Mirror for Americans: Japan Helen Mears

http://www.wjwn.org/views/article.php?NUM=V-0211

Mirror for Americans: Japan　Helen Mears

「Mirror for Americans: Japan(アメリカの鏡・日本)」：ヘレン・ミアーズ著：VIEWS 2007年冬号（第08号）掲載

ワイルス 蓉子（Wiles, Yoko）



「70％の日本人が東京裁判を知らない」という日本の新聞記事を読み、日本全土を焦土にし、多くの国民の運命を変えた戦争が、もう歴史のなかでも語られることがなくなったのかと落ち込んだ。そのとき、友達から「ワイルスさん、この本をお読みください。戦争体験者の貴女でしたら、いろいろ感想がおありでしょう。」と渡されたのが、この本である。これがアメリカで出版されたのは1948年（昭和23年）で、日本はまだアメリカ軍の占領下であった。翻訳家の原桃代氏が、著者ヘレン・ミアーズ氏より原著の寄贈をうけ、日本での翻訳出版の許可を得た。しかし、占領下の日本では、この本の出版に対して連合国総司令部（GHQ）の許可を得なければならなかった。そして、翻訳出版は許可されなかった。1951年（昭和26年）、サンフランシスコにおいて日米講和会議が開かれ、ソ連を除く連合国と日本が講和条約に署名した。連合国軍による占領は終了し、日本は再び独立国になった。そして1953年、原氏は「アメリカの反省」と題して、この本の翻訳を出版することが出来た。しかし、なぜか当時はあまり注目されなかったとのことである。

ヘレン・ミアーズ氏は、メリーランド州のガウチャー女子大学卒業後、1925年に友人の誘いで中国の京北に一年間ほど滞在し、その間、日本を訪れた。帰国後、ジャーナリストとして活躍し、結婚したが、３年後に離婚した。そして、1935年に再び訪日し、一年間、日本の庶民の生活習慣から神道まで学んだ。1936年、フォーチュン誌の「日本特集」の編集長となり、日本専門家として全米の注目を集めた。戦時中、彼女はミシガン大学やノースウェスタン大学の陸軍省の占領地政策講座で講義し、日本占領に備える要員の養成に携わった。終戦翌年の1946年２月、連合国総司令部（GHQ）に設置された労働局諮問委員会の11人のメンバーの一人として来日し、労働組合法等の策定に参加した。帰国後1948年、GHQの内部情報に基づいて書かれたのがこの著書である。

この本は2005年５月、毎日新聞ジュネーブ支局長、パリ支局長、学芸部長、出版局次長、英文局長を歴任された伊藤延司氏の訳によって出版された。伊藤氏によると、1993年暮れ、アイネックス社長の白子英城氏から知人を通じ、「かつてマッカーサーが日本での出版を禁じた本があるのだが、どんな内容か読んでみてほしい」と依頼されたことが、この訳書が再び世に出る端緒となったとのことである。白子氏は近代・現代史に興味をもち、独学されているビジネスマンだ。同氏が近代・現代史に興味を抱くようになったのは、いまだに解き得ない疑問があったからだそうだ。それは、日本が戦争を始めた理由は、「日本は侵略者だった」という単純なことだったのであろうかという疑問であった。白子氏がこの疑問をアメリカにいる友人に話したとき、友人が教えてくれたのがこの本だったのである。しかし、すでに絶版になっていたため、アメリカの古書探しの専門機関に依頼し、ようやく入手したのが1993年とのことである。白子氏の手元に届いたのは奇しくも12月8日、日本海軍が52年前に真珠湾を攻撃した日だった。

ミアーズ氏は、1931年に起こった満州事変（筆者注：当時、中国東北地区には“緑林”と呼ばれる匪賊が割拠していた。日本は匪賊を討伐して東北地区の安定をはかるという理由で派兵した）にさかのぼって、「日本だけが果たして侵略国だったのか」と疑問を投じている。民主主義諸国がアジアにおける不平等条約と治外法権を破棄しなかったため、日本の中国東北地区（満州）への進出を強く止められなかったのだと指摘している。改めて当時のアジア地図を見ると、フィリピンはアメリカ、インドネシアはオランダ、インドシナ（ベトナム、ラオス、カンボジア）はフランス、韓国と台湾は日本の殖民地だった。そして、パキスタン、インド、ビルマ、シンガポール、ボルネオ、マレーシア、香港は全て英国の植民地であった。実際、東南アジアでの唯一の独立国は、昔から王制のある泰国（タイ）だけだった。日本は1932年、清朝最後の皇帝、宣統帝溥儀を擁して、中国東北地区に満州国を設立した。中国（当時は支那とよばれていた）は国際連盟に「日本の侵略」として提訴した。国際連盟から派遣された調査団は、「これは明らかに日本の中国に対する侵略であり、満州国を承認することを認めてはならない」という報告書を提出した。アジアにおける自国の権益は絶対に放さない欧米諸国が、日本を侵略国と非難したのである。日本は国際連盟を脱退した。それから、欧米諸国の日本に対する経済封鎖は厳しくなった。ミアーズ氏は、「日本を侵略国と批判する欧米諸国も同罪である」と批判している。まさにその通りで、日本も欧米諸国と同じように侵略国だったのである。アメリカの日本占領政策を批判しているこの著書を、日本のアジア侵略の免罪符にしてはならないと思う。ここで特に述べたいのは、私が子どものときに住む機会があった満州国は、決して当時のスローガンのような『五族協和、王道楽土』の土地ではなかった。満州国は明らかに日本の権益のみを目的に建てられた国であった。この著書を日本のアジア諸国に対する侵略の免罪符にしてはならないと思う。

彼女は連合国の占領政策も厳しく批判している。言論、宗教、思想の自由を掲げる民主主義国家のアメリカが、日本の神道、天皇崇拝、民族感情等、日本の古来の宗教や文化伝統を徹底的に否定したのである。自国の兵士は英雄として扱い、日本の帰還兵を賤民として扱い、如何なる援助も許さなかった。「日本の歴史は国家主義的側面と嘘の歴史を教えているから、連合軍総司令部の検閲下で新しい教科書が出来るまでは、歴史、地理、道徳の授業をいっさい中断するよう命じた」とも記している。軍国主義からの解放と唱えて、財閥解体、学制改革、農地改革、軍隊解体、議会制度改革、華族・貴族の廃止等々、日本の旧制度は徹底的に解体された。そこには軍国主義からの解放を唱えながら、民主主義とキリスト教以外は認めないアメリカの占領国に対する厳しい姿勢が見える。このようなことを率直に批判されたのでは、連合軍総司令官のマッカーサー元帥が日本での出版を禁じたのは当然と頷ける。そして、この著書がアメリカで出版されたのが、日本がまだ占領下にあった1948年であったことを考えると、ミアーズ氏の勇気に感歎するのみだ。

「何の罪もない現地の人々が、米軍と日本軍の戦闘に巻き込まれて、耐えようのない強大な暴力の犠牲になっていた。私たちは『解放』という行為の中で、彼らの家を、村を、土地を、生活手段を破壊し、かれらの故郷を見るも無残に廃墟にした。」この著書のこの記述を現在のイラクの状況と重ね合わせてみると、まさに『歴史は繰り返す』 と痛感する。そして、アメリカでは、参戦経験がない人たちによってイラク戦争が始められた。日本では、戦争体験のない人たちが、イラク戦争を支持した。厳しい言葉かもしれないが、如何なる大義名分を掲げようと、防衛でない戦争は破壊行為以外の何ものでもない。「戦争」の恐ろしさと、歴史を学ぶことの大切さを改めて教えられる本だと思う。

著者紹介

ワイルス 蓉子（Wiles, Yoko）

在米日本大使館の大使秘書室に25年間勤務。退職後は、現地の日系人を対象にしたニュース・レターを発行し、その編集に携わる。1986年から1994年までの8年間、「老壮の支」にアメリカ通信を執筆。著書に「知らざるアメリカ」（日常出版）、「日々のアメリカ」（朝日新聞社出版局）、「アメリカ首都圏の日本女性」（新風舎）がある。




http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~nippon/jogbd_h13/jog219.html

-----Japan On the Globe(219) 国際派日本人養成講座----------
_/_/
_/ 地球史探訪：アメリカの反省
_/_/
_/ _/_/_/ 　日本の本当の罪は、西洋文明の教えを守らな
_/ _/_/ かったことではなく、よく守ったことなのだ。
-----H13.12.09----36,301 Copies----361,412 Homepage View----

■１．「パールハーバー」とは何だったのか■



パールハーバーはアメリカ合衆国の征服を企んで仕掛けられた「一方的攻撃」であるというが、この論理では日本を公正に罰することはできない。なぜなら、私たちの公式記録が、パールハーバーはアメリカが日本に仕掛けた経済戦争への反撃だったという事実を明らかにしているからだ。

1948年、アメリカ人女性ヘレン・ミアーズによって書かれた、"Mirror for Americans: JAPAN"である。この本の日本での翻訳出版は、占領軍総司令部によって禁じられた。


■２．日本人には隠しておくべき真実■

実は当のマッカーサー自身が次のような発言を1953（昭和２６)年５月３日に合衆国上院の軍事外交合同委員会で行っていた。

日本は絹産業以外には、固有の産物はほとんど何もないのです。彼らは綿がない、羊毛がない、石油の産出がない、錫がない、ゴムがない。その他実に多くの原料が欠如している。そしてそれら一切のものがアジアの海域には存在していたのです。

もしこれらの原料の供給が絶ち切られたら、１千万から１千２百万の失業者が発生するだろう事を彼らは恐れていました。したがって彼らが戦争に飛び込んでいった動機は、大部分が安全保障の必要に迫られてのことだったのです。

■３．私たちアメリカ人の責任■

ミアーズは1925年、二十歳代の時に日本や中国を訪れて、アジアに深い興味を抱き、大戦中は大学で日本に関する講義や研究をしていた。戦後、占領軍の労働局諮問委員会のメンバーとして来日し、労働法の策定などに参加したが、帰国してからこの本を書き上げた。

