Imperial Japan and National Identities in Asia, 1895-1945

384 Pages·2003·4.256 MB·English

by  Li Narangoa, Robert Cribb

IMPERIAL JAPAN AND NATIONAL
IDENTITIES IN ASIA, 1895–1945
Nationalism was a powerful force in Asia during the era of Japanese imperial expansion
(1895–1945). Asia’s peoples sought freedom from the Western and Chinese empires
which dominated the continent, while challenging each other over borders and systems
of government.
From the earliest Japanese intrusions on the mainland in 1895 until final defeat in
1945, Japanese authorities had to grapple with the national identities of the people they
sought to dominate. This book traces Japan’s impact on these national identities, from
its clumsy intervention in Siberia, through its ambitious attempts to create the new
state of Manchukuo on the Asian mainland and to reshape the politics of the Chinese
and Mongols, to its brief but dramatic foray into Southeast Asia. The book compares
the perspective of societies such as India and Tibet, which observed Japan from a
distance, with the experience of societies which experienced Japanese intervention at
close hand.
The authors highlight the contradictions in Japanese policy, which sometimes
encouraged other Asian nationalist movements, sometimes suppressed or undermined
them, and sometimes sought to create new identities out of little more than romantic
imagination. This book provides a valuable resource for students of East Asia.
LI NARANGOA is a Senior Lecturer in Asian Studies at the Australian National University.
ROBERT CRIBB is a Senior Fellow at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies,
Australian National University.
NORDIC INSTITUTE OF ASIAN STUDIES
NIAS Studies in Asian Topics
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18. Asian Perceptions of Nature
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19. Imperial Policy and Southeast Asian Nationalism
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20. The Village Concept in the Transformation of Rural Southeast Asia
Mason C. Hoadley and Christer Gunnarsson (eds)
21. Identity in Asian Literature
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22. Mongolia in Transition
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23. Asian Forms of the Nation
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24. The Eternal Storyteller
Vibeke Børdahl (ed.)
25. Japanese Influences and Presences in Asia
Marie Söderberg and Ian Reader (eds)
26. Muslim Diversity
Leif Manger (ed.)
27. Women and Households in Indonesia
Juliette Koning, Marleen Nolten, Janet Rodenburg and Ratna Saptari (eds)
28. The House in Southeast Asia
Stephen Sparkes and Signe Howell (eds)
29. Rethinking Development in East Asia
Pietro P. Masina (ed.)
30. Coming of Age in South and Southeast Asia
Lenore Manderson and Pranee Liamputtong (eds)
31. Imperial Japan and National Identities in Asia, 1895–1945
Li Narangoa and Robert Cribb (eds)
IMPERIAL JAPAN
AND
NATIONAL IDENTITIES
IN ASIA, 1895–1945
Edited by
Li Narangoa and Robert Cribb
Nordic Institute of Asian Studies
Studies in Asian Topics, No. 31
First published in 2003
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Typeset in Minion by NIAS Press
Volume as a whole © Nordic Institute of Asian Studies 2003;
individual chapters © the contributors; all maps © Robert Cribb
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Imperial Japan and national identities in Asia, 1895-1945.
- (NIAS studies in Asian topics ; 31)
1.Ethnic groups - Asia 2. Nationalism - Asia 3.Japan - Colonies
4.Japan - Ethnic relations 5. Asia - Ethnic relations
I.Narangoa, Li II.Cribb, Robert III. Nordic Institute of Asian Studies
305.8’00952
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Narangoa, Li.
