Bridging the Gaps: New Views of JapaneseColonialism, 1931–1945

SANDRAWILSON, Murdoch University

Recent writing in English shows a range of new approaches to and interpretations of Japanese

colonialism between 1931 and 1945. Earlier bodies of work tended to focus on the aims, strategies

and structures of Japanese rule throughout the empire, especially the formal empire. Newer

studies have not abandoned these concerns, especially in relation to geographical areas,

notably Manchuria, that have only just begun to emerge or re-emerge in English-language

writing on Japanese colonial practice. At the same time, however, there is now much greater rec-

ognition among historians of Japan that the colonial relationship is shaped by the colonised as

well as the colonisers; that life in the metropolis itself is affected deeply by its colonies; and that

mainstream studies of modern Japanese history should include Japan’s formal and informal

colonies as a matter of course. In this essay I identify three major trends in works that have

appeared in the last five years or so: a spurt of interest in Manchuria and other areas of northern

China, a reconsideration of the major stages of empire, and an expanded understanding of what

constituted colonialism and who participated in it.

Sixty years after the end of the Japanese empire, a generational change is underway in

studies of Japanese colonialism.1 New interpretations are certainly evident in works

produced in both English and Japanese.2 This essay sets out some major new

trends, surveying recent works in English on Japanese colonialism of the period 1931–

1945, with an emphasis on publications that have appeared within the last five years or

so. For the purposes of this essay, I define colonialism in the loosest possible terms,

including both formal and informal colonies: that is, territories in which Japanese rule

was formally instituted and recognised, principally Korea and Taiwan, as well as those

in which Japanese rule was less direct or open, especially in China, and including

‘Manchukuo’.3

Earlier bodies of work tended to focus on the aims, strategies and structures of

Japanese rule throughout the empire, especially the formal empire. Key works, still

much used by researchers, teachers and students, included those by Hilary Conroy,

W. G. Beasley, Ramon Myers, Peter Duus, Mark Peattie, Andrew Nahm and Patricia

1 An earlier version of this paper appeared as ‘Rekishi kenkyu no danso o kakyo suru mono—Nihon

shokuminchi (1931–45nen) kenkyu no shinkenchi’, in Nenpo Nihon gendaishi henshu iinkai (ed.),

‘Teikoku’ to shokuminchi—‘Dai Nippon teikoku’ hokai rokujunen (Nenpo: Nihon gendaishi dai 10 go).

Tokyo: Gendai shiryo shuppan, 2005, 211–228. I would like to thank Anne-Marie Medcalf and an

anonymous reader for this journal for their comments on drafts of this paper.2 For comments on trends in recent Japanese-language works, see Mori and Yanagisawa, ‘Tokushu ni

atatte’, ii–v, and other essays in this volume.3 For a discussion of the concepts of ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ empire as applied to Japan, see Duus, ‘Intro-

duction/Japan’s informal empire in China, 1895–1937’.

Japanese Studies, Vol. 25, No. 3, December 2005

ISSN 1037-1397 print=ISSN 1469-9338 online=05=030287-13 # 2005 Japanese Studies Association of AustraliaDOI: 10.1080=10371390500342790

Tsurumi.4 Newer studies have not abandoned these concerns, especially in relation to

geographical areas, notably Manchuria, that have only just begun to emerge, or

re-emerge, in English-language writing on Japanese colonial practice. In keeping with

recent trends in studies of European and US colonialism, however, there is now much

greater consciousness among historians of Japan that any colonial relationship is a

two-way affair, and that this understanding should be reflected in scholarship more

forcefully than was usual in the past. One implication is a greater recognition that the

colonial relationship is shaped by the responses of the colonised as well as the intentions

and actions of the colonisers. Another is that life in the metropolis itself is seen as affected

deeply by its colonies: the ‘mother’ country is no longer accepted as the modern, civilised

nation that on the one hand imposes its will abroad through its colonial agents, and on

the other continues along its own, independent historical trajectory. A third implication

is an acknowledgment that mainstream studies of Japanese history should include con-

sideration of the colonies as a matter of course: all or most topics in modern Japanese

history will be relevant to the colonies, and vice versa, and colony and metropolis

should no longer be in separate baskets.

Andre Schmid raised these and other issues in 2000, remarking that ‘English-language

studies of Japan have been slow to interweave the colonial experience into the history of

modern Japan’, in effect ‘divorcing’ the history of Japan’s colonies from the history of the

main islands. In an article that included trenchant criticism of earlier scholars including

Myers and Peattie, Schmid argued that most historical writings on Japan in English have

been ‘nation-centered’, to the neglect of ‘those forces transcendent to the nation,

especially when those forces have derived from Asia’. The result has been an approach

to history that Schmid characterises as ‘top–down, metrocentric’, and that ‘renders colo-

nial history tangential to the main narratives of the modern Japanese nation’.5 Schmid

was writing in particular about the history of the Meiji period and the neglect of issues

relating to Korea, but the same point applies to later periods and to other parts of

Japan’s formal and informal empire.

This new understanding of colonialism—that it should be treated as part of ‘main-

stream’ history rather than a set of more or less separate topics—is undoubtedly a

demanding one. It represents an ideal that is easier to extrapolate than actually to put

into practice—as Myers and Peattie pointed out in a published reply to Schmid’s criti-

cism of their work.6 The task of producing work that gives due weight to the perspectives

of the colonised and to the impact of the colonies on the metropolis brings us face-to-face

with the need to find new types of sources, to read sources in more than one language—

when most researchers who write in English have already had to expend considerable

time and energy studying Japanese—and to engage with the research of specialists on

other parts of Asia, not just those who work directly on Japan or its colonies. The

integration of colonial history with the mainstream of Japanese studies thus means

decentring Japanese history to an extent. Results of such efforts are only just beginning

to emerge, and are of course uneven.