アメリカでは日本擁護者として批判され、本は絶版となってごく限られた専門家以外には忘れ去られ、ミアーズ自身も学者として世に出ることができなかった。

しかしミアーズが書きたかったのは、日本弁護論ではない。著者自身の前書きには次のように述べられている。

私たちアメリカ人は、今のところ、地球上で最も強い国民である。・・・だからこそ、私たちは世界が置かれている深刻な無秩序状態の責任を免れることができないのである。私たちが本当に平和を望んでいるなら、世界の戦争原因を究明するにあたって、もっと現実的になる必要がある。

ミアーズの本を読んでいて心うたれるのは、「現実的」になるために史実を曇りない目で見据える客観性と、それを根底で支える人類愛である。

■４．英米蘭に依存していた日本の軍事力■

ミアーズはまず事実として、戦前の日本経済が、特に軍事物資の調達においてアメリカ、イギリス、オランダに全面的に依存していたことを明らかにする。

(JOG注：東京裁判で主張されたように)もし日本が1931年に世界征服を開始していたとしたら、アメリカ、イギリス、オランダ、フランスは征服事業の協力者といわねばならない。これら各国が支配する地域からの物資供給がなければ、日本は満洲事変と日華事変を遂行できなかったし、パールハーバー、シンガポールも攻撃できなかったろう。そればかりでなく、多くの日本人が食べていけなかったろう。アメリカ、イギリス、オランダ３国は、日本の軍事必需品の８５％を供給していた。1938年には、アメリカだけで５７％を供給しているのだ。

ここで言う軍事必需品とは、アメリカから輸入していた工作機械、石油、屑鉄を含む。そしてマッカーサーも指摘しているように、日本はニッケル、ゴム、スズ、銅、鉛、コバルトなども、オランダ領東インド諸島、イギリス領のマレー、アメリカ領のフィリピンなどから輸入しなければならなかった。

■５．日本に石油を売らなければ戦争になるだろう■

アメリカは公式的には満洲事変と日華事変に反対し、日本への戦争関連物資の輸出規制を徐々に強めていったが、実際には原料綿、屑鉄、石油などの輸出は、日華事変以降急増している。

米国内ではガソリンが配給制になっていたのに、日本への石油輸出が続けられていることに、米国民は納得しなかった。しかしルーズベルト大統領は、もしわれわれが日本に石油を売らなければ、彼らはオランダ領東インド諸島に南下して、武力で奪い取り、そうすれば「戦争になるだろう」、だからわれわれは日本に石油を売り続けなければならない、と説明していた。

驚くほど正確な読みである。そしてこの読み通り、アメリカは1941年８月１日に石油全面禁輸を実施し、４ヶ月後には開戦となった。米海軍のスターク提督も、戦争中の1944年に、「石油禁輸後の後は、日本はどこかに進出して石油を取得する他なかったのであり、自分が日本人だったとしてもそうしたであろう」と述べている。

■６．生き死ににかかわる問題■

日本は輸入だけでなく、輸出でも大きくアメリカに依存していた。日本のほとんど唯一の輸出向け資源は生糸であり、２百万人の農民が養蚕で生計を立てていたが、その９０％はアメリカに輸出されていた。

アメリカは自国に競合商品のない生糸は無関税で輸入していたが、それ以外のすべて加工製品には高額の関税をかけた。たとえばセルロイド製おもちゃ１２９％、魔法瓶１９２％、乾燥豆類１６３％など。

日本が抱えていたのは、過剰な人口、日本人移民を入れない世界の障壁、対外貿易への過度の依存、国民に雇用と食糧を保証するための物資輸入、そのために必要な輸出の拡大、という生き死ににかかわる問題だった。

彼ら（日本人）はまた、アジア・太平洋地域で大国（米英蘭）に「包囲」されていると信じ込んでいた。競争力の強いこれらの諸国は、やろうと思えば、日本との通商関係を断絶し、日本を殺すことができる。問題の基本にあるのは資源の欠如ではなく、民族間の信頼の欠如だった。日本は、自由経済と主権尊重といった表向きの政策は、実際に行われていることではなく、飾りにすぎないと思った。

■７．日本の求めた生存圏■

欧米列強に囲まれ、首根っこを押さえられていた日本は生存のための資源と市場をどこに求めたのか？

(1)満洲に(JOG注：ソ連からの）「合法的自衛」手段としての戦略的拠点を確保し、(2)日本帝国圏（韓国と台湾）と満洲、華北からなる経済ブロックを作って経済の安全保障を確立しようというのが、日本の計画だった。そうすれば、これまでのように原材料物資と市場をアメリカ、イギリス、フランス、オランダに依存しなくてもすむ。・・・

しかし、イギリスとアメリカは日本の政策に反対した。・・・日華事変の交戦国は中国と日本ではなかった。それは依然として、日本と欧米列強、とりわけイギリスとアメリカとの対立だった。対立する双方に、中国の将軍と政治家がついていた。中国人民は、相も変わらず、双方の犠牲者であり、飢えるか殺されるかの役回りしか与えられていなかった。

最後の一文にミアーズの人類愛が滲み出ている。

■８．日本は行くところまで行くしかなかった■

輸出入の両面で日本の首根っこを押さえていたアメリカは、「自由経済と主権尊重」を主張しつつ、日中戦争にのめり込む日本に戦略物資を輸出し、同時に相手の蒋介石政権に莫大な援助を続けていた。

現実的に言えば、ヨーロッパでの戦争にめどが立ち、アメリカの「防衛」計画がもっと固まるまで日中戦争を続けさせるのが私たちの政策だった。日本は中国で忙殺されていた。蒋介石は日本に屈しないで、戦闘を続けられるだけの援助を受けていた。

日本は日華事変を終結させ、一応の安定に復帰するため、絶えず蒋介石に働きかけていたが、アメリカとイギリスは、日本が莫大な財政的損失を出し、アジアの前で威信を失うまで、戦争を続けさせる考えだった。

問題が日中間に留まるものなら、日本は寛容を装ってでも、大幅な戦略的撤退をしていただろう。しかし、戦争の終結条件を決めているのが中国ではなく大国である以上、日本は行くところまで行くしかなかった。でなければ、生存の条件と教えられた大国の地位を失うしかなかった。

行くところまで行って、日本がたどり着いたのがパールハーバーなのであった。

■９．学んだことを実行すると、先生から激しく叱られる■

私たちはアメリカから多くのこと、とくに隣接地域の不安定政権にどう対処するかを学んできた。そして、学んだことを実行すると、先生から激しく叱られるのである。

新渡戸稲造のこの言葉をミアーズは引用する。次の例はその典型だろう。

つい５年ほど前、米英両国の軍隊と砲艦が自国民の生命財産を守るために中国の「盗賊」を攻撃したとき、両国の世論は中国人を野蛮人と呼んで非難した。イギリスとアメリカの国民は忘れているようだが、日本人はよく覚えている。ところが、日本が同じように中国の「盗賊」を攻撃すると、同じ国民が日本人を野蛮人と呼ぶのである。

日本が先生から学んだ最重要の学課は、海外領土の確保による経済圏の確立だった。イギリスは、本土面積（9.4万平方マイル）の２００倍以上、２千万平方マイルの海外領土、５億人に君臨する世界帝国を作り上げた。アメリカはインディアン、イギリス、メキシコと戦って３千万平方マイルの大陸を獲得し、さらに太平洋を渡って日本列島の５倍に相当する７１万平方マイルの海外領土を奪取した。ロシアはシべリアを東進し、支配面積を８８２万平方米マイルに拡げた。

西洋列強はいま、日本を激しく糾弾している。日本が「凶暴で貪欲」であったことは明白な事実だが、だからといって、西洋列強の責任は、彼らが思っているようには、免れることはできない。日本の本当の罪は、西洋文明の教えを守らなかったことではなく、よく守ったことなのだ。

■１０．アメリカの鏡：日本■

ミアーズがこの本を書いていた頃、終戦からまだ２年も経っていないのに、米ソ冷戦が始まっていた。

私たちは現在、「ソ連を押し戻す」、そして「共産主義の脅威と戦う」ことを政策として明らかにしている。これは実に日本が、彼らの全近代をかけて実践してきた政策だ。

今日私たちがいっているように、ソ連が「世界の脅威」であり、（JOG注：日露戦争当時）日本を支援したかつての米英両国の政策担当者が正しかったとすれば、ソ連を抑止し、「混乱した」地域に秩序をもたらし、中国における「共産主義の脅威」と戦う行動拠点を確保するために、満洲を緩衝国家にしようとした日本を支援しなかった1931年以降の米英両国の政策担当者は、犯罪的に無能だったことになる。

そして、対日関係をパールハーバーとシンガポールまで悪化させ、その結果、私たちの生命と財産ばかりでなく、極東の同盟国を失ってしまった政策担当者の無能ぶりは、犯罪をはるかに超えたものであるというほかない。

日本はパワー・ポリティックスを西洋列強に学び、そしてそれをよく守ったがゆえに、悲惨な結果を迎えた。その日本の近代史を鏡として、アメリカは自らのパワーポリティクスを見つめ、反省せよ、というのが「アメリカの鏡：日本」という原題の意味である。

しかし、その後もアメリカはソ連の脅威を封じ込めるために、共産中国とまでも手を結び、中国が成長して脅威となると、今度はこちらを封じ込めようとする。東京裁判史観によって真実を覆い隠したまま、アメリカがそのパワーポリティクスを続ける限り、「世界が置かれている深刻な無秩序状態」はまだまだ続くだろう。


http://zeroempty000.blogspot.jp/2006/04/mirror-for-ameriacans-another.html




Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Mirror for Americans--Another perspective on the Pacific War
I have found this book very interesting.Japan is infamous for its mistreatment of POWS during WWⅡ,As a Japanese I am ashamed and feel sorry for the victims, but why did she went into the war in the first place?The book provides one possble answer and it shows another perspective on the Pacific War.
It is sometimes pointed out that this war has two perspectives.One is that Japan invaded Asian nations.The other is that it was the battle between Imperialists.
Nitobe's word sums up Japan's position very well.
We have learned many things from America ----especially in dealing with neighoring unstable government, and when we put the lesson into practice,we are severrly criticized y our teacher -- -Inazo Nitobe(Address at Institute of Politics, Williamstown, massachusetts,1932)


The book is about WWⅡ　but I think it points out the important aspects of the modern international society.After reading this, my impression is that the weak is always a victim. If the nation is weak, she will be a victim of Imperialists.If people are weak, they will be victims of the tyrant.