Imperial Japan and national identities in Asia, 1895-1945 / Li Narangoa and
Robert Cribb
p. cm. – (Nordic Institute of Asian Studies monograph series ; 31)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1.Japan–History–1868- 2. Nationalism–Japan 3.Japan–Relations–Asia
4. Asia–Relations–Japan. I.Cribb, R.B. II. Title. III. Series
DS881.9.N36 2003
303.48’25205’09041–dc21 2002044530
ISBN 0-7007-1482-0
Contents
Preface … vii
List of Contributors … viii
Note on Romanization … x
Introduction: Japan and the Transformation of National Identities in Asia in the
Imperial Era … 1
Li Narangoa and Robert Cribb
1 The Icon of Japan in Nationalist Revolutionary Discourse in India, 1890–
1910 … 23
Victor A. van Bijlert
2 Japanese Strategic and Political Involvement in Siberia and the Russian Far East,
1917–1922 … 43
Eva-Maria Stolberg
3 Japanese Expansion and Tibetan Independence … 69
Paul Hyer
4 Mongol Nationalism and Japan … 90
Nakami Tatsuo
5 The Japanese ‘Civilization Critics’ and the National Identity of Their Asian
Neighbours, 1918–1932: The Case of Yoshino Sakuzô … 107
Dick Stegewerns
6 Assimilation Rejected: The Tong’a ilbo’s Challenge to Japan’s Colonial Policy in
Korea … 129
Mark E. Caprio
7 Evil Empire? Competing Constructions of Japanese Imperialism in Manchuria,
1928–1937 … 146
Rana Mitter
v
Imperial Japan and National Identities in Asia, 1895–1945
8 The Japanese Threat and Stalin’s Policies towards Outer Mongolia
(1932–1939) … 169
Tsedendambyn Batbayar
9 The Problem of Identity and the Japanese Engagement in North China … 199
Marjorie Dryburgh
10 Vietnamese Nationalist Revolutionaries and the Japanese Occupation: The Case
of the Dai Viet Parties (1936–1946) … 221
François Guillemot
11 Accord and Discord: Japanese Cultural Policy and Philippine National Identity
during the Japanese Occupation (1942–1945) … 249
Ricardo T. Jose
12 Japanization in Indonesia Re-Examined: The Problem of Self-Sufficiency in
Clothing … 270
Shigeru Satô
13 The Transformation of Taiwanese Attitudes toward Japan in the Post-colonial
Period … 296
Huang Chih-huei
Afterword: Japanese Imperialism and the Politics of Loyalty … 315
Li Narangoa and Robert Cribb
Appendix: Postage Stamps and Japanese Imperialism … 319
Li Narangoa and Robert Cribb
Selected Bibliography … 329
Index … 345
LIST OF MAPS
1 Eastern Asia, 1939 … xi
2 Far Eastern Republic, 1920–1922 … 44
3 Northeast Asia, 1920 … 106
4 The Mongolian borderlands … 170
5 North China … 200
6 Indochina and Thailand … 220
7 Southeast Asia, 1943 … 250
vi
Preface
T his volume has its origins in a workshop on the topic ‘Imperial Japan

and the identities of its Asian neighbours’ held in Copenhagen in
June 1999. Although the era of Japanese military expansion in Asia
has been intensively studied, the complex relationship between the
Japanese and the peoples they encountered in Asia still demands attention. There
is still much to learn about the ways in which Japanese and other Asians imagined
and tried to shape national identities – their own and those of other peoples –
during the first half of the twentieth century. The workshop was organized by Li
Narangoa (Nordic Institute of Asian Studies) and Christian Hermansen Morimoto
(University of Copenhagen), with the help of other staff from both institutions.
NIAS, the University of Copenhagen and the Toshiba International Foundation,
Tokyo, kindly provided the generous financial assistance which made it possible
to bring participants from four continents to take part in the discussions.
Turning the conference proceedings into a book has been time-consuming.
It was not possible to include in this volume all the papers presented at the con-
ference, while other chapters were specifically commissioned to ensure a balanced
coverage. We would like to thank first the participants in the workshop for their
stimulating contributions which led us to have confidence in the first place in
the idea of producing a book. We would also like to thank the contributors to the
volume for their patience and cooperation in responding to our many questions
and suggestions, and to acknowledge the valuable contribution of two anonymous
referees.