4 Conroy, The Japanese Seizure of Korea, 1868–1910; Beasley, Japanese Imperialism 1894–1945; Myers and

Peattie, The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895–1945; Duus et al., The Japanese Informal Empire in China,

1895–1937; Duus et al., The Japanese Wartime Empire, 1931–45; Duus, The Abacus and the Sword;

Peattie, Nan’yo; Nahm, Korea under Japanese Colonial Rule; Tsurumi, Japanese Colonial Education in

Taiwan, 1895–1945.5 Schmid, ‘Colonialism and the “Korea problem”’, 951, 957.6 Peattie et al., ‘Communications to the editor’.

288 Sandra Wilson

Certain older concerns remain. For example, academic investigation of atrocities

committed by the Imperial Japanese Army and other agents in colonial and semi-

colonial areas continues, with new developments evident in the increase of interest

not only in the events themselves, but also the recollection and historiography of

those events. In one example, Mariko Asano Tamanoi examines the case of a

group of Japanese women in Harbin who died of typhoid in 1940, possibly as

victims of Japanese biological warfare; a new, updated edition has also appeared of

Sheldon Harris’ study of Japanese biological warfare between 1932 and 1945,

which was originally published in 1994.7 ‘Comfort women’ continue to attract atten-

tion, as shown by the publication of Yuki Tanaka’s book, as well as an English trans-

lation of Yoshimi Yoshiaki’s 1995 work, Jugun ianfu.8 Several articles link current

politics with the events of the colonial period by focussing on post-war debates,

including recent debates, about the significance of various crimes. In an article pub-

lished in 2003, for instance, Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi reviews the different view-

points on the comfort women issue.9

Nevertheless, looking at the field overall, studies of Japanese colonialism now

undoubtedly feel different. As will be discussed in more detail below, newer works are

more likely to focus on the culture of empire rather than its formal, administrative

aspects—reflecting not only the approach outlined above, but also, perhaps, an increased

focus on the same issues in mainstream studies of Japanese history—and more likely to

explore at least some of the complex links between the colony and the metropolis. The

same trends are also evident in recent work published in Japanese.10 Newer analyses

often explore a larger range of themes—including film, radio, art, music, tourism, edu-

cation, technology, law, gender, religion and sport, amongst others11—and are con-

cerned at least as much with daily life as with politics and economics, if not more so.

Newer studies also analyse the roles and experiences of a wider variety of colonial

agents: not only bureaucrats and soldiers, for example, but also doctors, anthropologists

and other professional groups.

Within the general framework discussed above, I identify three major trends in

recent English-language studies of Japanese colonialism between 1931 and 1945: a

spurt of interest in Manchuria (and other areas of northern China); a reconsideration

of how the empire should be periodised, or what its major stages were; and an

expanded understanding of what constitutes colonialism and who participates in it.

Taken as a whole, the newer trends reflect not only the insights of previous gener-

ations of scholars, but also the influence of postcolonial studies and of theoretical

and empirical work on other areas of the globe. As such, they represent attempts to

bridge a number of gaps between scholarly areas: between the history of Japan and

that of its colonies; between Japan and other Asian countries; between centre and per-

iphery, global and local, culture and politics. The result is a lively and stimulating field

of historical research.

7 Tamanoi, ‘War responsibility and Japanese civilian victims of Japanese biological warfare in China’;

Harris, Factories of Death.8 Tanaka, Japan’s Comfort Women; Yoshimi, Jugun ianfu; Yoshimi, Comfort Women.9 Wakabayashi, ‘Comfort women’. There are also a number of recent works on the Nanjing Massacre and

later reactions to it, which I have omitted from this essay as they seem to me to be more properly con-

sidered as part of the history of the Sino-Japanese War than of colonialism.10 For comments on these trends in Japanese-language works, see Mori and Yanagisawa, ‘Tokushu ni

atatte’, ii–iv; Miyamoto, ‘Shokuminchi to “bunka”’.11 See Miyamoto, ‘Shokuminchi to “bunka”’.

New Views of Japanese Colonialism 289

Manchuria Boom

The last few years have seen a distinct boom in English-language studies of north-east China,

or the region known as ‘Manchuria’, and its relationship with Japan, with as many as five

books as well as several articles published in English since 2000.12 One welcome feature

of this new level of interest in Manchuria is that the analyses have been produced by special-

ists on both Japan and China, leading to a much richer debate and to the availability of new

information to scholars on both sides. The perspectives brought by the different scholars

working on this area are also quite distinct, which, again, makes the study of Manchuria a

very stimulating one. The literature at present shows new views or differences of opinion

about the place of the Manchurian Incident of September 1931 in the history of Japanese

rule in Manchuria as well as in popular consciousness in the Japanese main islands; a new

perspective on responses of the Chinese in Manchukuo to Japanese intrusion; and the begin-

nings of debate about the meaning of the label ‘puppet state’ as applied to Manchukuo.

