Junji Banno - Empire and Constitution in Modern Japan: Why Could War with China Not Be Prevented? (SOAS Studies in Modern and Contemporary Japan)

Empire and Constitution in Modern Japan

SOAS Studies in Modern and Contemporary Japan

Series Editor

Christopher Gerteis (SOAS, University of London, UK)

Editorial Board

Stephen Dodd (SOAS, University of London, UK)

Andrew Gerstle (SOAS, University of London, UK)

Janet Hunter (London School of Economics, UK)

Barak Kushner (University of Cambridge, UK)

Helen Macnaughtan (SOAS, University of London, UK)

Aaron W Moore (University of Edinburgh, UK)

Timon Screech (SOAS, University of London, UK)

Naoko Shimazu (NUS-Yale College, Singapore)

Published in association with the Japan Research Centre at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK.

SOAS Studies in Modern and Contemporary Japan features scholarly books on modern and contemporary Japan, showcasing new research monographs as well as translations of scholarship not previously available in English. Its goal is to ensure that current, high quality research on Japan, its history, politics and culture, is made available to an English speaking audience.

Published

Women and Democracy in Cold War Japan , Jan Bardsley

Christianity and Imperialism in Modern Japan , Emily Anderson

The China Problem in Postwar Japan , Robert Hoppens

Media, Propaganda and Politics in 20th Century Japan , The Asahi Shimbun Company (translated by Barak Kushner)

Contemporary Sino-Japanese Relations on Screen, Griseldis Kirsch

Debating Otaku in Contemporary Japan , edited by Patrick W. Galbraith, Thiam Huat Kam and Bjrn-Ole Kamm

Politics and Power in 20 th -Century Japan , Mikuriya Takashi and Nakamura Takafusa (translated by Timothy S. George)

Japanese Taiwan , edited by Andrew Morris

Japans Postwar Military and Civil Society, Tomoyuki Sasaki

The History of Japanese Psychology , Brian J. McVeigh

Postwar Emigration to South America from Japan and the Ryukyu Islands , Pedro Iacobelli

The Uses of Literature in Modern Japan , Sari Kawana

Post-Fascist Japan , Laura Hein

Mass Media, Consumerism and National Identity in Postwar Japan , Martyn David Smith

Japans Occupation of Java in the Second World War , Ethan Mark

Gathering for Tea in Modern Japan , Taka Oshikiri

Engineering Asia , Hiromi Mizuno, Aaron S. Moore and John DiMoia

Automobility and the City in Japan and Britain, c. 19551990 , Simon Gunn and Susan Townsend

The Origins of Modern Japanese Bureaucracy , Yuichiro Shimizu (translated by Amin Ghadimi)

Kenkoku University and the Experience of Pan-Asianism , Yuka Hiruma Kishida

Overcoming Empire in Post-Imperial East Asia , Barak Kushner and Sherzod Muminov

Imperial Japan and Defeat in the Second World War , Peter Wetzler

Gender, Culture, and Disaster in Post-3.11 Japan , Mire Koikari

Empire and Constitution in Modern Japan , Junji Banno (translated by Arthur Stockwin)

Professor Junji Banno, the author of this book, sadly passed away in October 2020, so that he will not see his book published in English. As his translator and long-term friend, I wish to pay tribute to one of the greatest historians of modern Japan.

Empire and Constitution in Modern Japan

Why Could War with China Not be Prevented?

Junji Banno
Translated by Arthur Stockwin

Contents

Japan was virtually a closed country during the Tokugawa Shogunate that lasted from the early seventeenth century until the so-called Meiji Restoration of 1868, whereby sovereignty was restored to the ancient line of emperors, thus replacing the military Shoguns that had displaced the emperors centuries before. Following the gradual opening of Japan to the outside world in the 1850s and 1860s, the country made spectacular progress towards the establishment of a modern state, capable of interacting with the major powers of Europe and North America on equal terms. This involved moving forward on a wide range of fronts, including the economy, law, education, politics and the development of modern armed forces.

The purpose of this book is to examine the inter-relationship between two crucial themes that guided the ambitions of various political and military leaders. These two themes I shall call Empire and Constitution. By Empire I mean the drive to create colonies, on the models pioneered by most of the major world powers of the time. By Constitution I mean the establishment of constitutional government, to provide stable regulation of the affairs of state. This was not the same thing as democracy, but it might contain elements of democracy. Whereas it has often been argued that the push for Empire and the push for Constitution were mutually opposed, I shall argue that the relationship between them was much more complex, at times involving symbiosis and at other times opposition, as well as mixtures of the two.

Beginning with Empire, Japan first began to make inroads into foreign countries in search of territory and special concessions in the Taiwan expedition of 1874. What it wished to obtain was the Rykys (present-day Okinawa), but the expedition targeted the Chinese territory of Taiwan. So far as Constitution is concerned, the first real step taken by Japan towards introducing constitutional government began with the Edict to Establish a Constitutional Regime proclaimed by the Meiji Emperor the following year, 1875. If the first was a move towards imperialism and the second a move towards constitutionalism, then in more than sixty years between then and the outbreak of the full-scale war between Japan and China in July 1937 both imperialism and constitutionalism made steady advances.

From a contemporary perspective, Empire (colonization) is widely deplored, whereas Constitution is regarded as attractive. But how should we best understand these two projects that seem so contradictory to us today things that the Japanese, pulling together, created in a very short space of time? In the last year of the Meiji era (1912), the shameful expression Constitution at home, empire abroad came into common usage. As this expression suggests, the view that this was an age where an expansionist policy abroad and constitutionalism at home did not contradict each other, was becoming widespread. But was this understanding really correct?

The present author has highlighted his personal expectation that with the advance of constitutionalism imperialism would decline. As this book will make clear, this expectation may be said to have been fulfilled. As a result of researching these two concepts over roughly a sixty-year period of Japanese modern history, it seems that while Constitution was progressing, Empire was being restrained.

Even so, though there were periods when Empire was retreating, it also went through phases where it was advancing. In essence this reminds us of the ceremony of beating the ground to chase the moles away, often seen in ancient times when someone was approaching an inn at a journeys final stage.

It is easy to say that when the forces of Constitution enter a pause, Empire gains in strength, but there were several instances where the exact opposite of this took place. Sometimes, when in the face of an adversarys military strength or popular opposition against Japan, Empire was compelled to hold its fire, and the forces of Constitution got their breath back.

More than seventy years have now elapsed since the end of the war, and during this period the Japanese have proclaimed their opposition to war. They have always had in mind our last great war, in other words the war against the United States between the end of 1941 and August 1945. But in the 67 years between 1874 and 1941, the targets of expanding military strength were always Korea and China, and with the sole exception of the Russo-Japanese war from 1904 to 1905, the adversary was always China.