JAPAN AND ASIA
When I completed the final section of my book "Japan: Real and
Imaginary," last year, and sent it to the publisher, I was not a little
worried lest the movement of events in the Far East proceed so rapidly
that the cart upon which I was riding slip from under me and leave me to
rejoin the earth as best I could. So fast did things run that I thought
surely there would be a revolution in Japan, or at least universal
manhood suffrage, and that without doubt Japan would withdraw from
Shantung. I am afraid I shall have to confess that the wish was father
to the thought. So far nothing has happened in that intricate island
empire seriously to affect any of the generalizations in that book. Nor
have any criticisms from my Japanese friends come forward so that I
might now be able to alter my position in any way.
However, enough has happened to make it necessary for me to extend and
enlarge upon some of the phases of the Japanese situation as they now
obtain. In my former book I handled Japan as an integer, avoiding
implications. Here I shall attempt to show how the Japanese phase of the
problem of the Pacific affects the three important elements round the
Pacific,--America, Australasia, and Asia. Under that head I shall have
to begin where I left off in "Japan: Real and Imaginary," with the
question of emperor-worship and its natural offspring, Pan-Asianism and
the so-called Monroe Doctrine of Asia; with the ingrowing phases of it,
democracy in Japan, and the Open Door without; with Japan's new
mandates and what she is doing with them; with the fortification of the
Bonin Islands and the Pescadores.
At the very outset, let me crystallize in one short paragraph the
essence of the whole situation. We have in Japan now a heterogeneous
nation whose ideals are essentially those of imperialism, the political
grip on the people being based on the worship of the emperor. The
outward consequence of this is that the entire nation is fairly united
upon the questions that affect the nation as a whole, such as
Pan-Asianism, the leadership of Asia. But if that were all, Japanese
rulers would have things pretty much their own way. This strange
consequence results, however,--that having been stimulated to feeling
that a Japanese is the most superior person on earth, the populace, in
this pride, is demanding greater recognition for themselves as
individuals. Hence that which the military and naval parties in Japan
win in their hold upon the people through increased pride of race, they
lose in the enhanced difficulty which comes from a restive population.
Added to which are the numerous alien elements that aggression has
inherited,--a rebellious Korea and Formosa, a boycotting China, and a
native element that sees itself being flaunted by world powers and
unable to obtain recognition of racial equality.
It is Japan's misfortune that she is still unable to live down her
reputation. With all her might she is trying to stand up to the world as
a man, and not as a pretty boy such as she has been regarded heretofore.
Hence, it is necessary, that after having paragraphed the make-up of
Japan, I do the same with the attitude of the world toward Japan.
Wherever I have gone I have been asked a certain type of question that
seems to me to hold the mirror up to Japan. The questions are generally
these: What business is it of ours, after all, what Japan does in Asia?
Isn't it only the conceit of the white man that makes him regard himself
as superior to the Japanese? Isn't it true that the Japanese haven't
any room for their surplus population? Or, the more knowing, those who
have read up on the subject--like the man who signed a contract with a
publisher to produce four boys' books at once, one of which was on
Shintoism in Japan--assume this attitude: "Let them adore their
emperors; it's a charming little peculiarity." There is still a third
group. It belongs to the adolescent class, to the age of boys who
threaten to lick other boys with their little finger, or "I'll fight you
with my right hand tied behind my back," and has been fed by the
romancers who portrayed everything Japanese as petite and charming. The
_Miles Gloriosus_, suffering from political second childhood, asserts:
"America could wipe the floor with Japan with one hand, just as she
could Ecuador." This statement was made by an Englishman with remarkably
wide international experience.
Now, until Japan lives down this reputation she will be forced to make
as big a showing of her might as is safe, and until then we shall
doubtless have ample reason for shouting for an increased navy and an
increased army. In other words, as long as we continue to publish the
impression that Japan need not be regarded seriously, so long will Japan
have to continue to convey the impression that she might become a
menace. To deny that Japan is a disconcerting problem is to stick one's
head in the sand. But Japan is no more of a menace to us than we are to
her. Japan is not simply going to walk across the Pacific and slap us in
the face. If any such catastrophe takes place over there, it will be a
conflict. "A conflict supposes a violent collision, a meeting of force
against force; the unpremeditated meeting of one or more persons in a
violent or hostile manner" with another, according to Crabb. On the
other hand, it is equally true that those who urge and stimulate war
talk with Japan are playing into the hands of special interests that are
too narrow in their thinking and too broad in their avarice, and make
war inevitable.