Many readers will be familiar with Louise Young’s book on Manchukuo, which was

published in 1998 and hence will not be covered in detail in this essay. Young emphasises

the centrality of Manchukuo to Japanese life from 1931–1932 onwards—both as a dis-

cursive construct and as an actual destination of emigration and investment—and what

she claims was the enormous impact of Manchuria on Japan in cultural terms. Though

her assertion that the ‘impact [of Manchukuo] on the Japanese metropolis was as pro-

found as Japan’s impact on Northeast China’13 seems to me to be exaggerated, given

the power imbalance between the two, Young’s approach has undoubtedly been a fruitful

and influential one. My own work on the responses within Japan to the Manchurian crisis

of 1931–1933 treats a shorter period than does Young’s book, and partly for this reason,

reaches a quite different conclusion. I argue that the war fever generated within Japan by

the invasion of Manchuria may have been intense, but was also transitory; and that the

formal cease-fire between Japanese and Chinese forces signed in May 1933, or alterna-

tively, Japan’s announcement of withdrawal from the League of Nations three months

earlier, brought an end to the crisis and a sense of return to some kind of normal life

for most Japanese people. At the same time, I argue that for groups dedicated to the pro-

gressive political ideals that had emerged from ‘Taisho democracy’, including women’s

groups and labour unions, the Manchurian crisis did constitute a defining moment,

prompting a decisive break from previous patterns of thought and behaviour.14

There is also disagreement on a specific issue relating to Manchukuo—the emigration of

Japanese farmers to the region. Young sees the campaign to settle Japanese farmers in

Manchuria between 1932 and 1945 as a sign of the successful mobilisation of the Japanese

people in the service of imperialist goals, with thousands of Japanese people rushing to join

their nation’s colonialist project in north-east China.15 Again, partly because I have con-

centrated on the initial period of settlement, my analysis differs, and I see the concrete

results of the emigration project as negligible, though I recognise that in rural Japan

the idea of emigration to Manchuria certainly had considerable rhetorical power in the

early 1930s.16 Mori Takemaro, dealing with the longer period and providing a valuable

12 The books are: Mitter, The Manchurian Myth; Matsusaka, The Making of Japanese Manchuria, 1904–

1932; Wilson, The Manchurian Crisis and Japanese Society, 1931–33; Duara, Sovereignty and Authenticity;

Tamanoi, Crossed Histories, The edited volume by Tamanoi appeared too late for detailed comment in this

essay.13 Young, Japan’s Total Empire, 430.14 Wilson, Manchurian Crisis.15 Young, Japan’s Total Empire, Chapters 7, 8.16 Wilson, ‘Securing prosperity and serving the nation’; Wilson, Manchurian Crisis, 146–149.

290 Sandra Wilson

comparison with Japanese emigration to Korea, likewise concludes that ‘in every respect

that one can think of, Japan’s wartime project to promote emigration to Manchuria was a

total failure’.17 Regardless of whether the emigration project as a whole should be deemed

a success or not, however, Japanese settlers did go to Manchuria, and their experiences

there constitute an important part of the history of Japanese colonialism. In recent years

a number of former settlers have published recollections of their experiences, or recounted

them to researchers. Such recollections not only provide new information on and

interpretations of life in Japanese-controlled Manchuria, but also raise more general

issues of historical memory, both individual and collective. One exploration of these

issues in relation to Japanese farmer-settlers in Manchuria is to be found in an article by

Mariko Asano Tamanoi, who highlights the politics of memory amongst the former set-

tlers in the same way that scholars working in other areas have done.18

Two other important works, by Mitter and Duara, further complicate the broad picture of

Japanese rule in Manchuria. China historian Rana Mitter focuses on Chinese resistance to

and collaboration with the Japanese in the initial period after September 1931, arguing

that actual Chinese resistance has been exaggerated, and that while there were undoubtedly

‘many notable instances of resistance’, in fact ‘cooperation with the Japanese became the

norm’ at the provincial and local levels.19 Such cooperation is partly explained by earlier

Japanese efforts at ‘social imperialism’ in the region—that is, attempts made by such

means as inserting appropriate articles in the Chinese-language, Japanese-owned press to

persuade the population of north-east China that Japanese imperialism was benevolent

and that the Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek and the Manchurian warlord Chang

Hsueh-liang were untrustworthy. In tying such earlier discourse to the post-1931

cooperation of local elites with the Japanese authorities in Manchuria, Mitter implies the

necessity to modify earlier understandings of Japanese ineptness on the propaganda front:

in his analysis, efforts to win the hearts and minds of the population of north-east China

had begun to meet with success. The collaboration of local elites with the Japanese after Sep-

tember 1931, according to Mitter, was in fact important to the initial success of the Kwan-

tung Army in seizing control of Manchuria. On the other hand, the image of resistance was

crucial to the formation of Chinese nationalism in the longer term. Activists from north-

eastern China who fled Manchuria after the Japanese invasion chose to present the Japanese

action as an issue of national concern to all Chinese, in an attempt to put pressure on Nanjing

to send troops to retake Manchuria. In part, this attempt involved the creation of a powerful

discourse about spontaneous Chinese resistance to the Japanese in Manchuria.

In common with Louise Young, Prasenjit Duara emphasises the complexity and moder-

nity of Manchukuo as a political and discursive structure.20 While acknowledging the reality

of Japanese power in Manchukuo, he insists on the need to go beyond the interpretation of

Manchukuo as merely a Japanese puppet state, and to take seriously Manchukuo’s domi-

nant ideologies, especially that of sovereignty. In a study that concentrates more on dis-

course than on actual political structure, Duara shows how the rhetoric of modern

nationalism was used to present Manchukuo as an independent, civilian nation-state, in

particular demonstrating the use that was made of the discourses of rights, autonomy

and pan-Asianism. The experiment in Manchukuo, according to Duara, really was an

attempt to build a new kind of ‘nation-state’, albeit one that was always intended to be

17 Mori, ‘Colonies and countryside in wartime Japan’, 197.18 Tamanoi, ‘A road to “a redeemed mankind”’. On issues of memory, see also Lim and Wong, War and

Memory in Malaysia and Singapore.19 Mitter, Manchurian Myth, 100. See also Mitter, ‘Evil empire?’.20 Duara, Sovereignty and Authenticity.

