- Convenor:
-
Yufei Zhou
(International Research Center for Japanese Studies)
Send message to Convenor
- Chair:
-
Dolf-Alexander Neuhaus
(German Institute for Japanese Studies)
- Discussant:
-
Koichiro Matsuda
(Rikkyo University)
- Format:
- Panel
- Section:
- Intellectual History and Philosophy
Short Abstract
This panel explores how wartime Japanese intellectuals defined “Asia.” It highlights the administrative and legislative contexts of their work, their networks, and knowledge circulation, with particular attention to border-crossing intellectuals between metropole and colony.
Long Abstract
Eighty years after the end of WWII, Japan continues to grapple with the political divisions and divergent historical perceptions that its wartime and colonial past left between itself and its Asian neighbors. Throughout the long postwar era, a substantial body of scholarship has sought to reconsider Japan’s historical engagement with Asia—whether in pursuit of regional reconciliation or as part of a broader effort to critically confront the legacies of war. Yet much of this discourse, shaped by strong political overtones, has tended to overlook the diverse circumstances in which knowledge about “Asia” was produced, including the institutional infrastructures, actors, and networks that positioned intellectuals within the imperial sphere.
In this panel, we clarify how wartime Japanese intellectuals framed “Asia” by foregrounding the administrative and legislative contexts of their work, the networks through which they communicated, and the circulation of knowledge within these structures. We pay particular attention to their positionality—especially those who crossed borders and lived between Japan and the Gaichi, in order to reconsider wartime discourse on “Asia” as multilayered and interconnected rather than a single, uniform narrative.
The first presentation provides an overall background to wartime Japanese intellectual discourses. It highlights two crucial conditions: the effort to formulate a uniquely Japanese philosophy of life through the Kokutai Meichō (Clarification of the National Polity) movement and the construction of a distinct Japanese worldview in the ideology of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The second presentation examines Japanese social scientists in the Gaichi. Focusing on the economics professors at Keijō Imperial University, it sheds light on how the specific conditions of colonial Korea shaped their paradigms of conducting social science. The third presentation examines the Tōa Kenkyujo’s (Japanese East Asia Research Institute) surveys of rural China in the early 1940s. It analyzes wartime discourses on the “Asiatic” village community and elucidates the power structures underlying their production of knowledge. The last presentation uses early postwar writings to reassess Japan’s “progressive intellectuals” and their views of China, focusing on Takeuchi Yoshimi’s contributions to Japanese debates on “Asia” that shaped postwar perspectives and continue to influence contemporary intellectual discourse.
| Abstract in Japanese (if needed) |
Accepted papers
Paper short abstract
This paper examines Japan’s early-1940s survey of rural North China, revealing the institutions, hierarchies, and networks behind its wartime knowledge production and showing how claims of scientific objectivity served to legitimize and naturalize the aims of Japanese imperialism.
Paper long abstract
This paper examines the investigation of customary practices in rural North China jointly undertaken in the early 1940s by the East Asian Research Institute under the Asia Development Board and the Economic Research Department of the South Manchuria Railway Company (SMR). Previous scholarship has largely centered on the debate among prominent scholars such as Hirano Yoshitarō and Kainō Michitaka concerning the existence of a Chinese village community (or Gemeinschaft), while paying far less attention to the mechanisms and networks that supported the investigation itself. In contrast, this paper analyzes the multilayered imperial research networks through which wartime Japanese scholars constructed legal and social knowledge about rural China.
Drawing on reports and publications issued by the East Asian Research Institute and the SMR, along with personnel files, and postwar memoirs, the paper first reconstructs the political, bureaucratic, and institutional contexts that shaped the survey—from budgeting and personnel formation to the selection of field sites. Building on this foundation, it examines the hierarchies and networks of knowledge production that emerged among legal scholars and economists in the imperial metropole and the SMR investigators in the field. It will highlight both the tensions and the collaborations between metropolitan scholars—many of whom possessed limited knowledge of China—and the SMR investigators who carried out the empirical work. It further examines how debates over the existence of a Chinese village community evolved within this context.
Finally, by following participants’ discussions of scientific objectivity and political engagement, the paper demonstrates how claims of scientific objectivity served to legitimize and naturalize the aims of Japanese imperialism.
Overall, it offers a dynamic account of wartime knowledge production that moves beyond static readings of research outcomes and illuminates the entanglement of science and politics.
Paper short abstract
This presentation analyzes wartime thought and activities of economists at Keijō Imperial University, showing how their work on food security, northern industrial development, and Korea’s role in the co-Prosperity Sphere both reflected and shaped Japanese imperial economic policy debates.
Paper long abstract
During the 35 years of Japan’s colonial rule in Korea, the peninsula was systematically incorporated into the Japanese Empire’s industrial, monetary, and commercial strategies aimed at supporting imperial expansion across Asia. In 1926, Keijō (Gyeongseong) Imperial University was established as the sixth Imperial University and the only one in Korea. Within the Faculty of Law and Letters, a group of professionally trained economists founded the Korean Economic Research Institute, which became a central hub for colonial economic studies. Working closely with the Government-General of Korea and various statistical and administrative bureaus, these economists engaged with practical issues ranging from fiscal policy and market restructuring to labor relations and macro-historical analyses of Korea’s modern capitalist transformation.