There is only one solution, and that is the presentation of facts. But
facts alone are sometimes worse than figures. They lie like a trooper.
Hence we are in the habit of saying: It is an honest fact. Facts are the
most irresponsible things in the world, and without the motives and the
spirit that underlie every circumstantial thing in life, they are the
source of all conflict and all sorrow. Therefore, let us consider the
questions that appear to be typical enough to clarify the situation, but
with the motives and spiritual factors included in the answer.
First of all, then, is it really any of our business what Japan does in
Asia? I shall have to split this question in two. The "our" side of the
matter will have to be answered in the succeeding chapter on America in
this Pacific Triangle. Here I shall handle it by inverting it. Is it any
of Japan's business what interest we take in Asia? This may sound like a
pugnacious question, but it is asked with all due respect to Japan. It
raises the question of the Open Door in China, of Pan-Asianism, of the
misnamed Monroe Doctrine of Asia. We have come to a new stage in the
history of the world. People with a developed sense of justice no longer
admit that a man may declare himself monarch of all he surveys without
consideration of the rights of the inhabitants of the "surveyed" areas.
When, during the war, everything was being done to placate Japan, a
certain "understanding" was reached between Secretary Lansing and
Viscount Ishii. While declaring for the Open Door it acknowledged the
precedence of propinquity over distance, of time, place, and
relationship. That is, it admitted that Japan was nearer the continent
of Asia geographically than was America. A very remarkable observation
it was. Certainly had that not been put in black and white,
"understanding" would never have been possible. But what was the result
of that "understanding"? Japan immediately translated it into a "Monroe
Doctrine of Asia." Here, then, was a fact. Japan most decidedly is
nearer Asia than are we. Ergo, Japan has the right to set herself up as
the god and little Father of China, to declare the Mikado Doctrine of
Asia. But is there any parallel whatsoever? Not only no parallel, but an
apparent contradiction in the use of the Monroe Doctrine from the
American angle; for that pronouncement involved non-interference in
European or foreign affairs. If we adhere strictly to the Monroe
Doctrine we have no right to set any limitations for Japan. Our concern
is only with the Americas. Even the amount of understanding involved in
the Ishii-Lansing agreement is in violation of our doctrine of
isolation. On the other hand, we virtually pledged ourselves to keep our
own hands off South America, Hence, the Monroe Doctrine, if applied to
Asia by Japan, would mean the denouncement of the Twenty-one Demands
made on China in 1915, the withdrawal of Japanese troops from Shantung
and Siberia, the return of independence to Korea,--and then the demand
on the part of Japan that all European powers abstain from further
extension of their influence on the continent of Asia. If ever a Monroe
Doctrine of Asia was really declared, it was in the principles of Hay in
his Open-Door policy. If Japan should set herself up as the guardian of
Asia in this wise, she would never raise the question of whether we have
any business in Asia or not. It would not be necessary. And Japan would
be able to enjoy the fruits of propinquity to her heart's content. Then
Japan would truly be the sponsor for a doctrine that could be called the
Mikado's Doctrine of Asia and its worth would recommend itself to the
respect and admiration of the world. But this, of course, is a dream,
and in the words of a worthy Japanese author who "deplored" in his book
"the gross diplomatic blunder which Japan made in 1915 in her dealings
with China" and the "atrocities perpetrated in the attempt to crush the
Korean uprising": "Manifestly, the dawn of the millennium is still far
away. We have to make the best of the world as it is."
Into these criticisms of Japan's foreign policies one could read the
usual white man's conceit,--asking that a yellow man make such
sacrifices as no white man has ever made. There is nothing further from
my mind. There is only a groping down into the depths of Japanese
practices to discover, if possible, a real basis for the justification
of her Pan-Asiatic pretensions.
To me, Oriental civilization is something to conjure with.
There is in the Far East more art and beauty than there is in America.