New Views of Japanese Colonialism 291

colonial. This seems to me to be an interesting but problematic approach. It is useful in that

it highlights the murkiness inherent in the concept and the operation of a puppet state. On

the other hand, if the form of government instituted in Manchukuo was new, it was new

principally because it attempted to disguise the reality of Japanese power.

In the context of a broader argument about the relationship between Japanese imperi-

alism and national identities in Asia, Li Narangoa and Robert Cribb also briefly question

the label of ‘puppet state’ as applied to Manchukuo. Li and Cribb feel that the term ‘tends

to obscure the complexity of the relationship between the hegemonic power and its local

subjects’. Manchukuo and other Japanese-sponsored governments in China, they argue,

‘did the bidding of the Japanese in most respects’, but at the same time ‘also reflected and

responded to the legitimate and long-standing interests of their subjects’.21 Again, the

implications of such questioning of the concept of the ‘puppet state’ need fuller explora-

tion before they can be considered convincing. To recognise that the operation of a puppet

state still left room for local initiative is to recognise a degree of ambiguity inherent in a

puppet state (or probably most other forms of government, especially colonial govern-

ment); it does not mean that that state was not still primarily subject to outside power.

Scholarly interest in Sino-Japanese relations in the northern regions of China in the

years 1931–1945 has not been restricted to Manchuria. One notable addition to the

field is China historian Marjorie Dryburgh’s study of north China, which not only

expands our knowledge of Japanese activity in the region, but also adds to the growing

number of analyses of Chinese reactions to Japanese intrusion.22 Dryburgh pays particu-

lar attention to the influential military commander and provincial governor Song Zheyan,

who commanded the 29th army and was governor of Chaha’er before his appointment as

chairman of the Hebei-Chaha’er Political Council, a body nominally under the control of

Nanjing but established in 1935 as a concession to Japanese pressure for political arrange-

ments in north China that would be ‘autonomous’ from the central government—or in

other words, subject to Japanese influence rather than that of Nanjing. Dryburgh gives

a clear picture of Song’s unenviable position, subject as he was to direct pressure on the

one hand from Japanese military figures, but formally responsible on the other to a

central government that wanted to avoid being seen to make damaging concessions to

the Japanese in north China, yet was unwilling to risk open confrontation with the Japa-

nese. Dryburgh’s account of events in the middle of the 1930s expands the range of actors

in the story beyond those at the national level, and at the same time draws our attention to

the complex ways in which regional, national and international considerations interacted

in China in the 1930s to produce the central government’s policy on Japan.

Recently, the strong interest shown by Japanese military forces and other agents in

Mongolia has also begun to be recognised, and several articles explore Japanese activity

in the region. While James Boyd discusses Kwantung Army interest in Mongolia,23 an

article by Li Narangoa focuses on the efforts of the Japanese authorities to influence

and modify Mongolian Buddhism.24 Japanese leaders wished to discourage Chinese

influence over Mongolians, and at the same time to encourage modernisation in Mongol-

ia in order to make the region more useful for future Japanese operations on the Asian

21 Li and Cribb, ‘Introduction’, 13.22 Dryburgh, North China and Japanese Expansion 1933–1937. For a short treatment of the cultural and

rhetorical dimensions of Japan’s activities in north China in the middle of the decade, see also Dryburgh,

‘The problem of identity and the Japanese engagement in North China’.23 Boyd, ‘In pursuit of an obsession’.24 Li, ‘Japanese imperialism and Mongolian Buddhism, 1932–1945’. See also Nakami, ‘Mongol nation-

alism and Japan’.

292 Sandra Wilson

mainland. The political and social influence of the monasteries in Mongolia, together

with their important role in education and health care, made them targets of sustained

Japanese attention. Results, however, were limited from the Japanese point of view.

Stages of Empire

In part, as noted above, the different viewpoints on Manchuria, and on the significance

of the Manchurian Incident, represent different viewpoints on timing, and hence on

imperialist history more generally. Young emphasises the centrality of Manchukuo

from 1931–1932 onwards, and I treat the years 1931–1933 as a more or less self-

contained period, though one with critical ramifications for later events. One approach

tends to emphasise 1931–1932 as a turning-point in popular consciousness of imperial-

ism, whereas the other does not.25 Two other new books are also relevant to conceptions

of the stages of empire. Though both of them focus on earlier decades, and hence for the

most part are outside the scope of this essay, they nevertheless have significant impli-

cations for interpretations of the period 1931–1945.

Tak Matsusaka analyses Japan’s relationship with Manchuria in the years 1904–

1932.26 In emphasising the importance of an earlier stage in Japan’s relationship with

Manchuria, he challenges the view that 1931–1932 was the critical turning-point.

Though he recognises the significance of the creation of Manchukuo, Matsusaka stresses

crucial continuities before and after 1931–1932, arguing that in a sense, the Manchurian

Incident was only ‘a brief, climactic episode’, and that much of southern Manchuria was

already ‘under a state of virtual occupation’ before then, especially through the instru-

ment of the South Manchurian Railway Company. More broadly, ‘much of what we

see emerging’ in Manchukuo in the 1930s, including economic programs, ‘seems

rather familiar, recognizable as logical extensions of patterns, trends, and policies

established well before 1931’.27

Whether September 1931 constitutes a major rupture or not is thus a crucial issue in any

assessment of the Japanese empire over time, but it is not the only one. Turning to Korea,

Alexis Dudden has produced an important study of the rhetoric, especially the legal rheto-

ric, used to justify Japan’s annexation of its neighbour in 1910.28 Like Matsusaka’s,

Dudden’s book has broad implications for understandings of the later period as well,

and for the whole question of continuity, rupture and periodisation in Japanese colonial-

ism. In the past there has been a tendency to regard Japanese imperialism of the late Meiji

period as ‘conceptually discrete from developments in the 1930s and 1940s’,29 but