Following the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, Korea’s role within Japan’s total war system was redefined as “military and logistic base for Japanese advancement to the Continent” (Tairiku Zenshin Heitan Kichi). The newly established “National Mobilization Direction Committee” (Kokumin Sōryoku Chōsen Renmei) replaced earlier mobilization organizations, with a central agenda focused on two primary objectives: strengthening the productive capacity of Korea and implementing peninsular-wide civil defense training. More deeply embedded in the wartime imperial apparatus than ever before, the economists at Keijō Imperial University began reassessing Korea’s strategic function within the Empire. Their research and writings increasingly emphasized Korea’s critical importance in food provisioning, labor mobilization, and the spatial reorganization of industrial zones to meet wartime demands.
This presentation examines the economic thought and wartime collaboration of the Keijō economists. It identifies three recurrent thematic priorities in their works during the wartime: (1) food security, (2) industrial development in the northern prefectures such as Hamgyeong-do and Pyeongan-namdo in order to build a strategic corridor between Korea and Manchuria, and (3) Korea’s function within the Greater East Asia co-Prosperity Sphere from a historical and macroeconomic perspective. This presentation first highlights key individuals, journals, and the role of both governmental and non-governmental actors in shaping these discourses. It then explores how economic knowledge produced in colonial Korea both reflected and influenced contemporary debates on economic policy within mainland Japan.
Paper short abstract
This presentation focuses on the articulation of a uniquely Japanese philosophy of life through Kokutai Meichō (Clarification of the National Polity) and the construction of a distinctly Japanese worldview based on the ideology of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
Paper long abstract
This presentation examines the intellectual discourses of wartime Japan by situating them within the broader search for a Japanese worldview and philosophy of life. It focuses on two major challenges confronted by Japanese intellectuals during this period: (A) the articulation of a uniquely Japanese philosophy of life through Kokutai Meichō (Clarification of the National Polity) and (B) the construction of a distinctly Japanese worldview based on the ideology of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
Challenge (A) sought to cultivate a heightened awareness of “Japaneseness” among the Japanese people. Its ideological goal lay in the affirmation of national uniqueness, and its primary political effect was the strengthening of internal cohesion within the Japanese nation. By contrast, challenge (B) aimed at the realization of a new international order grounded in a Japanese worldview. While a philosophy of life and worldview cannot be rigidly separated, emphasizing cultural uniqueness may conflict with aspirations for international solidarity, whereas calls for international solidarity often presuppose a universalizable philosophy of life.
The presentation explores the connections and tensions between these two distinct yet intertwined intellectual challenges by examining three influential strands of wartime thought: the proposals of the Kyoto School philosophers, the concept of the East Asia League, and the jingoistic discourse promoted by certain intellectuals.
Despite their shared emphasis on absolute loyalty to the Emperor and their common critique of Western selfishness, these three positions were ultimately incompatible. The Kyoto School philosophers advanced a political vision of a new regional order under Japanese leadership, whereas the East Asia League advocated a more horizontal alliance among Asian nations. Both approaches, however, were sharply criticized for allegedly neglecting Japanese Shutaisei (agency, defined by the OECD as the capacity and willingness to actively shape one’s life and the surrounding world) or Shuken (sovereignty), respectively. Meanwhile, jingoist thinkers expressed strong confidence in the omnipotence of a Japanese philosophy of life yet failed to articulate a compelling vision for a better future for humanity or for the people of Asia.
Paper short abstract
In early postwar Japan, Sinophile intellectuals revisited their views on Japan’s imperialism and the war, including wartime conceptions of ‘Asia’. This paper studies Takeuchi Yoshimi's writings to understand their role in the rehabilitation of Asianism and anti-Western discourse in postwar Japan.
Paper long abstract
In the early postwar years, Sinophile Japanese intellectuals revisited their views on Japan’s imperialism and its war against China and the US. This critical engagement also included re-addressing wartime conceptions of ‘Asia’ and their role in history, the present, and the future. A prominent example is Takeuchi Yoshimi (1910-1977), originally a scholar of Chinese literature, who had embraced an anti-imperialist conception of pan-Asianism. In the early postwar years, Takeuchi aimed to encourage the Japanese to rediscover 'Asia' by taking a critical perspective on Japan’s own culture and history. From the 1990s onwards, Takeuchi’s writings were at the core of the renewed interest in concepts of Asian self-affirmation and later strongly influenced the ‘Asia as Method’ boom in the 2000s. This paper studies Takeuchi’s early postwar writings to understand which role they played in the rehabilitation of Asianist conceptions and of anti-Western discourse in postwar Japan. It also addresses his contributions to the critique of hierarchies in knowledge production that has aimed at the emancipation of marginalized voices from the ‘non-West’.