When Europe was so poor as to make the Grand Moguls laugh at the simple
presents which Englishmen brought them, to remark with scorn and truth
that nothing in Europe compared with the silks and gold and silver of
the East, the white man was humble. He wandered all over the world in
search of riches which were unknown to him except by hearsay. His
dominions never extended over such vast spaces as seemed mere
checker-boards to Oriental monarchs. But the white man had his ships,
his latent genius, and these he has developed to where his realms now so
far outstrip the realms of old as thought outstrips creation. With these
the white man has secured for himself a place in the world which the
brown and the yellow man now greatly envy. But the Asiatics have much to
look back upon and be proud of.
How much of this splendor is Japan's? A great deal! But not as much as
the splendor of China, nor as much as that of India. Japan is to the
East what England is to Europe. Japan is building up her ships and her
material arts to such an extent that she is destined to wield and does
now partly wield the same influence in Asia that England wields in
Europe. But is that to be her sole contribution? Is that to justify her
place as leader of Asia? Let us see.
In Europe to-day there is no crowned head who really rules. The monarch,
where he does exist, is the memorial symbol of the nation's past. But
the basis of rule is the people. The extent to which democracy exists in
fact is not for this chapter to discuss. The slogan of rulership is
democracy. Even China calls itself a republic. Round the Pacific alone
are three great republican or democratic countries--Australia, New
Zealand, America--whose people are reaching for greater and greater
independence in the working out of their own destinies.
But what have we in Japan? We have a monarchy with a "constitutional"
form of government. The monarch is said to have held his power from the
beginning of time. He is literally regarded as a descendant of the gods
who created Japan,--which was then the world entire. The myth of his
origin would not be very different from any other myth of the origins of
rulers, were it not for the recent developments in the history of Japan.
At the time of the restoration of the previous emperor to power, it was
decided by the rebellious daimyo that the long-neglected mikado, he who
for hundreds of years had had absolutely no say in the government of his
lands, should be restored to power. That is to say, because there was no
one daimyo who could himself take the leadership and become shogun, they
determined to rule with the tenno as nominal leader, but themselves as
the real rulers. Other than in the superstitious reverence of the
ignorant masses for the symbol of the tenno--whose person they had never
seen--that lowly illustrious one might just as well have been
non-existent for all the say he had in his country's affairs. So far,
the situation might not be different from that in England, but England's
Parliament is in the control of the Commons, while Japan's Diet--both
upper and lower houses--is at the mercy of the cabinet, which, though
ostensibly responsible to the emperor, is actually in the control of the
genro and the military and naval clans. The worship of the emperor, on
the other hand, is made part of the political function, the better to
cow the masses into reverential obedience to the wishes of the actual
rulers.
The basis for this theocratical grip on the people is Shintoism. With
the Restoration in 1868, Shintoism, that ancestor-worshiping cult, was
revived as the spiritual core of the new empire; Buddhism was sent
packing, and all the cunning of pseudo-historians was resorted to to
bolster up this effete and primitive national ideal.
"Let them worship their old emperor," say some, largely those with a
love of pageantry in their unconscious. And no one could raise an
argument against this if that was where it ended. If it merely meant the
binding together in a communal nationalism the thought and devotion of
the people, it would be a desirable performance. But the natural result
of an artificially stimulated nationalism based on a myth and a
deception is that it becomes proselytic in its tendencies. It is not
satisfied with its native influence, but begins to reach out. In other
words, it takes upon itself the duty of making the entire world one,
just as religion and democracy seek to convert the world. And Shintoism
is a short step to Pan-Asianism. Pan-Asianism is the logical consequence
of Shintoism.
What is Shintoism? In this connection, none is more authoritative than
Basil Hall Chamberlain, Emeritus Professor of Japanese and Philology at
the Imperial University of Tokyo, and author of numerous scientific
works on Japan. In "The Invention of a New Religion" he says (page 6):
Agnostic Japan is teaching us at this very hour how religions are
sometimes manufactured for a special end--to observe practical
worldly purposes.
Mikado-worship and Japan-worship--for that is the new Japanese
religion--is, of course, no spontaneously generated phenomenon.
