The summer and fall of 1932 were a particularly stressful period in their lives. He was struggling to cope with the Manchurian crisis; she worried over her inability to produce a male heir to the throne. Having been socialized to live strictly regimented lives of public service, they had recently submitted to pressure from Privy Seal Makino, Secretary Kawai, and Grand Chamberlain Suzuki and agreed to let their first child, six-year-old Princess Teru, move out of the palace to live in a separate building within the imperial compound. Neither of them were happy about the move, but they did not seek to defy the court tradition that seemed to mandate it.
In this atmosphere, sometime in late 1932, Empress Nagako miscarried. Afterward pressure mounted for Hirohito to fulfill his monarchical duty by taking a concubine. The elderly Count Tanaka Mitsuaki, a former president of the Peers’ School and Imperial household minister, who had served both Meiji and Taish, searched in Tokyo and Kyoto for a proper mate. Ten princesses were selected, of whom three made the final cut, and one (allegedly the prettiest) was rumored to have visited the palace and played cards with Hirohito (in the presence of Nagako). The monogamous Hirohito supposedly took no further notice of her. In early 1933 Nagako became pregnant again and on December 23, 1933, she gave birth to Prince Akihito. The personal crisis was over.
V
After the invasion of Jehol and Japan’s withdrawal from the League of Nations, the Kwantung Army widened its sphere of occupation: In early April 1933, the army entered Hopei Province, south of the Great Wall, in the vicinity of Peking. Hirohito intervened, the offensive was halted, and the army withdrew to Shanhaikuan. But on May 7, the army again crossed into North China. This time Hirohito sanctioned the action post facto, but made sure Honj knew he was infuriated. Honj noted in his diary entry of May 10: “The emperor does not intend to obstruct the operation, but neither can he permit decisions made independent of the supreme command.” Of course, the emperor did permit it because he had no alternative.101
That same month a spokesman for the Kwantung Army command announced that Jehol had been annexed to Manchukuo. Though not stated publicly, the annexation also included outer districts of Hopei and Chahaer Provinces, which lay within China proper. The decision for this annexation had not been made in advance by the cabinet; neither was it based upon “treaty rights.” On the last day of May, Nationalist emissaries signed the humiliating Tangku Truce Agreement, granting de facto recognition to Greater Manchukuo and establishing a demilitarized zone south of the Great Wall in eastern Hobei. The Manchurian Incident was now closed, at least temporarily, as an issue of Western concern.
Having stabilized by truce a profound political and military instability, the contending forces drew apart. Chinese guerrillas kept up their warfare in Manchukuo. For the next four years the “buffer” zone between Manchukuo and North China proved to be less a zone of peace than a Kwantung Army staging base for unremitting political, military, and economic pressure on all five provinces of North China within the Great Wall.102 But the mere presence of the zone, combined with Soviet willingness to sell Japan the Chinese Eastern Railway, and Britain’s efforts to improve relations, allowed the emperor to believe that international tensions would soon ease.
As for Chiang Kai-shek, having opted to appease Japan for the short term in order to buy time to build up his forces and develop economic power, the generalissimo could now concentrate on fighting the Chinese Communists. But so long as a Japanese army controlled Manchuria, and stood poised to sweep Kuomintang influence from North China, Sino-Japanese relations could never return to normal. Neither Chiang nor the Chinese public had the least intention of letting Japan get away with its aggression.103
In Japan the contending forces and groups also turned inward. The Imperial Way generals and their supporters remained in positions of power; the army and navy remained at odds. As twenty-eight-year-old Prince Takamatsu, serving aboard the battleship Takao, confided to his diary on June 11, 1933, the army was enveloped in a “fascist mood,” which the politicians needed to understand. The truce agreement pleased the emperor, but it was not enough. “We must somehow restore harmony, end bullying by the military, and restrain the selfishness of the zaibatsu.”104 A few weeks later Takamatsu noted that “90 percent of the national income now accrues to about 10 percent of the people.” On July 21 his worries shifted to the “unappreciated effort” of naval power, not only in “bombarding Shanhaikwan and the Shanghai Incident,” but in enabling “the army to act and diplomacy to work” throughout the crisis. Over the next few months the prince noted growing signs of radicalism in the navy and in society at large. As 1933 drew to a close, the birth of Prince Akihito to Empress Nagako evoked in him both joy and relief that the burden of imperial succession had finally been removed from his shoulders. The news that the imperial line would be perpetuated brought widespread relief to the nation as well, though only momentarily.
Toward the end of 1933, national policy remained in flux, with Manchukuo undigested and enthusiasm for the war beginning to subside, which was not what military leaders, bureaucrats, and journalists wanted. Fearing that the new penchant for militarism and war was about to reverse itself, army propagandists took action. The movie departments of the large newspapers had already been competing to produce “visual newspapers,” or newsreels, of the incident.105 Now the Osaka Mainichi newspaper company saw a chance to promote business and boost profits by making a new type of patriotic film that would show the nation what needed to be done in the period ahead.106 As producer Mizuno Yoshiyuki explained, “communism and totalitarianism were contending with one another. Terrorism was everywhere. So we thought we could use the great power of film to make the nation understand the ideological confusion and the international situation.”107 The result was Japan in the National Emergency, a widely acclaimed documentary, produced in August with the assistance of the Army Ministry and shown throughout the country during late 1933.
