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Japanese Imperialism
Author(s): Harold M. Vinacke
Source:
The Journal of Modern History,
Vol. 5, No. 3 (Sep., 1933), pp. 366-380
Published by: University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1875849
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REVIEW ARTICLE
JAPANESE IMPERIALISM'
F
ROM the standpointof foreignrelationsrecent Japanesehistorymay
be broadly divided into two periods. The first extends from the nego-
tiation of the Perry treaty, signed March 31, 1854, to 1894-95. The
second covers the years from the Sino-Japanese War to the present. For
Japan, the second half of the nineteenth century might fairly be considered a
period of adolescence. It was a time of an initial internal turmoil succeeded
by a period of rapid development. The foreign relations of the country were
adjusted on the basis of treaties which were not reciprocal in their operation
and which to a large degree brought Japan under the tutelage of the treaty
powers. It was only with the final revision of those treaties in 1894 that Japan
may be considered to have entered the family of nations on a basis of equality
with the western states. And it is from this same time that imperialism be-
comes a dominant motive in Japanese policy.
Professor Treat devotes his two volumes exclusively to a study of the years
1853-95, with a further restriction of its scope to the diplomatic relations be-
tween the United States and Japan. The organization of the materials is en-
tirely chronological. For purposes of reference this method of treatment has
' Diplomatic relations betweenthe United States and Japan, 1853-1895. By
PAYSON
J.
TREAT.
Vol. I, 1853-1875; Vol. II, 1876-1895. Stanford University, Calif.: Stanford
University Press, 1932. Pp. xii+593+579. $10.
The tinder box of Asia. By
GEORGE
E.
SOKOLSKY.
Garden City: Doubleday, Doran
& Co., 1932. Pp. x+376. $2.00.
Manchtria, the cockpit of Asia. By
COLONEL
P. T.
ETHERTON
and H.
HESSELL
TILTMAN.
New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1932. Pp. x+327. $3.00.
China speaks on the conflict betweenChina and Japan. By
CHIa MENG.
With an in-
troduction by His Excellency W. W. Yen, chief delegate of China to the League of
Nations, minister of China to the United States of America. New York: Macmillan
Co., 1932. Pp. xx+211. $1.50.
Japan speaks on the Sino-Japanese crisis. By K. K.
KAWAKAMI.
With an introduc-
tion by His Excellency Tsuyoshi Inukai, prime minister of Japan. New York: Mac-
millan Co., 1932. Pp. xvi+184. $1.50.
Manchuria, cradle of conflict. By
OWEN LATTIMORE.
New
York: Macmillan Co.,
1932. Pp. xvi+301. $3.00.
Japan, an econogtic and financial appraisal. By
HAROLD
G.
MOULTON,
with the
collaboration of Junichi Ko. Washington: Brookings Institution, 1931. Pp. xix+645.
$4.00.
Economic rivalries in China. By
GROVER CLARK.
New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1932. Pp. 126. $2.00.
366
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JAPANESE IMPERIALISM
367
distinct advantages, but it also has the great drawback of blurring the out-
lines of even such an outstanding question as that of treaty revision.
The first eleven chapters of Volume I, covering the years from 1853 to 1865,
are substantially a reprinting of the author's Early diplomatic relations be-
tween the United States and Japan (Baltimore, 1917). New material has been
examined, as is revealed in the documentation, but the original narrative is
only changed by the insertion of a few new paragraphs. Chapters xii-xxii of
Volume I and all of Volume
II
represent a new narrative, although many of
the questions discussed have been treated by the author in his Japan and the
United States, 1853-1928 (Stanford University, 1928). The volumes under
review, however, give a much more exhaustive treatment than any that has
heretofore been presented. The writing is based upon an examination of all of
the unpublished American archival materials as well as on that of the pub-
lished British, American, and other documentary and secondary materials
listed in the appended bibliography. The documentation throughout is care-
ful and extensive. While there is a great deal of direct quotation, in some cases
virtually the entire document being reproduced, there is even more of skilful
summary of the contents of instructions and despatches. But the desire of the
author to make his references cover all of the unpublished materials, coupled
with the chronological organization, also leads to the insertion of apparently
unrelated paragraphs dealing with a variety of subjects under consideration
(luring a given year. This militates against the smooth development of the
narrative.
Mr. Treat has performed a real service to historical scholarship in present-
ing in great detail the diplomatic record, and it is with no desire or intention to
minimize this service that the reviewer suggests that the limitations which his
construction of the subject imposed made it impossible for him to give the
reader the basis for a complete understanding of the problems involved.
Internal conditions within Japan were largely instrumental in determining
the character of the relations of Japan with the western states during this
period. For the years from 1853 to 1868 Mr. Treat supplies sufficient informa-
tion
on,
and undertakes a sufficient analysis of, internal conditions to afford
the basis for an intelligent understanding of the tergiversations of Japanese
policy and of the reactions of the foreign community to them. It is in the
light of domestic conditions that he, rightly, considers the difficulties of the
Shogun in carrying out the treaties. Similarly, the antiforeignism of the west-
ern clans is appraised in terms of the struggle to weaken or to overthrow the
Tokugawa. The modification of hostility to foreigners among the western
clans was certainly as much due to the success of the imperial party in bring-
ing about the restoration of power to the emperor as it was to the bombard-
ment of Kagoshima and Shimonoseki. The negotiation of treaties by the
government of the Shogun gave a powerful weapon to the western daimyo
which was successfully employed in the internal struggle for power. But
while antiforeignism was in part developed for internal purposes, it is going
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368
REVIEW ARTICLE
too far to say2 that the reputation which the imperial party had for antifor-
eignism was not well founded. The author presents sufficieiit evidence of the
contrary himself. The reputation would seem to be well founded, but part of
it only is to be explained as innate while part of it was artificial and expressed
for reasons of internal politics.
