In investigating the relationship between Pan-Asianism and Japanese official wartime planning during the Fifteen Years' War, Eri Hotta makes a strong claim that during the war, the ideology of Pan-Asianism continued to play such a critical role that, without it, “Japan might well not have taken the path from Manchuria to Pearl Harbor, to Southeast Asia, and to its ultimate defeat in 1945” (p. 2). More specifically, Hotta argues that Pan-Asianism functioned as “a consensus-building tool for an otherwise divided government” throughout the years between 1931 and 1945 (p. 226). Based on her useful categorization of Pan-Asianism—Teaist, Sinic, and Meishuron Pan-Asianisms—she demonstrates that while Meishuron Pan-Asianism became dominant by 1931, the continuing existence of the other two threads was key to Japan's consensus making during the war.
Hotta defines Teaist Pan-Asianism as the “most all-encompassing vision for both geographical and conceptual boundaries of Asia as a single group” (p. 30). This type emphasized the shared culture of Asia (such as the art of tea drinking, hence the name “Teaist”) without clear boundaries for “Asia,” and claimed that Asia was on par with the West philosophically and culturally, if not materially. Sinic Pan-Asianism was more concerned about the racial struggle between the white and yellow peoples and “attempted to configure various Asian nationalist aspirations to the international order” (p. 44). Sinic Pan-Asianists' emphasis on a Japan–China alliance can be seen in their cultural organizations, such as Tōa Dōbunkai and Tōa Dōbun Shoin. Meishuron (discourse on leadership) Pan-Asianism believed in Japan's leadership in the crusade against the West. Preoccupied with the notion that Japan shared its fate with China (and other East Asian nations), Uchida Ryōhei and the members of Kokuryūkai (Amur River Society) and Genyōsha (Dark Ocean Society) insisted that Japan had “an active role to play in transforming China and other Asian nations in the image of Japan” (p. 45). Despite the differences, Hotta points out, all three types shared “the assumption of Japanese superiority in all spiritual, cultural, and material spheres” (p. 49).
The book's main body highlights the ideological continuity from 1931 to 1945. First, Hotta argues that following the Manchurian Incident of 1931, Japan's official policy “underwent neither a violent nor a decisive break in its overall ideological outlook” (p. 75). Rather, as Hotta shows, “the very gradual yet sure shift” toward the dominance of Meishuron Pan-Asianism within the political elite was under way during the 1920s (p. 104). Documenting “the uncontested and even sympathetic acceptance of the Manchurian fait accompli” by liberal internationalists such as Saito Hiroshi, Hotta argues that the incident only provided a ground for previously divided internationalists and Pan-Asianists to confirm their shared commitment to Japan's grand mission as an Asiatic power (p. 104).
It should be noted, however, that Hotta's exclusive focus on the elite prevents her from seeing another important factor in Japan's acceptance of the Manchurian fait accompli: jingoistic war fever. Was the public's unbridled enthusiasm following the Mukden Incident to any significant extent rooted Pan-Asianism? And were elites who signed on to the Manchukuo project after its apparent success not motivated by (admittedly shortsighted) old-fashioned great power imperialism?
Hotta's point about the role of different threads of Pan-Asianism is best seen in her examination of Manchukuo. Seeing Japanese imperialism in Manchukuo as unique for its dedication to “the cultural aspects … of Japan's wartime expansion,” Hotta convincingly explains that the catchall nature of Pan-Asianism enabled right–left collaboration on the nation-building project (p. 136). For instance, the founding principle of the “Kingly Way” invited Sinic Pan-Asianists such as Tachibana Shiraki and Meishuron Pan-Asianists such as the Kwantung Army leaders to work together. On one hand, the borrowing of this Confucian (and Chinese) concept as the ideological basis of Manchukuo “complemented the egalitarian preferences of Japan's left” (p. 109). On the other hand, the Kwantung Army officials assumed that it was Japanese “kings” (themselves) who were entitled to rule and guide less civilized non-Japanese residents. Here, what united otherwise rival groups was their shared Pan-Asianist commitment to the construction of a new order.
Following the unintended outbreak of warfare at the Marco Polo Bridge in 1937, the Konoe Fumimaro cabinet had the option of not pursuing the war with the Nanking government. However, the cabinet did not choose that option. According to Hotta, after July 1937, Japan did not abandoned its Pan-Asianist ideals; rather, the few years following the event marked the “heavy intellectualization—and Pan-Asianization—of Japan's high politics” (p. 142). As a solution to the war in China, the Showa Research Association's formulation of New East Asian Order proposed “East Asian cooperatism” against the Kuomintang government and thereby reconciled Japan's leadership, Pan-Asianist claims, and the principle of national self-determination (p. 166). This formulation sought to distinguish the Chinese people from the Western-backed Kuomintang—but to no avail. Hotta concludes that although this new vision “intended to offer a dakaisaku (a solution)” for the unintended escalation of war in China, it “ended up creating even more deadlocks” because it furthered the ambition of Japan's ascendance to leadership among a broader Asian region, which would find expression in the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” slogan in 1940 (p. 176).
After Pearl Harbor, Hotta argues, Pan-Asianism “burst forth as a ‘national’ ideology with a popular mandate, propelling the entire nation towards” the destructive war (p. 179). Although she does not convince the reader about the role of Pan-Asianism in building consensus among the top decision makers because of her lack of textual evidence (which Hotta herself concedes), her argument about the instant and spontaneous support for the war among the literary elite is well documented. The body of literature known as the “Philosophy of December 8” reveals an overnight transformation from “a crisis of confidence” to “an outburst of confidence and enthusiasm” about Japan's actual practice of meishu role in the war against the West (p. 189). Nevertheless, Hotta's analysis does not deal with the role of nationalism in the making of national support for the war. In addition, she does not explain to what extent this “national” ideology took root in the minds of ordinary people.
The final chapter concerns the failure to translate Meishuron Pan-Asianism into practice within the “Sphere.” Noting the unpreparedness of the occupation administrators, Hotta argues that the achievement of the proclaimed “sphere of mutual respect and prosperity” was “a task beyond Japan's capacity” (p. 199). Indeed, when put into practice, Pan-Asianism became synonymous with Japanization through Japanese language education, production of propaganda pieces, and youth training (pp. 203–4). In studying these Japanese cultural policies and training programs, Hotta could have delved more deeply into the perspectives of the local people. When she does introduce the voices of local “students,” she quotes interviews in secondary sources and does not specify the time and context in which these interviews took place. Moreover, although she discusses the legacies and impact of the Japanese occupation on the Southeast Asia, only in a few cases does she consider the reverse phenomenon. Hotta attributes the failure of the cultural policies to the fact that the Japanese practitioners of Pan-Asianism were unable to overcome their own dilemmas regarding their nationalism and Pan-Asianism (p. 221). A closer look at the mutual influence between the Japanese and the local people could have enriched this final observation. For instance, Gerald Horne's Race War: White Supremacy and the Japanese Attack on the British Empire (New York: New York University Press, 2004), which curiously is not mentioned by Hotta, examines the multidirectional influence among Southeast Asian nationalist aspirations, the white supremacist policies of Western colonialism, and Japanese policies in the region.
Overall, Hotta's categorization of Pan-Asianism enriches her later examination of the key events of Japan's Fifteen Years' War. While the scope of her study is confined to the political and literary elite, Hotta extensively documents the continuing presence of Pan-Asianism in Japan's policy making. Thus, by taking up the challenge of accounting for the ideological aspect of Japan's war, the book offers a new insight into an often fragmented history of Japan's Fifteen Years' War.