Dudden’s analysis undermines such an assumption. Her major concern is with the

ways in which Japanese policy-makers of the Meiji period adapted existing international

law to suit their own purposes, and with the specific discourse of Japanese colonisation

in the early twentieth century. She also comments on the growth of the discipline of ‘scien-

tific colonialism’ in Japan, with particular reference to Nitobe Inazo, who was, among

other things, professor of colonial studies at Tokyo Imperial University. Overall,

Dudden argues strongly that if we look at colonialism not solely in military and political

terms, but also through the rhetoric used to justify it at the time, it is much easier to see

25 See Wilson, ‘Rethinking the 1930s and the “15-year war” in Japan’.26 Matsusaka, Making of Japanese Manchuria.27 Ibid., 1, 5, 391.28 Dudden, Japan’s Colonization of Korea. See also Dudden, ‘Japanese colonial control in international

terms’.29 Dudden, Japan’s Colonization of Korea, 143.

New Views of Japanese Colonialism 293

that the earlier and later periods of Japanese colonialism are linked in fundamental ways.

Conceptually, in other words, the colonialism of the 1930s onwards was not distinct from

that of the Meiji period: the intellectual foundations had been set well beforehand.

Expanding the Scope of Colonialism

As suggested above, understandings of what constitutes colonialism and who participates

in it have broadened considerably in recent years. Older approaches continue to bear

fruit. Susan Townsend, for example, has produced the first intellectual biography in

English of the scholar Yanaihara Tadao and a critique of his writings on Japanese coloni-

alism, with chapters on Yanaihara’s writings on Taiwan, Korea, Manchuria, the South

Sea island mandates and China, and on the Yanaihara Incident of 1937, in which Yanai-

hara was forced to resign from Tokyo Imperial University after criticising Japan’s foreign

policy in his articles.30 Townsend presents Yanaihara as a critic who accepted the legiti-

macy of colonialism, but believed that colonial policy should strive towards realisation of

a ‘redeeming idea’, namely, that while imperialism was theoretically bad, empires them-

selves could be good if they acted to civilise and modernise the colonies.

At the same time, growing interest in the cultural aspects of empire, a trend that can be

seen across colonial studies elsewhere as well, has prompted new examination of different

groups and individuals who were caught up in Japan’s colonising project, as well as analy-

sis of a broader range of structures through which Japanese rule operated. Newer con-

ceptions of colonialism recognise that it consists not just of the direct application of

force, but rather should be seen as an integrated cultural and economic system, with

power exercised in a variety of ways. Such an approach, for example, underpins the

essays in the volume edited by Shin and Robinson on Japanese-controlled Korea,

which examines a wide range of structures and themes from the legal system to the

mass media, industrialisation and technology.31 Most importantly, it has become

clearer that colonialism is something that is made by many different hands. Officials, sol-

diers and police are familiar figures in colonial studies, but many others have joined their

ranks, including some who had been born in the subordinated territories. Certain pro-

fessional groups, including doctors, anthropologists and writers, have provided a particu-

lar focus. Recent writers are also well aware that colonialism does not consist of a

unidirectional flow of power, whether military, political or cultural. Different groups

and individuals in areas controlled by Japan are accordingly studied not just to show

how they functioned as agents of colonialism, but also how colonialism in turn affected

them professionally: the ways in which they operated as professionals in the colonial

context, how professional knowledge was acquired and deployed under colonial rule,

and how ambiguous was the position that professional groups found themselves in

under Japanese rule. The best studies clearly reveal the points of convergence and con-

flict between professional groups and individuals and colonial politics, especially in the

case of those who saw themselves as agents of modernity or science.

Several such chapters appear in a volume edited by Shimizu and van Bremen on Japa-

nese anthropology in the wartime period.32 Tsu Yun Hui, for instance, examines the case

of Japanese and Taiwanese folklorists studying and writing about Taiwanese folklore

under colonial rule.33 When required to legitimise their activities, Tsu shows that

30 Townsend, Yanaihara Tadao and Japanese Colonial Policy.31 Shin and Robinson, Colonial Modernity in Korea.32 Shimizu and van Bremen, Wartime Japanese Anthropology in Asia and the Pacific.33 Tsu, ‘For science, co-prosperity, and love’.

294 Sandra Wilson

under various circumstances they argued that they were conforming with the scientific

mission of the Japanese to research the cultures of colonised peoples; that the

information they acquired had practical value for Japanese rule in the Asian region;

and even that they acted out of admiration for Taiwanese culture. Sasaki Shiro’s

chapter in the same volume examines anthropologist Ishida Eiichiro’s research in

South Sakhalin, while Ch’oe Kilsung analyses the relationship between the anthropolo-

gist Akiba Takashi and the Japanese colonial government in Korea.34

Ming-cheng M. Lo’s book, by contrast, discusses Taiwanese doctors under Japanese

colonial rule, again emphasising the intersection of professional knowledge, ethnicity

and modernity in the colonial context. The case of Taiwanese doctors, Lo argues,

demonstrates ‘unintended and unpredictable interactions between the processes of

professionalization and colonization’,35 with the doctors at different stages engaging in

anti-colonial movements; retreating to a more ‘private’ life in civil society; and, finally,

embracing the modernity apparently represented by the colonisers’ civilisation. Leo

Ching also analyses the cultural dimension of Japan’s occupation of Taiwan, with

particular emphasis on the formation of Taiwanese cultural identities and their relation-

ship to Japanese colonial discourses.36 Faye Yuan Kleeman continues the focus on the

culture of empire in Taiwan, analysing the role of writers in the ‘discursive creation of

the empire’.37 Kleeman examines the works of Japanese visitors to Taiwan and also to

the South; of a prominent Japanese expatriate author in Taiwan, Nishikawa Mitsuru;

and of native Taiwanese authors who wrote in Japanese. Agents of the Japanese empire,

