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Newsletter of the lnstitute of Social Science, University of TokyoISSN 1340-7155

SocialScience 30

December 2004

Nationalism

SSJ-30 04.12.17 15:33 ページ 1

Page 2 Social Science Japan December 2004

Published by:The Information Center for SocialScience Research on JapanInstitute of Social ScienceUniversity of Tokyo

Editorial Committee:Ishida AtsushiThomas BlackwoodSuginohara Masako

DistributionFree airmail subscriptions areavailable to institutions andindividuals. Social Science Japan isalso available on the World WideWeb at:http://newslet.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp

All inquiries to:Social Science JapanInstitute of Social ScienceUniversity of Tokyo Hongo 7-3-1, Bunkyo-ku Tokyo 113-0033 JAPANTel +81 3 5841-4931Fax +81 3 5841-4905Electronic mail:[email protected]

Cover PhotoJapanese children dedicating thewarplane, the "Patriotic Child," at itsdedication ceremony. December 2,1932. Courtesy of the MainichiShinbun.

Back Cover Photo Japanese supporters unfurling alarge Japanese flag at the AsianWorld Cup (Soccer) Qualifyinggame at the Jamsil OlympicStadium in Seoul. November 1,1997. Courtesy of the MainichiShinbun.

Editorial NotesPersonal Names

All personal names are given inthe customary order in thenative language of the personunless otherwise requested.Hence in Japanese names, thefamily name is given first, e.g.Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and inWestern names the familyname is given second, e.g.George Bush.

Copyright © 2004 by the Institute ofSocial Science, University ofTokyo, except where noted. Allrights reserved.

The thematic focus of this issue of Social Science Japan is Nationalism.From Jason Karlin's reconsideration of the culpability of Japanese womenin wartime Japan, to Oguma Eiji's examination of contemporary right-wing groups pushing for history textbook reform, these articles remind usthat nationalism is neither something limited to men, nor something onlyof the past. Hiraishi Naoaki critically analyzes the writings of one ofJapan's foremost intellectuals of the 20th Century, Maruyama Masao, toexplain how his democratic impulses merged nicely with his nationalistictendencies. Looking internationally, Sakamoto Hiroko examines thevarious ways Chinese nationalism has been understood in modernChinese history, especially by Japanese scholars, and Rwei-Ren Wu offersa fascinating Hegelian interpretation of the nationalism of Taiwan.

Finally, as many of our loyal readers are aware, this issue of Social ScienceJapan marks our Tenth Anniversary. We thus begin the issue with anessay by the current director of the Institute of Social Science, NittaMichio, who offers a short institutional history of the newsletter and itsrelationship with the Information Center for Social Science Research onJapan.

As always, if you are not a current subscriber, but would like to receiveSocial Science Japan, please email us at [email protected], with thewords "SSJ subscription" in the subject box, for a free subscription.

Thomas BlackwoodManaging Editor

Contents

Message from the Director of ISSNitta Michio Celebrating the Tenth Anniversary of Social Science Japan ……………………p.3

NationalismJason G. Karlin Gender, Nationalism, and the Problem of Ideology in Women's History ………………………………………………………………………………p.5

Oguma Eiji Recent Trends in Right-Wing Historical Revisionism in Japan ……………………p.8

Hiraishi Naoaki Maruyama Masao, National Democrat ………………………………………p.10

Sakamoto Hiroko Chinese Nationalism, The Gaze of Japan, and China's National History ………………………………………………………………………………p.12

Rwei-Ren Wu Fragment of/f Empires: The Peripheral Formation of Taiwanese Nationalism ………………………………………………………………………p.14

Research ReportsGiovanni Ferri Do Global Credit Rating Agencies Think Globally? Evidence from Recent Research and Perspectives for East Asia ………………………………………p.17

Antony M. Best The Anglo-Japanese Alliance and International Politics in Asia, 1902-1903 ………………………………………………………………………………p.20

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Nitta Michio

Page 3Social Science Japan December 2004

Nitta Michio is the Current Director of the Insti-

tute of Social Science, the University of Tokyo, as

well as a Professor of Industrial Relations in the

Institute

Institute of Social ScienceUniversity of TokyoHongo 7-3-1Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo [email protected]

Ten years have passed since the Institute of SocialScience published the first issue of our English lan-guage newsletter, Social Science Japan, and issueNumber 30 marks this special anniversary. This istruly an event to celebrate. Since its beginning, wehave been able to produce three issues almost everyyear. I am grateful to the five managing editors wehave had, as well as the current and past membersof the editorial board, and all of our contributors,from inside and outside of the Institute.

Not only have we been able to produce a substantialnumber of issues, both our content and design aredeemed outstanding for an English languagenewsletter published by a Japanese university orresearch institute, and we are extremely proud of thepraise we have received both domestically andabroad. When considering how we have achievedsuch a high quality publication, we must first recog-nize the hard work and self-sacrifice of our manag-ing editors, who have been directly involved withtranslating and editing the articles. The contribution

of the founding managing editor, Jonathan Lewis,was especially significant in establishing the style ofthe newsletter. After Mr. Lewis, we have been fortu-nate to secure such talented people as David Leheny,Jim Hellyer, Ian Martin, and Tom Blackwood asmanaging editors.

In retrospect, the SSJ newsletter had its startingpoint in 1993, when the then director of the ISS, Pro-fessor Yamazaki Hiroaki, proposed that the Instituteemploy a research associate to be in charge of anEnglish language newsletter, and he obtainedapproval at the monthly faculty meeting. This wasat the time when the ISS was requesting the Ministryof Education's (currently the Ministry of Education,Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology) approvalto establish an Information Center for Social ScienceResearch on Japan (ICSSRJ), and producing an Eng-lish newsletter was one of the activities we hopedwould increase our chances of gaining MOE'sapproval. By advancing communication in English,our main intention was to distribute informationconcerning social scientific research on Japan toJapanologists and social scientists interested inJapan around the world. Among all of the candi-dates who applied for the managing editor job, Mr.Jonathan Lewis (currently Associate Professor at theInstitute for the Study of Global Issues, GraduateSchool of Social Sciences, Hitotsubashi University)was chosen as our first managing editor. In fact,according to Professor Kudo Akira who was thechair of the ICSSRJ Preparation Committee at thetime, Mr. Lewis was the second choice of the selec-tion committee. But, since our first choice declined,Mr. Lewis was hired. Considering Mr. Lewis' subse-quent activity, however, this small setback turnedout to be very fortunate for the SSJ newsletter andthe Institute.

According to an ISS oral tradition, Professor BannoJunji, the Director of ISS when SSJ first came out,snatched the first issue hot off the press and broughtit straight to the Ministry of Education. "Surely, aninstitute that can produce such a high-quality Eng-lish language newsletter," he asserted, "should be

Celebrating the Tenth Anniversary of SocialScience Japan

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able to establish an Information Center for SocialScience Research on Japan, as an international centerfor research on Japanese society." This, it is said, ledto success at the budgetary request meeting the fol-lowing year, and was the first step towards the inau-guration of the ICSSRJ in 1996. Mr. Lewis, togetherwith visiting researcher Mr. Andrew DeWit (current-ly an Associate Professor of Economics at RikkyoUniversity), was also responsible for starting up ourEnglish language electronic discussion list, SSJForum, in May of 1995. The activity of the SSJForum was another important task in preparing forthe establishment of the ICSSRJ. I have many fondmemories of Mr. Lewis operating the SSJ Forum,and introducing it to visitors from university admin-istration and from the Ministry of Education.

Even after the ICSSRJ was established in 1996, SSJcontinued to be published 3 times a year, occasional-ly putting out special issues on thematic topics. Inaddition to paper copies, SSJ was also availableonline from very early on, and issues could bedownloaded from a web site. In keeping up withtechnological changes, a shift to CAD-based editingwas also carried out. At the same time they werecoping with such technical challenges, the managingeditors had to continue to translate Japanese manu-scripts and edit them, giving them extra difficulties.Since I myself served as the Chair of the CenterManagement Committee from 1996 to 2000, I havealso been involved with the selection and hiring ofmanaging editors. Although all of the job candi-

dates who make it to the interview stage are givenJapanese-to-English translation exams, we thoughtthat since much of the translating will be of articleswritten by ISS faculty members, we decided to choseselections from publications written by ISS facultyfor candidates to translate in the exams. However,the first time we did this, I'm afraid we chose a verydifficult Japanese passage, and made the candidatessuffer quite a bit. Upon reflection, I realized thateven if we intend to have our writing translated intoEnglish, we must try to write clear Japanese that canbe easily understood.

