Sandra Wilson

Family or state?: Nation, war, and gender in Japan, 1937–45

Abstract Nationalist ideology and nationalist practice in Japan between 1937 and 1945 were fundamentally conditioned by gender. For women, the proper roles of the subject were most fully elaborated through the patriotic womens associations, principally Aikoku fujinkai (Patriotic Womens Association), Kokubō fujinkai (Womens National Defense Association), and Dai Nippon fujinkai (Greater Japan Womens Association). The last of these claimed 27 million members throughout the empire. The womens associations attempted to define the ideal relation between women and the nation, primarily through an emphasis on home and motherhood. Yet, by 1945, wartime requirements had exposed basic flaws in their ideology from the states point of view. Not only did the emphasis on home and motherhood impede the use of women in the labor force, more fundamentally, leaders of the womens associations and others realized that devotion to family might also lead to women failing to encourage their young sons to join the military. In these circumstances, a strong focus on the family, which had earlier been positively evaluated as the major part of womens gendered contribution to the war effort, came to be redefined as a form of “individualism,” which had to be resisted for the national good. By this stage, “family” and “state” could no longer be taken for granted in official rhetoric as mutually reinforcing entities.

Enthroning Hirohito: Culture and Nation in 1920s Japan

This essay examines the ceremonies surrounding the enthronement of Emperor Showa in 1928 and their implications for Japanese nationalism. The 1928 celebrations displayed the contours of official nationalism at the time and furthered national integration, principally because they took advantage of the great technological and cultural developments of the 1920s. Though official versions of nationalism were powerful, people participated in the celebrations for a variety of reasons. The enthronement events were intimately related to the mass culture and consumerism of the 1920s and were a reflection and expression of urban life in that decade, not a predictor of foreign aggression in the 1930s.

Bridging the gaps: New views of Japanese colonialism, 1931–1945

Recent writing in English shows a range of new approaches to and interpretations of Japanese colonialism between 1931 and 1945. Earlier bodies of work tended to focus on the aims, strategies and structures of Japanese rule throughout the empire, especially the formal empire. Newer studies have not abandoned these concerns, especially in relation to geographical areas, notably Manchuria, that have only just begun to emerge or re-emerge in English-language writing on Japanese colonial practice. At the same time, however, there is now much greater recognition among historians of Japan that the colonial relationship is shaped by the colonised as well as the colonisers; that life in the metropolis itself is affected deeply by its colonies; and that mainstream studies of modern Japanese history should include Japans formal and informal colonies as a matter of course. In this essay I identify three major trends in works that have appeared in the last five years or so: a spurt of interest in Manchuria and other areas of northern China, a reconsideration of the major stages of empire, and an expanded understanding of what constituted colonialism and who participated in it.

The discourse of national greatness in Japan, 1890–1919

Between about 1890 and 1919, the dominant discourse in Japanese nationalism emphasised Japans status as a great modern nation, in contrast to earlier concerns about weakness and vulnerability in the face of Western imperialism, and despite continuing insecurities of various kinds. This paper revisits the ‘discourse of national greatness’, focusing on its construction, limitations and consequences. Emphasis on Japanese greatness was evident in the press, in self-presentation at industrial expositions, and in substantial written works by Japanese intellectuals. Several factors explain the rapid spread of such a discourse, including the decline of class and regional identification, the considerable expansion of the press, and the stimulus of war. The consequences of the rise of the notion of Japanese greatness for the later development of Japanese nationalism were profound. They included the further subordination of regionalism, entrenchment of the gendered nature of Japanese nationalism, the further denigration of other Asian peoples and of Japans own past, reinforcement of the yet fragile cult of the emperor, encouragement to conflate ‘nation’ and ‘state’, and a strong tendency to associate nationalism with military conquest.

Rethinking the 1930s and the '15-Year War' in Japan

The labels we give to historical events and periods of time are powerful tools in structuring our understanding of the past...