Every manufacture presupposes a material out of which it is made,
every present a past on which it rests. But the twentieth-century
Japanese religion of loyalty and patriotism is quite new, for in it
pre-existing ideas have been sifted, altered, freshly compounded,
turned to new uses, and have found a new center of gravity....
Shinto, a primitive nature cult, which had fallen into discredit,
was taken out of its cupboard and dusted.
Thus Shintoism, a cult without any code of morals, in which nature was
worshiped in primitive fashion, was made the basis of the national
ideal. There is nothing in Shintoism that might with the greatest
possible stretch of imagination become the ideal of any other nation in
the world. However much Japan might assume the economic leadership of
Asia, it would never be because she could obtain a following for her
Shinotistic ideals. "Democracy" has become a rallying cry even to the
Japanese, but there is nothing in Shintoism that might counteract that
appeal.
[Illustration: JAPAN'S FIRST REACTION TO FOREIGN INFLUENCE]
[Illustration: SECOND STAGE IN WESTERNIZATION
Some of my students leaving Kobe for a cross-country hike]
[Illustration: THIRD STAGE IN WESTERNIZATION
This is not England, but Shioya, Japan]
[Illustration: FOURTH STAGE IN WESTERNIZATION
This is not Manchester, but Osaka, Japan]
"What about Bushido?" Japanese will ask. Regarding this, it is also well
to read what Professor Chamberlain has to say:
As to Bushido, so modern a thing is it that neither Kaempfer,
Siebold, Satow, nor Rein--all men knowing their Japan by
heart--ever once allude to it in their voluminous writings. The
cause of their silence is not far to seek: Bushido was unknown
until a decade or two ago! _The very word appears in no dictionary,
native or foreign, before the year 1900._ Chivalrous individuals of
course existed in Japan, as in all countries at every period; but
Bushido as an institution or a code of rules, has never existed.
The accounts given of it have been fabricated out of whole cloth,
chiefly for foreign consumption. An analysis of medieval Japanese
history shows that the great feudal houses, so far from displaying
an excessive idealism in the matter of fealty to one emperor, one
lord, or one party, had evolved the eminently practical plan of
letting different members take different sides, so that the family
as a whole might come out as winner in any event, and thus avoid
the confiscation of its lands. Cases, no doubt, occurred of
devotion to losing causes--for example, to Mikados in disgrace; but
they were less common than in the more romantic West.
And when it is further taken into consideration that Bushido, or the
so-called code of the samurai, was the ideal of a special class, a class
that held itself aloof from contact with the _heimin_, or common people,
whom it at at all times treated with contempt, and cut down even for no
other reason than that of trying the edge of a new sword, one sees how
utterly unacceptable it would be to peoples of other races and nations
asked to come to the support of its standards. And according to one
Japanese spokesman in America, only by methods that "had the appearance
of browbeating her to submission by brandishing the sword" was China
brought to accept the infamous Twenty-one Demands.
I search my memory and experience earnestly trying to find a basis for
Japan's leadership in Asia that is not materialistic, and I cannot find
any. Energy and intellectual capacity Japan has. Her present leadership
in practical affairs is a great credit to her. In time, when greater
leisure will become the possession of her teeming millions, there is
doubtless going to appear much more that is fine and valuable in the
fabric of the race. For Japan has fire. Her people are an excitable,
flaming people who may burst out in a spasmodic revulsion against their
commercialization. But for the time being, her only right to a voice in
the destinies of Asia is found in her industrial leadership of the East,
but that is a leadership which is fraught with more menace to Japan than
to the world.
Let us review hastily the results of this preëminence. From being one of
the most admired nations in the world, Japan has suddenly become the
object of almost universal suspicion. To a very great extent, commercial
jealousy is playing its part in this change. But that is not all, by any
means. There is as much enmity between British and American traders in
the Far East as there is between Japanese and American, or any other two
groups of nationals.
But the animosity toward Japan is deeper than that of mere trade. It
lies at the bottom of much of the seeming equivocation of Japan's best
foreign friends. I was talking recently to one of the leading members of
the Japan Society in New York, and said of myself that I deplored being
regarded as anti-Japanese in some quarters, because I was not. "But,"
spoke up this Japanophile, "the majority of the members of the Japan
Society are anti-Japanese, or pro-Chinese, if you will." They are trying
their best to defend Japan, it would seem, and to cement bad relations
with good, but the result is that the ground of many sympathizers of
Japan is constantly shifting, though perhaps unconsciously. It is due, I
presume, to the disappointment of people in that, having regarded Japan
as worthy of their sympathy and adoration, they are now finding that all
is not as well as it might be.
