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Paper short abstract

Through interrogation of how Okinawan local politics' deep entanglement with US settler militarism has led to diverse economic adaptations across commercial and government sectors, the paper identifies how narratives of deterrence and alliance have become key aspects of Okinawa’s multiplex identity.

Paper long abstract

In attempting to explicate the complexities of Okinawa, the specific and complex extent to which the US military’s post-World War II occupation of the Island and its off islands has utterly reshaped their politics, economics and society is often misunderstood or misrepresented. Yet, the legacy of US “settler militarism” remains starkly evident on Okinawa to this day. In response, this paper addresses deep and seemingly contradictory discrepancies in the impact upon different aspects and sectors of contemporary Okinawa. To that end, it adopts a historically informed, decentered approach that examines the role of Okinawan agency in asking the following key research questions: to what extent has Okinawa’s postwar experience shaped Okinawan political forces and voices? How have key commercial and government actors optimized, utilized or otherwise circumvented the so-called “base economy”? To what extent has settler militarism shaped narratives of geopolitical security and social development on the islands? The paper therein (re)examines conventional academic literature, policy documents, Diet minutes and a range of other historical materials in order to identify how: i) local Okinawan politics remain deeply influenced by, entangled with, and framed in relation to base politics; ii) US settler militarism has led to diverse economic adaptations and innovations across commercial and local government sectors; iii) neither geopolitical security or a free and prosperous society are reliant upon the US military presence in its own right, but narratives of deterrence and alliance have become central aspects of Okinawa’s multifaceted identity.

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Paper short abstract

Takushoku University was a center of higher learning that trained privileged colonial officials in Japan’s colonies. By looking at this institution, this paper examines the institutional foundations of Pan-Asianism and its complex relationship with Japanese settler colonialism.

Paper long abstract

Takushoku University was established in 1900 to train personnel for colonial rule in Taiwan and, after 1907, in Korea. Students at this higher education institution studied law, commerce, and languages, and until the mid-1910s, typically secured privileged positions within the colonial governments and financial institutions of Korea and Taiwan after graduation. In other words, this school provided well-educated professional colonizers to the Japanese settler communities.

However, as Japanese settlers pressured colonial authorities to establish local higher education institutions—and as their own sons gained access to these privileged positions through racially biased quotas in colonial schools—most Takushoku graduates gradually lost their professional foothold in the colonies. In response, Takushoku’s leadership abolished Korean and Taiwanese language training in 1920, shifting focus to Chinese, Russian, Dutch, and Malay. Around the same time, the university began recruiting anti-Western thinkers such as Ōkawa Shūmei and Mitsukawa Kametarō, who helped reframe the identity of graduates from colonial administrators to anti-Western expansionists. Students at Takushoku embraced this new identity, even erecting a statue on campus of Waki Kōzō, a fellow student who died while serving as an army interpreter during the Russo-Japanese War.

By looking at this process, this paper examines the institutional foundations of Pan-Asianism and its complex relationship with Japanese settler colonialism. It pays particular attention to the Korean case, highlighting the intense competition between colonized subjects and aspiring settlers, as well as between settlers and metropolitan elites—tensions that underpinned this paradoxical transformation.

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This paper is on the transition of Japan's colony of Karafuto into a Soviet territory following the empire's defeat in WWII. By focusing on the experiences of settlers and colonial labourers, the paper investigates the features and consequences of this failed experiment in Japanese colonialism.

Paper long abstract

For four decades, the southern half of the Sakhalin Island (Karafuto) staged the second of Japan’s experiments in settler colonialism. Acquired formally in 1905 following victory over Imperial Russia, ten years after Taiwan but almost three decades before the start of the bold experiment of Manchukuo, the resource-rich island with a harsh climate became Japan’s second formal colony. It presented the colonizers with a new set of challenges, but also a fresh slate to inscribe ambitious plans for Japan’s future as a rising colonial empire. Like with most colonial projects, these plans envisaged settling the island with Japanese natives, as well as recruiting other colonized peoples, chiefly Koreans and Ainu, for their labour in resource extraction and infrastructure development projects.

The idiosyncrasies of this ambitious attempt at colonization became apparent when the Soviet Union invaded the colony in August 1945, as part of the brief Soviet-Japanese War. The Red Army speedily occupied Karafuto, turning the colony into a liminal space for several months: while retaining the trappings of Japan’s empire, it necessarily acquired newly Soviet characteristics. The Moscow rulers imposed their own policy priorities, an impact of which could be seen, for example, in their refusal to release 24,000 Koreans once mobilized to the island by the Japanese but now needed as workforce in Sovietizing Southern Sakhalin.

In this paper, I analyze the fall of the Japanese colony of Karafuto and its subsequent incorporation into the Soviet Union, with the trials and tribulations in the transitional period in between. In doing so, I consult Soviet and Japanese eyewitness accounts, as well as archival sources in Japanese, Russian, and English, resorting where possible to comparisons with the imperial collapse in another Japanese colony, Manchukuo. My primary goal is to outline the unique features and unintended consequences of Japan’s failed experiment in settler colonialism, which came to prominence during a period when the Soviets reluctantly utilized Japanese institutions (e.g. banks and currency), while attempting to establish their presence. This period of joint rule sheds important light on post-imperial, postcolonial transitions and settlements, and the fates of thousands trapped between empires.