Finally, I will discuss the role of visiting scholars inthe SSJ newsletter. When looking over past issues ofthe newsletter, we can see many articles written byresearchers visiting ISS at the time. Every year ISSwelcomes more than 30 visiting researchers foreither long or short stays, and many of them havepublished short pieces about their research in SSJ.Furthermore, many former visiting researchers havepublished pieces in SSJ after returning to their homeinstitutions. The fact that SSJ functions as a place forsuch bidirectional communication, and not only topublicize the research of ISS faculty, is one of theunique features of SSJ when compared to similarpublications. This is one sign that our institute oper-ates as a hub for an international network of socialscientific research on Japan, and our internationalactivities have worked to greatly enrich this net-work.


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Jason Karlin is an Associate Professor of Modern

Japanese Cultural History in the Institute of

Social Science, the University of Tokyo


More shocking than the photographs of torture andsexual humiliation that emerged from Abu Ghraibprison in Iraq was the centrality of women as the"perpetrators." While Barbara Ehrenreich, SusanSontag, and Naomi Wolf among other feministsexpressed a sense of disillusion with the idealizedview of women as the gentler and less aggressivesex, others defended the women as "victims" of anideology of nationalism, racism, and patriarchy.Why did these women do what they did?

The shock that many feminists felt at the women ofAbu Ghraib precipitated reflection on the dominantnarrative of gender difference that placed womenoutside of the discourses of nationalism, violence,and sexual oppression. In the history of modernJapan, the question of the wartime responsibility ofwomen languished in the postwar period until theearly 1990s when the forced sexual slavery of Kore-an "comfort women" compelled historians to beginto question the complicity of women in the wartimesystem of colonialism and oppression. However,throughout the postwar years, historians have

doggedly invoked the "emperor system" (tennosei)and "good wife, wise mother" (ryosai kenbo) ideolo-gies to explain the victimization of Japanese womenby the patriarchal Japanese state.

As a result, the historiography of modern Japan hasrecycled a narrative of resistance to state authorityto explain women's victimization during the twenti-eth century. Since the subjectivity of women is enun-ciatively portrayed as victimized by state oppres-sion, historical scholarship can only rescue the sub-jectivity of women by valorizing their resistance tothe state. Such terms as "victim" and "resistance"become part of the standard vocabulary for narrat-ing women's history. Another part of this vocabu-lary has been the centrality of the emperor, asembodied in the monolithic notion of the emperorsystem ideology. As the dominant ideological appa-ratus of the state and the agent of patriarchal author-ity, the emperor system has functioned to explainthe domination and subordination of the Japanesepeople. In this narrative, the state is explicitly con-ceived as a repressive apparatus that denies the sub-jectivity of the Japanese people.

The reexamination of the role of the people in histo-ry, from Yoshimi Yoshiaki's Kusa no Ne no Fashizumu(1987) to Daniel Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Execu-tioners (1997), is forcing historians to question theiremphasis on narratives of resistance to the ideologyof the state. Still this narrative of resistance has beencentral to the historiography of modern Japan, espe-cially the history of women. Some historians seek torescue the voices of Japan's activist women whochallenged the established order. However, thesewomen who rejected the traditional imperatives ofthe marital institution and who struggled for equali-ty and justice for women often came from the mid-dle-class, and not from the tenant farms of ruralJapan. Despite the courage and idealism of thesewomen activists, they often were alienated from theunderprivileged members of society who theysought to represent. Sharon L. Sievers' groundbreak-ing history of the women's movement (1983), forexample, is staged as a struggle against an oppres-

Gender, Nationalism, and the Problem ofIdeology in Women's History

Jason G. Karlin

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sive, patriarchal state. Sievers tells "the stories ofmany women who refused to be victimized by thatoppression, and who struggled against it" (p. xi).Though Sievers importantly reveals the emergenceof a feminist consciousness in modern Japan, thefailure of the women's movement is seen as a casual-ty of state nationalism. In these accounts, Japanesewomen emerge as the victims of government forceswhose voices can only be heard in the transcripts ofresistance to state authority.

Most historians generally attribute the failure of thewomen's movement in prewar Japan to the forma-tion of the "good wife, wise mother" ideology whichnarrowly defined women's roles as nurturer andeducator. This ideological apparatus, like the emper-or system ideology, has helped to explain the state'ssuccess in controlling and manipulating the Japan-ese people. For example, Kathleen Uno (1993) attrib-utes the production of this ideology to officials inthe Ministry of Education who crafted an officialideal of Japanese womanhood. Uno notes that "fromthe late 1890s until the end of World War II, 'goodwife, wise mother' increasingly pervaded the massmedia and the higher levels of public and privategirls' higher schools" (p. 294). She identifies its pro-duction with the state and industrialists who con-spired with the mass media to shape female atti-tudes and behavior. For Uno, this ideology failed tobecome hegemonic because "despite governmentrepression, the critical voices of educators, leftists,and feminists spread dissonant visions of woman-hood through their writings, protests, and alterna-tive institutions." Uno's view of the dissemination ofthe ideology of "good wife, wise mother" partakes ofthe New Left critique of the media that reduces itsinfluence to that of manipulation. This approach isexculpatory insofar as the consumers of media areseen as being manipulated by external forces. It con-ceals the weakness and negligible role of the criticalvoices of activist women whose influence seldomreached beyond isolated segments of the middle-class, by attributing their failure to the power of themedia. Moreover, it posits a pure, unmanipulatedtruth outside of discourse that is concealed behindthe false consciousness of nationalism.

In questioning these historians' interpretation thatJapanese women resisted the state, one need notcountenance the stereotypical image of the passiveJapanese woman bound by "traditional" obligations.

A subject position for women in Japanese historycan be defined without romanticizing the actions ofindividual women in a process of self-identificationwith noble heroes. In these works, the individual isconceived as the sole agent of causal efficacy indefending the interests of women against theoppressive collectivity. The problem with thisapproach is suggested in Sievers' definition of hersubject as "the lives of ordinary, 'extraordinary'women" (p. xii). What is illustrated in this oxy-moronic phrase is a romanticist conceptualization ofhistory, which generalizes across the historical fieldwhile defining its subject in terms of particularagents. The result is a romanticized view of Japanesehistory for which the defiant actions of a few redeemJapanese women as a whole for their complicity inwartime mobilization.

For the women of modern Japan, the ideology of"good wife, wise mother" corresponded to their ownunderstanding of women's difference from men. Asa gendered discourse within which women weredefined in terms of their closeness to nature andnurturing compassion, its core beliefs were notinevitable and essential qualities of Japanese wom-anhood, but a multivocal text constructed fromideals, expectations, and policy. These conceptionsof women's difference, embodied in notions oflifestyle and community, resonated with womenwho saw difference not as the basis for their ownoppression but as a source of strength and solidarity.Historians, on the other hand, have tended toexplain women's belief in their difference from menas a product of the "good wife, wise mother" ideo-logical indoctrination. However, in their search forthose women who resisted this dominant ideology,they have defined women by supposed gender-neu-tral categories, which have in fact a masculinist biasthat denies the subjectivity of women's experience.

The recent work of historians such as Sheldon Garon(1998), Nishikawa Yuko (2000), and Okano Yukie(2004) all take a critical view of women's victimiza-tion to state ideology.

In her influential work, Carol Gluck (1983) showsthat the process of ideological formation was notsingular and static, but composed of "an array ofideological formulations which at some points rein-forced, and at others contradicted, the official ideo-logical imagination" (p. 30). In Gluck's analysis, the


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Meiji oligarchy dominated the ideological process inthe late 1880s and early 1890s, but increasingly therewere voices outside the government who shaped theideological field. In this way, Gluck's view of nation-alism balances claims of a monolithic state ideologyby showing how groups within society contributedto the production of a nationalist consciousness.Gluck shows that the state was successful in per-suading the people of the validity of the emperorsystem ideology because, in Gramscian terms, "forcedid not greatly exceed consent."

