As 2018 begins and Japan prepares for the final year on the throne of the soon-to-abdicate Emperor Akihito, the memory of the Meiji Restoration remains complex. This paper was originally submitted as a term paper at the University of Alberta on April 16, 2018. Fanning anti-Japanese sentiment serves a strategic advantage in the party’s promotion of nationalism, particularly when the CCP presents itself as a hero in defending the Chinese nation against Japan in bilateral disputes. This is exactly how Steger describes it on page 60, “the modern nation-state system has rested on psychological foundations and cultural assumptions that convey a sense of existential security and historical continuity, while at the same time demanding from its citizens that they put their national loyalties to the ultimate test.”, Steger also mentions that this is, “Nurtured by demonizing images of the Other, people’s belief in the superiority of their own nation has supplied the mental energy required for large-scale warfare,” (pg.60). Given the strength of lingering resentment, the government need only exert relatively limited effort for substantial patriotic fervor. Now wouldn’t it be great if the world were that simple… but it’s not. Japanese Studies: Vol. From Godzilla (1954) to Shin Godzilla, the complex subject of Japan’s postwar identity and its relations with the U.S. and the world have periodically arisen in kaiju eiga. A new constitution, written under American guidance and, as yet, never amended, continues to serve as the guiding national document. It is easy to shake a finger at Japan for their actions leading up to and during World War II. (Unpublished) This is the latest version of this item. They aimed to achieve this goal through state-led encouragement of a national, collective effort. This is essentially the golden age of Japan. ( Log Out /  Japan’s attempts at modernization was not enough to get a fair shake from the U.S. who still didn’t seem to take the Japanese seriously. According to the CIA website, the GINI Index measures the degree of inequality of income distributed between families of any given family, thus the lower the GINI coefficient, the closer to income equality that country is. March 2, 2018 January 19, 2018 by 71 Republic. 38, No. Hence in 1871, the Japanese government sent out its greatest scholars to explore Europe and the U.S. with the Iwakura Mission and bring back what they learned so that Japan could use it to modernize. Unlike leaders of the French or American — or the later Russian or Chinese — revolutions, the men behind the Meiji Restoration are not remembered for establishing new ideological strains of democracy or socialism. They only really had a relationship with the Dutch and the Portuguese. Nationalism is the new black. Japan needs its nationalism, but the focus needs to be away from the past military/warrior history and rather on its cultural, technological and creative strengths. Here are pictures of me at the Yasukuni Shrine: The Yasukuni Shrine was frequently brought up in my classes while abroad, and so I have personally witnessed how many feathers can get ruffled by simply mentioning this shrine to Chinese and Korean students. The Boxer Rebellion in Editorial Cartoons . The central government plans to hold official sesquicentennial commemorations in September, but there is little chance of a unifying celebration with nationwide fireworks and widely shared discussions. When combined with the notion of national rebirth, ultranationalism is a key foundation of fascism. Hashimoto Akiko, Nationalism, Pacifism, and Reconciliation: Three Paths Forward for Japan‘s “History Problem” Mark Mullins, Neonationalism, Religion, and Patriotic Education in Post-disaster Japan. ( Log Out /  February 12, 2018 February 12, 2018 globalizationasia Leave a Comment on Post #3: Japan and Nationalism. The treatment of Vietnamese civilians during the Vietnam War has been a common example of American outcry against the actions of our military. Nation Strategy: Cultural and Brand nationalism in Japan. Japan also has learned from its past and sees danger in nationalism as well. They also eliminated the samurai class, who had served as the administrators of the domain governments, and instead developed an extensive central bureaucracy that acted in the name of Meiji, whose portrait was placed in schools. The Edo Period begins after several hundred years of several different Japanese provincial samurai clans fighting each other for dominance. In Zakaria’s, “The Rise of the Rest” he points out that the victors are essentially the ones who write history, and thus we are taught that World War II was the stereotype conflict of good versus evil, hero versus villain, and freedom versus oppression. Japanese nationalism (Japanese: 国粋主義, Hepburn: Kokusui shugi) is the nationalism that asserts that the Japanese are a monolithic nation with a single immutable culture, and promotes the cultural unity of the Japanese. Japan’s two hundred and something years of peace ended when the country received a  rude awakening. (2018). On July 8, 1853 Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay uninvited with four ships and essentially forced Japan to open their borders and agree to an unfair trade deal with the U.S. Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. Japan provides a surprising example. Edited by Jeff Kingston Jeff Kingston, Introduction: Nationalism in the Abe Era. The Resurgence of Cultural Nationalism in Japanese Mass Media: A Television Representation of Domesticated Enka in Africa. The study of taken‐for‐granted nationalism has been bourgeoning in the last two decades. In the wake of the resurgent nationalism embodied by America First and Brexit, the Meiji Restoration’s legacies seem ever more relevant across the globe. This is what I believe Zakaria meant when he wrote about the third way that a country can join the Western order, “on their own terms.”. Surely now that Japan has proven itself capable of defeating Western powers and colonizing like Western powers, the U.S. will take them seriously and give them a fair trade deal? DSpace/Manakin Repository. This is essentially what Japan does post Russo-Japanese War. They instead focused on modernization, a hazily defined drive toward a future already made visible in the West, with cultural, economic and political dimensions. It is rare to see houses that hang the Japanese national flag. So what did Japan do? The Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) was the first time that a non-Western power beat a Western power in war, and it was all about acquisition of Korea and Manchuria. In the case of pre-World War II Japan, the immediate effect of nationalism was to push the Japanese government to place itself on the opposite side of the prevailing international order. Jan. 3, 2018 at 11:00 a.m. UTC On Jan. 3, 1868, a cadre of samurai staged a coup at the Imperial Palace in Kyoto, setting Japan on a course to become Asia’s first nation-state. Growing threats from North Korea and China, as well as historical tensions with Russia, have led Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to declare that threats to Japan are at their highest since WWII. A strict hierarchal structure was put in place during this time and there were always issues with poverty and the like, however overall, Japan flourished during this era. We celebrate Veterans Day and Memorial Day, and nobody on a global scale seems to bat an eye. Defeat in 1945 brought the breakup of the empire and several years of U.S. military occupation. Again, it is easy to criticize Japan for their imperialistic endeavors and the sheer brutality in which they did so, however, did anyone actually stop and ask themselves why Japan did what they did? The very people who were most admired in Japan, the samurai, were now forced out of existence. I asked my boyfriend at the time, who was Korean, why they cared so much about a restaurant’s logo, and he gave me a similar answer, “It’s like the nazi swastika for us.”. Perhaps the new focus of Japanese nationalism should be for Japan to realize and accept events of the past, both negative and positive, and focus on the future of its international identity. The First and Second Opium Wars. This is Japan at their nationalistic peak, and the warfare and death that followed from nationalistic governments is the danger that Zakaria sees in the rise of nationalism in “The Rise of the Rest.”. Despite this, overall, we are encouraged to celebrate the people who fought and continue to fight for our country regardless of some of the atrocities committed by our country in the past. Some of their more conservative counterparts, by contrast, feel compelled to emphasize the Restoration’s triumphs in unifying political authority and allowing Japan to avoid colonization. The  University of Missouri’s student center restaurant, Sunshine Sushi, received so much backlash from foreign students studying abroad from China and Korea because of the use of the Imperial Japanese sun as the restaurant’s logo that they were ultimately forced to replace it. Under American tutelage, the nation-state at the core of the vanquished empire was reframed along democratic lines with Hirohito, Meiji’s grandson, made a constitutional monarch. June 22, 2018 Why Steve Bannon Admires Japan By Reto Hofmann. The hyper-nationalism of the Pacific War left a general suspicion of overt nationalism amongst Japan’s population, but in recent years casual forms of nationalism have emerged that decouple pride in national identity from political commitment. Japan, under a freshly christened rising sun flag and governed from a new capital at Tokyo, aimed to resemble the Western nations then building colonies among its Asian neighbors. Many left-leaning Japanese and Western scholars lament the Restoration as more a transition of power among elites than a democratic or anti-colonial