As always, it has been a pleasure to work with the editorial staff at NIAS.
Li Narangoa and Robert Cribb
Canberra
vii
Notes on Contributors
TSEDENDAMBYN BATBAYAR is Director, Policy Planning Section, Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, Mongolia. He is author of Modern Mongolia (Ulaanbaatar, 1996)
and contributed an essay to Mongolia in the Twentieth Century: Landlocked
Cosmopolitan (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1999).
VICTOR A. VAN BIJLERT received his Ph.D. from Leiden University with a thesis
entitled ‘The Buddha as a means of valid cognition’. He is currently researching
the impact of Western colonialism on the development of Indian modernity.
He lives and works in Calcutta.
MARK E. CAPRIO is a member of the Faculty of Law and Politics at Rikkyo
University in Tokyo, Japan. He recently completed his dissertation on the Japanese
assimilation policy in Korea, ‘Koreans into Japanese: Japan’s Assimilation Policy’,
at the University of Washington.
ROBERT CRIBB is a senior fellow in Southeast Asian history at the Australian
National University. His research interests focus on Indonesia and include issues
of political violence and environmental politics in the twentieth century. He
recently published a Historical Atlas of Indonesia (Richmond: Curzon, 2000).
MARJORIE DRYBURGH is Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Sheffield,
UK. She is the author of North China and Japanese Expansion, 1933–1937: Regional
Power and the National Interest (Richmond: Curzon, 2000)
FRANÇOIS GUILLEMOT is a Ph.D. candidate at the Ecôle Pratique des Hautes Etûdes,
Sorbonne University, Paris, and is completing his dissertation on the nationalist
and anti-communist movements in Vietnam in the late colonial period. He is
author of Réflexions sur l’existence du nationalisme vietnamien: le cas du Dai Viêt
(1940–1955) (Paris: EPHE, mémoire de DEA, 1998).
viii
Notes on Contributors
HUANG CHIH-HUEI is an assistant researcher at the Institute of Ethnology,
Academia Sinica, Taiwan. Her papers have appeared in publications such as the
Japanese Journal of Ethnology. She is currently conducting research of the Japanese
colonial legacy in Taiwan, and the ethnological connection between Okinawa and
Taiwan.
PAUL HYER received the Ph.D. degree from the University of California, Berkeley,
in 1960 and is professor of modern Chinese history at Brigham Young University.
His research has focused on the Chinese frontier or borderlands of Mongolia
and Tibet. He has pursued research and field study in Tibet and in both Inner
and Outer Mongolia.
RICARDO JOSE teaches in the Department of History, University of the Philippines.
He received his Ph.D. from Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. His published
works include The Philippine Army, 1935-1942 (1992) and The Japanese Occupation
of the Philippines: A Pictorial History (with Lydia N. Yu-Jose) (1996).
RANA MITTER is university lecturer in the History and Politics of Modern China
at Oxford University, and a fellow of St Cross College. He is the author of The
Manchurian Myth: Nationalism, Resistance and Collaboration in Modern China
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000).
NAKAMI TATSUO is professor at the Institute for the Study of the Languages and
Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. He has edited
the Catalogue of the Mongolian manuscripts and xylographs in the St. Petersburg
State University Library (Tokyo: Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, 1999).
LI NARANGOA is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Asian Studies, Australian
National University. She is author of Japanische Religionspolitik in der Mongolei
1932–1945: Reformbestrebungen und Dialog zwischen japanischem und mongol-
ischem Buddhismus (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1998).
SHIGERU SATÔ teaches Japanese language and Asian history at the University of
Newcastle, Australia. He has published War, Nationalism and Peasants: Java
under Japanese Occupation, 1942–1945 (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1994).
DICK STEGEWERNS is lecturer in modern Japanese history at Osaka Sangyo Uni-
versity. He is the editor of Nationalism and Internationalism in Imperial Japan:
Autonomy, Asian Brotherhood, or World Citizenship? (London: RoutledgeCurzon,
ix