of heimin-centred global politics represented a genuinely different path, one that was historically defeated but not intellectually refuted. It reveals that the nation-state order was not an inevitable outcome but one possibility among others, consolidated through specific historical processes that included the violent suppression of alternatives.

  1. Rapley, Ian, ‘A Language for Asia? Transnational Encounters in the Japanese Esperanto Movement, 1906-28’, 2016, 167 [↩]
  2. Boli, John and Thomas, George M., Constructing World Culture: International Non-Governmental Organisations since 1875, (1999), 148 [↩]
  3. Konishi, Sho, ‘Translingual World Order: Language Without Culture in Post-Russo-Japanese War Japan’, The Journal of Asian Studies, 72: 1 (2013), 92 [↩]
  4. Ibid, 99 [↩]
  5. Ibid, 94 [↩]
  6. Rapley, 2016, 169-171 [↩]
  7. Ibid, 173-175 [↩]
  8. Ibid, 177-178 [↩]
  9. Konishi, 2013, pp. 99-100 [↩]

Religion or Propaganda: The Red Swastika Society and the Conflict between Nationalism and Imperialism in Manchuria

The Red Swastika Society was founded in early twentieth century China as a philanthropic faith-based organization. However, with the encroaching Japanese militarism in Manchuria, the society was constantly drifting between being persecuted by the ruling authorities and being utilized by them for political purposes. So, to what extent did this organization actually partake in propagandistic politics? Although both Chinese nationalists and Japanese imperialists manipulated the Red Swastika Society to promote their ideals, the founding principles of the society, the persecution by the KMT, and the confusion of its classification under the Manchukuo regime all demonstrate the failure to successfully apply this organization as political propaganda.

In 1922, the Red Swastika Society was officially approved as a legitimate association with the goal of advancing social welfare and world peace. Its founding principles included ‘promoting moral virtue’ and ‘no involvement in partisan politics’.1 As a philanthropic group, the society desired a universal humanitarianism; they wanted to transcend national borders in the name of altruism. For instance, the Red Swastika Society held offices in Paris, London, and Tokyo—showcasing its international quality.2 Motivating certain ideologies would divide the organization from its original purpose. Therefore, at least in the beginning, the Red Swastika Society had little interest in politics.

Furthermore, the persecution of redemptive societies by both the KMT and the Japanese imperialists highlights their distrust of superstitious organizations—including the Red Swastika Society. Ultimately, this distrust hindered these authorities’ usage of the Red Swatika Society as propaganda. The Red Swastika Society is recognized as a redemptive society, which is a term for the religious organizations popularized in China during the early twentieth century. These religious organizations often followed local religions rather than the major groups like Buddhism and Christianity. For example, the Red Swastika Society combined Daoism and Buddhism practices.3 Along with its goal of transcending national boundaries, the superstitious character of the society marked it as a target of KMT’s persecution. The KMT focused on Chinese nationalism and modernity. So, the KMT was critical of superstitious religions, which conflicted with their idea of modernity; they were also threatened by the society’s challenge to nationalism. Therefore, the KMT banned redemptive societies in 1928.4 Although the Red Swastika Society was permitted to operate in the 1930s, this underlying distrust made it difficult for the two groups to work together. Thus, the Red Swastika Society was not completely politicized by the KMT.

While the Japanese imperialists had more success in transforming the Red Swastika Society into a propagandistic tool, they still faced difficulties due to their own troubles understanding how to treat the society. In 1932, Japan set up a puppet government (Manchukuo) in Manchuria. Unlike the KMT, the Manchukuo government sought to convert redemptive societies into jiaohua organizations by minimizing their religious qualities and emphasizing their welfare focus—rather than trying to simply eradicate the groups.5 This goal of transformation influenced the government’s classification of the Red Swastika Society, consequently causing it to be separated into three different categories. First acknowledging the society as a similar religion, the Japanese officials desired to restrict it for fear of encouraging political apathy.6 In this way, the society was treated as it was under the KMT rule. However, the Japanese realized that a manipulation of the society would benefit them. The second classification of the Red Swastika Society as a solely philanthropic entity, without religious connections, demonstrated the early changes to the society. By removing superstitious aspects of the society, the Manchukuo government could mold the society to promote their ideology. The third classification was as a moral suasion organization. With this classification, the society was overseen by the Union Society.7 The Union Society assisted the Manchukuo government in public security. Hence, the Red Swastika Society reinforced imperialist propaganda under the authority of the Union Society. These three different classifications of the Red Swastika Society exemplify how the Manchukuo government could not cohesively decide on a singular strategy for handling the society. This indecision weakened the society’s application as propaganda, for two of the three classifications understood it in non-political terms. Therefore, it was difficult to reconcile these conceptualizations and portray the society as motivating imperialism. Consequently, the Red Swastika Society did not interact with propagandistic politics to the extent in which it could have.

  1. Jiang Sun, ‘The Predicament of a Redemptive Religion: The Red Swastika Society Under the Rule of Manchukuo’, Journal of Modern Chinese History, 7: 1 (2013), p. 110. [↩]
  2. Prasenjit Duara, Sovereignty and Authenticity: Manchukuo and the East Asian Modern (Lanham, 2003), p. 105. [↩]
  3. Sun, ‘The Predicament of a Redemptive Religion’, p. 108. [↩]
  4. Duara, Sovereignty and Authenticity, p. 109. [↩]
  5. Ibid., p. 115. [↩]
  6. Sun, ‘The Predicament of a Redemptive Religion’, p. 117. [↩]
  7. Ibid., p. 122. [↩]