01 August 2016

太平洋戰爭 (家永三郎/何欣泰 ) The Pacific War 1931-1945 (Saburo Ienaga)

To many, the Pacific War is geographically limited to the eastern side of the Pacific Ocean, extending furthest south to the Coral Sea and west to the Philippines. It is also chronologically limited to the period between 8th December 1941 and 2nd September 1945. To the Japanese and Chinese however, the Pacific War extends to China and Southeast Asia and started on 18th September 1931, when the Kwantung Army invaded Manchuria. This distinction is important: to many Americans, Pearl Harbor was a sneak attack, requiring a full retaliatory response. To the Japanese, it was the outcome of the sanctions that the USA placed upon them, and having no  way out, they had to attack the USA in the hope they would sue for peace. These sanctions were put in place in step with the escalation of Japan's conquest in China, leading to the most drastic embargo of oil as Japan invaded Indochina, which could be traced back to Japan's actions in China. To the Japanese, the Pacific War is a 15-year war and their ultimate near-devastation is to be traced to 1931, which is why the characters that appear in Japanese and Chinese literature on the war is a lot more colourful and well-developed than the fleeting mention that they get in Western literature.

This book by Saburo Ienaga is a survey of the events leading to Japan's ultimate defeat and the conditions in Japan throughout that period. The author's motivation is to educate the post-war generation about Japan's recent past, and more importantly, to counter the resurgent right-wing narrative in Japan. In doing so, not only did he discuss the military and cabinet decisions, he also provided a view into the controls the military put place to ensure that the populace remained docile and abiding and would not raise any objections to the military's adventures.

In the 1920s and throughout the 1930s, militarism was pervasive and this started to make inroads into schools through systematic perversion of the school curriculum as well as the increase in imperialistic-mindedness of the teachers. There were those who tried to resists, but by 1940, there was largely no more open dissent (pg. 117) and even the "intellectual community not only caved in under pressure but accommodated with alacrity to the new order" (pg. 121). This being the case, and with the constant bombardment of news of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy scoring victories after victories over any adversaries, it became impossible for the Japanese civilian to know the truth.

The author's main concern was that there never seemed to be a time when the post-war Japanese society evaluated Japan's history in the early part of the 20th century. War memories started to fade and there are even signs that the war apologists were beginning to make a come back. Indeed, there were even people who advocated the reassessment the war because excessive emphasis on war responsibility "would produce a guilt-ridden nation," (pg. 253). And as if to prove his point, Inenaga published a draft of a Japanese history textbook for high school based on his New Japanese History. The draft was rejected by the Ministry of Education in 1952 because they did not like the way he depicted certain events, this resulted in him bringing a lawsuit to the ministry.

I cannot claim to be a scholar in Japanese literature on the War, but I observed a few interesting perspectives of Emperor Hirohito from the few works I have read. The right-wing perspective is that the Emperor might have a role in starting the war, but it was a just war and he did the right thing. Among those who disagree with the war and admitted to the atrocities of the Imperial Japanese Army are two different views. One is that the Emperor had no choice and was not really in control of events. Respected academic and author, Kazutoshi Handō is of this opinion. The other perspective, to which this author subscribed, is that the Emperor should bear the responsibilities and at the end of the war, with everyone suffering the most difficult conditions, and the myth of the Emperor shattered, people were ready to indict him had the Allies so decided. Finally, there are those who chose to side-step the role of the Emperor. This is an interesting issue for further exploration and I hope that the book I'm currently reading would help to shed some light.

As a small volume, it is impossible for the author to go into enough details of any events or any aspect of the lives of the Japanese. I started reading the Chinese translation of the book and found it hard, mainly because of the style that I'm not used to. The English translation is much easier to read but seem to lack a certain depth. However, those who are interested in getting one Japanese perspective (a left-leaning one) of the Pacific War will find this book useful.

(Find this book at Goodreads)