The Dark Valley on Japan

Admittedly, Japan's advance since the nominal restoration of power to the emperors in 1868—the beginning of the Meiji ("Enlightened Rule") era—had been one of the most astonishing achievements of modern times. Within the lifespan of Prince Saionji,,Japan had turned itself from a backward, isolated state into the greatest power in the Orient. It had defeated Russia, annexed Korea, Taiwan and other islands, and was casting avaricious glances towards China. Before 1853 any Japanese who built an ocean-going vessel was liable to the death penalty; by the 1920s Japan pos-sessed the third largest shipping industry and navy, and the largest fishing fleet, in the world. Other manufacturing enterprises had also sprung from nothing, such as textiles. When the ailing Lord Northcliffe visited Tokyo in 1921, he noticed that all the weaving machinery had been made in Britain and that "it takes at least three Japs to do the work of one Euro-pean."Within a decade the "rising giant of the East" was poised to over-take John Bull's massive production of cotton textiles and one Japanese did the work of ten Britons thanks to the Toyoda automatic loom—when Platt Bros of Oldham bought the right to manufacture it in England they had to be taught how to do so by Toyoda engineers. The Japanese them-selves were always willing to imitate and improve on Western technology. Their success also resulted from an ability to translate patriarchal fealty into commercial loyalty, something the big business combines (zaibatsu) exploited to keep their wages and prices low. Routed by the trade mark "Made in Japan," foreigners increasingly took refuge behind tariff barriers. When the global Depression led to even fiercer competition, the Japanese felt a strong temptation "to cast the samurai sword into the mercantile scales" that seemed so unfairly weighted against them:73 This aggressive proclivity was encouraged by further Japanese resent-ments towards the West. Like those other victors, France and Italy, Japan emerged from the First World War with the neuroses of a defeated nation. Denied its demands at Versailles, it was humiliated at the Washington Naval Conference in 1922. By the terms of the agreement Japan was allowed fewer warships than America and Britain, who, as a subsequent Prime Minister Baron Hiranuma said, discarded their old alliance "just as she would a worn-out sandal."74 Two years later the United States prohib-ited Japanese immigration, at a stroke turning gratitude for American aid after the earthquake into bitterness. Nippon declared a national day of mourning, and one man protested by committing suicide in front of the American embassy. Militarism, so unpopular after the war that (as in
France) soldiers preferred to wear mufti, revived. Liberal internationalists like Saionji found it increasingly difficult to maintain their predominance. Nationalist secret societies and blood brotherhoods proliferated, some of them engaging in political assassination. The outstanding proponent of the nationalist cause, Kita Ikki, declared that his country was entitled to seek equality with millionaire empires like Britain and huge landowners like Russia: "Japan with her scattered fringe of islands is one of the prole tariat, and she has the right to declare war on the big monopoly powers." Kita's radical rhetoric, which influenced men such as Prince Konoe, reinforced the traditional idea that it was Japan's manifest destiny to bring "the eight corners of the world under one roof " (hakko-ichiu). At its most mistily magnanimous this was the aspiration to achieve universal brotherhood. Japanese were taught to regard themselves as the chosen people, the uniquely virtuous Yamato, the children of the sun. As "a messianic nation" they were, to quote a Western observer, "charged with a divine mission to subjugate, pacify and civilize the world."77 Or as a Japa-nese professor explained, "Nippon's national flag is an ensign of 'red heart' or fiery sincerity. It alludes to the heavenly mission of Japan to tranquillize the whole world."78 So high-minded notions of fraternity were imperceptibly transformed into self-serving ones of hegemony. Patriotic devo-tion tended to become imperialistic fanaticism. Major-General Nonaka expressed his country's burgeoning ambitions graphically: "The ultimate conclusion of politics is the conquest of the world by one imperial power . . . The Japanese nation, in view of her glorious history and posi-tion, should brace herself to fill her destined role."The inspiration and the focus of the national cult was, of course, the emperor himself, who was worshipped as a living god. Actually Hirohito, ruling in his father's stead, expressed some doubts about his divine ancestry. But Saionji assured him that it was a useful myth. In particular, the belief that the 2,600-year-old dynasty had descended in direct line of succession from the sun goddess acted as a social cement for a people still torn by ancient clan rivalries. The imperial indoctrination began at school, where children bowed towards the Son of Heaven's picture and repeated that their dearest ambition was "To die for the Emperor." (One lot of pupils nearly did when, during a fire, their headmaster neglected them and injured himself in order to rescue the Emperor's photograph.) Hirohito, a small, delicate, sensitive young man, intelligent but lacking in self-confidence, had been brought up to pay an even stricter regard to duty. Though short-sighted, he had been for a time denied spectacles lest they cast doubt on his divinity. He was so governed by protocol that almost any impromptu action was rebuked; later he was not even permitted to travel in the same railway carriage as his own children because there was no precedent for it. From his youth Hirohito had been drilled in the samurai's chivalric code of bushido, itself largely a Meiji fabrication designed to provide (along with Shinto) a "new Japanese religion of loyalty and patriotism."" In this it was similar to the "invented tradition" of ritual with which the British monarchy attempted to secure the allegiance of the masses in a democratic age.82 And it is significant that Hirohito regarded his experi-ences at the court of Windsor, itself a monument to clotted formality, as a singular taste of freedom. During his European tour, which took place in 1921, he danced, hunted, wore plus-fours, ate bacon and eggs for breakfast (a custom he continued in Japan) and so enjoyed playing golf with the Prince of Wales that he built a nine-hole course in the grounds of the Imperial Palace. In France, Hirohito bought a bust of Napoleon, which he placed in his study. It was joined in the later 1920s by one of Darwin and after 1945 by one of Lincoln. Doubtless the last two sculptures reflected his interest in marine biology and his accommodation with the United States. But the bust of Napoleon was not the purchase of a man impatient for martial glory. Hirohito was horrified by the sight of Verdun. As one court official later remarked, he was not only a scientist and "an extremely liberal person," he was also "a pacifist."83 After his father's death (in 1926) Hirohito chose Showa, or "Radiant Peace," as the name for his new reign. Moreover, no one knew better than Hirohito that the emperor's powers, though theoretically as absolute as a theocracy could make them, were in practice negligible. In fact the only way to preserve his power was not to exercise it. As Saionji said, the emperor could not command the armed forces in case he was dis-obeyed, thus casting an "inexcusable blemish on sovereign authority."84 Nor was the emperor always even kept informed of what was done in his name. When the army, pursuing its aggressive designs against China, assassinated the Chinese warlord Chang Tso-lin (known as the Old Mar-shal) in 1928, the new Prime Minister, Baron Tanaka, told Hirohito that no Japanese officers were involved. Later Tanaka admitted the truth to the Emperor, who was so angry that he did not "care to listen to him again"—whereupon the premier resigned in tears.85 The fact was that Japan had always been a country of subtlety and circumspection, of Shoguns, mayors of the palace, rois faineants. Gekokujo, insubordination by which juniors were in some ways able to dictate to seniors, was a potent factor in Japanese life. Where sovereignty lay during the I92os (and afterwards) remained a mystery.