Garon sides with Gluck's definition of ideology inhis analysis of why officials and intermediarygroups cooperated in programs of social manage-ment in prewar Japan. Garon's argument parallelsGluck's assertion that society shared in the creationof ideology by foregrounding the cooperationbetween civil servants and middle-class activists,such as Hani Tomoko. Because the state was regard-ed as a progressive force for effecting meaningfulchange, the bureaucrats and middle-class activistswho collaborated in reforming and improving dailylife advocated the modernization and Westerniza-tion of Japanese society. According to Garon, theshared desire to modernize the rest of society under-lies the alliance between the state and societalgroups.

For Japanese women, their complicity in wartimemobilization and cooperation with the state was notthe result of simple wartime ideological indoctrina-tion, but rather the expression of a shared belief inthe nation and its ideals. Nationalist appeals to fami-ly and community did not produce false conscious-ness, but instead responded to the insecurities and

anxieties that attended the experience of modernityin Japan. For women's historians, rather than couch-ing historical narratives in terms of the noble strug-gle of the people against an oppressive state, greaterattention must now be paid to describing howdemocratic impulses engender nationalism, racism,and patriarchy.

ReferencesGaron, Sheldon. 1998. Molding Japanese Minds: The

State in Everyday Life. Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press.

Gluck, Carol. 1985. Japan's Modern Myths: Ideology inthe Late Meiji Period. Princeton: Princeton Uni-versity Press.

Goldhagen, Daniel. 1997. Hitler's Willing Execution-ers: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. NewYork: Vintage Press.

Nishikawa Yuko. 2000. Kindai Kokka to KazokuModeru (The Modern Nation-State and theFamily Model). Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan.

Okano Yukie, Kitada Sachie, Hasegawa Kei andWatanabe Sumiko, eds. 2004. Onna-tachi noSenso Sekinin (Women's Wartime Responsibili-ty). Tokyo: Tokyodo Shuppan.

Sievers, Sharon L. 1993. Flowers in Salt: The Begin-nings of Feminist Consciousness in Modern Japan.Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Uno, Kathleen. 1993. "The Death of 'Good Wife, WiseMother'". In Postwar Japan as History, ed.Andrew Gordon. Berkeley: University of Cali-fornia Press.

Yoshimi Yoshiaki. 1987. Kusa no Ne no Fashizumu:Nihon Minshu no Sensu Taiken (Grassroots Fas-cism: The Japanese People's Experience ofWar). Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai.


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Oguma Eiji is an Associate Professor in the Facul-

ty of Policy Management at Keio University

Keio University, Faculty of Policy Management 5322 Endo Fujisawa Kanagawa 252-8520 [email protected]

The "Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform,"a right-wing group for historical revisionism, hasrecently come under great scrutiny in Japan. TheSociety, a descendent of the "Association for theAdvancement of Liberalist [sic] View of History"(AALVH) which was led by Tokyo UniversitySchool of Education Professor Fujioka Nobukatsu,was formed in 1997.

Japanese historical revisionism has a number of dis-tinctive characteristics. First, unlike Hindi right-wing revisionists in India who battle over ancienthistorical accounts, it focuses exclusively on issuesof modern history. Among those issues, the ques-tion of how to situate the so-called "15 Year War,"beginning with the 1931 Manchurian Incident,through the 1937 Sino-Japanese War, and up to the1945 defeat of Japan in the Pacific War, is the mostcrucial.

At the same time, Japanese historical revisionism isalso intimately related to Japan's current politicalsystem, which was constructed in the epoch-makingyear of 1945, following the 15 Year War. ModernJapan is based on a system which was constructed

post-1945, from its domestic organization, startingwith the Constitution, to its international relations,which are based on its bilateral relationship with theUnited States. Therefore, at a time when Japan'scontemporary national identity is being questionedand altered, Japan's contemporary political system,coming out of the history of the 15 Year War, hasarisen as an important point of contention forJapan's self-image. As one might suspect, thisaspect closely resembles the characteristics of thehistorical revisionism of Germany, which is alsobuilt on a system fashioned post-1945.

Another characteristic of contemporary Japan's his-torical revisionism is its emergence after the mid1990s. This is directly related to the movementopposing the rapid succession of formal objectionsand lawsuits from war victims from various Asiancountries, which came at the occasion of the 50thanniversary of the end of the Pacific War. However,on the other hand, this is also a reflection of theJapanese political system's own deadlock. That is,from the 1990s, as Japan domestically sufferedthrough economic recession, and, on the foreignrelations front, faced increasing American requestsfor the overseas dispatch of the Self-Defense Forces(SDF), there has been a growing sense that the "Post-war System" constructed after 1945 has reached animpasse. At the same time, as this recognitionspread, the viewpoint calling for constitutionalreform, or a "reevaluation of the system with its ori-gins in 1945," arose side by side with groups callingfor a "reevaluation of Japanese history through1945."

Questions about education can be considered anoth-er domestic administrative impasse. As Japan's eco-nomic disparities increased due to the recession inthe 1990s, issues such as the increase in absenteeismin primary schools or the growth in differences inacademic achievement have rapidly gained theattention of all. The Ministry of Education, Culture,Sports, Science, and Technology's (MEXT) policyresponses to these issues have been confused andscattered, and Japanese people have become increas-


Recent Trends in Right-Wing HistoricalRevisionism in Japan

Oguma Eiji

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ingly uneasy concerning this situation. It is in thissetting that the Japanese Society for History Text-book Reform began to appeal to the hopes of seg-ments of society which had previously never felt aconnection to rightwing ideology or historical revi-sionism, such as housewives, by implying theywould have the power to solve the problems inJapanese education.

The above is the general background within whichthe Japanese Society for History Textbook Reformarose, although it is difficult to explain its ideologi-cal characteristics in a single phrase. The "Liberal-ism" professed by its antecedent, the AALVH, has aunique meaning. The AALVH criticized both "theview of history affirming the 'Greater East AsianWar,' " which claimed that the 15 Year War was awar of Asian liberation (the "Greater East AsianWar" was the Japanese name for the Pacific War),and "the Tokyo War Crimes Trial view of history,"1

which unequivocally denounced the 15 Year War asa war of aggression. They argued that the "liberalistview of history" stood in an objective, third position.In this case, "liberalism" means both "anti-commu-nism" and "anti-totalitarianism." Fujioka Nobukat-su, the founder of the AALVH, was a former com-munist who lost faith in communism at the end ofthe Cold War.

At its start, the AALVH, with Fujioka at its center,was inaugurated as a research society for educatorslooking to begin a debate on further developing themethodology of history education. However, theAALVH began a transformation in character as for-mer soldiers and members of right-wing groups,arguing that the Greater East Asian War was a battlefor Asian liberation, began to join. As a result, bythe time the Japanese Society for History TextbookReform was formed in 1997, members with a strongright-wing leaning had greatly increased in num-bers. The trend of young people, especially the pop-ular cartoonist Kobayashi Yoshinori, joining theSociety, attracted widespread attention.

However, even though the Japanese Society for His-tory Textbook Reform clearly exhibits strong right-wing tendencies, it is difficult to say the Society is

ideologically unified. If there are members whoargue the Greater East Asian War was a war to fightfor Asian liberation, there are also members whocontend the Japanese expansion of influence in Asiawas, in any case, a strategic mistake which led to ahopeless war with the United States. Furthermore,in the case of contemporary politics, while there aremembers who express a strong antipathy towardsthe United States and oppose cooperating withAmerican requests for the overseas deployment ofthe SDF, there are also members who feel it is inJapan's national interest to follow America's lead.Although all members strongly desire to portrayJapan in a positive manner, they do not have a uni-fied opinion on what type of stance Japan shouldadopt towards the U.S.

Another internal conflict within the Society concernsthe Emperor: while older members continue to havestrong feelings of allegiance towards him, one cansafely say the younger members are indifferent tothe Emperor. Although we can split the Society byage into members over 60 and those under 30, whencompared to usual right-wing groups, the relativelylarge number of the latter is another distinctive fea-ture. However, the younger members, who do notfeel loyalty to the emperor, have little to offer as anucleus for Japanese national identity.