The book is available in Japanese, but it is not available in English;for, it has been out of print.The author is an American . She criticizes the U.S. policy as well as Japan's,In her view,Japan mirrored the U.S., but somehow she shows some sympathy with Japan. I'd say she is a critic of American policy rather than an apologist for Japan. It was published in 1948.
I'll quote some of what she has to say,so you can get the gist of it.
(Subtitiles are mine)



Imperialists encroached Asian nations

wiki/Colonization and imperialism in World War II (1939)

p161
That modern,post-Perry Japan has been aggressive and expansionist is clear,It is equally clear, however, that pre-modern Japan was both pacifist and non-expansionist.The cause for Japan7s modern aggressions, thereore must be sought for in events after 1853.

p162
while the Japanese were developing their own society in isolation during the seventeenth eighteenth and nineteenth ceturies, the European people continued their explosive expantionism.

p161 At the time of Peal Harbor, the British----whose home islands(94278 square miles) are somewhat smaller than the Japanese home islands(146,694 square miles), but whose homeside population is some 28,000,000 less than the Japanese ---controlled an empire and comonwealth consiting of 13,539,111 square miles, 3,000,000 square miles of it in Asia and another 3,5000,000in the Pacific, with a population of well over 500,000,000 people.The Dutch, with a hommeside population of 9,000,000 and homeside territory of 12,704 square iles, controlled an area of 7899,961 square miles of which over 735,000 square miles were in Asiatic waters.The French, with a homeside population of around 42,000,000, and a homeside areof 212,659 square miles, considerably larger than the Japanese islands, controlled around 3,422,300 square miles, of which 277,800 was in Continental Asia, and an additional 243,584 square miles in Asiatic or South Pacific waters,Russia, with a home territory of over 6,300,000 square miles, and a population of well over 183,000,000, controlled a total area of 8,819,791 square miles.It is a comment on Japan's "historic expansionism" that at the time of Pearl harbor, the Japanese controlled only two tenths per cent of the islands in the entire Pacific area......
....[I]f you compare the development of our country and civilization with that of pre-modern Japan, the contrast is startling. In around three hundred years from our first settelment, we had defaeted the Indians, the British, the Mexicans, the Spanish, had threatened the French, fought a great civil war to unify our states into a nation, and had acquired and stettled a vast continent with an are of 3,022,387 square mile, and in addtion had pushed our beyond our borders, in one case seven hundred beyond our continental limits, overseas possessions of 712,836 square miles8almost five times as large as the four Japanese main islands)

p164 In 1853, when Perry opend the door, they owened no land outside their own islands and had but little colonized the northern island of japan proper.In the first eighty two years of their modern period---up to Pearl harbor---the Japanese with a homeside population of over 72,000,000 and a total population of over 90,000,000 had acquired an empire of 179,257 square miles(including the northern home island of Hokkaido) They also controlled the leased territory of Kwantung in China(1428 square miles); and after 1931, the puppet state of Manchukuo(446,000 square miles)These territories, however were only six hundred miles from their home islands, and they had gained control----especially in the case of Mnachukuo---against practically no opposition. They also controlled the mandated islands(Carolinas, Marchalls, Marianas), but these are only 830 square miles and were acquired by mandate from the league of Nations.
Our original thirteen colonies had a land of 868,980 square miles. Japan's three southernmost islands are only 91,654 square miles. Yet the worlds "most ruthless aggressors" were contened to stay within that territory for almost eighteen centuries while we were cramped almost from the beginning. The population of our vast continent at the time Perry "open the door" of Japan was a little over 23,000,000, the population of small Japan was around 33,000,000, yet it was we who went around the world "opening doors."

p168When the British attempting a little hi-jacking of the Dutch, appeared at Nagasaki, near the Datch trading post, in 1808, with a warshipcarrying ninety six guns, the community was thrown into an uproar.......The Dutch, who were in an advantageous position because of their right to reside on the island of Deshima, also become impatient of the restraints imposed on their trade and other activitis, and as their control of the Indies became increasingly stabilized, began to put puressure on the Japanese to permit them to live on the main islands. In the late eighteen-forties, William Ⅱ of Holand went so far as to send a personal letter to the Japanse Shogun, in which he referred to the "Opium War" and asked if the Japanese wanted the same sort of treatment.When our Coomodore Perry succeeded in 1853-54.....asking for "friendship, commerce supply of coal and provisions and protection for our shipwrecked people." it was merely accident. If America had not done it then, it is quite certain that some other Power would have done it withing another decade......

p170From this time on , till late in the nineteenth cnetury , Japan had a semi-colonial status.Controlling all foregin trade, setting customs and prices, monopoloizing coastal shipping, milking the country of gold, representatives of the major Western Powers lived in japan protected by ninety-nine-year leases, and extraterrtitoriality.....During this period, roughly forty-five years , the Japanese, under direct guidance of the Western Powers, were "reformed and re-educated,"That the West approved its pupil was indicated after the Sino-japanese War, then in 1899, the last of the "unequal Treaties" was rewritten, the Western Powers surrendered their special privilieges, and Japan was granted her high-shcool diploma admitting her into the society of adult nations.With the Russo-Japanese War, Japan found that her undergraduate college work was also completed satisfactorily.That her post-graduate education was equally acceptable was proved in 1919, at the Paris Conference to decide the peace term following World War Ⅰ.....Japan had graduated cum laude.


Japan learned Imperialism and Monroe Doctrine

p182
From our point of view, our own expansion was as normal and wholesome as breathing.The American Continent was a vast undevelopled are, sparsely populated.To explore it,settle it, tie it together, and ake it secure by extending its boundaries was not only inevitable for an energeticc people, but was considered an expression of human independence and freedom.Most of us see our wars against the Indian as legitimate self-defence.We see our war with Mexico by which we secured Texas, Nevada, Arisona, Utah, New Mexico,most of Colorado, and California as acts of liberation. We see the manipulated incident by which we secured the Panama Canal Zone as an act of high statetsmanship by patriotic and far-seeing Americans. Even conquest of the Philippines, .....was justified not only by our policy-making groups but by popular opinion, as liberating the Fhilipinos from Spanish rule with the intention of educating them for eventual freedom.
The Japanese, however, studying this history during a time when they were themselves trying to get free from a semi-colonial status, saw only that it was war that won us our independence and that having become independent we retained our postion and grew in authority by warring against not only the European Powers but also our neighbors, and by annexing territory won by these techniques.
We saw our Monroe Doctrine as a democratic policy designed to prevent the extension of an oppressive European rule into the South American Continent. The Japanese, however, saw that as time went on we ourselves assumed a dominant role in South America; that we openly desired "friendly" governments there and used both commercial-financial measures,diplomacy and force when necessary to maintain "law and order" and protect our assumed "interests" They saw also that in Japan and China we were allied with those same European Powers against the native peoples, and accepted as our right a privilaged status there.

p184
The leader of this nation have always held that concern for our national security does not end at our borders. Presidend Monroe and every American President following him were prepared to use force, if necessary, to assure the independence of other American nations threatened by aggressors from across the sea ----Franklin D. Roosevelt.

We have learned many things from America ----especially in dealing with neighoring unstable government, andnwhen we put the lesson into practice,we are severrly criticized y our teacher -- -Inazo Nitobe(Address at Institute of Politics, Williamstown, massachusetts,1932)

p184
The notion that history does not repeat itself is exploded even a cursory look at the history of modern japan and China. ......The nineteenth century version was called "The White Man's Burden, "or "Taking civiliazation to Backward peoples."Today's version is called "liberation"or "Deomocratizing Backward and Non-self Governming peoples."

p186 In a modern world in which trade was dominant factor, the Japanese could scarecely hope to survive without close relations with the near-by continent. It was imperative for Japan that China and Korea should not be cut up into spheres of influence and dominated as wxclusive preserves by the Western Powers that had already dominated most of coastal Asia as well as the major islands, both south and north of Japan.
In a situation not so immidiately urgent, not long before, the United States had promulgated the Monroe Doctrine, warning Europe not to turn South America into a group of European colonies.Despite the fact that we had in the North American Continent, all the territory we could comfortably develop;despite the fact that we had not hisotric or cultural tied with South America;despited the fact that it was a long way from home.....Moreover we took precisely the same point of view toward China in 1900, in our "Open Door" policy there. If such a policy make sense for the United States, it clearly made much more sense for Japan.

p187 Long before the word "communism" was every heard of, the British, with whatever allies they could line up, were maneuvering and fighting to keep sprawling Russia from spreading into regions the British considered thier own legitimate field of expansion.......
Russians , blocked in the Mediterranean, continued their expansion in Northeast Asia trying to gain a warm-water outlet to the Pacific.Taking advantage of the concession the British and French had gained from China by force, they secured from Cina the Maritaime Privince and Vladivostok adjacent to Japan and just north of Korea.They had also established themselves in Sakhalin Island and the Kuriles,north of the main japanese islands and geographycally part of the Japanese chain.......Japan were not happy about all this,
The British were not happy either.They were unwilling for any Power except themselves to have a dominant position in the Far East, and Japan and korea were both strategically place to serve as "bridge and barrier" in respect in China.