But while the internal setting is adequately presented through the period
of the Restoration, thereafter it is too casually considered.3 This is perhaps to
be explained by the desire to present in full the diplomatic record. But whether
or not this isthe explanatiori, it remains true th at the problem of treaty revision,
the major preoccupation of the years after the Restoration, was intimately
related to internal conditions and to other considerations whicli the author's
presentation of the diplomatic record does not adequately reveal.
The successive enlargemelnts of the Japanese demands for revision from
1872 to 1894, for example, from the request merely for modification of thie
commercial treaty of 1866 to the demand for a drastic modification of the
entire treaty structure, can only be understood in the light of the extensive
political, judicial, economic, and military changes undertaken during these
formative years. The desire for treaty revision was a factor in bringing about
the institution of these changes, but the strengthening of the state that re-
sulted from the reorganization which took place assuredlv stiffened the atti-
tude of the Japanese government in an approach to the problem of treaty revi-
sion and also in negotiating over other questions. On the other hand, a ques-
tioning of the extenit and the quality of the changes made in the domestic
structure affected the attitude of the several western governments. In Japan
just as, on the whole, in China, the American representatives were more
willing to substitute intentions for actual performance than were the British
or other foreign representatives. But if the soundness of the policy of the
United States toward treaty revision as compared with that of the British
turns on the question of the progress made by Japan in the reconstruction of
her legal and judicial system, or on other features of the internal development
of the country, then the actual development of the internal situation in these
respects should have been more extensively presented as a background upon
which the diplomatic exchanges could have been projected and against which
diplomatic policy could be evaluated. To secure this background after 1868
it is necessary for the reader to make use of other works, though for the de-
tailed diplomatic development of American policy the student will find Mr.
Treat's volumes indispensable.
The last three chapters of Volume II tend to link the first phase of develop-
ment of Japan's foreign relations with the second. The revision of the British
treaty was signed July 16, 1894, and with it as the model the other treaties
As Mr. Treat does parenthetically (I, 345).
Almost every chapter, to be sure, contains at the end a footnote listing the impor-
tant reforms instituted, as reported from the American legation, but without any de-
scription of, or comment on, the internal changes either proposed or accomplished.
2
3
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JAPANESE IMPERIALISM
369
were revised in the following years. The Japanese government formally noti-
fied the Americani minister of the existenice of war with China on August 1,
1894. Thus as Japan brought to a successful conclusion its protracted negotia-
tions with the European powers and prepared to assume unqualified member-
ship in the family of nations its difficulties with China over the status of Korea
came to a crisis. The limits for Mr. Treat's discussion of Japan's relations
with China and
witlh
Korea before 1894, and his consideration of the Sino-
Japanese War, are set by his title and by the task assumed of presenting in full
the unpublished American archival materials. The points of emphasis, con-
sequently, are (1) the part played by the United States in the developing dra-
ma of Sino-Japanese relations and (2) the light thrown on Sino-Japanese-
Korean relations by both published and unpublished American documentary
materials. The attitude of the Uniited States and its role is admirably pre-
sented.
On the other hand, the treatment of Sino-Japarneserelations as affected by
the Korean question is entirely inadequate in the volumes under review.
From this standpoint it would have been better if the discussion had been
more closely restricted to the relations of the United States with Japani and
China. While there is some scattered treatment of the earlier phases of the
Korean question, even the serious crisis of 1884-85 is disposed of in a few short
paragraphs. The conclusion which Mr. Treat presents-that the fundamental
issue between China and Japan in 1894 was that of the independence of Korea
must be accepted as sound. But the whole discussion of the policies of the
two states, both before and during 1894, is based upon the assumption that
the Chinese claim to suzeraintv was unwarranted. This assumption really
prejudges the contentions of the two states and makes inevitable the conclu-
sion reached that China was "the trouble-maker in that unhappy kingdom
[Korea].]'4 Japan's policy was that of establishing the independence of Korea
by breakiing down the Chinese claim to suzerainty. But if activities in the
kingdom are considered on the basis of an acceptance of Chinese suzeraiinty
as the fact, then it must be concluded that the Japanese were the trouble-
makers. The Japanese contention that Korea was in fact independent rests
upon the negotiation of the treaty of 1876 as between two independent states.
The Chinese claim to suzerainty was founded upon the historical relations
between the two states as they existed before 1876. Their policy after 1876
was directed toward regaining the ground lost when they pernlitted Japan to
deal directly with Korea. Having made an initial mistake by not assuming
full responsibility toward third states for the behavior of the Korean govern-
ment, China began to interfere more extensively in Korean affairs than had
been customary in the past in order to bring about a restoration of the status
quo ante 1876. On occasion this led to support being given to whatever
Korean faction was favorable to the maintenance of the Chinese connection.
But the Japanese, for the opposite reason, supported any Korean faction
4
1I, 443.
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