Then there is that peculiar twist to Japanese psychology that somewhat
unnerves the Westerner. This is not a language difficulty, though it is
best illustrated by a linguistic example. A Canadian in Kobe told me
that he felt a strange shifting in his own mentality as a result of the
study of Japanese, something queer entered his thinking processes. This
is of course absurd as a concrete argument, but it indicates that which
I am striving to uncover in the Japanese mind and method which works
upon the Western mind, and puzzles and perplexes the white man in his
relations with the Japanese. And in the wider fields of Japanese life,
it makes us tighten our muscles when we survey and weigh the expressions
of the best Japanese minds, expressions by which they hope, earnestly no
doubt, to better our relations with them.
Take, for instance, the growth of democracy. As I have said, when I left
Japan it was with a sense of revolution impending. Agitation had got so
far out of bonds that it seemed nothing but complete collapse of the
Government could follow. The agitation has gone on, violent expressions
are often used, democracy is hailed and Japanese "propagandists" abroad
assert with a boldness that is inexplicable their faith in democracy and
their hatred of militarism and bureaucracy. But democracy in Japan is
virtually non-existent. Japan is to-day no nearer liberalism than Russia
was in 1905. One dreads to make parallels, when one thinks how it was
that Russia got rid of her czars, that the dreadful war in Europe alone
made it possible for a change in the Russian Government. Is it going to
take such a war to accomplish this in Japan? Some of the most ardent
Japanese in America boldly answer, "Yes."
Again, China! Many Japanophiles will say that our love of China is based
on our trade with her, and her own weakness to resist it, while at the
same time pointing to our enormous trade with Japan as proof of
friendship. That is false. True, that, compared with Japan, China is no
"menace" to America. But though China is the root of our problem, there
is something in the nature of the true Oriental that makes him charming,
jovial, childlike and lovable. Japan is, of course, not truly Oriental.
Japan is essentially Malay, mixed with some Oriental and a little
Caucasian. But in the two and a half years of my residence in Japan I
did not once come across a white person who had that same unexplainable
admiration for the native that is the outstanding characteristic of
white men in China. Be that as it may--and that is, after all, a
personal matter--that which enters into the Sino-Japanese problem is the
attitude of the Japanese to the Chinese. None was so ready to exalt the
Japanese as were the foreigners after the Boxer uprising in 1900. Then
the Japanese were hailed for their helpfulness and their dexterity. But
the manner of Japanese in China to-day goes against the grain of people.
They ask themselves constantly: For nearly seven years Japan has
promised faithfully to withdraw from Shantung, and her promises are as
earnestly being expressed to-day. Is it, then, so hard to remove troops?
Not so hard to move them in, it seems.
Those of us who listen to Japanese promises are from Missouri. Japan in
conjunction with the Allies sent troops to Siberia to "protect"
Vladivostok. Each of the Allies were supposed to send seven thousand
troops. Japan sent close to one hundred thousand. She has earnestly
promised to withdraw them ever since. Why are they not withdrawn?
Then comes the hardest thing of all to reconcile with her
promises,--Japan's actions in Korea. It is easy to sentimentalize over
the fate of nations. Korea's independence is a slogan that doesn't mean
much, though Korea claims four thousand years of civilized existence. An
independent Korea doesn't offer very great promise, even if one is
constrained to sympathize with her aspiration for independence. Korea
might just as well be an integer of the Japanese Empire. She had ample
time in which to expel foreign intriguers and denounce her own grafters,
for the sake of independence, years ago. But what has that to do with
Japanese atrocities in Korea? What has that to do with the action of
Japanese merchants who, according to Japan's own envoy to Korea, Count
Inouye, acted worse than conquerors. Count Inouye said:
All the Japanese are overbearing and rude in their dealings with
the Koreans.... The Japanese are not only overbearing but violent
in their attitude towards the Koreans. When there is the slightest
misunderstanding, they do not hesitate to employ their fists.
