REC 5660 Asia and Japan in the Prewar Period

John Welfield

Winter Term

Course Description

This course will examine international politics in East Asia and the Western Pacific during the period extending from the height of the Age of Imperialism in the mid-nineteenth century, through the First World War, until the eve of World War II.

The objectives of the course are to identify the elements of continuity and change in regional affairs, to disentangle and clarify relationships of cause and effect, and to demonstrate the continuing relevance of history to the understanding of contemporary events.

This is a wide ranging course and many issues will be discussed during the semester. A particularly close study will be made of Japan’s domestic politics, diplomacy and evolving strategic posture during these years. Here, attention will be focussed on the complex interaction of East Asian and Western traditions, institutions and ideologies, on factional policy conflicts and on the impact of these factors on the country’s developing relationships with the British Empire, Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, the United States, Germany, France, China, Korea, Mongolia and the lands of Southeast Asia.

Two ninety minute formal lectures, with a coffee break between, will be given each week. Since some flexibility is desirable it is difficult to give a precise outline of each week's lecture in advance. Generally speaking, however, the course can be expected to develop in the following pattern:

Lecture Schedule

Weeks I & II

Introductory Remarks. Asia, the Pacific and Japan in the mid-19^th century.

Post Meiji Japanese Expansion and the Factors underlying it.

Within the wider framework provided by trends in global and regional politics, discussion will focus on the Meiji Constitution, the armed forces, economic development and the great corporations, agriculture and the peasantry, education, ideology and religion, political parties, liberalism and conservatism, the secret societies, Westernism, Pan-Asianism and Imperialism.

Week III

Asia and Japan, 1868- 1895

Discussion will focus on Japanese deference to the Imperial Western powers and the breakdown of Japan's relations with China and Korea, 1868-1882; the demise of the Kingdom of the Ryukyus; Sino-Japanese rivalry in Korea; the Emeute of 1882 and the 1884 Incident; the impact of Korean affairs and Western imperial expansion on Japanese opinion, 1884-1894; Anglo-Russian rivalry in Asia, the Tonghak Rebellion and the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895.

Week IV

The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, the Russo-Japanese War and their Impact in the Asia Pacific Area.

Discussion will focus on Anglo-Russian-Japanese rivalry in China and Korea; the Boxer Uprising; the character and objectives of the war of 1904-05; Japanese incorporation of Korea, 1904-10; Korean reactions to Japanese rule; strategic reassessments in Great Britain, the United States and Japan after the Russo-Japanese conflict; the extension of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance to India; Japanese-American estrangement and its consequences; and Japanese rapprochement with Russia, 1907-12.

Week V

From the Chinese Republican Revolution of 1911 until the Outbreak of World War I

Discussion will focus on the intricate mutual interactions of Japan, China and the Imperial Western Powers during these years.

Week VI

The First World War and its Impact on the Asian Pacific Region, 1914-19.

Discussion will focus on the Japanese conquest of Tsingtao and the German Pacific islands; Anglo-Japanese wartime cooperation; conflicts over China policy within the Japanese oligarchy; the Twenty One Demands and the Nishihara Loans; the Russo-Japanese alliance of 1916; the Lansing- Ishii Agreements and intensified Japan-U.S. friction.

Weeks VII & VIII

The Impact of American Power, the Russian Revolution and the Fragmentation of China of Japan and East Asia.

Discussion will focus on postwar American efforts to contain Japan; Japanese involvement in the Russian Civil War; heightened Japanese strategic interest in China; the Versailles settlement and the Washington Conference; the demise of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance; the Japanese Defence Statement of 1923 and its implications.

Week IX

The Road to the Greater East Asia War.

Discussion will focus on Japanese policy in China during the 1920s and 1930s; the impact of the Great Depression; the 1931 "Manchurian Incident"; Japanese reactions to the reemergence of Germany and Italy; the Anti Comintern Pact and Japanese strategy in Asia and the Pacific; the Marco Polo Bridge incident of 1937 and the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War; the Battle of Nomonhan and its implications; the outbreak of war in Europe; the 1940 Tripartite Pact; the Japan-Soviet Neutrality Agreement and the intensification of Tokyo’s drive for hegemony of Asia.

Assessment

Assessment is by essay only. A well researched, cogently argued and properly documented essay on one of the attached topics should be handed in at the end of the term. Students may also work on a topic of particular interest to them, provided they discuss it with me beforehand.