Kleeman argues, sought to create not only the mechanisms of government and admini-

stration in the colonies, but also ‘an East Asian literary sphere that was coterminous

with the Japanese empire and centered on the Japanese literary and cultural tradition’.38

As these examples indicate, the expanded conception of how colonialism works that is

evident in recent research leads to a stronger emphasis on the variety of responses and

experiences of the colonised. The common understanding of colonialism among special-

ists has come a long way from the model of Japanese repression and local resistance that

was once familiar, and understandings of relationships within the Japanese-occupied

territories are now much more complex. One crucial issue is the ethnic diversity

of Japan’s empire and the ways in which that diversity conditioned the experience of

colonialism. Not that ethnicity itself was necessarily a fixed category. As Mariko Asano

Tamanoi shows, official racial classifications in Manchukuo, for example, were

complex and fluid.39 Tamanoi essentially reinforces the point Barbara Brooks made in

1998 about Koreans in Manchuria.40 In both cases, interpretations of ethnicity and

belonging changed over time; according to Brooks, for example, Koreans were by no

means inevitably excluded from discourses of ‘Japaneseness’.

But ethnicity, however understood and categorised, undoubtedly did make a difference

within Japan’s empire. Paul Kratoska’s edited book highlights the separate experiences of par-

ticular ethnic minorities in South-East Asia and the differing impact of Japanese occupation

on them, as well as the ways in which various people within minority populations sought to

34 Sasaki, ‘Anthropological studies of the indigenous peoples in Sakhalin’; Ch’oe, ‘War and ethnology/

folklore in colonial Korea’.35 Lo, Doctors within Borders, 7.36 Ching, Becoming Japanese.37 Kleeman, Under an Imperial Sun, 4.38 Ibid., 2.39 Tamanoi, ‘Knowledge, power, and racial classifications’.40 Brooks, ‘Peopling the Japanese empire’.

New Views of Japanese Colonialism 295

advance their own agendas under Japanese occupation.41 Such an approach greatly enriches

understandings of how colonialism operated in practice by showing complications on the side

of both coloniser and colonised, and the ways in which the separate interests of different

groups were fostered or exploited by the Japanese, as well as by each other. Li and Cribb’s

edited volume, which sets out to discuss the relationship between Japanese territorial expan-

sion and national identities in Asia, contains much analysis of the responses of the different

colonised populations to Japanese attempts to remake them.42 Specific chapters include

studies of Korea, Mongolia, China (including Manchuria), Vietnam, the Philippines,

Indonesia and Taiwan. The volume as a whole identifies basic contradictions in Japanese

policy towards Asia, with Japanese authorities seeking at times to encourage other Asian

nationalisms, at times to suppress or undermine them, and at times to fashion new ones.

Li and Cribb thus conclude that the Japanese authorities displayed considerable ‘fickle-

ness’ towards the nationalist aspirations of other parts of Asia,43 at different times and

places supporting it, abandoning it, spurning it, toying with it or ignoring it. Overall,

the Japanese authorities believed national identity to be malleable, and were ‘profoundly

confident of their ability to shape cultures and identities’.44 Yet they never developed any

sophisticated understanding of existing local identities, and were always prepared to dis-

regard them when they clashed with broader Japanese interests.

A greater emphasis on responses to colonisation, on identities, and on the interplay

among colonialism, nationalism and modernity tends to break down any remnants of a

straightforward dichotomy between Japanese repression and local resistance in the areas

under Japanese control. At a personal level, the oral histories of Koreans under Japanese

rule in Hildi Kang’s book Under the Black Umbrella suggest the complexities of life in colonial

Korea, which defy any simple categorisation. Kang fully acknowledges that while imperial

Japan undeniably oppressed the Korean people, all the same, ‘some people, some of the

time, led close to normal lives’ under Japanese occupation.45 Korean experiences of coloni-

sation and responses to it—as well as later memories of those experiences and responses—

were varied, with the stories Kang presents showing ‘lives that range from poverty to riches,

and from comfort and acceptance to fear and torture’. Life under Japanese rule, Kang con-

cludes, ‘was never one-dimensional’.46 The essays on the former British Malaya (Malaysia

and Singapore) edited by P. Lim Pui Huen and Diana Wong tell a similar story, with a stron-

ger emphasis on ‘the multiplicity and complexity’ of memory itself,47 as well as the diversity

of the experiences being recalled. Like Kang, the writers in this volume often emphasise the

possibility of normal life in the colonies at least some of the time.48 Experiences differed

according to ethnic group and social stratum. Hardship and misery were experienced by

many; for others, colonial rule was a much more positive experience, even bringing with

it at times a sense of self-respect and self-worth.49 Yet others experienced neither prosperity

nor great hardship, and felt ambivalent towards the Japanese.50

41 Kratoska, Southeast Asian Minorities in the Wartime Japanese Empire. On South-East Asia, see also

Tarling, A Sudden Rampage; Goto, Tensions of Empire.42 Li and Cribb, Imperial Japan and National Identities in Asia, 1895–1945.43 Li and Cribb, ‘Afterword’, 317.44 Ibid., 318.45 Kang, Under the Black Umbrella, xi.46 Ibid., xiii. On related issues in Japanese-language works, see Miyamoto, ‘Shokuminchi to “bunka”’.47 Lim and Wong, War and Memory in Malaysia and Singapore, vii.48 See Wong, ‘War and memory in Malaysia and Singapore’, 4.49 Wong, ‘War and memory in Malaysia and Singapore’.50 Talib, ‘Memory and its historical context’, 135.