Although the Japanese Society for History TextbookReform showed considerable vigor at its founding,these internal conflicts increased in intensity withthe completion of their own history textbook in2001. A considerable number of core members leftthe Society over a debate concerning the right andwrong of SDF deployment and the American aerialbombardment of Afghanistan. Furthermore, theadoption rate by schools of their new textbook wasso low that the Society itself described it as an "utterdefeat," and this result crushed the hopes of manyfringe and lower-level members. The aforemen-tioned cartoonist Kobayashi Yoshinori left at thistime, along with many of these fringe members. Asa result, the Society's outreach and expansion effortsamong the masses, which began with the youngmembers, have lost their momentum.


1 Both terms, "the view of history affirming the Greater East Asian War,' "（大東亜戦争肯定史観）and "the Tokyo War Crimes Trial view of history"（東京裁判史観）were coined by Fujioka Nobukatsu

SSJ-30 04.12.17 15:33 ページ 9

Currently, the Society has linked up with the LiberalDemocratic Party's (LDP) conservative and right-wing groups, and a campaign to popularize theirtextbook, as a symbol of conservatives, is underway. In a manner of speaking, we can say that theSociety is now closer to the customary form of con-servative groups. In 2004, the Society's textbookwas adopted for new schools in Tokyo, and whilethese trends cannot be ignored, in all likelihood, thestage where they could have achieved mass popu-larity has passed.

However, as long as problems such as economicrecession, SDF overseas deployment, constitutionalreform, education problems, etc. continue to exist incontemporary Japan, it is safe to say that the popu-lar base for the emergence of right-wing historicalrevisionism in Japan will also continue to exist.Although the Japanese Society for History TextbookReform has temporarily lost its influence, as long asthis base exists, the possibility for the emergence of asecond or third generation right-wing group is far


SSJ-30 04.12.17 15:33 ページ 10


Hiraishi Naoaki is a Professor of Japanese Intel-

lectual History in the Institute of Social Science,

the University of Tokyo


Maruyama Masao, a leading political scientist andintellectual historian, died in 1996 at the age of 82.In the eight years since his death more than twentybooks concerning him and his work have appearedboth inside and outside Japan, including Democracyin Postwar Japan by Rikki Kersten, Revolution andSubjectivity in Postwar Japan by Victor Koschmann,and The Social Sciences in Modern Japan by AndrewBarshay, not to mention works by Japanese scholars.

One of the hot topics related to Maruyama in thesebooks is the question of how to assess the historicalrole of his nationalistic assertions, which he madeduring World War Two. Maruyama was generallyseen as a progressive thinker in postwar Japan, sothat, as far as I know, until recently no one tried tocriticize him by alleging that he was committed toJapan's war efforts through his propagation ofnationalism, and was responsible as an intellectualfor supporting the war. Recently, however, somescholars have begun criticizing Maruyama based onthese points, insisting that he had actually inventeda new theory to mobilize people for the war, albeit

in a less fanatic way than the government's officialposition of the "national polity." In this article, Iwould like to explore this issue further.

One of Maruyama's main works is Studies in theIntellectual History of Tokugawa Japan (1952; an Eng-lish edition appeared in 1974), which contains threeessays written during the war period, and in myview it is crucial to examine the logical relationbetween the three, and especially between the lasttwo essays, in order to ascertain the covert politicalimplications of Maruyama's works during the war.

In the "Author's Introduction" to the English editionof the book, Maruyama explains that in the firstessay he traces, through the historical vicissitudes ofNeo–Confucian modes of thought, the disintegra-tion of the "orthodox" world view of TokugawaJapan, finding in the Sorai and the Norinaga schoolsearly appearances of a modern way of thinking. Inthe second essay he attempts to "show how the basisfor a modern consciousness had emerged as an'unintended consequence' in the same way as in Part1 [i.e. the first essay]" (p. xxx), tracing "the transitionfrom the idea of a natural to that of an artificialsocial order" (p. xxix). With this objective, Maruya-ma points out in the second essay that the Confuciantheory of "invention of the Way" coined by Soraideveloped in the middle of the Tokugawa period,but remained stagnant thereafter.

It is easy to see that the first two essays of the bookare complimentary in their contents, and Maruyamahimself admits that the second essay "was written asa sort of supplement to the first part" (p. xxix). Onthe other hand, it is not easy to see how the first twoessays are related to the third, since in the third hetraces the formation of pre-modern nationalism inthe late Tokugawa period. In fact, however, there isa close relation between the second essay and thethird, and the point is related to an article on thenationalism of Meiji thinker Fukuzawa Yukichi,"Fukuzawa's Perceptions of Order and Man" whichMaruyama wrote for the Mita Shimbun, the newspa-per of Keio University, during the war period.

Maruyama Masao, National Democrat

Hiraishi Naoaki

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In section 3 of chapter 6 in the second essay,Maruyama points out that "the theoretical limit ofSorai's philosophy of invention, the fact that theinventing agent could only be a special personalitysuch as a sage or a Tokugawa shogun," also holdstrue for the late Tokugawa theorists such as HondaToshiaki, so that "there is no indication that thesetheorists were inclining toward the concept that it isthe people who make institutions (such as the socialcontract theory*)" (p. 300). Maruyama says "So longas the ability to invent is made dependent on a spe-cial status, the great majority of the people aredenied the right to transform the existing order asautonomous beings. For them the existing social andpolitical order remains in fact a predestined arrange-ment" (p. 301). Here Maruyama debates what isnecessary to create a democratic political system,and his answer is found in the concept of the peo-ple's ability to make institutions, democratizingSorai's theory of "invention of the Way," as a coun-terpart to Western social contract theory.

On the other hand, Maruyama concludes his thirdessay as follows. "the fact that the liquidation of thepouvoirs intermédiaires [i.e. the Meiji Restoration]was carried out without the active participation ofthe popular classes, and, moreover, by the very ele-ments that constituted those intermediate powers[i.e. samurai of lesser ranks], had a decisive effect onthe character of the Meiji innovations intended togive rise to a modern nation-state....[W]hat FukuzawaYukichi called 'the implantation of the concept'nation' in the minds of the people of the entire coun-try' now became the urgent task of the Meijithinkers" (p. 267). From his usage of French histori-cal terminology, we can infer that Maruyama hadthe French Revolution at the end of the 18th centuryin his mind when he wrote these sentences, and byreferring to this model, he indicates that the modernidea of "nation" was not fully developed in Toku-gawa Japan, and the task of developing it was left tothe hands of later Meiji thinkers, such as Fukuzawa.

The point is, as the case of the French Revolutionillustrates, that the appearance of modern national-ism is the flip side of the coin of modern social con-tract theory. Both are internally related with respectto creating a political community based on the peo-ple's consent and initiative, and when a modernnationalistic movement is carried out in full scale, it

contains the possibility to abolish the old regimeruled by monarchical and feudalistic elements frombelow, resulting in the establishment of a newnation-state ruled by the popular classes. In myview, the above-cited sentences in the second andthe third essays show that Maruyama was consciousof this internal relationship between modern nation-alism and modern social contract theory when hewrote these two essays, and by referring to theFrench model concerning the relationship, he point-ed out the historical backwardness of Tokugawaintellectual history regarding both social contracttheory and nationalism.

In the abovementioned newspaper article, Maruya-ma cites Fukuzawa's dictum "The independence ofan individual is the prerequisite for the indepen-dence of a nation," emphasizing that Japanese inde-pendence cannot be secured if the Confucian dictumof "letting people follow, keeping them uninformed"remains the guiding principle of politics; Maruyamais thereby criticizing the official position on "nation-al polity" propagated by the government. And as Isaid earlier, some scholars criticize Maruyama onaccount of this nationalistic assertion, insisting thathe had invented a theory to induce people to sup-port the war effort.

But Maruyama stresses in the same article "It ismade possible only through the factor of the subjec-tive freedom of an individual that man can trans-form himself from a person who passively acceptsorder as predestined to a person who actively takespart in forming order. There is no wonder that[Fukuzawa's] idea of independence and self-respectsignifies the individual's initiative."

This is another example of his perception of the rela-tionship between modern nationalism and socialcontract theory, and if we read these sentences withthe sentences in the two above-cited essays, we cansee that Maruyama emphasizes the necessity of theintellectual revolution of each citizen, enabling thepeople to participate in a democratic politicalreform, so as to create a new nation from below, inplace of the "national polity" from above. In otherwords, Maruyama, in his nationalistic assertion, didin fact tacitly insist that the Japanese old "nationalpolity" first needs a democratic reformation, basedon a social contract, so as to be truly nationalistic.