Japan put the learning into practice.The Western Powers applauded

p188 The Japanese ruling groups,once they had stablized their domestic situation, set out at once to put into practice in Korea the techniques of international relations they had recently been taught.....

p189Just as Western penetrationi had caused a revolutionary situation in Japan, so Western penetration caused a revolutionary situation in Korea, with japan the spearhead of the "progressive" Korean forces.The most aggressive, most "progressive" young Koreans becae pro-Japanese and anti-China, since at that time Japan represented the forces of progressive and China represented the forces of consevatism---opposed to modennizaiton.Jaust as the Western Powers had backed the pro-Japanese Koreans,....
On July 23, the Japanese declared war on China to insure the "independence" of Korean.....The war was an unqualified success from the Japanese point of view.The Western Powers applauded,and one after another gave up their "special privilages" and admitted japan as an equal soverign Power.

p189 Over the next few years the Western Powers wage the "battle of the concession" in China, and when it was over, China was neatly sliced into spheres of influence," with the Russian in Manchuria and the Martime Privince; the German in Shantung;the British in North China, the Yangtse Valley, and Hong Kong;French in Yunnan, and the Japanese in Korea, and earmaking though not exploiteing,Fukien.The aggressiveness of the foregn Powers kept China in a state of Chaos.....
...Both of these Powers(British and Russia) had vast interests elesewhere, so that their activities in China represented merely the whipped cream of natoinal survival;for the Japanese it meant the bread and butter of national survival.

p57 On September 11, 1941, he[President Roosevelt] said:"....the very presence of Axis subs or raiders in any waters which America deem vital to its defence constitutes an attack.

p58Japanese would not understand why Japan should not have the same right as the United States to define its own national interests, and to decide what and who threatened them.And if the United States declares itself unwilling to wait "until the enemy has landed on our shores," the Japanese would feel that, in justice, they should be allowed the same privilege of deciding where and when and whom they must fight to protect their "very national existence."

p195
Accoding to Viscount Kaneko, one of the Japanese representative at Portsmouth(writing in Contemporary Japan for September, 1932), President Rooseevelt advised the Japanese to proclaim a "Monroe Doctrine" for Asia, to extend from east of south Canal as far as west of kamcharka, excluding only the consessions and colonies of the Western Powers, and maintaining the principle of the Open Door in China.Following the Russo-Japanese War, the United States recognized "the logic of events" and withdrew legations from the Korean capital.The Korean Emperor appealed to President Theodre Roosevelt, but realizing that Korea "had shown herself utterly impotent either for self-government or self-defense," he declined to intervene....
In 1917, in an exchange of notes between the United States Secretary of State lansing and the Japanese former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Viscount Ishii, the united States Government specifially accepted the Japanese special interest in respect to Korea and China.Secretary wrote:

The Government of the United States and Japan recognize that territorial propinquity creates special relatioins between countries, and consequently, the Government of the United States recognizes that Japan has special interests in China, particularly in that part to which her possesions are contiguous.

In veiw of the official record it is not easy to see how Japan today can be charged with having "enslaved" the Koreans without simultaneously charging Great Britain as an accomplice and the United States as, at least,an accessory.

p196 Professor Treat commments,".....every step in the process was 'correct' diplomatically, and the final annexation was consummated by....treaty , nor proclamation."As a matter of record, Japan7s annexation of Korea had considerably more "legal" documentation than most of the empire-building of the Western Powers.

p196
We call the Japanese "copyists", but we seem not to see that since they copied the Western Powers, their failure to attain perfection in either their domestic institutions or international relations might be explained by the fact that they copied----not our professions of principle, but our every day practice.The Asiastic peoples see this only too well, as suggestedby a comment by Pandit Nehru, head of India's Congress Party,In describing this period, Nehru wrote:"Japan became a great industrial nation, and after the manner of the Western Powers, an imperialistci and predatory nation."

The next target was Manchukuo.This time the Western Powers protested.

p205
As most of us see it, in September, 1931, Japanese troops went into Manchuria where the had no bussiness to be;

p222the Japanese, not unnaturally, thought that they would see the "logic of events"(as they had in Korea) and would recognize that a stablitized new state, Manchukuo, divorced from the misrule of a Chinese General, and defended by Japanese armed forces----would be themost valuable possible contribtion to "stability" in the Far East.

p224As the Report(the Lytton Commission Report.) described the situation, China was a chaotic area with no generally acceped Central Government, where "anti-foreign attitudes" were retarding "constructive reform" and "bandits were growing into "veritable armies" which harrassed "farmine-stricken districts"
"Political upheavals, civil wars, social and economic unrest, with the resulting weakness of the Cetral Government, have been chracterestics of China since the revolution of 1911.Those conditions have been brought into contact, and until remedied will continue a menace to world peace and a contributory of world economic depression.

"Communism has become an actual rival of the National Government. It possesses its own law, army and government, and its own territorial sphere of action. For this state of affairs, there is no parallel in any other country."

"A perusal of the textbooks used in the schools leaves the impression on the mind of the reader that their-authors have sought to kindle patriotism with the flame of hatred and to build up manliness upon a sense of injury. As a result of this virulent anti-foreign propaganda, begun in the schools and carried through every phase of public life, the students have been induced to engage in political activities, which sometimes have culminated in attacks on the persons, homes or offices of ministers and other authorities, and in attempts to overthrow the Government."
..,,
The Lytton Report even acknoledges that the concept of a "central government" of a "Chinese Republic" was only a legal fiction. The Report explains that various Chinese "war lords" took the postioin that naking regime(Chiang kai=shek) was not a central government to be obeyed but merely a govenment that "happened to ....be recognized the Central Government by Foreign Powers."

p226From Japanese point of view, this acknowledgment by the Lyton Report was of extreeme "legal" importance;for if the regime of a certain war lord" became the "central Government" merely because certain foreign Powes recognized it as such, then there was no reason why Japan (as a Great Power) should not recognize its own preferred regime as the Central Government in the area of its own sphere of influence.

p326 As the Japanese explained it when the Incident began it was not only a matter of vital "self-defence" but was also duty to the other Western Powers since, as the major Great Power i Asia, they were obliged to maintain "law and order" in their sphere of influence.They did so b driving unruly Chinese troops out of the area.

p227 As the Japanese explained the creation of Manchukuo, Manchuria had never been a part of China. On the contrary it was the other way around,China had been part of the Mancurian Empire.As long as the Manchu conquerors of China had governed China in Peking, there was of course a connection between the two areas, that even under the Manchu rule, the Manchurian Privinces were considered outside of China.
The Chinese revolution of 1912 overthrew the manchu rule, This act (the Japanese explained) the broke the legal connection between China and Manchuria.The Western Powers , however, had continued the fiction that Manchuria was part of China because, since the Unequal Treaties thad been signed with the Manchu Dynasty, the special privilages granted to foregners also covered Manchuria; and the Western Powers, therefore, had practical reasons for wanting China to assert its soverignty over the area.

p228The independet movement in Manchria (the Japanese explained) had been long incubating and had matured spontaneously as the local people seized the opportunity presented by the Incident to declare thier freedom from Chang's misrule.The people of manchuria---the Japanese said---did not want Young Chang and his armies to return.A move for independence had , therefore, sprung up throughout Manchuria, and the people had chosen delgated togoto Mukden and meet in a "Constituent Assembly" and issue an "independece proclamation.....All they did, the Japanese explained, was to help out the revolutionaries just as the French had helped the Americans during their Revolution. The Japanese role in Manchukuo, they said, was merely to defend the people from the Communist menace," and the misrule of Chinese generals, and help them develop into a modern state.

p229From the point of view of the Japanese , the objections voiced by the Western Powers were based, not on a concern from the territorial integrity of China (which all the major denouncing Powers were themselves violating), but merely on a determination to extend Western control in the area which had, up till then,been accepted as Japan's sphere of influence.....Japanese remembered, as the people of Britain and the United States appeared to foreget that when less than five years before , British and United States troops and gunboats had had to shoot at Chinese "bandits" to preserve lives and property, public opinion had condemned the Chinese "bandits" to do the same thing, the same people called the Japanese barbarians.Japanese came to the conclusion that popular condemnation was not directed at Japan's action , but at their race.

p232
The inhabitants of Manchukou enjoy increasing measure of security and ordered government. They are free from depredations and exactions by the military. They are subject to a reasonable system of taxation which is fairly administered, and they have the advantage of a sound currency.Plans are being laid, and are being excuted, for improvements in transportion, communications, inland navigation, flood control, sanitation, hospitals, medical training, and the provision of school buildings hitherto lacking.From this it is easy to visualize the scope which Manchukuo offers as a market for industrianl produts.
A modern state is in process of creation.Althoug difficulties still lies before it, we believe that they will be overcome and that economic prosperity will gradually be achieved to the benifit of manchukuo and of the trade of other coutries.(Irvin Friedman,IPR, Repost of Mission tothe Far East, August Novemver, 1934,British Relations with China;1931-1939)

p233 When the Japanese gave up their extrality in Manchuria,, the Western Powers, far from applauding this move and immediately following suit......protested vigorously that the state had no right to deprive them of their special status..
....It is a fact ....that the "puppet" state of Manchukuo eonjoyed a measure of "legal sovereignty" that was denied, by the Western Powers, to the Republic of China.It is also a fact that today, when the situation in the Philippines is indistinguishable from that of pre-Pearl harbor Manchukuo, we hail its "liberation" as a demonstration of the best of Western domocratic action.

p234The Japanese used no more force in the Manchurian Incident than the democratic Wester Powers used recurrently in China whenever they saw their own "interests" threatened.The Japanese not only "did it legal " they evolved a new legal techinique, "liberation,"which was to become increasingly popular among the Powers inthe next decade.