296 Sandra Wilson

In sum, recent trends in English-language writing on Japanese colonialism show that the

field is a healthy one. Not only are a variety of new works being produced; they are much

more likely to be informed by a range of insights gained from the study of other coloni-

alisms and other areas of knowledge. In the past, the mainstream of writing on Japanese

history has often seemed isolated from scholarly trends elsewhere, as if operating in a

world of its own. The latest writings on colonialism suggest that this is changing.

Though there is plenty of work still to be done, studies of Japanese colonialism are start-

ing to bridge some gaps.

References

Beasley, W.G., Japanese Imperialism 1894–1945. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987.

Boyd, James, ‘In pursuit of an obsession: Japan in Inner Mongolia in the 1930s’, Japanese Studies, 22:3

(2002): 289–303.

Brooks, Barbara J., ‘Peopling the Japanese empire: the Koreans in Manchuria and the rhetoric of

inclusion’, in Sharon A. Minichiello (ed.), Japan’s Competing Modernities: Issues in Culture and Democ-

racy 1900–1930. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1998, 25–44.

Ching, Leo T.S., Becoming Japanese: Colonial Taiwan and the Politics of Identity Formation. Berkeley:

University of California Press, 2001.

Ch’oe Kilsung, ‘War and ethnology/folklore in colonial Korea: the case of Akiba Takashi’, in Akitoshi

Shimizu and Jan van Bremen (eds), Wartime Japanese Anthropology in Asia and the Pacific. Osaka:

National Museum of Ethnology, 2003, 169–187.

Conroy, Hilary, The Japanese Seizure of Korea, 1868–1910. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,

1960.

Dryburgh, Marjorie, North China and Japanese Expansion 1933–1937: Regional Power and the National

Interest. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2000.

Dryburgh, Marjorie, ‘The problem of identity and the Japanese engagement in North China’, in

Li Narangoa and Robert Cribb (eds), Imperial Japan and National Identities in Asia, 1895–1945.

London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003, 199–219.

Duara, Prasenjit, Sovereignty and Authenticity: Manchukuo and the East Asian Modern. Lanham, MD:

Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.

Dudden, Alexis, ‘Japanese colonial control in international terms’, Japanese Studies, 25:1 (2005):

1–20.

Dudden, Alexis, Japan’s Colonization of Korea: Discourse and Power. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press,

2005.

Duus, Peter, ‘Introduction/Japan’s informal empire in China, 1895–1937: an Overview’, in Peter Duus,

Ramon H. Myers and Mark R. Peattie (eds), The Japanese Informal Empire in China, 1895–1937.

Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989, xi–xxix.

Duus, Peter, The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1895–1910. Berkeley: University

of California Press, 1995.

Duus, Peter, Ramon H. Myers and Mark R. Peattie (eds), The Japanese Informal Empire in China, 1895–

1937. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989.

Duus, Peter, Ramon H. Myers and Mark R. Peattie (eds), The Japanese Wartime Empire, 1931–45.

Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.

Goto, Ken’ichi, Tensions of Empire: Japan and Southeast Asia in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, with an

introduction by Paul H. Kratoska (ed.). Athens, OH: Ohio University Center for International Studies,

2003.

Harris, Sheldon H., Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare, 1932–1945, and American Cover-Up.

New York: Routledge, revised edition, 2002.

Kang, Hildi, Under the Black Umbrella: Voices from Colonial Korea, 1910–1945. Ithaca: Cornell University

Press, 2001.

Kleeman, Faye Yuan, Under an Imperial Sun: Japanese Colonial Literature of Taiwan and the South.

Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003.

Kratoska, Paul H. (ed.), Southeast Asian Minorities in the Wartime Japanese Empire. London: Routledge-

Curzon, 2002.

Li Narangoa, ‘Japanese imperialism and Mongolian Buddhism, 1932–1945’, Critical Asian Studies, 35:4

(2003): 491–514.

New Views of Japanese Colonialism 297

Li Narangoa and Robert Cribb, ‘Afterword: Japanese imperialism and the politics of loyalty’, in

Li Narangoa and Robert Cribb (eds), Imperial Japan and National Identities in Asia, 1895–1945.

London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003, 315–318.

Li Narangoa and Robert Cribb (eds), Imperial Japan and National Identities in Asia, 1895–1945. London:

RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.

Li Narangoa and Robert Cribb, ‘Introduction: Japan and the transformation of national identities in Asia

in the imperial era’, in Li Narangoa and Robert Cribb (eds), Imperial Japan and National Identities in

Asia, 1895–1945. London: Routledge Curzon, 2003, 1–22.

Lim, P. Pui Huen and Diana Wong (eds), War and Memory in Malaysia and Singapore. Singapore: Institute

of Southeast Asian Studies, 2000.

Lo, Ming-cheng M., Doctors within Borders: Profession, Ethnicity, and Modernity in Colonial Taiwan.

Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.

Matsusaka, Yoshihisa Tak, The Making of Japanese Manchuria, 1904–1932. Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Asia Center, 2001.

Mitter, Rana, The Manchurian Myth: Nationalism, Resistance, and Collaboration in Modern China. Berkeley:

University of California Press, 2000.

Mitter, Rana, ‘Evil empire? Competing constructions of Japanese imperialism in Manchuria,

1928–1937’, in Li Narangoa and Robert Cribb (eds), Imperial Japan and National Identities in Asia,

1895–1945. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003, 146–168.

Miyamoto Masaaki, ‘Shokuminchi to “bunka”’, in Nenpo Nihon gendaishi henshu iinkai (ed.), ‘Teikoku’ to

shokuminchi—‘Dai Nippon teikoku’ hokai rokujunen (Nenpo: Nihon gendaishi dai 10 go). Gendai shiryo

shuppan, 2005, 195–210.