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In conclusion, when we try to assess the historicalrole of Maruyama's nationalistic assertions duringthe war, we should see how the idea of modernnationalism was closely interrelated with social con-tract theory in his early thought, and also take intoaccount the revolutionary concepts implicit in hisworks, especially in the newspaper article onFukuzawa, although they may at first appear asarguments for mobilizing people for the war.

(*The italics used in quotations of Maruyama throughout the essay

are mine.)

ReferencesMaruyama Masao. 1974. Studies in the Intellectual

History of Tokugawa Japan. Tokyo: University ofTokyo Press.

丸山眞男（1943/11/25）「福沢に於ける秩序と人間」三田新聞学会。


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Sakamoto Hiroko is a Professor of History at

Hitotsubashi University

Hitotsubashi UniversityGraduate School of Social SciencesNaka 2-1, KunitachiTokyo [email protected]

The Gaze of Japan

As nationalism arises accompanying a desire for anational identity vis-à-vis others, it can be seen inmany ways, depending on the relationship betweenthe gaze of its observers and the nationalism itself.In other words, the relationship between the nation-alism of a people/state and those observing it willaffect both the way the nationalism arises, and howit is viewed. The nationalisms of Japan and Chinaoffer appropriate examples of this.

Historically speaking, due to its geographic positionclose to China, Japan experienced a kind of Chinois-erie over an extended period of time, incomparablewith the brief experience of Western nations. Thus,from the Edo period Japan's national identity wasformed through conscious efforts to break awayfrom China, and this was accelerated when Japandefeated China in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. Under these circumstances, in China Studiesat the Imperial Universities, only ancient studies, orat the most, studies up to the era known as the QingDynasty, were considered worthwhile, and modern

China was not considered worth studying (eventoday, this tendency somehow continues in studiesof so-called "Chinese literature" and "Chinese philos-ophy"). In this way, Japan's attraction towardsancient China changed to contempt for modernChina, and Japan rushed into the Sino-Japanese Warof 1937-1945; after Japan's defeat, its complextowards China unconsciously increased.

At the same time that post-WWII political historiansin America were being trained under the influenceof John Fairbank et al's research on modern Chinesehistory, some Japanese specialists of China alsobegan a new era of Chinese studies, based on a cri-tique of prewar days, putting studies of Chinese lit-erature, history, and philosophy within the realm ofmodern times. People like Nishi Junzo, ShimadaKenji, and, although his style is slightly different,Takeuchi Yoshimi were such researchers, and manyyoung researchers followed them; when I was a stu-dent most of my teachers were such people.

I think that it is also no coincidence that PostwarJapan's "New China Studies" resonated with the"New China" born by the Communist Revolution;Chinese Studies in Japan needed to be reformed. Inthe national history of Post-revolution China, thenationalism that resisted world powers when theybegan their aggression against modern China is, nat-urally, highly esteemed. In fact, it was precisely dueto the process of fighting against the Japanese impe-rialist invasion, and resisting Japan, that the ChineseRevolution was able to occur.

Moving Away from National History

However, as China began developing a marketeconomy, and economic development advanced inthe 1990s, Chinese intellectuals began to publiclymake statements like, "Farewell to the Revolution."In connection with this, the historical view that thenationalism that had arisen in opposition to Japan-ese imperialism had been preserved throughout thesocialist revolution is also beginning to be reexam-ined.

Chinese Nationalism, The Gaze of Japan, andChina's National History

Sakamoto Hiroko

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Even in Japan, a considerable number of researchersare beginning to think that it is necessary to main-tain some distance from revolutionary China'snational history, which they once cozied up to. Mywork,1 which I submitted for publication half a yearago, is this kind of work.

In an ironic twist, the nationalism of modern Chinahas also begun to incorporate social evolution theo-ry, which previously was an important source ofintellectual support for the imperialist Japaneseinvasion against which the Chinese had fought.Moreover, Chinese nationalism has inevitably begunto incorporate elements of racism and eugenics,which are closely connected to social evolution theo-ry. In retrospect, we can see a similar situation inMeiji Japan, where the light of "democracy and sci-ence," which were being called for throughout theworld, also cast a shadow, consisting of the negativeaspects of civilization, including wars of aggression.As is made clear by the current war in Iraq, aggres-sion in Palestine, etc., resolution will only beachieved by confronting the problems head on.Rather than regarding the anti-imperialist, modernChinese nationalism as something purely positive,we should attempt to convert it into a useful intel-lectual resource, by pursuing the various aspects ofthe chain of pros and cons on a more global scale,including Asia, and reflecting upon the differentmeanings it has in each place.

The Gender Problem in Chinese Nationalism

One research topic that I think is suppressed due tothe consecration of modern Chinese nationalism isthe problem of gender. By taking up the problem ofabolishing foot-binding, in my work I wanted toshow how we can view modern China along theaxis of gender. After dismantling the Qing Dynasty,it was considered necessary to "nationalize thebody" in the process of reorganizing the state. Sincewomen were subsequently incorporated into thenation as "national mothers," or "national reproduc-tive subjects," it was considered necessary to abolishfoot-binding, which had been carried out primarilyas fashion through the Ming Qing era.

However, even for reform-minded men, in order for

men who felt an attachment to foot-bound womento be freed from their attachment, they generally fol-lowed a process of first having their nationalisticimpulses stimulated by missionaries and doctorsfrom the West who criticized foot-binding as a "bar-baric custom of backwards China," before they inter-nalized this view and became critics of foot-bindingthemselves. Through this process, Chinese womenwhose feet had been bound became symbols of"backwards China," and were considered a "nationalshame," and "foot-bound hunts" were subsequentlysanctioned. In this way, such women were broughtto a state of self-hatred, and they suffered muchmental and psychological pain as a result. Further-more, post-May Fourth Movement "new women,"and the subsequent "modern girls," would occasion-ally refer to women with bound feet as "backwardwomen," to highlight their own "newness" to males.Finally, in emphasizing "quality" over number ofchildren in the drive to improve the race, eugenicswent directly against Confucianism, which demand-ed fertility, and ultimately helped establish feminismin China. We cannot discuss feminism without fac-ing this fact.

How "National" is Chinese Nationalism?

Over the past several years the economic relationbetween Japan and China has become prosperous;on the political front, however, relations havecooled, and popular sentiment between the twocountries has deteriorated. This was especiallyobvious through various incidents that occurredduring the Summer 2004 Asian Cup soccer tourna-ment, when a group of anti-Japanese Chinese spec-tators caused some disturbances, and various massmedia in each country pronounced anti-Japanese oranti-Chinese sentiments.

But as some media emphasized, it would be a seri-ous misunderstanding to believe that the anti-Japan-ese spectators were part of a larger movement ofanti-Japanese nationalism in China. My own experi-ence, when I stopped in Shanghai after attending asymposium in Hunan in late August, affirmed thatanti-Japanese nationalism is not a nationwide phe-nomenon in China. Thus, the question of how"national" modern Chinese nationalism actually is, isa subject that requires further investigation.

1坂元ひろ子（2004）『中国民族主義の神話－人種・身体・ジェンダー』(The Myth of Nationalism in Modern China: Race, Body and Gender)岩波書店.

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Rwei-Ren Wu is an Assistant Research Fellow in

the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica

Institute of Taiwan HistoryAcademia Sinica128 Sec.2 Academia Rd. NankangTaipei 115, Taiwan [email protected]

Modern Taiwanese nationalism is a complicatedcase of peripheral nationalism that emerged, sub-merged, and re-emerged as a result of successive yetunfinished state-making and nation-building pro-jects on the island by various imperial centers. Threehistorical empires present in Northeast Asia deeplyshaped the formation and developmental trajectoryof Taiwanese nationalism: the Qing Empire from1683-1895, the Japanese Empire from 1895 to 1945,and the American Empire of the post-WWII era.