Japanese War criminals: The politics of justice after the Second World War

Beginning in late 1945, the United States, Britain, China, Australia, France, the Netherlands, and later the Philippines, the Soviet Union, and the Peoples Republic of China convened national courts to prosecute Japanese military personnel for war crimes. The defendants included ethnic Koreans and Taiwanese who had served with the armed forces as Japanese subjects. In Tokyo, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East tried Japanese leaders. While the fairness of these trials has been a focus for decades, Japanese War Criminals instead argues that the most important issues arose outside the courtroom. What was the legal basis for identifying and detaining subjects, determining who should be prosecuted, collecting evidence, and granting clemency after conviction? The answers to these questions helped set the norms for transitional justice in the postwar era and today contribute to strategies for addressing problematic areas of international law. Examining the complex moral, ethical, legal, and political issues surrounding the Allied prosecution project, from the first investigations during the war to the final release of prisoners in 1958, Japanese War Criminals shows how a simple effort to punish the guilty evolved into a multidimensional struggle that muddied the assignment of criminal responsibility for war crimes. Over time, indignation in Japan over Allied military actions, particularly the deployment of the atomic bombs, eclipsed anger over Japanese atrocities, and, among the Western powers, new Cold War imperatives took hold. This book makes a unique contribution to our understanding of the construction of the postwar international order in Asia and to our comprehension of the difficulties of implementing transitional justice.

The Russo-Japanese War and Japan: Politics, Nationalism and Historical Memory

The Russo-Japanese conflict was Japan’s most significant experience of war up until the disaster of 1937–45. It influenced all shades of political thought in Japan, almost certainly having a greater effect than in Russia, where the government committed a far lower proportion of its population to war service, and had to contend with domestic revolutionary movements at the same time. Between 1903 and 1905 the conflict with Russia was an overwhelming issue both for the Japanese government and for many of its opponents; after 1905, the war continued to loom large in the consciousness of those who participated in and commented on national affairs. From the start, the war was inextricably linked with issues of national identity as well as national power. In retrospect, it became an important component of that identity, adding to the store of ‘myths and memories for future generations’ that contribute in the most fundamental way to the building of national consciousness.1

Koreans in the trials of Japanese War Crimes suspects

As colonial Japanese subjects, about 240,000 Korean men took part on the Japanese side during the Second World War. Of that number, 3,016 had been recruited to work as civilian guards in prisoner-of-war and internment camps outside the Japanese home islands. The Allied war crimes trials of 1945–1951 specifically targeted camp personnel, and the great majority of the Koreans convicted as ‘Japanese’ war criminals were former guards. The standard scholarly view in recent years has been that Korean Guards and other junior military personnel suffered disproportionately heavy retribution in the war crimes trials. Examination of the documentary evidence on the apprehension, investigation, prosecution, sentencing and release of suspected and convicted war criminals, however, shows conclusively that claims that Koreans were over-represented among war criminals, or that they suffered the heaviest penalties, are wrong. The records relating to Koreans indicate that prosecution, and subsequent deliberations over sentencing and clemency, took strong account of the implications of having a subordinate place in the Japanese military. Far from being the group upon whom the greatest punishment was visited, Koreans were singled out only when their distinctive individual initiative as brutal guards drew attention to them.

War Criminals in the Post-war World: The Case of Katō Tetsutarō:

Katō Tetsutarō was a suspected Japanese war criminal tried by US military commissions in Yokohama after the Second World War. He was convicted of murdering an escaped American prisoner of war, and was originally sentenced to death. In a highly unusual move, however, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in Japan, General Douglas MacArthur, ordered a retrial, in which Katō received a sentence of 30 years. He was ultimately released in March 1958. Katō’s case provides an especially effective illustration of the tension in Allied thinking about war crimes trials between a desire for justice or vengeance, on the one hand, and recognition of the political pressures of the Cold War on the other, and of the varied forms this tension took as prosecutions progressed.

Film and Soldier: Japanese War Movies in the 1950s

In 1950s Japan, films about the Second World War, especially the conflict in the Pacific, were very popular. Though some of them concentrated on misery and suffering, others were surprisingly positive in their portrayal of Japanese soldiers. The 1950s have the reputation of a pacifist decade in Japan, when people were only too glad to forget the war as they turned instead to the future. This orthodox view is undermined, however, by the undeniable fact that a great many people wanted to see cinematic dramatizations of the war. The movies they watched left room for pride, dignity, the recognition of Japanese military power and even nostalgia for the war years. They were an important means by which people explored the meanings of the recent conflict. In particular, they explained and dramatized what had happened; presented examples of heroic soldiers and sailors; and contributed to the reintegration of ordinary soldiers who had been convicted as war criminals back into Japanese society. In doing so they played a vital role in reclaiming and validating the actions of military men, and in promoting the idea that there had been positive aspects of the war experience, despite the suffering the conflict had undoubtedly brought.