Reading Materials

Required Reading

W. G. Beasley, Japanese Imperialism, 1894-1945, The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1987.

Hugh Borton, Japan’s Modern Century, The Ronald Press, New York, 1970.

Carl Boyd, The Extraordinary Envoy: General Hiroshi Oshima and Diplomacy in the Third Reich, 1934-1939, University Press of America, 1980.

Donald Calman, The Nature and Origins of Japanese Imperialism, Routledge, London and New York, 1992.

Hilary Conroy, The Japanese Seizure of Korea, 1868-1910, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1960.

Peter Duus (ed.), The Cambridge History of Japan, Volume 6, The Twentieth Century, Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Peter Duus, The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1898-1910, University of California Press, 1995.

Marius B. Jansen (ed.), The Cambridge History of Japan, Volume 5, The Nineteenth Century, Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Ki-baik Lee, A New History of Korea, Harvard University Press, 1984.

James William Morely, The Japanese Thrust into Siberia, 1919 , Colombia University Press, 1970.

James William Morely (ed.) The China Quagmire: Japan’s Expansion on the Asian Continent, 1933-1941, Columbia University Press, 1983.

Ian Nish, The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, The Athlone Press, 1966.

Ian Nish, Alliance in Decline, The Athlone Press, 1966.

Ian Nish, The Origins of the Russo-Japanese War, Longman, 1989.

Robert A. Scalapino and George T. Yu, Modern China and its Revolutionary Process: Recurrent Challenges to the Traditional Order, 1850-1920, University of California Press, 1985.

Richard Storry, Japan and the Decline of the West in Asia, 1894-1943, Macmillan, 1979.

Chushichi Tsuzuki, The Pursuit of Power in Modern Japan, 1825-1995, Oxford University Press, 2000.

Takehiko Yoshihashi, Conspiracy at Mukden: The Rise of the Japanese Military, Greenwood Press, 1963.

Chitoshi Yanaga, Japan Since Perry, Greenwood Press, 1949.

Recommended Reading

Paul H. Clements, The Boxer Rebellion, AMS Press, 1967.

Raymond A. Esthus, Double Eagle and Rising Sun: The Russians and the Japanese at Portsmouth in 1905, Duke University Press, 1988.

Marius B. Jansen, The Japanese and Sun Yat Sen, Harvard University Press, 1967.

George Alexander Lensen (ed.), Korea and Manchuria between Russia and Japan, Sophia University Press, 1968.

Marc Mancall, China at the Centre, The Free Press, 1984.

Shumpei Okamoto, The Japanese Oligarchy and the Russo-Japanese War, Columbia University Press, 1970.

Robert T. Oliver, A History of the Korean People in Modern Times, Associated University Presses, 1993.

James L. Richardson, Crisis Diplomacy: The Great Powers since the mid. Nineteenth Century, Cambridge University Press, 1994.

James E. Sheridan, China in Disintegration, The Free Press, 1977.

Dennis & Peggy Warner, The Tide at Sunrise: A History of the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905, Charterhouse, 1974.

Mary Clabough Wright, China in Revolution: The First Phase, 1900-1913, Yale University Press, 1978.

Zhang Yongjin, China in the International System, 1918-20, Macmillan, 1991.

Essay Topics

Write an essay of 3000-5000 words on one of the following topics.

1. Why did China and Japan go to war in 1894?

2. Was the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, as J.L. Richardson argues, an "unnecessary" conflict?

3. To what extent did the Anglo-Japanese alliance contribute to the evolution of a peaceful and progressive international order in East and Southeast Asia? Was its annulment in 1921 the first milestone on the road to the Pacific War?

4. Why did Korea fall victim to Japanese imperialism?

5. Analyse the reasons for the estrangement of the United States and Japan in the period 1905-1941.

6. Analyse the failure of efforts to develop Sino-Japanese cooperation in the period 1871-1937.

7. Compare and contrast the responses of China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam to Western imperialism in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries.

8. Examine the impact of World War I on the balance of power in East Asia. Did the "war to end wars" make further regional conflict inevitable?

9. Compare the impact of the Russian Revolution on China and on the Japanese Empire. Why did the example set by the Bolsheviks make such a profound impression on the one society and have such a small apparent impact on the other?

10. Was Japan the liberator or the oppressor of Asia? 　Discuss with reference to events in the century after the Meiji Restoration.