Following the classical pattern of state-formation inimperial China, the Qing Empire incorporated Tai-wan through military conquest, sinicized a substan-tial number of Pingpu aborigines, and co-opted someof their leaders. By and large, however, the stateruled the island frontier preventively, in order not toturn it into a base for rebellion. As a result, Taiwanwas for nearly 190 years heavily segregated from the

mainland. Still, a society largely made of Han set-tlers and their offspring gradually took shape. For along time it was divided by sub-ethnic animosityamong Han settlers from different ancestral places,but toward the 1860s signs of integration and indig-enization began to manifest themselves. For onething, the examination system of the Qing state cre-ated a class of local gentry. Late born, underdevel-oped, and locally contained, the gentry in late impe-rial Taiwan, while serving the traditional function oflinking state and locality politically and ideological-ly, had a rather strong localistic outlook compared totheir counterparts on the mainland. Coming fromdifferent origins yet united by common Confucianeducation, this group of local literati was among thefirst to rise above ethnic division and articulated theearliest idea of island-wide Taiwanese identity. In asense they were the pre-national archetype of theAndersonian nationalist bilingual intelligentsia thatappeared later in many colonies,1 only what theyhelped to forge was more a region than a nation. Foranother, the rapid growth of trade in tea and cam-phor during the same period created substantialcommon interests for––and thus greatly amelioratedthe animosity among––Han settlers of variousgroups.

In sum, what we witness in Taiwan under the Qingrule was the belated emerging of a frontier region––acolony-cum-province––loosely if not precariouslyattached to what Vivienne Shue calls the pre-mod-ern honeycomb polity of Qing Empire.2 The statefrom the mainland ruled, not only preventively, butindirectly, through the mediation of sometimesunruly local elite, and incompletely, with its reachlimited to the western part of the territory. Undersuch clientelistic and partial state-building the set-tler society grew indigenized while constantly nego-tiating with the state for its autonomy.

Fragment of/f Empires: The PeripheralFormation of Taiwanese Nationalism

Rwei-Ren Wu

1 In his discussion of the origin of colonial nationalism, Benedict Anderson argues that in many colonies the Western-style education offered bythe European colonizers inadvertently created a bilingual elite out of natives of various origins that would later become the first nationalists.See Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London, New York: Verso, 1991), Chapter 7.2 Vivienne Shue, The Reach of the State: Sketches of the Chinese Body Politic (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1988), p.89.

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With the Japanese takeover of Taiwan in 1895 theisland province was detached from the loosely struc-tured clientelistic polity of Qing Empire to be incor-porated into the expanding Japanese state. It shouldbe noted that Taiwan was broken off China before thelatter began its transformation from empire intonation, and from this point on the historical trajecto-ry of the two bifurcated sharply: while the national-ism in China rose after the moribund empire's 1895defeat to imagine a Chinese nation without Taiwan,the nationalism in Taiwan emerged as a reaction toJapan's colonial nation-building to imagine a Taiwanthat belonged only to the Taiwanese. In short, thebifurcated histories of China and Taiwan since 1895created two separate political fields that induced inboth places movements of nationalism paralleledto––yet separate and different from––each other.

In contradistinction to classical European overseasempires, the Japanese Empire was a contiguousempire that expanded into ethnically proximateneighboring areas, and like many contiguousempires in Central and Eastern Europe and Russia,the ultimate goal of Japan's territorial expansion, atleast within its formal empire, was to absorb thenewly acquired territories––the sovereign colonies ofTaiwan, Karafuto, and Korea––into the Japanesenation-state. Indeed Japan's incorporation of thesethree territories should be regarded as the extensionof Meiji state-formation characterized by the contin-uous expansion of a political core––the Southwest-ern domains––into outlying peripheries: fromNortheast Japan, to Hokkaido and Okinawa, andthen to Taiwan, Karafuto, and Korea.3 This was whatAnthony Smith called the "bureaucratic incorpora-tion" path of nation-state formation.4 Throughoutthe whole process, however, the Meiji state-buildershad followed a consistent logic of differential incorpo-ration that sought to incorporate various peripheralterritories––hierarchically, not equally––into theJapanese national body. Both an expansionary andconstitutive principle of the Meiji state, differentialincorporation had its ideological origin in the corpo-

ratist discourse of kazoku kokka, or family state,which was at the core of pre-war Japanese officialnationalism.

Under the system of differential incorporation, theJapanese official nationalists embarked upon pro-jects of colonial nation-building––or nationalizingcolonialism––in the peripheries which could besummed up by the principle of assimilation beforeintegration. In fact, in putting tremendous efforts intoassimilating the colonial subjects, the Japanese standout among modern empires. The ferocious drive toassimilate its colonized was nonetheless defensive innature: it was born out of a deep fear of being colo-nized by the hegemonic West. Hence the Janus-facedJapanese official nationalism/colonialism: it was aChatterjeean anti-colonial nationalism that sought toresist Western domination and defend its culturalidentity by dominating its peripheral subjects anddepriving them of their identities.5 We may wellcharacterize such oxymoronic "anti-colonial colo-nialism" as an oriental colonialism.

Japan's colonial nation-building in Taiwan producedthree paradoxical consequences. First, by locking theTaiwanese into a state of institutional liminalitywhere they became "Japanese that were not Japan-ese," it politicized the regional space of Taiwan,thereby creating the territorial basis for the rise ofTaiwanese nationalism. Indeed nationalism didemerge in Taiwan in 1920 as a reaction to differentialincorporation. Second, the neo-traditionalistic ideol-ogy of Japan's oriental colonialism compelled theTaiwanese nationalists to adopt a modernist andpro-West discursive strategy to critique Japan andconstruct their own identity. The experience of cul-tural resistance left an indelible imprint upon theTaiwanese self-understanding ever since––an under-standing of themselves as self-determining and pas-sionately aspiring for modernity. This ideologicaltendency was diametrically opposed to the neo-tra-ditionalistic and centralizing Chinese nationalism onthe mainland. Third, over time the aggressive assim-

3 For a comprehensive discussion of the nature of Japanese empire and colonialism, including my reconceptualization of the empire as acontiguous empire and thus extended state-formation, and a detailed discussion of the idea of differential incorporation, see Rwei-Ren Wu,"The Formosan Ideology: Oriental Colonialism and the Rise of Taiwanese Nationalism, 1895-1945," (Ph.D. dissertation submitted to theDepartment of Political Science of the University of Chicago, 2003), Chapter 2.4 Anthony D. Smith, National Identity (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1991), 54-59.5 In his analysis of nationalist ideology in the colonial world, the subaltern studies theorist Partha Chatterjee argues that all anti-colonialnationalism shared an intellectual structure that sought to synthesize the national and the modern. See Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and

the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993).

SSJ-30 04.12.17 15:33 ページ 17


ilation backed by a strong state began to show signsof success in Japanizing the Taiwanese people andcontaining their nationalism. In many respects Tai-wan toward the end of WWII was on the way tobecoming a second Okinawa––vanquished, assimi-lated, albeit with shreds of residual identity.

And yet the twists and turns of History did notallow the Japanese drama to fully play out––with thedefeat of Japan in WWII Taiwan was again trans-ferred unilaterally by the victors, this time to theChinese Nationalist (KMT) regime. The ruthlesslycentralizing state-building by the Nationalists dur-ing the interregnum of 1945-1949 to integrate Tai-wan to the Chinese nation-state proved less thansuccessful: China's internal colonialism in Taiwannot only triggered fierce native resistance but alsorevived the once submerged Taiwanese nationalism,now with China as its other. But internal colonialismsoon turned into colonialism without metropole: in1949, a settler state, i.e. the émigré KMT regime, wasimposed from without. Still, the émigré KMT statein 1949-50 was nothing but a flickering candle, andit was the American Empire of the Cold War thatcreated a geopolitical space for its continuing exis-tence since 1950. The KMT state on Taiwan after1950 was a special case of what Charles Tillydescribes as "existing states leagued to create newones,"6 for although it was a settler state parasiticupon the native society, it nevertheless reignedunder the American suzerainty. This dual colonialstructure both enabled and constrained the develop-ment of Taiwanese nationalism. Domestically, theminority rule of the mainlander elite created a situa-tion highly conducive to ethnic mobilization thatcould in turn easily escalate into nationalism. More-over, under minority rule democratization practical-ly means the nativization of the state. This, indeed,

is what has happened in the postwar Taiwanese pol-itics: today Taiwanese nationalism has come a longway from heavily suppressed opposition to seize thestate power. Externally, however, Taiwanese nation-alism has been severely constrained by the changingAmerican national interests: whether to flirt withTaiwanese nationalism or to crack down on itdepends on how the US defines its national interestat the time. Thus the dialectics of dual colonialismenabled the domestic growth of a liberal Taiwanesenationalism that ultimately "decolonized" the statefrom within and below while constraining its fur-ther external development.