On the road to the Peal Harbour

p236From the Japanese point of view---in its simplest terms ---the war between them and the United States and Britain was caused by the determination of Anglo-American policy-makers to prevent the rise to dominant position in Asia of any Asiatic people, and to wipe out Japan's trade competion in favor of United States and British bussiness enterprise.....It must ...be noted that the policies as carried out , as well as our own official explanations of these policies, gave (and give) strong grounds for the Japanese interpretation.

p236"....the new order in East Asia has appeared to include, among other things, depriving Americans of their long-established rights in China, and to this the American people are opposed .-----Joseph Clark Grew, October 19, 1939.

p238
Since...the vast majority of our protest to Japan throughout both the Mancurian and China incidens were phrased in terms of defendeing "our interests," the Japanese not unreasonably considered our policy;to be in either (1) a blanket endorcement of British policy; or (2) a dog-in -the -manger dertermination to prevent the Japanese from developing what we were not interested in developing ourselves;or (3)a strategic interest in Asia.
.....They felt that , being so wealthy ourselves, we did not understand thier economic problems.....Because of the volcanic character of the islands there was relatively little farm land sothat even with the Japanese genius for farming and sonservation, they could not grow enogh food to feed themselves.Japanese migration was restricted by law from the most of the areas intherir part of the world (as wellas from other areas) by the European nations and the United States,....

p239 Manchuria had been accepted as the Japanese (and Russian) sphere of influece just as the Yangtze Valley and elsewhere were British; and yunnan, French.
p241 we recurrently explained that our own policy was based on the principles of free enterprise and the right of equal access to world markets for all nations; and we protestedto japan that tehy intended to shut us out of Asia.
From the Japanese point of view, it was the other way around---we(and the European Empires) shut them out.As they saw it our own very high tariff schdule put out huge continent and our colonial areas also (such as the Philippines and hawaii) well out ot the reach of the average foreign exporter of other countries......the European Empires...also greatly restricted both trade and investments of other foreign nationals.Finally, we did, in practice,discriminated against Japanese trade.
A look at the record suggest that the Japanese have a case....

p242 Few Japanese goods entered the country at rates lower than 25 per cent and in many canse they exceded 100 per cent......
Moreover, Japan was directly discriminated aganist.According to a Survey of japanese-American trade relation by William W Lockwood, Jr.:
"In some instances barriers against japanese goods have been raised ....by diret action in Washington......"

p246
With a few notable exceptions, rubber for instance, the things we import are either luxuries of are materials "vital" only for war. The Japanese had to import not only food, but virtually al the materials they need to earn a living.Like the British, the Japanese had to export or very large numbers would stop eating.Since they had relatively few natural resources suitable for export....they had to import raw materials and turn them into finished products for other people to buy ,not only to pay for food, but to pay for the raw materials for their manufactures.

p251 Economic warfare still is as bitter here as when the guns were firing. No weapon, not even the atomic bomb, is as deadly as in its final effect as ecnomic warfare.The atomic bomb kills by the thousands,starvation by the millions......One reason she went to war---she was reaching our to get resources.....General macArthur, March 17,1947.

See alsodouglas-macarthur-testified

p270 The situation in China was enoumously confused and complex.In its simplest term, however, as the Japanese saw it, in the begining they were;(1)trying to maintain a strategic postion in Manchuria as a measure of "legitimate self-defense,"and (2)trying to establish a measure of enconomic security by building upan ecnomic bloc to consist of the Japanese Empire(Korea and Formosa), Manchukuo and North China, so that they would be less dependent on the United State and the British, French and Dutch Empire for both raw materials and markets.....

p271As the Japanese saw it, the British objected because they were determined to maintain theirown commercial,finacial, and political domination over the Chinese "Central Government".They interpreted the United States position as being largely based on United States objections to Japan7s assuming its proper place of leadership in Asia.

p271 Up to late 1935, the Japanese made considerable progress in accomplishing their obejectives in China, using diplomatic and fianacial-commercial techniques rather than force.In carry out their project of getting a "friendly" Goevenment established in North China, they were immeasurably assisted by their status as a Treaty Power and by thee fact that internation agreement forbade the presence of Chinese troops in the zone between Peking and the sea, so that the Japanese could move into this are without armed opposition.Whenever the Chinese did try armed opposition, in such an international city as Tientsin, for instance, the British took the Japanese side againt the Chinese.....

p278 In 1934, the Japanese Foreign Office spokesman, Mr.Eiji,Amau, announced a new policy that came to be called the Japanese Monroe Doctrine. This policy, which developed into the "Co-Prosperrity Sphere for Great East Asia,", declared that Japan assumed exclusive responsibility for peace in Eastern Asia and ould oppose by force if necessary any activity by foreign powers in China that might lead to any disturbance of peace and order or might tend to cause trouble between China and japan.

p272 In 1935 the Japanese almost "liberated"North China from the "misrule"of Chiang Kai-shek regime.They accopolish this with the co-opereation of the Chinese generals (war lords) who governed three northern provinces, who all declared themselves in favor of the establishment of an "autonomous"North China, to have close economic ties with Manchukuo and Japan.Also on Japan's side was Wang Ching-wei (who later headed the Nanking "puppet" regime) who in 1935, was Chairman of the Excutive Department of Chiang Kai-shek's" Nanking regime" whici the Western Powers recognizedas the "CEtral Government" of the "Chinese Republic"

p273 In April, 1940, they established Wang Ching-wei in Naking, and in November, they recoginized his regime as the legitimate legal "Central Government" of China.Both the British and the United States Governments immedeiately issued a statement reaffirming their recognition of Chiang kai-shek's regime as the legitimate Government. Ameriacan have considered Wang to be a Japanse puppet. The Japanese, of course, considered Chian Kaishek an Anglo-American puppet.
From the point of view of Chinese people , both regimes represented legal fictions.

p274
The United States Goevernment took part in the China Incident (which in practical terms, merged with the World War in 1939), not only by lending large sums to Chiang Kai-shek, but also by threaeting to impose strigent exnomic treaty with Japan .

p274
Although gradually more ot the vital war materials were subject to (the U.S.) Goevernmental control under a system of export licenses, the Goevernment continued to issue the licenses.Some supplies of oil and other vital material continued to reache Japan until mid-1941.
Presiden Roosevelt described Unted States policy as being designed to "keep the peace down there in the South Pacific." The Presiden explained that "whether the Japanese had at that time [the beginning of the Erupean War] aggressive purpse to enlarge their empire southward, they didn't have any oil to their own up in the north. Now if we cut the oil off, they probablywould have gone down to the Dutch East Indies a year ago and your ould have had war,Therefore there was---you might call---a method in letting this oil go to Japan, with the hope--- and it has worked for two years---of keeping war out out the South Pacific for our own good, the the good of the defence of Great Britain, and the freedom of the seas.".
The Presiden went on to explain that we needed the strategic materials---tin, rubber, "and so forth and son---" in the Dutch Indies, the Straits Settlements, and Indo-China." "And we had to help get the Ausralian surplus of meat and wheat and corn, for England.

A Japanese , studying this explanation, would note that the Presiden of the United States has said that the United States would fight, if necessary("you would have had war") to protect materials for assumed United States interests and the "defense of Great Britain.".....the United States and Japan went to war with each other for the same objective---access to strategic supplies in the British, Dutch, and French colonieis.
These quotations are from the report in the New York Times for July 25, 1941.See also Foreign Relations of the United States, Japan 1931-1941,volⅡ, p,527

p276
The Japanese made incessant advances to Chiang Kai-shek in an attempt to coclude the China Incident and get back to some semblance of stability.But the United States and Britain would not let them conclude it except on terms that meant a great financial loss, and an extreme loss of face in their future relation with Asia. .Had the issue been just between Japan and China, the Japanese could have afforded a broad strartegic retreat disguised as a generous gesture.Since, however, the majore Powers (not China were setteing the terms, the Japanese had no choice but to see it through or lose the position of Great Power their education had taught them was necessary for survival.

p66 According to W.H.Donald, Australian adviser to Chian-Kai-shek, in an intervew after his release from a Japanese internment camp on Luzon, the Japanese had made "twelve peace offers"in the period from 1938 to 1940. The Japanese terms, as Mr,Donald outlined them were "favorable" to China.The japanese demanded only recognition of the independence of manchukuo:certain economic and development rights in North China;and "political adjustment of Inner Monglia to prevent any extension of Russian influence there from outer Mongolia,"According to Mr,Donald, "The Japanese mad no territorial demands in these offers.

p277The United States economic sanctions....constitutes a serious war of nerves. When in July 1941, the American , British, and Duch Powers , acting in concert, froze allthe japanese access in the area controlled by these Powers and so brought all trade to a full stop, the Japanese knew that the ultimatum they had been dreading since the Manchurian.Witout supplies from thses Powers ,, the Japanese would have to get out of China and Manchria on Ameraican, Britich and Dutch terms. They had to fight or submit to term that ould reduce them to a minor Power.


p279As we interpret this event we say that an internationl organization took steps to prevent Japanaese aggression against China,The Japanese ,however, say that they were trying to take steps to halt a Wsetern aggression against China that had been going on for over a hundre years.
....The Japanese were trying to say that now they were objecting to the continued domination of Asia by Europe and the United States They did not , they said want to conquer China. They wanted only to be able to deal with China as a soverign nation;they were tired of having to deal with China and the rest of Asia, not interms of the poeples of the are, but in terms of the European nations that governed or dominated them.



p65Because of the fact that the Japanese had to import all of the important raw materials necessary for modern warfare, it was recognized that should these supplies be cut off, the Japanese war machine would automatically run down. Moreover, since the islands had to import food, a blocakd meant that not even the normal domestic economiy could persist against a greaking of japan's shipping routes.