Japan in the National Emergency is important today primarily for the light that its landscape of patriotic images and scenes, culled from the years 1931 to early 1933, shed on emperor ideology. In this film the armed forces used Hirohito’s spiritual authority to endow the empire—and themselves—with a moral mission to expand. By processing a wide variety of visual images of national unity, the film reinterpreted the logic of Japanese ultranationalism for the early 1930s.
Army Minister Araki narrated half of the film’s twelve segments, and at different moments in his presentation showed large maps of Asia and the Pacific, and a picture of Geneva. Araki equated military power and morality, using myth as his frame of reference for understanding the meaning of the incident. His two main rhetorical devices were the “great mission” bestowed on the “divine land” by the gods, and the hostile efforts of the Chinese and the Western powers to isolate Japan and prevent the “Yamato race” from realizing its sacred destiny, “secur[ing] peace in the Orient.” Later in the film Araki defined Japan’s role more concretely, seeing it as both strategic and cultural. The task was “to create an ideal land in East Asia,” which meant constructing Manchukuo and there realizing a harmony of the races. In effect Araki presented imperial aggrandizement as an idealistic effort to realize an antiracist utopia in Manchukuo.
To Araki the internal threat confronting Japan was as serious as the external one. “Having uncritically accepted [Western] culture in everything,” he declared, “we now find we have lost our hold on the autonomous ideals of the Japanese race.” As he spoke the screen flashed to scenes of Western cultural influences that increasingly appealed to the Japanese in the early 1930s—modern couples dancing in Ginza dance halls, strolling hand in hand along busy, darkened Tokyo streets—juxtaposed against shots of imperial troops battling in the freezing cold and stifling heat of Manchuria, schoolgirls writing letters of encouragement to soldiers under the direction of their teachers, worshipers at Shinto shrines, and so forth. Araki denounced dancing, golfing, American movies, women wearing cosmetics and smoking in public
, communists—everyone who had succumbed to Western decadence and Western values of individualism, hedonism, and materialism. The alternative to such defilement was traditional consciousness, exemplified in village life, Shinto shrine worship, and military service. The urgent need was to abandon the pursuit of pleasure and accept personal sacrifice and pain in order to accomplish the great national mission.
Throughout the film Araki sought to distill the significance of the recently concluded incident. It was a “providential blessing” that had unleashed the tremendous energy of the Japanese people. But it was also a “warning to us from heaven” to return to the great principles of the “imperial way” that had governed Japan since its founding. Highlighting Araki’s words, the screen linked the age of the gods to the present: Takachiho-no-mine, the place where the male and female deities Izanagi and Izanami had descended from heaven, a depiction of Emperor Jimmu’s enthronement, Ise Shrine, Kashihara Shrine, Atsuta Shrine, Meiji Shrine, the Imperial Palace at Nijbashi, and Hirohito’s enthronement in 1928.
In the last few segments Araki defined national defense and explained how “spiritual mobilization” could enable Japan to break “the encirclement offensive of the entire world, centered on the League” and symbolized by an “iron ring” surrounding Japan. As he spoke, the film audience heard “Kimigayo” and saw the Shwa emperor reviewing troops, mechanized units passing in parade, and warships steaming in review and firing a salute. Araki:
…the imperial forces exist as moral entities. They defend not only Japan’s territorial needs [literally “expansibility in space”], but also the enterprising spirit of the state and its everlasting nature, which is coeval with heaven and earth. Consequently, when discussing national defense, I cannot agree with those who define Japan narrowly in a geographic sense and in terms of coping [with other countries]…. Our armed forces are, simultaneously, the armed forces of the emperor and a national force. They are, therefore,…a great embodiment of our national virtue. Since we are implementing the imperial way, manifested in the three imperial regalia, the carrying out of the emperor’s way is the spirit of the founding of the military. The spirit of the Japanese military manifests the sacred spirit of his majesty who commands the Japanese military. I believe our spirit expresses the emperor’s heart, which is why the imperial forces move only at the emperor’s command.108
Having asserted that the armed forces incarnated “national virtue,” and manifested the “sacred spirit” of Hirohito by expanding abroad, Araki guided his audience to the main thrust of his entire argument: namely, that Japan must prepare for total spiritual mobilization. “Ninety million people must become one and join the emperor in spreading the imperial virtue. For this we must unite and advance until the very last minute [of the battle]. In this way, we will secure the glory of final victory.” A montage of quick shots shows patriotic businessmen donating aircraft to the army, women receiving military training, motorcycles on the road, the nation industrializing, factory chimneys belching smoke, people walking briskly. Two segments later the camera cuts to the “three human bullets” (bakudan sanyshi) departing for the Shanghai battlefront, where they blow up an enemy encampment. A chart shows the elements that produced their bravery, and finally the film shows their gravesites.109
As the film moves to a close, the camera evokes a sense of Japan triumphing over adversity. Climbers persevere through storm and snow to reach the summit of a mountain. General Mut travels to Manchukuo and meets Emperor Pu Yi. A black cloud rises over a map of the distant city of Geneva and moves swiftly eastward to surround Japan. Cheering Tokyo crowds welcome home from Geneva diplomat Matsuoka, who bows deeply toward the Imperial Palace while another map shows Japan spreading open the iron ring. To round out the film, the departed Emperor Meiji returns through three of his war poems, connoting the need for spiritual mobilization and reminding the audience that nothing great is ever accomplished without tremendous exertion and sacrifice.110
The army’s second consciousness-raising endeavor was the book entitled Hijji kokumin zensh (Essays on the time of emergency confronting the nation), published in March 1934.111 This work, part of a seven-volume collection, was designed to present the ideas of military and diplomatic experts on all aspects of the “emergency.” The fifteen army contributors—representing many of the core officer group—sought to raise public consciousness about the nature of modern warfare and the dangers confronting Japan. What they mainly conveyed, however, were the lessons that the army had drawn and had failed to draw from World War I.
