Tag: imperialism

Inoue Tetsujirō: The Confucian Revival and Fascism in Japan

Beginning in 1868, the Meiji Restoration was a state-led effort to modernize Japan. As the Tokugawa government was abolished, the Confucian backbone of the state was viciously attacked. Religious persecution grew in the years of the Restoration as the new Meiji government sought the establishment of Shinto as Japan’s national religion, an idea influenced by the centrality of Christianity for European states.1 By the late 1880s, Confucian institutions (like schools) and religious practices nearly vanished from Japanese Society.2 The state viewed Confucianism as backward, “the antithesis of Western Modernity,” but this is exactly what led to its revival3

Inoue Tetsujirō (1855-1944) led the Confucian revival in the 1890s. Inoue was a professor at the Tokyo Imperial University and a political commentator in major public debates of the late Meiji Period. His experience studying in Europe for six years (1884-1890) was formative, taking inspiration from the strength of German nationalism through its centrality of Christianity.4  With a long anti-Christian tradition and the Meiji era’s emphasis on Shinto in ‘National Learning’, Christianity could not be replicated in Japan.5. Instead, Inoue would try to replicate Germany’s model by positioning Confucianism as central.

Although the revival of Confucianism was a traditionalist movement, the religion was transformed to fit the modern Japanese context. Tetsujirō would adapt Confucianism from a religion to a Philosophy; He argued Confucianism was an “ethical system” that would foster “National Morality”, while being “scientific” because it does not undermine the modern emphasis on secular education.6 Tetsujirō argues Confucianism’s secularity and rationalism (through the hierarchical structures of Confucianism akin to Western ideas like Social Darwinism) makes it superior to the West’s Christianity.7 This unique rebrand of the old religion builds on Western ideas, borrows traditional concepts, and espouses Japanese national exceptionalism, making it a ‘Japanese Confucianism’.

As critical discourse grew in response to the Meiji policy of Westernization (seen in the debates on Overcoming Modernity) traditionalists saw the Confucian Revival as a way to bridge the modern and the idealistic past. Although Confucian Academies never completely recovered from the pre-Meiji times, the state increasingly absorbed the philosophy. Inoue’s influence can be seen through his advisory role in the “official interpretation of the Imperial Rescript on Education” which adapted the 1890 order to teach Confucian values.8 Confucianism grew closer to the state over time and embedded itself as a core ideology, alongside Shinto. This is evident through through state rituals and ceremonies, common in the late 1920s, which were often Confucian or Shinto.9 As the state came to dominate Confucianism, it became susceptible to adoption into the fascist imperial doctrine of the 30s and 40s. The ‘Kingly Way’ became the ‘Imperial Way’

Insoue’s ideas became problematic during the ’15 Years War’ between the Manchuria Invasion and the end of WW2. The revival of Confucianism in Japan justified imperialism in China as defending East Asian values against the Communists (CCP) and Chinese Republicans (KMT) who saw it as the antithesis of their mission.10 The Japanese saw themselves as defending the East from the Western cultural and political hegemony. However in Korea, a nation that was centrally Confucian under the Choson state, their colonial subjects were forced to adopt Japanese last names after 1937, going against the Confucian core value of Filial Piety11. Although this attempt failed, it still demonstrates the contradiction of their imperial ideology – the failure for the Japanese to uphold and protect Eastern Confucian traditions and values.12

In the post-war years, Insoue’s ideas and Confucianism in general became taboo and associated with fascism. The author states the philosophy “was best forgotten”.13 However, it may be time to reconsider the legacy of Confucianism and fascism. Many pre-war figures, like those from the Kyoto School, were rethought and reconsidered in ‘modern’ contexts. A similar attempt should be made with Inoue Tetsujirō and Japanese Confucianism.

  1. (( Paramore, Kiri. “Confucianism as Facism (1868-1945).” Japanese Confucianism: A Cultural History. New Approaches to Asian History. Cambridge University Press; (2016): 148. [↩]
  2. ibid., p. 153 [↩]
  3.   ibid., pp. 147-8 [↩]
  4. Davis, Winston. “The Civil Theology of Inoue Tetsujirō.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 3, no. 1 (1976): 7. https://doi.org/10.2307/3023095. [↩]
  5. Paramore, Kiri. “Confucianism as Fascism (1868-1945).” Japanese Confucianism: A Cultural History. New Approaches to Asian History. Cambridge University Press; (2016): 155 [↩]
  6. ibid., 150 [↩]
  7. Davis, Winston. “The Civil Theology of Inoue Tetsujirō.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 3, no. 1 (1976):7. https://doi.org/10.2307/3023095. [↩]
  8. Paramore, Kiri. “Confucianism as Facism (1868-1945).” Japanese Confucianism: A Cultural History. New Approaches to Asian History. Cambridge University Press; 2016: 152 [↩]
  9. ibid., p. 156 [↩]
  10. ibid., p. 159 [↩]
  11. ibid., p. 164 [↩]
  12. ibid., p. 165 [↩]
  13. ibid., p. 166 [↩]

Imperial Internationalism in Japan: The Bahai Faith Meets the Concordia Movement

The Bahai faith originated in Iran in the mid-19th century led by its living prophet Baha’u’llah. His teachings called for the unification of the world’s religions, viewing all faiths as different manifestations of God.1 The eldest son of Baha’u’llah, Abdu’l-Baha, succeeded his father and led a campaign to spread the teachings of Bahai to the United States and Europe. Agnes Baldwin Alexander, a young American woman from Hawaii, would spread the religion in Japan in the 20th century. The faith’s humanist, internationalist doctrine fit neatly within the nation’s imperial ideology.