Indeed, it is not uncommon for them to pitch Koreans into the
river, or to cut them down with swords. If merchants commit these
acts of violence, the conduct of those who are not merchants may
well be imagined. They say: "We have made you an independent
nation, we have saved you from the Tonghaks, whoever dares to
reject our advice or oppose our actions is an ungrateful traitor."
Even military coolies use language like that towards the
Koreans.[1]
[1] In _Nichi, Nichi Shimnun_, quoted by Professor Longford in
_The Story of Korea_, pp. 137-338.
The atrocities in Korea committed by the Japanese in the uprising of
1919 would parallel the most exaggerated reports of what happened to
Belgium. Yet America's treaty with the Kingdom of Korea, ignored when
Japan annexed the empire in 1910, has never been abrogated. Where is
Bushido in Japan, that it does not rise in indignation at these
atrocities? It has done so, but so faintly that it might just as well
have saved itself the effort. Apology after apology, but atrocity
following each apology with the same inexorable ruthlessness of fate.
Likewise, the massacres in Nikolajevks, and Chien-tao are still
unanswered. They require a public apology of some sort.
If I am charged with deliberately selecting things derogatory to Japan,
I can only say that nothing, in my mind, that Japan may have done for
the good of Korea and of the world, none of the virtues which Japan
possesses can ever counterbalance these crimes. Yet intelligent Japanese
write:
Fortunately, a change of heart has come to the Mikado's Government
... there will be established ... a School Council to discuss
matters relating to education. [No mention is made of the
up-rooting of the native language.] The step may be slow, but the
goal is sure. Korea's union with Japan was consummated after the
bitter experience of two sanguinary wars and _the mature
deliberation of the best minds of the two peoples_.
The italics are mine. Who were these minds? No mention is made of the
assassination of the Korean Queen by Japanese, later "exonerated." In
other words, now that the lion has eaten the lamb he is going to tell
the lamb the best way in which he can be digested, for they are
"discussing matters" to their mutual advantage.
One is inclined to become bitter in the rehearsal of such facts, the
feeling being induced by the evasive apologies of rhetoricians. But
these outstanding facts must be faced if any true judgment can be formed
of Japan's position in the Far East: If it is her aim merely to dominate
in Asia, then Japan has set out to do it masterfully. But if the
leadership of the yellow race is her aim, if Pan-Asianism means the
uplifting of all Oriental races now under the heel of the white race,
then Japan has chosen the most unfortunate line of action. She is
running an obstacle race in which the silken garments of Bushido are
likely to suffer considerable wear and tear. Credit Japan deserves for
her administrative ability. Certain it is that no country in the Orient
to-day has the same capacity to rule that Japan has. In international
affairs, Japan has proved herself a match for the shrewdest diplomats of
the Western world. It is not to be marveled at that the yellow races
should be willing to yield her her position and her prestige. Thousands
of Chinese who could not afford a Western education are now being
educated in the universities of Japan; many Indians are doing likewise.
In the simple matter of road-building, Japan has done what few Oriental
countries seem to have the capacity to do. It is natural that the Orient
should look to Japan for leadership in government and industry, in
direction and help. But is Japan giving it?
The experiences of Tagore in Japan are not reassuring. He turned from
Japan as from a gross imitator of the West from which he had escaped. He
expressed keen disappointment at what he saw in modern Japan. In the
"New York Times," recently, there was an article by a Chinese called
"The Uncivilized United States," the thesis of the writer being that the
Americans lacked the gentlemanliness of the English. The Chinese was
obviously a great admirer of the Japanese and repeated over and over
again that the Tokugawas were great rulers because they advocated the
rule by "tenderness of heart"; but he, too, despaired of the modern
Japan, of its great industries and little heart.
That, of course, has been the oft-repeated criticism of America from
older countries, and need not discourage Japan. But Japan is making that
greater error of believing that a world which has won civil liberty and
enlightenment after so many centuries of strife, has builded for the
masses at least a semblance of economic freedom and democracy, is going
to yield all this blithely to an antiquated ideal of Oriental
imperialism that has not even the virtues of Oriental mysticism to
recommend it.