p56 it is a fact, for instance, that the Japanese claim that we "provoke" the Peal Harbor attack by our ecnomic and finacial blockade---undertaken in conjunction with the British and Dutch as part of our "defence" programand the program of aid to Britain in the European war---has very strong supporting evidence behind it. In fact, in our War Crimes trials in Tokyo, the Japanese countercharge of "encirclement" and assertion of "self-defense" were so stronglly based that we had to drop the idea of making Pearl Harbor the center of our indictment and broaden the charge to include a "conspiracy" to "conquer the world" dating from "at least as early as 1931, the time of so called Manchurian Incindent"
It is also fact that Americans in official position have agreed that the Japanese leaders were quite sincere in believin that from first to last, they were fighting for their "vital national interests"

p57"It is clear that the Japanese leaders entered the War deeply convinced that they were fighting fro their very national existence and life, whereas the United States, they believed, was merely pressing for economic advantages and a set of principles, but not from vital security."

p269
The Japanese Government at present has the urge to avoid unnecessary friction with our Govenment and people.....one of the things they are...fighting for is to supresede Britich interests in China, gradually, perhaps but nonetheless surely in the long run.Tha last thing they want is to stir up the United States to a pointof irritation where we will make common cause to the extent of an active united front with Great Britain in the Far East.Joseph Clark Grew, Ten years in Tokyo,p.244, new York;Sion and Schuster,1944

Mr,Roosevelt wrote:
Your suggestion as one of the chief factors in the problem of our attitude toward Japan the question whether our getting involved into war with Japna would so handicap our help to Britain in Europe as to make the difference to Britain between victory and defeat....the British, with our help, will be victorious in ths conflict...we must bear in mind that when Englishland is victorious, she may not have left the strengh that would be needed to bring about a rearreangement of such territorial changes in the western and southern Pacific as might occur during the course of the conflict if Japan is not kept within bounds.(Ibid,pp362-65)

p58
Nor is it easy to see how we can justly punish them on the grounds that Pearl Harbor was an "unprovoked! attack in an attempt to counquer the United States when our own records document the fact that it was nothing of the sort, but was instead a conterattack against an economic was we had been waging against them.The Pearl Harbor attack was no bolt from the blue, It was the direct effect of a specific cause, and that cause was the "freezing" order of july 25,1941, by which the United States, acting jointly with the British and Dutch Empires,froze all the assets of the Japanese in all the territories under their controly, and broke off all trade and financial transactions.Since Japanese bought almost eighty per cent of their supplies from these "frozen" areas, this move meant, not only that China Incident bog down, but that wihin a relatively brief period even thier normal domestic economy would bog down.The Japanese, therefore sent special envoy to this country to try to persuade the United States Government to relax these stern measures.It is clear, from a review of our official accounts fo these conversations, that we gave Japanese grounds for believing that we not sincerly trying to solve the causes for disagreement between the two counties, but that we had made up our minds that war was inevitable and that, in these conversation, we were playing for time until European part of the war should be somewhatunder control and our own "defence" program more advanced.

p59From the Japanese point of view, the Pearl harbor attack was a desperate gamble in an attempt to frightn us off from joing the British and Dutch when the Japanese finally decided to go down and take by force from Indonesia and Malaya the supplies the British and Dutch would no longer sell them.

p327
Pearl Harbor Reports
July 1946
Minority Report
2.By Nov.7, 1941, President Roosvelt and his Cabinet had reached the unanimous conclusion tht war tension had reached such a point to convince them that "the people would back us up in case we struck at Japan down there.(in the Far East)"They then took under consideration "what the tactics would be"(Tr,.Vol.70, p. 14415) Unless Japan yielded to diplomatic representaions on the part of the United States, there were three choices on tactics before the Presindent and the Cabinet:they could wait until Japan attacked; they could strike without a declaration of war by Congress, or the President could lay the issue of peace or war before Congress.(Tr,.Vol70, p,14415ff.)
3So imminent was was on Nov,25. that the President, in a conference with Secretary Hull, Secretary Knox, Secretary Stimson, General marchall, and Admiral Stark, "bought up the event that we were likely to be attacked perhaps (as soon as ) next Monday"(Dec.1); and the members of the conference discussed the question" How we should manuever them (the Japanese ) into the postion of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves"(Tr,,Vol.70,p.14418)
4Having considered without agreeing upon the propositon that a message on the war situation should be sent to Congress, the President and the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, and the Secretary of the navy pursued from Nov, 25 to Dec 7 the tactics of waiting for the firing of "the first shot" by the Japanese.
13 The message sent to General Short and Admiral Kimmel by high suthorities in Washington during November were couched in such conflicting and imprecise language , that they failed to convey to the commanders definite information on the state of diplomatic relations with Japan and on Japanese war desigens and positive orders respecting the particular actions to be taken---orders that were beyond all reasonable the said high authorities failed to discharge their full duty.

p54
Yesterday.....the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its Government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. .....Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya. Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.... Guam...... the Philippine Islands..... Wake Island.....This morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island.......No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory....... we will ..... make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.---- Franklin D. Roosevelt's War Message, Asking Congress to Declare War on Japan

See also remember-flying-tigers



The battle between Imperialists got into deeper and deeper

p67 [T]he Japanese never claimed the occupied territories in Southeast Asia as part of their Empire, but, on the contrary , said that they occupied the during the was "defensive"measures---as we occupied iceland or North Africa:or occupied them as "lliberation" forces to free the "colored colonials" from theri Eruropean masters.They even set up "independent" native regimes in most of their occupied territories to give some plausibility to this assertion.....
Moreover, they won these early conquests more through political success, or by default, than by military prowess.They occupied Indo-China by agreement with Vichy France, through the goo offices of the same Admiral Darlan who assured the success of our own North African occupation.They British and Dutch both withdrew from their colonies, or surrendered, with scarecely more than a token resistance,while native peoples were, in general, either passive or were actively on the side of the Japanese.


p284The United States Government had set a definite date for the independence of the philipines. Our allies , howeer not only had not done the like but had put in jail the native leaders who made future in dependence the price of co-operation in the war against Japan.

p288 We saw the Japanese slogans, when we noted them at all, as legal fictions.From the point of view of large number of Asiatics, the Japanese legal fictions were more plausible than ours. Japan's meteoric progress from manchuria in 1931 to the borders of India in 1941 was due in very large part to the dyanmic revolutionary appeal of their project of foming a Pan-Asia---a "Co-Prosperrity Sphere for Greater East Asia"---to which the Asiatic and Pacific nations would be free from the political and exonomic domination of Europe.
A desire for political independence and freedom from econoic domination had long been smouldering in Asia and the Pacific coloniies; the propaganda and leadership of Japan served only to light the fuse. Japan's first vicories---in Asia and the British, French, and Dutch colonies---were made possible by the activities of native collaborationists. With a few notable exception, Japan's first sucesses during the war were won with remarkably little fighting.The European "owners" of Asisa withdrew, not so much from the Japanese armies as from the antagonism of the native peoples. The war in Asia, we called a was for "liberation," turned out to be a war for the reconquest of Asia by Europe---with (to our shame)United States help.

p289 In President Roosevelt's statement of August 12, 1944, he made the statement that the people of Asia did not wish to be slaves of Japan.This is unquetionably a true statment.What Mr.Roosevelt ignored ,however, was the fact that historically it was not Japan that had "enslaved"these peoples, but the European democracies, with which we were allied.

p289 The Japanese not only promised independence to the native people, they went through the forms of granting it.As early as 1935, they had surrendered extrality in Manchukuo. In 1940, they made a formal promise to China, and in 1943, they turned over the foreign concessions to a Chinese regime.During the war, they promoted the establishment of "independent" native governments in virtually all of the areas they occupied. The Philippines, for instace,received its "independence" on October 14, 1943, several years before we "liberated" it for the second time.Burma became "independent" on August 1, 1943. native regime were established in Malaya, in indonesida, in Indo-China.A free India Government in exile was set up in Malaya, headed by a prominen Indian leader,Bose, who ceclared wa on Britain and raised an Indian army to march on India with the Japanese armies.There are prominent Indidans today who insist that the threat implicit in Boze, the "disloyal" Indian army, and the Japanese military did more to hasten Britain's political withdrawal from Indai than peaceful methods employed so long and so fruitlessly by the genuinely peace-loving Indain leaders.
(see also)


p291 We have accepted too easily the idea that all the native regimes that worked with Japan during the war were puppets.The motives of some of the men who worked with the Japanese were probably tainted with self-interest. The native peoples ,however, respoinded to Japan's propaganda and programs with an initial enthusiasm that suggested that the slogan of a "Free Asia" was a legal fiction they would like to translate into realitty. The men who worked with japan were, in most cases, people of considerable sature in their own country, and ---unlike the Naze Quislings---could genuinely claim patriorism as motive for collaboration, since the battle was between not the Japanese and a native government, but between the Japanese and an anabsentee European alien rule.
Even in Philippines, where our record was immeasurably better than the record for the other colonies....the Japanese found colloborators among men who could not be dismisse as mere puppets For instance, Jorge Vargas, President Quezon's Secreary and appointed as Mayor of Manila....was sent by the Government of the Philippoine Republich as Ambassador to celebrate the first Anniversary of Filpino Independence, on October 14, 1944, Speaking at this celebration , Ambassador Vagas said.
But it was in the final withdrawal of the Japanese Military Administration and the recognition of the independenct Republic of the Philippines that the great Japanese Empire gave the highest proof of nobility and idealism. Faithful and true to its every pledge and enunciation, it opened to the Filipino people the most ample opportunities to promulgate a Constitution and establish a state in harmony with their own culture and national traditions....
In Great East Asia....the Empire of Japan, so bitterly and so unjustly attacked as a domineering and ruthless aggressor, practiced a tolerance and liberality such as might well astound the world....Empire that it was....Japan recognized and indeed participated in the establishement of a Republic.

p294
The problem of the Asiatic and Pacific colonies was more economic than political.What was mot wrong about the colonial system was the fact that the industrial mother country controlled the investments and trade of the colony and developed its economy to supplement that of homeside business.The Japanese did this also with their coloniies , of course,In the case of Japan and Asia, however, because Japan's own standard of living was not too much greater that that of the rest of the area, Japan could produce goods at prices the native people could afford.Moreover, the system of ownership by a half-dozen different peoples kept the various parts of the Asiatic regions separate from each; hampered free migrationi, free trade, and cultural contacts. ....
Even during the war, the Japanese began a process that will unquetionably develop as the native peoples of Asia continure to try to break free from the economic and political domination of Europe,A comment on Japan's programs in French Indo-China by two American research students is illuminating.Commenting on the fact that French control of Indo-China had been "largely monopolistic in respect both to trade and investment, theywrite:
.....Indo-China's temoprary role as an integrated part of Japan's swollen empire will at least tend to hamonize her economy with that of other parts of Greater East Asia....At least part of the result of the Japanese occupation, however deplorable the purpose and methods,has been a broading of the industrial picuture and a breakdown of some of its monopolistic characteristics.....