In London in 1912, Agnes B. Alexander wrote an account of the meeting between Abdu’l-Baha and Jinzo Naruse, President of Japan’s Women’s College. Naruse was a liberal educator who sought support for Japan’s Concordia Movement, an internationalist project intending to find “Common ground on which all nations could harmonize”.2 Abdu’l voiced his support for Naruse’s movement, positioning the Bahai cause as central to the peace and unity of the human race while stressing the need for a “Divine Power” to put these principles into practice. He signed Naruse’s autograph book with the following prayer:

“O God! The darkness of contention, strife and warfare between the religions, the nations and the people has beclouded the horizon of Reality and hidden the heaven of Truth. The world is in need of the light of Guidance. Therefore, O God, confer Thy favor, so that the Sun of Reality may illumine the East and the West” (December 30, 1912. Translated by Ahmad Sohrab)

Abdu’l’s prayer demonstrates the faith’s capacity to justify Japan’s imperial internationalism. The symbolic power of light for human purification, “The Sun of Reality”, is central to the Bahai teachings. Likewise, the Sun has great symbolic importance in the history of Japan. The Japanese imperial army’s adoption of the ‘Rising Sun Flag’ illustrates the nation’s mission to bring peace, unification, and modernity to Asia. This ideology would materialize in the ‘Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere,’ positioning the Japan as the protector Asia, uplifting the East (through political, social, and economic reforms) to make it competitive with the West.3  Similar to the imperial ideology, the Bahai faith is a humanist religion. Abdu’l-Baha shows his humanist values by denouncing the war and hatred that stems from national and religious differences. In ‘Bahai World Faith’ he argues the spread of Bahai to all nations will birth a unified “heavenly civilization” and saw the Japanese as possessing a unique capacity to enact it – unifying the East and West.4 Abdu’l-Baha’s successor, Shongi Effendi, gifted several Bahai books to Emperor Hirohito in 1928 with a message encouraging him to use the Bahai teaching as inspiration and to “arise for its worldwide recognition and triumph”5. The utopian vision of Japan leading world peace and unity aligns with Naruse’s Concordia Movement.

Historians like Mark Lincicome are critical of 20th-century Japanese liberal internationalists (like Naruse) for the paradoxical justification of imperialism on humanist, anti-war grounds. Lincicome shows how during the Taisho Democracy Era, educators advocated for Japan’s unique capacity in promoting world peace through the cultural, political, and economic assimilation (Doka) of weaker Asian nations.6 This internationalism adapted to become hyper nationalism after the Manchurian Invasion in 1931. The Concordia Association of Manchukuo, originally established to promote left-leaning ideas of Pan-Asianist racial equality (Pan-Asianism) and self-determination would become a totalitarian puppet regime after the Japanese Kwantung Army’s occupation of Manchuria.7 Like the Taisho educators, Naruse’s Concordia movement turned away from its liberal values through political pressure and liberal internationalism’s adaptability.

Both Naruse and Abdu’l-Baha viewed Japan as a unique, divine power to bring God’s purifying light for an international utopia. Combining Japanese exceptionalism with humanist logic explains Japan’s ability to justify “world war in the name of world peace”.8 Although Naruse and Abdu’l-Baha criticized war, nationalism, and militarism, it becomes clear how a nexus of universalist, cosmopolitan, and internationalist rhetoric in the Taisho Era would easily adapt and be consumed by the Showa Era’s Imperialist ideology, justifying a campaign for a Greater East Asia.

  1. Abdu’l-Baha, ‘Baha’i World Faith’ (1975), pp.254-257 [↩]
  2. Agnes B. Alexander “Abdu’l Baha meets President Naruse of Japan Women’s College.” Bahai Reference Library (1912) p. 113. [↩]
  3. Lawson, Konrad. ‘Reimagining the Postwar International Order: The World Federalism of Ozaki Yukio and Kagawa Toyohiko’ (2014):9 [↩]
  4.   Abdu’l-Baha, ‘Baha’i World Faith'(1975), pp.254-257 [↩]
  5. Barbara M. Sims, ‘Traces That Remain’ Bahai Publishing Trust of Japan (1989): 81 [↩]
  6. Mark Lincicome, “Imperial Subjects As Global Citizens: Nationalism, Internationalism and Education in Japan.” Lexington Books (2009) p. 40 [↩]
  7. Young L., “When Fascism met empire in Japanese-occupied Manchuria.” Journal of Global History 12, no.2 (2017) pp. 282-283 [↩]
  8. Mark Lincicome, “Imperial Subjects As Global Citizens: Nationalism, Internationalism and Education in Japan.” Lexington Books (2009):104 [↩]

The Buddhist-Imperialist Nexus: How Buddhist Doctrine Conformed to the Imperial Ambitions of Japan in the Early Twentieth Century.