The protracted history of Taiwanese nationalism iscompletely written off by the teleological discourseof Chinese nationalism. From the Chinese point ofview, Taiwan symbolizes the unfinished project ofChinese nation-state building: it is the crucial if notlast piece to be re-attached to the geo-body of themotherland. Even if its action of freedom is tem-porarily constrained by the American hegemony,China does not feel any need to justify its irredentistclaim over Taiwan. Under Pax Americana, the newimperial structure with a humane face, however, theperipherally formed and democratically empoweredTaiwanese nationalism has to daily plead and provein vain to the cynical world of Realpolitik that Tai-wanese people do have the moral worth and right toexist merely as a sub-nation. Gridlocked in theAmerican Empire's global strategy it must remainforever frustrated and unfinished, hoping againsthope that another dire strait might one day open upbetween the gargantuan US and China, where thetiny fragment of and off many empires, the island ofFormosa, could somehow break loose and sail––andsail through. The historical sociology of peripheralnationalism has now turned into a moral drama.

6 Charles Tilly, "War Making and State Making as Organized Crime," in Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol ed.,Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p.185.

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Research Report

There are only three Global Credit Rating Agencies(GCRAs): Moody's, Standard & Poor's (S&P) andFitch. Though they originated in the U.S., GCRAshave recently come to play a key role in the func-tioning of international financial markets world-wide. Their ratings are now the main worry of sov-ereigns, municipal authorities, banks, and corpora-tions around the world, as any downgrading woulddent their capitalization and increase their interestburdens. GCRAs' ratings have even been adopted asa cornerstone in financial regulation, e.g. they areincluded in the regulatory revisions the G-10 coun-tries have recently agreed to adopt by 2006 in termsof minimum capital requirements for banks.

Yet, the reputation of GCRAs has somewhat deterio-rated in recent years. On the one hand, even in theUS, where they traditionally maintained a goodtrack record in terms of assessing the risk of thedefault probability of bond issuers, GCRAs failed toforewarn investors of major upcoming bankruptciesat large, well–known, listed companies (e.g. Enron,Worldcom, etc...). These failures called the public'sattention to GCRAs, and the Sarbanes-Oxley Actmandated the Securities & Exchange Commission(SEC) to review the appropriateness of rating indus-try regulations. On the other hand, the GCRAs' trackrecord has also been poor in emerging countries. Awell-known example is the East Asian financial cri-sis, where GCRAs' ratings lagged behind the mar-kets. Awarding East Asian countries relatively highinvestment scores until a few months before the cri-sis, GCRAs suddenly downgraded their ratings tojunk levels in countries like Korea and Thailand,countries which then promptly resumed their long-term impressive growth.

The main allegations of the literature criticizingGCRAs hinge on six points:

(i) they tend to act too late; (ii) but, once they act, they are too heavy-hand-

ed, thus swinging ratings pro-cyclically; (iii) especially in developing countries, private

ratings appear excessively linked to sover-eign ratings;

(iv) the information content provided by theirratings seems better in more than in lessdeveloped financial markets;

(v) the highly concentrated market structure ofthe GCRA industry in the U.S.1 brings upseveral issues, regarding possible rent extrac-

Do Global Credit Rating Agencies Think Globally? Evidencefrom Recent Research and Perspectives for East Asia

Giovanni Ferri

1 The GCRA industry in the U.S. was largely derived from a regulatory franchise: for almost 30 years no significant new entry was allowed bythe SEC in the list of Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations (NRSRO).

Giovanni Ferri is a Professor of Economics at the

University of Bari, and a Visiting Professor at the

Institute of Social Science, the University of

Tokyo.

Universita' degli Studi di Bari Via Camillo Rosalba, 53Department of Economics70124 Bari, [email protected]

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tion vis-à-vis rated entities (a distributionalissue), potential underinvestment in the col-lection and processing of information onrated entities (an efficiency issue), and possi-ble cut-throat behavior to conquer foreignmarkets (e.g. penalizing unsolicited ratings);

(vi) GCRAs may face conflicts of interest vis-à-visdebt issuers arising from three features oftheir business, namely: a) that GCRAs' fees arepaid for by the debt issuers and increase withthe size of the debt issued (so, it is feared thatlarge issuers might exert some influence onthe agencies); b) that the presence of undis-closed triggers relating to NRSRO (NationallyRecognized Statistical Rating Organization)ratings may induce the rating agency to beunduly reluctant to downgrade issuers belowinvestment grade; 2 and c) that GCRAs increas-ingly offer consulting to bond issuers, concur-rently to issuing ratings to them.

After recapitulating the available evidence, we canconclude that while some of the allegations may beexcessive, others appear fairly grounded. Yet, theratings are an essential lubricant for financial marketdevelopment, as they attenuate information asym-metries that investors undergo vis-à-vis issuers.Thus, even though more research is needed, authori-ties need to consider ways to improve GCRAs'working.

Several policy suggestions have surfaced in the heat-ed debate following the mega-corporate scandals.On the one side, we can distinguish the extremeview calling for the abolition of the NRSRO status,and a full liberalization of the credit rating business.On the other side, more balanced views recognizethat, in spite of their recent failures, GCRAs performa good job on average. These views, which advocatethe stiffening of constraints on the GCRAs (whichare activated by potential competition and thespecter of increased regulatory scrutiny), thus rec-ommend that the SEC permit provisional, location-specific, and industry-specific NRSRO designations.These efforts notwithstanding, with size and ageconferring significant advantages, it's not easy for anew rating agency to be established or gain a signifi-cant presence in the market. Thus, recognizing that

the market may still remain quite concentrated, it issuggested that regulatory reform should alsoencourage GCRAs to be more responsive to theneeds of market participants, for example by raisingtheir accountability through the creation of a publicforum in which market participants could commenton GCRAs' performance. Also, periodic certificationof GCRAs, verifying that they are operating inaccordance with set procedures, might guardagainst conflicts of interest.

Furthermore, the above scenario describing theweaknesses of the GCRAs raises a vital policy ques-tion for various countries/regions of the worldwishing to accelerate their financial market develop-ment. Can these countries/regions entrust theirfinancial markets exclusively to the GCRAs? Or,rather, should they promote well-functioningNational/Regional Credit Rating Agencies(N/RCRAs)?

The answer is not obvious. European and East Asianexperiences differ in this respect. While in Europeshort-lived national credit rating agencies wereeventually acquired by the GCRAs, many Asiancountries still have their own national credit ratingagencies, even if no truly regional agency exists yet.On the one hand, NCRAs might be less independent(with their judgment subject to domestic influences)and the GCRAs could provide freer and more valu-able guidance to markets. On the other hand,though, N/RCRAs could have a relative advantagein understanding local business practices and have ahigher commitment to invest more in the rating oflocal entities. Over all, it seems that a division oflabor could be beneficial, with GCRAs specializingin multinationals and N/RCRAs focusing on small-er-sized regional issuers. While Europe has alreadyachieved its Monetary Union and is in a good posi-tion to develop its financial market further, it lacksN/RCRAs; East Asia, however, still has its NCRAs,yet has only made preliminary steps towards aregional exchange rate arrangement. Perhaps, inview of the potential benefits to financial marketdevelopment outlined above, East Asia might wishto keep its NCRAs while trying to nurture one ormore truly regional ones.

2 If these ratings plunge below investment grade this causes adverse consequences, such as the shortening of debt repayment schedules.

SSJ-30 04.12.17 15:33 ページ 20


Research Report

Historians studying the early years of the twentiethcentury have long recognized that the creation of theAnglo-Japanese alliance in 1902 was a significantdevelopment in international politics. To a substan-tial degree this is because the act of alliance markeda practical and a symbolic turning point in the histo-ry of both signatories. For Britain, it meant movingaway from "splendid isolation;" for Japan, it was themoment when it began to be accepted as a GreatPower in its own right. The alliance therefore acts asa symbol of the trajectory that both of these coun-tries would follow in the new century. These nation-al approaches are entirely legitimate, but they doleave open a substantial question, namely, whatdoes the alliance tell us about the evolution of inter-national politics in East Asia?