Japan was destined to be defeated from the start

p62 Japan's initial war strategy called for a war of limited objectives, Her capabilities did not permit an attack on our basic supporting strength---United States Strategic Bombing Survey,Summary Report, p.27, July 1, 1946
Japan's industrial potential was approximately ten per cent of that of the United States......Her radar and communications equipment was weak. She could not build sufficient ships or escort vessels.She lacked construction equiipment to build adquate airfields.She was alway hampered by a lack of oil.Her antiaircraft was outmoded.She could not economically afford to build adequate shelters for her propotion.she could not both disperse her industry and also repair damaged plants......United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Suumary Report, p.27, July 1, 1946

p69 On February 8 (1944),Frank Kluchhorn wrote from New York Guniea:
Japs are not only unwilling, but are unable to fight for theiroutlying possessions, while in the South Pacific, it is almost certain that the Japs can be punctured in almost any direction.....
On April 3, 1944, the Times reported that we had blocaded at least hundred thousand Japanese troops in the South and Southwest Pacific who "face the hopeless future of fightig until ammunition gives out or of fleeting deeper into the jungles to die by starvation or disease."On April 11, General Rowell was quoted as saying that "the Japanese are getting so hard to find, it is becoming a matter of distress for our frontline commanders."On February 29, 1944, Secretary of the navy Knox announced that American submarines had sunk almost half of the Japanese shipping. .....A headline in the New York Times on May 14, 1944, we had "mastery of he Pacific."By August, 1944, we were all set for the mop-up......
By Ausgust, 1944,we had already been bombing objectives in the Japanese home islands for some time.By December, we were running raids into the home islands regularly for or five times a week. Lieutenant General George C. Knney announced that the Japanese Air Force had lost ten thousand planes to us since Septeber 1, and "is broken and is no longer a threat." A censor objected to the General's answering the question as to whether "dangerous air opposition" would develop over the home islands,And the General ignored the cesor and said flatly ,"I hink the Japanese Air Force is no longer a threat."The General added that even if we gave the Japanese the planes, they didn't have the pilots to fly the or the mechanics to maintain them......
In March, 1945,however,despite the evidence that Japan's aggressive power was destroyed, we began our satuation firebomb raid with a mass attack on Tokyo, and by July we had reduced the Japanese Air Force and navy to such a state of impotence that General LeMay, "in a gesture of contempt for the enemy war leaders and their ability to defend japan, " dropped leaflets on eleven Japanese cities, explaining that "within a few days" each ot these cities would be bombed......

p72 Beginning with the March raid on Tokyo, our military forces were chiefly waging war not against the Japanese military, but against the masses of Japanese people.......According to New York Times milary expert. W,H. Lawrenc......the March 9 raid against Tokyo .....was a "big gamble."......Mr.Lawrence goes on to say that the gamble here was in the possible unfavorable reaction of the American public against this sort of terroristic war.

.....Accoding to Mr Lawrence's account, incendiary attacks "burned out 158 square miles of Japanese urban industrial areas and left homeless or dead an estimate 8,500,000 persons,"Of the March 12 raid, a Times correspondent wrote, "The heart of Tokyo is gone, Ashes and still flaming ruins cover the ground where large industry, small industry, and homes stood twenty^four hours ago in fifteen square miles of the center of japan's capital....about the only part of the city not in a primary target area was the fringe backing into the surrounding hills, the better residential sections,"of the May 28 raid on Yokohama a correspondent wrote;"The city's teeming throngs...had to run for their lives .....but there was no place of safty.The entire city was the target......

p74....We reached the point where we could tell the Japs that we were coming to burn down specific cities and then we could go and do it without encountering any increase in the expected opposition......

p74 The cost to us for this operation was eleven planes.

p90 Accoring to War Production Boad estimates, during the war Germany and German controlled territories produced around ninety per cent of the total Axis war material, leaving italy and japan to share the burden of the remaining ten per cent between them.According to the same source, by the end of 1942, the United States was produing as many combat weapons ----tanks, planes guns,and ships---as the entir Axis.....

The disparity between Japan's military expenditures and ours was spectacular. A comparison of the appropriations for our Army and Navy with those of japan from the Manchurian Incident on, discloses that , even while Japan had armed forces active in Asia, our normal peacetime military budgets were considerably higher than those of Japan. In 1931, for instance, our budget appropriation for our armed forces just missed being three time than the Japanese.who ----if our account of the manchurian Incident is correct----se out to to conquest the world on a military of less than $152.000.000.in that year we needed $667.000.000 just to keep our armed forces happy at home......

p91 The Japanese military budgets steadilyl increased from the Manchurian Incident on. ....In terms of United States dollars, however, and in contrast to our own increases, they seem moderate.By 1941, the Japanese military expenses had got up to an annual rate of around $1.334.000.000.Our own "defense" spending, however, was already in the neighborhood of $6.000.000.000.In mid-November, 1941,when relations between Japan and the Unite States were rapidly moving toward war, both the United States and Japan asked for increased military appropriations.President Roosevelt asked for 7,000,000,000; the Japanese Cabinet asked for around $980,000,000....

p92 In the four years and three months of the "China Incident" from July,1937, up to Pearl Habor, the japanese spent around $6.250,000,000 for their military and defencse activities in China and Manchuria,in the seven months' period from July, in 1940, to March, 1942, the United State spent around $161,000,000,000......

p95 The fact of Japan's economic scarcity are of considerable importance. ......Without supplliesfrom areas controlled by these countries(the British and
Dutch and Frence), the Japanese not only could not have carried out their Manchurain Incident, their China Incident, their bombing of Pearl Harbor and Singapore but very large numbers of Japanese ould not even have gone eating.

p95 Officially,we objected to the Mancurian and the China Incident, In September, 1937, our Government prohibited the transport of arms and munitions to either China or Japan on Government owned vessels.

p100 It can be proved without the slightest possibility of denial that the war was won by our blockade; by our breaking of japan's supply routes----not by bombing of the home islands.To replentish their war machines the Japanese needed iron, nickel, rubber, tin, copper, lead, cobalt,and innumerable other supplies the japanaese islands did not have.The nearest sources of supply were the Dutch Indies, Malaya, the Philippines.......The united States, however, is uniquely favoured,Our major resources are here at home.

p102
By February, 1944, accroding to this report("Japan's Struggle to End the War" by the United States Strategic Bombing Survey),.many Japanese leaders knew that their country could not win theb war and urged an attempt to secure a compromised peace.By "compromised peace", moreover, they did not mean any improvement over japan's pre-war status;on the contrary, at this time Rear Admiral Soichi Takagi urged that Japan should negotiate on the assumption that she whould give up both Korea and Formosa.
By July, 1944, the peace party in Japan was strong enough to overthrow the Tojo Cabinet,and the succeeding cabinet set up the Supreme War Direction Council, whose chief job was to get out of the war.
As early as February , 1945, rumors of peace feelers were reported in the United States press. Although these proposals were officially ignored or officially denied at the time, there is now evidence of their realitiy.it is a fact that during March the Japanese Cabinet was discssuing the possibility of negotiating peace, with China acting as mediator, on the basis of the pre-1931 boundaries;and before May, the Japanese Ambassador to Moscow was instructed to discuss possible peace proposals on the assumption that "whatever the results, they would be worse than pre^war codition.
The importance of the surrender party within the Japanese government so early is confirmed by the Strategic Bombing Survey report, which points out that "The Emperor, the Lord Privy Seal, the Prime Minister , the Foreign Minsiter, and the navey Minister had deicided as early as May of 1945 that the war should be ended even if it meant acceptance of defeat on Allied terms."

The battle between Imperialists continued


p109
What was all tha last minute rush about?.....
The answer to this question will have to be looked for in the record of our dealings, not with the Japanese , but with the Russians.At a Big Power Conference at Yalta, February 7, 1945, in a top secret agreement, Russia promised to come into the war against Japan in return for control over certain Japanese and Chinese territories and properties. The Russians, apparently, did not want the Japanese to surrender until they got into the war and so could claim this loot "lagally". On our part we didn't want the Japanese to present their terms to the USSR for fear that, if the Japanese did surrender unconditionally at once, the Russian would move into the islands, war or no war.And, if the Japanese didn't srrender unconditionally, then we want the Russians to take on the Kwantung Army, still in manchuria and korea. At the same time, however, we wanted to occupy and control the Japanese home islands before the Russians got there.If this analysis is correct, and there is not other analysis that explains the events, then we were willing to massacre over a hundred thousand Japanese civilian in an attempt to bring a quick decision. And we were quite ready , if his failed, to go ahead with the planned invasion at the poosible sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of American lives.And the atomic bombs which we used against the Japanese were used, not in a war against japan, for Japan had already been overwhelmingly defeeated, but in a political war against Russia.


p256
The war had decisively wrecked the Japanese economy....Japan's bedget for 1946 was almost fifty times larger thatn that for the last peacetime year of 1930-1931. .....In the first months, however, the Occupation----which is run in an extravagant American style---cost the japanese more than the entire yearly expense for their armed foreces in 1930, and since then costs have risen sharply.

p258 American policy makers confronted with the increasingly desperate situation in Japan have begun to change their policies.Suggestion are being made today for a government loan to run into billions toset Japan back on its feet. The motive behind this project however, does not appear to be a concern for ordinary human beings, but instead a disire to buildup Japan as a base against Russia.Simutaneously comes the suggestion that Amrecian bussiness might profitably invest in Japan entreprises.