In the early twentieth century, Japan sought to assert itself as a great power. Japanese victory in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 dismantled any notion of ‘white invincibility’, launching Japan into an imperialist odyssey whereby it attempted to become the hegemon of East Asia. Arguably, such hegemonic ambitions were achieved, for by 1942, according to Aaron Moore, Japan had secured one of the largest empires ever known in the history of the world[1]. Yet, the effects of Japan’s militaristic expansion were devastating, especially in China, whereby Japan’s territorial conquest resulted in some 14 million Chinese deaths[2]. Given such seismic consequences, how did Japan legitimise its imperialist expansion? Rana Mitter and Jeremy Yellen argue that Japanese imperialism was an attempt to rival the ‘west’: a quest to be considered equal to Great Britain and the United States[3]. Yet, such explanations overlook important cultural factors, most notably, the malleability of Buddhist doctrine in supporting Japan’s imperial ideology. As Brian Victoria notes, Zen Buddhism was viewed as the ideal doctrine for a modernizing Japan, and thus an explanation of Buddhist justifications for Japanese imperialism merits further exploration[4].

An interesting point of departure in our analysis is what Christopher Ives describes as the ‘accomodationism’ of Japanese Buddhism. For Ives, Buddhists in the 1930s interpreted concepts such as ‘on’, which is a debt of gratitude owed to those from whom one gets a favour, as representative of the categorical imperative of self-sacrifice central to a militaristic, imperialist regime[5]. Furthermore, citing a Buddhist journal called Chūō Bukkyō, Ives argues that Buddhist authors equated Japan’s imperial mission with the bodhisattva: the state of Buddhahood whereby one seeks to alleviate the suffering of others, not just oneself[6]. Evidently, Buddhist doctrine was used in myriad ways to justify the multitudinous aspects of Japan’s imperial regime and justified the pursuit of empire by framing it in terms of a virtuous and compassionate mission.

In addition, in Zen at War, Brian Victoria exposits the arguments made by the eminent scholar of Zen Buddhism Ichikawa Hakugen. Hakugen identified twelve Buddhist precepts that were receptive to imperialist interpretation, and thus, in turn, became the cornerstone of Buddhism’s collaboration with the militarist regime[7]. For example, the ideal imperial subject was conceived as being someone who sacrificed their individuality in order to become a servant to the state, intent on actualizing Japan’s modernizing and imperial mission[8]. This concept was supported by the Buddhist ideas of selflessness, but also the middle way doctrine[9].  For example, the middle way doctrine entailed the search for constant compromise, thereby avoiding confrontation, meaning that the imperial subject ideally accepted the prevailing social order in order to avoid conflict with others[10]. Moreover, the concept of karma, with its concomitant idea of retribution, justified inequalities in the social order, as good or bad fortune in this life was explained in terms of one’s conduct in a previous life[11]. Hence, the predicament of colonized subjects may merely be due to their bad conduct in previous lives, thus justifying their occupation. There were, of course, many other examples of Buddhist precepts that fostered imperialism. However, the crux of Hakugen’s argument is that this connection is deep rooted within the history of Buddhism, and thus the existence of a Buddhist-imperialist nexus in the early twentieth century is undeniable.

Hence, Japan’s pursuit of hegemony was not simply conceptualized in political terms, as Buddhism provided fertile ground upon which religious and moral justifications for empire could be made. Therefore, given that Japan’s imperial conquests are still a sore point in East Asia, particularly in China where anti-Japanese sentiments are rife, it seems surprising that the majority of Buddhist sects have failed to acknowledge their role in facilitating Japan’s military endeavours of the early twentieth century[12].  Yet, their role is evident, and should be uncovered if we are to truly understand this period of history.

[1] Aaron Moore, Writing War: Soldiers Record the Japanese Empire, (Cambridge, 2013), p.9.

[2] Rana Mitter, China’s War with Japan 1937-1945: The Struggle for Survival, (London, 2013), p.5.

[3] Ibid., pp.24-26. Jeremy Yellen, The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: When Total Empire met Total War, (Ithaca, 2019), p.3.

[4] Brian Victoria, Zen at War, (Oxford, 2006), p.58

[5] Christopher Ives, The Mobilization of Doctrine: Buddhist Contributions to Imperial Ideology in Modern Japan, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 26:1, (1999), p.101.

[6] Ibid., pp.89-90.

[7] Brian Victoria, Zen at War, (Oxford, 2006), p.171

[8] Ibid., p.172

[9] Ibid., pp.172-173

[10] Ibid., p.173

[11] Ibid., pp.171-172.

[12] Ibid., p.152.