revolution. And in the Land of the Rising Sun a necessary resurgence is occurring. A similar controversy happened at our very own campus a couple of years ago. Nationalism is analyzed in its influence over how culture is presented and circulates in Japanese society. Gifts and Nationalism in Wartime Japan - Yuko Minowa, Russell W. Belk, 2018 Skip to main content Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Although nationalism was an important political component in both countries, the development of Chinese and Japanese nationalism was more about domestic debates with domestic claims, thus not a powerful enough force that could adversely affect Sino-Japan relations. A group of leaders embarked on a nearly two-year diplomatic mission to Europe and the United States to learn firsthand about the ascendant West. News coverage of nationalism has been global, focusing on US elec-tions, and British referendum, but also government policies in Philippines, China and India, as well as in South Africa (Google Trends). 229-252. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines nation-state as “a form of political organization under which a relatively homogeneous people inhabits a sovereign state; especially : a state containing one as opposed to several nationalities.”, According to Steger in chapter four of, “Globalization: A Very Short Introduction” a nation-state is established when humans organize, “their political differences along territorial lines that generated a sense of ‘belonging to a particular nation-state.”. This endures, especially in Asia. Wages are for the most part fixed for them, and culturally, Japanese are all about conformity. By signing up you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, Interpretation of the news based on evidence, including data, as well as anticipating how events might unfold based on past events. After all, the European dream of borderlessness has never held much sway among Asian countries whose sovereignty remains paramount in local importance and where economic development has become a foundation of government legitimacy. This article focuses on the manga Gate: Thus the JSDF Fought There! Abstract. Nakano Koichi, Contemporary Political Dynamics of Japanese Nationalism. To this day, neighboring countries who were subject to Japan’s imperialism such as Korea, China and the Philippines hold grudges against and our skeptical of the Japanese government and people. What I think many people would find surprising about Japan is that Japan prior to World War I and II was not a nation that thought that they were superior to other nations. And interpretations of it vary widely. By: Matthew D. Boyd Introduction When the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzō Abe, took to the podium in a nationally-televised speech on the 70th anniversary of the … Upon their victory, they led a new government with the young Emperor Meiji at its head. In fact, we are encouraged to support our veterans and troops regardless of whether or not some of them may have committed crimes against civilians. However, the Japanese make one shrine to honor their dead–it is not just honoring their dead from World War II, it is honoring every person who has ever died fighting for Japan– and all of the sudden, everyone is losing their minds. and 2018, nationalism appears to be on rise globally (Bremmer, 2017; Economist, 2016; Economist, 2017b). Those in power used cultural customs and even beloved folktales to manipulate the Japanese during that time period. It is easy to shake a finger at Japan for their actions leading up to and during World War II. Or, a better way to look at it, Japan is the 77th best country out of 150 when it comes to income equality. This means that when it comes to income equality, Japan has the 73rd most unequal income distribution out of 150 countries. Because I am an American, I am very familiar with the idea of putting our veterans on pedestals. The samurai who staged the coup that day toppled the nearly three-century-old Tokugawa regime. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. State Shinto and Nationalism in Meiji Japan, by Emma Donington Kiey This article will feature in Issue 36: Ideology & Faith (May 2020) Lafcadio Hearn, a travel writer who lived in Japan from 1890 until his death, like many other Western travellers, remarked on the curious spectacles of Japanese culture and tradition which had been cut off from the outside world for over 200 years. Initially, this government formed around a ruling oligarchy that “restored” the emperor’s political role, ultimately signaling a desire to govern by reviving imperial political structures employed in an ideal, ancient past. Japan is a country that lacks the resources to industrialize on its own, and so this is where imperialism comes into play. Japanese are not widely commemorating the event today, even though the coup, which began the dramatic transformation of the Meiji