A rondom sampling of headlines and quotations from the New York times since the Occupation repeat an old, old stroy:
koreans Angered by "Trusteeship";Anti-American Actions Reported(December 29 1945)
Koreans Deplore U.S. Soviet Snag.
General MacArthur said the prosper for independence was now "apparently more remote than ever"(Augsut 3, 1946)
Koreans Gloomy After "Free" year----Most Feel that they have Exchanged One Master for Two;U.S and Soviet(August 4, 1946)
Prominent Leftist Arrested in Korea(August 20, 1946)
U.S. AssuresKorea We Back Freedom.State Department Says Army Will Stay Only until Our Goal has Been Achieved.Imperialist Aims Denied (August 30, 1946)
Red Korean Paper Raided and Banned.....(R.J>Johonston ,September 6,1946)
Korea geve appeal to the UN General Assembly urging withdrawal of U.S. and Russian Milirary forces.....(Noveber 2 1946)

Update
This is a must read:
foreingn dispatch /Britain's Kenyan Crimes
Bengal famine
Posted by zero at 2:36 AM
3 comments:

Anonymous said...
I personally agree that The pacific war can be viewed as a conflict between 2 imperialists nations.(at least partly...)

But, it is also hardly deniable that Japan was a facisit nation at the time, while US was not.

and one more thing. There is another perspective on the pecific war. that is, Japan began the war for peace of east Asia, and liberating east asian nations from wester imperialist nations. (this is the view officially asserted by the apanese king-Hirohito, which the japanese govt stills stick to, and I personally think, just silly non-sense.

7:29 PM
zero said...
Thank you for the comment.

I reserve the judgment whether Japan was facist state. It depends on how you define the word.

"Japan began the war for peace of east Asia,"

That is true. but how it began is very complex process. you might want to read other articles on that.

" and liberating east asian nations from wester imperialist nations. (this is the view officially asserted by the apanese king-Hirohito,")

Do you mean Konoe?



"which the japanese govt stills stick to,"

That's not true.

8:33 PM
Anonymous said...
Hirohito was an Emperor. He did not have absolute power like kings you described. Men above the age of 25 were able to vote and freedom of speech was allowed under the Constitution. In Asia, Japan represented a modern Constitutional state (even today). However, when Japanese Army realized that diplomacy and negotiations didn't work with the Western Powers (Manchuria Incident), 5.15 and 2.26 incidents broke out. Then, the military authorities took control of the government with people's support and mass media's influence. So, the Constitution was partially aborted for national defense, and it was a soft fascism. Don't get this wrong because a lieutenant general, Hideki Tojo took his position as a prime minister and worked with diplomats to avoid the Asia-Pacific War to the utmost limit. By the way, Prime Minister Konoe was liberal and loyal to the Emperor. He had some interests in socialism and published (translated) Oscar Wilde’s The Soul of Man Under Socialism.

5:24 PM

http://kumo.typepad.jp/weblog/2008/09/mirror-for-amer.html



Sep 01, 2008

Mirror for Americans: Japan
I have just read a Japanese translation of an American book entitled "Mirror for Americans: Japan". It was originally written in 1948 by Helen Mears, who was an expert on oriental history and cultures in the prewar era, and came to Japan in the aftermath of the Great East Asian War to help the Allied occupation forces formulate new labor laws.
The main theme of the book was why Japan got into the reckless war. The book says, Japan could not avoid the war in terms of its relations with the Western powers. The powers used deceptive policies against Japan. With a calm but very objective reasoning, the author reveals that what Japan did was the same as what the powers had already done. She continues, Japan was the best student of modernization and Westernization, following what the powers showed decades before. That is, the student was Japan and the powers were the teacher in this sense. Japan's condemned actions in Asia were just the reflection of the Western powers themselves in a mirror. I guess that the title of the book was thus made.
I'm going to write about my father-in-law who passed away a few years ago. He had worked in a small southern island as a mechanic on fighter planes during the last war. He sometimes told me stuff about the war, and there were a lot of differences from what I learned in school and from his story. I didn't believe that he was telling a lie, but I didn't think that the history textbook wasn't correct either. Getting back on the right track, the author started the story with her flight between the U.S. and Japan. It took several days to fly between both countries at that time. She had to repeat stopovers on the islands in the Pacific Ocean, and consequently she saw native people's daily life. What she wrote about the natives was just the same as my father-in-law used to talk to me. I realized that the history textbook was not correct. http://kumo.typepad.jp/weblog/2007/01/my-father-gone.html
Understandably, General Douglas MacArthur, the omnipotent Supreme Commander in the occupied Japan, prohibited publishing this book in Japan. It was as late as 1995 that the book was translated into Japanese and published in Japan. The original version is said to have been criticized by American people and she was labeled as a defender of a vicious Japan.
She didn't mean to defend Japan. She questioned the justification of the Western powers which insisted that only Japan should be condemned in the modern Far Eastern history and also doubted the way of identifying Japanese people as traditionally belligerent, and the way of thinking that America, therefore, should educate them. Her research and analysis was dispassionate and fully acceptable to me.
International relations are mostly ruled by the logic of the strong nations, and it was clearly demonstrated in the Far East in the first half of the last century, I suppose. Japanese education is still also controlled by the U.S. view of history. There are so many things we have to learn from Ms. Mears' book.
Is it still too early to think about the causes and effects of the war serenely, beyond a dichotomy between winners and losers?

(Vocabulary)
Understandably 当然ながら　無理もないことだが
departure 逸脱、離脱、背反、ずれ
serenely 穏やかに　落ち着いた様子で
dichotomy 二分 二分裂 意見の相違
belligerent　好戦的な

"Mirror for Americans: Japan" (邦題：アメリカの鏡・日本）を読み終えた。１９４８年に東洋の研究者であるヘレン・ミアーズによって書かれたものだ。彼女は大東亜戦争直後、法律の策定に関わるために来日している。

中心テーマは「なぜ日本は向こう見ずな戦争を始めたのか？」である。彼女は言う、日本は戦争を避けたくても避けられなかったのだと。日本のしたことは欧米列強がしてきたことを忠実に真似ただけであり、欧米列強が先生なら日本は優秀な学生であった。日本は鏡に映った欧米列強の姿なのだと主張する。

亡くなった義父（戦時中、南方の島で戦闘機のメンテナンスをしていた)とのやりとりで歴史教科書とはまったく異なることがたびたびあった。義父が嘘つきだとは思わなかったが、教科書が間違っているとも思わなかった。話を元に戻そう。この本は著者が日本へ来る飛行機の中での独白から始まる。当時は途中で何度も降りて給油を繰り返さなければならなかった。その島々で彼女は現地の人々の行動を観察し、話をするのである。その内容は果たして義父から聞いたことと同じであった。つまり、教科書が嘘を言っていたのだ。

無理もないことだが、この本はGHQの最高責任者マッカーサーにより発禁とされた。そして日本語に訳され、日本人が読めるようになったのはなんと５０年後の１９９５年なのである。著者は当時、邪悪な日本の擁護者として批判されている。

彼女には日本を擁護するという気持ちはなく、ただ純粋に事実を述べているだけである。日本だけが悪いのか、日本人は元々好戦的で、それゆえアメリカが教育しなければならない、というのは正しいのか。彼女の研究、分析は驚くほどクールになされている。

国際関係は主として強国によって支配されている。前世紀の前半に極東で見たとおりである。日本の教育は未だにアメリカ史観に支配されている。この本から学ばなければならないことはかなり多い。

勝者と敗者という立場を越えて戦争の原因とその結果を穏やかに考えるにはまだ時期尚早であろうか。

(KW: アメリカの鏡：日本　大東亜戦争　東京裁判　マッカーサー)



http://you214.exblog.jp/18374975/



Mirror for Americans: JAPAN

「なぜ日本が南北朝鮮国民を
「奴隷にした」
と非難されるか理解できない。
もし奴隷にしたならば、
イギリスは共犯であり、
アメリカは少なくとも従犯である。
日本の南北朝鮮での行動は全て
イギリスの同盟国として
「合法的に」行われたことだ。
国際関係の原則にのっとり、
当時の最善の行動基準に
従って行われたことである。
しかも原則は日本が作ったものではない。
欧米列強が作った原則なのだ。
１９１０年、
日本が南北朝鮮を併合したのは、
朝鮮皇帝が「請願」したからだ。
歴史家は、
日本は欧米列強から教わった
国際関係の規則を、
実に細かいところまで
几帳面に守っていた、
とほめるのだ」


Helen Mears [ 1900 ~ 1989 ]

今から５５年前の１９４８年（昭和２３年）にアメリカで出版されたこの本は、１９４９年、ＧＨＱのマッカーサーにより日本での翻訳出版が禁止された。
　著者ヘレン・ミアーズ（１９００年ニューヨーク生まれ）。小説家志望の彼女は１９２５年（大正１４年）たまたまアジアへ旅立ち、中国や日本を知る機会を得てアジアに深い興味を抱くようになった。
　それから数年後、再度来日して各地を訪ねた彼女は、日本の制度・習慣を精力的に研究、１９３５年（昭和１０年）当時の日本を「ＹＥＡＲ　ＯＦ　ＴＨＥ　ＷＩＬＤ　ＢＯＡＲ」（亥年）という本に著している。第二次世界大戦中は陸軍省の占領地民政講座のためにミシガン大学及びノースウェスタン大学で日本に関する講座を担当した。

連合国軍占領下の日本ではGHQ
諮問機関「労働政策11人委員会」のメンバー


真実ほど強いものはない