Only a truly dedicated historian, with passion and patience for minute details scattered both in space and time, could write such a book. By organizing and interpreting such details, J. Calvitt Clarke III has rendered outstanding service to those of us for whom this subject is of interest. His book thoroughly documents Ethio-Japanese relations before the Second World War.
While Ethiopia had longstanding, and at times intimate, diplomatic relations with the United States after the Second World War, Ethio-Japanese relations had been significantly eventful before that war. But there was a gaping hole about the latter in the scholarship, until now; this book is the first account of the subject, and a very full one.
Clarke starts by examining the discourse about the notion of ‘the yellow peril’ – the genealogy of the idea – and moves on to the history of Japan's ‘colonial’ ambitions in Africa and how, among other things, Europe's changing attitudes towards Japan crushed those ambitions from the outset. What follows is a general discussion of the dilemmas of modernization Ethiopia faced and how it generally resolved them – as illustrated by the struggle that ensued between ‘Japanizers’ and ‘traditionalists’ in the 1920s and 1930s. The author then casts the major characters in Ethiopia who were to play central roles in the debates about whether Japan could serve as a model for Ethiopia's modernization, drawing in passing a useful comparison (followed up in an appendix) between the constitution of Meiji Japan (1889) and Ethiopia's first constitution (1931). Clarke finds a ‘close’ resemblance between the two. It is remarkable to discover in this book that Ethiopia's approach to modernization resembled that of Japan to some extent. The parallels included, among other things, their readiness to adapt different systems of organization and thought from abroad and their emphasis on the positive role of education in social transformation. We also learn that although Emperor Haile Selassie was committed to Ethiopia's modernization, he was unwilling to devolve power as Emperor Meiji of Japan did. Haile Selassie wanted to continue as ‘absolute monarch’, and Ethiopia's 1931 constitution embodied such imperial aspiration. The question is whether this major divergence between Ethiopia's and Japan's approach to modernization partially accounts for the failure of Ethiopia and the success of Japan. This, of course, is an interesting issue worth exploring more fully in its own right.
Half-way through the book we are treated to the visit of Ethiopia's foreign minister Heruy Wolde Selassie to Japan in November–December 1931. Heruy Wolde Selassie was the first African foreign minister to meet with a sitting prime minister of Japan, Inukai Tsuyoshi, and with Emperor Hirohito. The analyses also include critical reviews of the myth and reality of Japan's interest in Ethiopia. This is followed by a closer examination of the changing contours of the relationship between Italy, Russia, Japan and China – again in the context of Ethio-Japanese relations. The gripping story of a ‘royal wedding’ between an Ethiopian and a Japanese, and the various reactions to it in different quarters in both countries, are then dissected piece by piece.
What Chapter 8 seeks to accomplish is a comprehensive review of conflicting reports regarding how Japan and Ethiopia were or were not diplomatically close to each other. More specifically, the contending theories about political and military ties between Japan and Ethiopia are closely examined in the light of Italy's impending assault on Ethiopia, the support for Ethiopia among the Japanese at the grassroots level, and the 1934 visit by Ethiopia's first ‘consular secretary’ to Japan, Dabba Birrou.
The last chapter of the book is concerned with the official and unofficial positions of Japan vis-à-vis the Italian invasion and subsequent occupation of Ethiopia in 1935. The reactions generated by Italy's actions in different segments of Japanese society are also carefully outlined. As part of the conclusion about Japan's official position, the author says: ‘Japan has chosen an opportunistic policy toward the so-called Italo-Ethiopian war, sometimes favouring Italy, sometimes Ethiopia’ (p. 162).
One of the unique features of the book is that it integrates a variety of issues relating to Ethio-Japanese relations in the 1920s and 1930s and treats them in a manner that is both engaging and stimulating, significantly raising in the process the level of discourse in this field.
Of course the book is not flawless. To start with, the title of the book – Alliance of the Colored Peoples – can be somewhat misleading because there is no indication, except for some anecdotal statements, of sustained discourse either in Ethiopia or in Japan about such alliance. If anything the generalization we could draw from this book is that the driving forces of Ethio-Japanese relations were more complex and that they were not solely, nor even primarily, based on ‘pigmentational solidarity’.
Another flaw is of a technical variety. Major events are generally related only by the month and date of their occurrence, with the year rarely mentioned. This approach probably sprang out of the confidence that the author placed in his readers’ capacity to know which events took place in which years. But the fact is that this system of dating makes the task of reading cumbersome at best and confusing at worst, especially given the density of the book. Nor is there any indication in the book that the author visited Ethiopia and consulted Amharic archives there. Assuming that he did not, the question is: if he was able to travel to Rome, Tokyo and Washington for archival research, why was he unable to go to Ethiopia on the same mission? To be sure, language could be the barrier for the author in Ethiopia, but he could have found some way of dealing with that challenge. Last but not least, Clarke uncritically repeats Jeane Pierre-Lehman's familiar but logically untenable assertion (p. 5) that Japan's victory over Russia (in 1905) inspired Ethiopia's victory over Italy (in 1896). If this issue was tangential to the subject under discussion one might simply have ignored it as a minor distraction – but it is not. That said, however, the book is still a most welcome analysis of the history of relations between Ethiopia and Japan before the Second World War.