The preface, by the new army minister, General Hayashi, revealed that the army was still in the grip of the simplistic victory ideology of the Russo-Japanese War. For Hayashi, future war would be an extension of Japan’s previous wars though on a much grander scale, requiring total national mobilization. Vice Chief of the Army General Staff Ueda Kenkichi explained that preparing the nation for war meant building up armaments, “uniting politics, the economy, finance, and all other institutions,” and perfecting war leadership.112 Other writers equated the development of national power with the mere technical “fulfillment of war preparations.”113 None grasped that industrialized warfare at midcentury required a high rate of productivity, mass production, and a vibrant economy unblighted by backwardness in science and technology or by agricultural stagnation. The army leaders’ analyses, however, clearly pointed to a coming great bureaucratic reorganization of Japanese society.
General Tj asserted: “The modern war of national defense extends over a great many areas.” It requires constructing “a state that can monolithically control” warfare in all of its forms: military, economic, ideological, and strategic. Filled with anti-Western resentment, Tj dwelt on how the victorious democracies of World War I had waged ideological warfare against Japan. Hereafter Japan must stand erect and “spread [its own] moral principles to the world,” for “the cultural and ideological warfare of the ‘imperial way’ is about to begin.”114 Other contributors to Hijji kokumin zensh tended “to reduce national mobilization for waging total war to a problem of acquiring resources” for self-sufficiency.115 Built into the thinking of these military leaders were visions of territorial conquest on the Asian continent and the possibility of war with Britain and the United States.
There is no doubt that Emperor Hirohito, indoctrinated in post–Russo-Japanese War tactics and strategy, believed that superior arms rather than superior productivity determined victory. Unlike his generals, however, he was reluctant to break with the British and Americans, and felt little need to press a rapid, radical overhaul of the machinery of government or an immediate militarization of the entire economy. To do so could endanger the stability of the imperial house. This difference in thinking concerned both the direction and the pace of change. To secure greater freedom of action for building a total war economy, the radicals in the armed forces would therefore have to confront the throne and its protectors directly.
8
RESTORATION AND REPRESSION
When Japan recognized Manchukuo and withdrew from the League of Nations, most Japanese felt that something fundamental had changed. Youthful, ancient Japan had fought another war of “self-defense,” and in the process scored an armed victory over Chinese warlordism and a spiritual one over “Western moral decadence.” By its own efforts, the nation had opened a new road to modernity and put forth a claim to becoming greater and more respected in the world than it had been.
For General Araki and other politically active officers of the army, the rhetoric of “crisis,” “Shwa restoration,” “Anglo-Saxon encirclement,” and so on was simply a mobilizing device too effective to let go. They prolonged the euphoria of victory and took advantage of it by continuing the Imperial Way theme, using it to strengthen army influence in politics and to reshape the emperor’s image. The pleasant view of an indestructible and virtuous Japan confronting morally inferior, devilish foreign states spread widely. So too did notions of “national defense state,” “empire,” an
d “holy mission” to spread the “emperor’s benevolence.” These ideas led people to invest the military’s expansion abroad with notions of goodness. They also strengthened their desire to overcome the West in every field of endeavor and, in that way too, structured a new, more exclusionary sense of collective identity.
Under Meiji, Japan had superficially “escaped from Asia” (datsu’A), assimilating certain concepts, as well as the technology, and in certain ways even the identity of the leading Western societies. The practical consequence was a kind of hopeful, shallow, often resentful sense of solidarity with the white Western communities in Asia, including the adoption of their racist attitudes and epithets toward Chinese and other Asian peoples. Now, however, Japan was on the rise, independently striving, building, renewing its role as the—rightful—leader in Asia. Therefore many ideologues now discovered that Western political thought was essentially exploitative, hegemonistic, and aggressive—in short, a contagious plague that for a time had infected insular Japan and caused it to threaten the interests of fellow Asians. Henceforth Japan should act not so much in “self defense,” as to spread the Shwa emperor’s virtues by establishing a morally superior society in Manchukuo, where the “five races” would live in hierarchical “harmony” in accordance with the “principle of the ‘kingly way.’ ”
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan Page 29