Mori Takemaro, ‘Colonies and countryside in wartime Japan’, in Ann Waswo and Nishida Yoshiaki

(eds), Farmers and Village Life in Twentieth-century Japan. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003,

175–198.

Mori Takemaro and Yanagisawa Yu, ‘Tokushu ni atatte’, in Nenpo Nihon gendaishi henshu iinkai (ed.),

‘Teikoku’ to shokuminchi—‘Dai Nippon teikoku’ hokai rokujunen (Nenpo: Nihon gendaishi dai 10 go).

Gendai shiryo shuppan, 2005, i–v.

Myers, Ramon H. and Mark R. Peattie (eds), The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895–1945. Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1984.

Nahm, Andrew C. (ed.), Korea under Japanese Colonial Rule: Studies of the Policy and Techniques of Japanese

Colonialism. Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University, 1973.

Nakami, Tatsuo, ‘Mongol nationalism and Japan’, in Li Narangoa and Robert Cribb (eds), Imperial Japan

and National Identities in Asia, 1895–1945. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003, 90–105.

Peattie, Mark R., Nan’yo: The Rise and Fall of the Japanese in Micronesia. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i

Press, 1988.

Peattie, Mark, Ramon Myers and Andre Schmid, ‘Communications to the editor’, Journal of Asian

Studies, 60:3 (2001): 813–816.

Sasaki, Shiro, ‘Anthropological studies of the indigenous peoples in Sakhalin in pre-wartime and wartime

Japan’, in Akitoshi Shimizu and Jan van Bremen (eds), Wartime Japanese Anthropology in Asia and the

Pacific. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology, 2003, 151–168.

Schmid, Andre, ‘Colonialism and the “Korea problem” in the historiography of modern Japan: a review

article’, Journal of Asian Studies, 59:4 (2000): 951–976.

Shimizu, Akitoshi and Jan van Bremen (eds), Wartime Japanese Anthropology in Asia and the Pacific. Osaka:

National Museum of Ethnology, 2003.

Shin Gi-Wook and Michael Robinson (eds), Colonial Modernity in Korea. Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press, 2000.

Talib, Naimah S., ‘Memory and its historical context: the Japanese occupation in Sarawak and its impact

on a Kuching Malay community’, in P. Pui Huen Lim and Diana Wong (eds), War and Memory in

Malaysia and Singapore. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2000, 123–138.

Tamanoi, Mariko Asano, ‘Knowledge, power, and racial classifications: the “Japanese” in “Manchuria”’,

Journal of Asian Studies, 59:2 (2000): 248–276.

Tamanoi, Mariko Asano, ‘A road to “a redeemed mankind”: the politics of memory among the former

Japanese peasant settlers in Manchuria’, South Atlantic Quarterly, 99:1 (2000): 163–192.

Tamanoi, Mariko Asano, ‘War responsibility and Japanese civilian victims of Japanese biological warfare

in China’, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 32:3 (2000): 13–22.

Tamanoi, Mariko Asano (ed.), Crossed Histories: Manchuria in the Age of Empire. Honolulu: Association for

Asian Studies and University of Hawai’i Press, 2005.

298 Sandra Wilson

Tanaka, Yuki, Japan’s Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution during World War II and the US

Occupation. London: Routledge, 2002.

Tarling, Nicholas, A Sudden Rampage: The Japanese Occupation of Southeast Asia, 1941–1945. London:

Hurst, 2001.

Townsend, Susan C., Yanaihara Tadao and Japanese Colonial Policy: Redeeming Empire. Richmond, Surrey:

Curzon, 2000.

Tsu Yun Hui, ‘For science, co-prosperity, and love: the re-imagination of Taiwanese folklore and Japan’s

Greater East Asian war’, in Akitoshi Shimizu and Jan van Bremen (eds), Wartime Japanese Anthropology

in Asia and the Pacific. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology, 2003, 189–207.

Tsurumi, E. Patricia, Japanese Colonial Education in Taiwan, 1985–1945. Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press, 1977.

Wakabayashi, Bob Tadashi, ‘Comfort women: beyond litigious feminism’, Monumenta Nipponica, 58:2

(2003): 223–258.

Wilson, Sandra, ‘Rethinking the 1930s and the “15-year war” in Japan’, Japanese Studies, 21:2 (2001):

155–164.

Wilson, Sandra, The Manchurian Crisis and Japanese Society, 1931–33. London: Routledge, 2002.

Wilson, Sandra, ‘Securing prosperity and serving the nation: Japanese farmers and Manchuria,

1931–33’, in Ann Waswo and Nishida Yoshiaki (eds), Farmers and Village Life in Twentieth-century

Japan. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003, 156–174.

Wilson, Sandra, ‘Rekishi kenkyu no danso o kakyo suru mono—Nihon shokuminchi (1931–45nen)

kenkyu no shinkenchi’, in Nenpo Nihon gendaishi henshu iinkai (ed.), ‘Teikoku’ to shokuminchi—‘Dai

Nippon teikoku’ hokai rokujunen (Nenpo: Nihon gendaishi dai 10 go). Gendai shiryo shuppan, 2005,

211–228.

Wong, Diana, ‘War and memory in Malaysia and Singapore: an introduction’, in P. Pui Huen Lim and

Diana Wong (eds), War and Memory in Malaysia and Singapore. Singapore: Institute of Southeast

Asian Studies, 2000, 1–8.

Yoshimi Yoshiaki, Jugun ianfu. Iwanami shoten, 1995.

Yoshimi, Yoshiaki, Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military during World War II, Suzanne

O’Brien (trans.). New York: Columbia University Press, 2000.

Young, Louise, Japan’s Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism. Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1998.

New Views of Japanese Colonialism 299