Thinking about this issue can be framed in a numberof ways. One might, for example, ask whether thecreation of the alliance and its subsequent revisionshelped to bring about a measure of internationalorder in the region. In other words, did the British-Japanese axis lead to a new regional balance ofpower? Conversely, one can ask whether the emer-gence of the alliance was merely a reflection of thelarger forces shaping the region's destiny. Anotherangle of investigation is to look at the alliance interms of the role of race as an issue in internationalpolitics. After all, this was an alignment that bridgedthe racial divide at a time when sensitivity to ethnicdifference marked both political and intellectual dis-course in the West. To what extent then does thealliance provide a comment on the role of race indiplomacy?

In order to understand the relationship between thealliance and the international politics of East Asia, itis necessary to look first at why it came about. Theorthodox answer is that Britain and Japan shared acommon fear of Russian imperialism in NortheastAsia, which threatened to engulf Manchuria andKorea. The two powers therefore combined primari-ly to contain the Tsarist regime. One might, howev-er, also speculate that for Britain this balance ofpower meant not only containing Russia, but alsorestraining the Japanese government, thus avoidinga potentially destabilizing war or a Russo-Japaneserapprochement that would leave Britain dangerous-ly isolated.

In addition to this, one must also outline the inter-ests that Britain and Japan sought to defend in EastAsia. For Britain, China was important because oftrade. Ever since the 1840s it had sought to developthe potential of this market through the treaty portsystem and by encouraging the Qing dynasty tointroduce Western-style reforms. However, the Qingproved remarkably obdurate and by the 1890s there

Antony M. Best is a Senior Lecturer of

International History at the London School of

Economics, and a Visiting Professor at the

Institute of Social Science, the University of

Tokyo.


The Anglo-Japanese Alliance and InternationalPolitics in Asia, 1902-1903

Antony M. Best

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was a possibility that China might be partitioned.The only alternative was a system whereby the Pow-ers would agree to a multilateral semi-colonialregime, known as the "Open Door." Britain's prefer-ence was for the latter, but if that failed it was pre-pared to accept partition if the Yangtse valley fellunder its control. Thus, from the British perspective,the Anglo-Japanese alliance, which recognizedChina's territorial integrity and the right to equalcommercial opportunity, can be seen as the culmina-tion of its efforts to prevent the partition of China.

However, whether Japan was intent on maintainingthe "Open Door" is a moot point, for its attentionwas focused on Korea. Largely for security reasons,Japan was determined to prevent Korea from fallingunder the influence of any other power. Some inJapan were content to suggest that, in exchange forrecognition of Japanese predominance in Korea,Russia should have its own sphere of influence inManchuria. Others felt that this idea of Man-Kankokan was simply not feasible, for as long as Russiasat on Korea's border the latter would never be safe.It was this latter group therefore that supported thealliance, believing that it might force a Russianretreat or provide a means of preventing Frenchintervention should war become necessary. Japantherefore may have committed itself to upholdingthe "Open Door" in China, but that was clearly notits priority. While the allies may have shared anenemy, they did not necessarily share a commonvision of the region.

The above description might suggest that thealliance was merely a traditional act of diplomacy.However, it is important to see that it was also a rev-olutionary move, for it was an alliance between aEuropean and an Asian power. This is not a state-ment induced by political correctness; it was a viewthat was expressed by a number of contemporaryobservers. As one Briton working in China noted, bysigning this alliance with the "youngest nation, real-ly only half civilised, heathen and of yellow race"the British government had decided to "disregard allsocial, political and religious prejudices."

It is important then to ask why Britain decided tocross the racial divide in its search for an ally. Ofcourse, power was important, but, in addition,Britain's willingness to treat Japan as a significant

entity represented a recognition that the latter'sapproach to international politics conformed toEuropean practice. In other words, they perceivedthat a common diplomatic language existed betweenthe two, and that Japan could therefore be trusted.However, Britain did not see Japan as its completeequal, for there was some racial calculation in itsthinking. After all, the reason why Britain fearedJapan acting as an entirely free agent was due to itsconcern, as one official put it, that "it is difficult tosay what a country and especially an oriental statemay do when it finds itself without funds or reliablefriends." The alliance therefore represented both adefence of the status quo and a moment of depar-ture for the international politics of East Asia. It wasorthodox in that it sought to uphold the "OpenDoor;" it was revolutionary because Britain for thefirst time attempted to do this in harness with anAsian power.

In addition, it is important to realise that oncesigned, the alliance developed its own momentumthat led Japan to be treated on a par with the Euro-pean states. This occurred largely as the result ofJapan's sensitivity about diplomatic protocol. Oncethe alliance was signed, Japan's prickliness aboutthis issue meant that Britain felt it had to treat theformer as almost its diplomatic equal, for fear thatany offence would lead to awkward political conse-quences. The result was that on occasions such asEdward VII's coronation in the summer of 1902 theJapanese delegation was treated with greater careand attention than those from other Asian states.Indeed, very quickly the relationship became a self-consciously royal alliance.

The greatest change in Japan's standing after thealliance was, however, due to the war that broke outbetween Japan and Russia in February 1904. Thisconflict changed the balance of power in the regionby reducing Russia's influence and increasing that ofJapan. This development was, in turn, reinforced bythe renewal of the alliance in August 1905, whichwas designed to deter Russia from launching a warof revenge. The new alliance had the desired effect,for in July 1907 a Russo-Japanese pact was signed inwhich they recognized each other's spheres of influ-ence in Korea and Manchuria. Moreover, France alsosigned its own pact with Japan in April 1907.

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By 1907 then the alliance had become the foundationof the international order in East Asia. In part thiswas due to the combined power of Britain andJapan, which dwarfed all other countries. In addi-tion, though, the new spirit of co-operation arosedue to the fear that opposition to Japan might pro-voke it into breaking with the West and seeking theleadership of Asia. In this environment, it might bethought that the future of the "Open Door" wasassured. However, this period also saw the rise of anew "challenge." Again it was over control ofManchuria, but this time it came from both Russiaand Japan.

This change in Japanese policy did not immediatelybring about the demise of the treaty, for Japan stillvalued the security provided by the alliance whileBritain needed its ally to safeguard East Asianwaters while it contained Germany in Europe, butthe nature of the alliance did change. The mostnotable alteration came when the alliance wasrevised for the second time in 1911, for it nowincluded a clause that implicitly prevented it frombeing activated in the case of a Japanese-Americanwar. This can be seen in part as an acknowledge-ment that Britain had more in common, in regard toChina, with the United States than with its ally. Thuswhen the alliance was activated at the start of theGreat War it was already in a fragile state. It is there-fore no surprise that during that conflict it cameunder great strain. Japan, freed from the watchfuleye of the Europeans, now sought to advance itsimperial interests in China and reinvigorated fears

that it might use pan-Asianism as a means of facili-tating its drive for continental leadership. The resultwas that by the end of the war, the alliance had beenbadly damaged. Not only was Britain now unsurewhether it could control its ally, but also, the UnitedStates argued that the alliance actually impeded thecontainment of Japan. The alliance had thus had itsday, and the future would instead be dictated by thenew co-operative order built at the Washington con-ference.

The Anglo-Japanese alliance was a reflection ofwider forces, but at the same time it acted as a cata-lyst for change in itself. At a broad level it is possibleto say that the alliance was a strategic manifestationof the "Open Door," but this needs to come with theimportant qualification that the signatories were notequally committed to its perpetuation. The alliancecan also be seen as being both representative ofJapan's ability to rise above characterization basedon race alone, and as a tool that helped it to achievethat goal. Yet here too, despite the effort to elevatethe role of court diplomacy in order to finesse theracial divide, mutual suspicion based on racial per-ception never went away. The monarchical orderthat brought Japan into a position of equality withthe West was therefore as fragile as the "Open door."Perhaps then it is best to characterize the alliance asan alignment that brought order on a temporarybasis, but one that in the end demonstrated the diffi-culty of achieving such a goal in this troubled regionof the world.

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