Restoration, should rank in global history alongside Bastille Day or July Fourth as a point of national origin. This study examines the representation of so-called Others – foreigners, ethnic minorities, and Okinawans – in Japanese cinema. As of 2011, Japan was ranked 73rd out of 150 countries with a GINI Index of 37.9. Remarkably and sometimes tragically successful, this effort soon made Japan an industrial and military rival of even the most powerful Western states. They even made it into a contest for whomever could design the best new logo. Today, modern technologies and the rapid circulation of information across geographic boundaries are … Also, as The Japanese Times points out, Japanese CEOs do not make as nearly as much money as CEOs do. With breathtaking speed, the oligarchs initiated reforms that dismantled the politically diffuse feudal state in which samurai lords ruled over semi-independent domains and pledged personal loyalty to the Tokugawa shogun. During this Era of Warring States, Japan had limited contact with the West. This hateful and genocidal ultra-nationalism led Japan down the road to military overreach, war crimes, and eventual defeat in World War II. In a similar way, Japan became convinced that as a country they were invincible. Stopping to consider this anniversary’s uncelebrated relevance highlights not only the remarkable course of national creation in Japan but also, more importantly, the tenacity of the modernizing nation-state, and its accompanying zealous commitments to sovereignty, as a global political form that continues to influence geopolitics today. In fact, they only grudgingly implemented limited democratic institutions in 1889 when a new constitution created a bicameral legislature. Today’s China has certainly not come that far. This means that Japan has the 73rd highest GINI Index out of the 150 countries. Nippon Kaigi (日本会議, Japan Conference) – a Japanese nationalist and conservative group who seeks the revision of the Japanese constitution and the revision of Japanese history textbooks to whitewash Japan's actions during World War II. Attracting visitors from around the world (including many from Asia), they represent a historic shift in political and economic forces in which Japan was a key actor — perhaps the central one. The paradox of a pacifist emperor amid rising nationalism politically is likely to continue in the Reiwa era. The two hundred and something years in which Japan was unified under the shogunate is the Edo Period. Its 150th anniversary, in all its momentous ambivalence, may be the most emblematic marker of today’s global structure: led by nation-states whose modernizing projects imagine collective futures firmly inscribed within political boundaries. Japan's government reminds me to some degree of Quebec (and to a lesser degree France). This past summer at G-Fest 2018 in Chicago, Chris Marti and authors Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski held a panel on the topic of Japanese nationalism in the Godzilla series. Rupert Wingfield-Hayes looks at how Japan and China's dispute over the uninhabited Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands is bringing a new wave of nationalism to the surface. As with European empires, rhetoric rarely matched reality, and failed to mask the often exploitative nature of Japanese rule that forced men and women from colonial territories to labor in mines and factories in support of the imperial war effort. Japanese nationalism is very much part of the political dialogue in Japan today: after his re-election, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who will likely become Japan’s longest-serving post-war Prime Minister, has been given a mandate of sorts to eventually revise the country’s pacifist constitution and reinvoke nationalist elements in Japanese society. The answer is surprising and something that I didn’t realize until hearing Japan’s side of the story…They didn’t have a choice. On Jan. 3, 1868, a cadre of samurai staged a coup at the Imperial Palace in Kyoto, setting Japan on a course to become Asia’s first nation-state. By Ryan Love | USA. With an essay by Sir David Warren This paper brings together a summary of the discussions at the fifth and final event in the UK–Japan Global Seminar series, with an essay by Sir David Warren on the UK–Japan relationship in an age of populism. However, the way these groups are presented has not been a subject of investigation. This was a wake up call for Japan, as they realized for the first time that they were in danger of being colonized by the West and losing their position as a sovereign nation. Anyway, one day, Japan became unified under one samurai clan and the Tokugawa Shogunate was formed. ( Log Out /  But they soon changed course, sensing the need for even bolder change, given the rising tide of European imperialism that many feared might make Japan a European colony. 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