Pan-Asianism in Prewar Japanese Foreign Affairs: The Curious Case of Uchida Yasuya

Author(s): RUSTIN B. GATES

Source: The Journal of Japanese Studies, WINTER 2011, Vol. 37, No. 1 (WINTER 2011), pp.
1-27
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RUŠTIN В. GATES

Pan-Asianism in Prewar Japanese Foreign Affairs:

The Curious Case of Uchida Yasuya

Abstract: Japanese foreign policymakers before the early 1930s are described
typically as Western-oriented pragmatists who were resistant toPan-Asianist
doctrines. This essay presents the case of Uchida Yasuya, Japan's foreign min-
ister in parts of the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s who was also a Pan-Asianist in
his early career. Uchida's case illustrates how Pan-Asianist beliefs were easily
reorientedtosupport thenew policy goal of a Japanese mainland empire fol-
lowing the Russo-Japanese War. Because he was foreign minister during the
Manchurian Incident, Uchida's views also shed light on the question of when
Pan-Asianism began tomeaningfully impact foreign policy inthe1930s.

Scholars tend to downplay any link between Japanese foreign policymaking

and Pan-Asianism in the prewar period because the latter, especially in its
wartime manifestation, was so rife with contradictions that itwas regarded
as an ideological sham. The traditional scholarly view is that Pan-Asianism
had no impact on Japanese foreign affairs prior to the 1930s and thereafter
only served as a rhetorical justification for Japanese expansion in China and
Southeast Asia.1 Recent scholarship has challenged this interpretation, how-

Inaddition totwoanonymous reviewers, theauthor would liketothank theparticipants

oftheMidwest Japan Seminar (held atthe University ofTexas-Austin) and theBradley His-
tory Department reading group forcommenting onearlier draftsofthisessay. Research for
thisessay was funded inpart bya grant from theOffice ofTeaching Excellence and Faculty
Development atBradley University.
1. This traditionalviewhas been influenced bythepostwar comments ofwartime Greater
East Asia Minister Aoki Kakuzo, who said in1981,"Pan-Asianism was only a popular slogan
thatnever became officialgovernment policy." Aoki, quoted inYamamuro Shin'ichi, "Nihon
Gaikõ toAjiashugi nokõsaku," inNihon Seiji Gakkai, ed.,Nenpõ seijigaku (Tokyo: Iwanami
Shoten, 1998), [Link] Japan's Meiji-era disdain for Pan-Asianism inforeign policymaking,
see Hirotama Saki, "Taigai seisaku toDatsu-A ishiki," inNihonshi Kenkyukai, ed.,Kõza
Nihon rekishi, Vol.7: Kindai 1(Tokyo: Tõkyõ Daigaku Shuppankai, 1985).
1
Journal
ofJapanese 37:1
Studies,
©2011Society
for Studies
Japanese

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2 Journal of Japanese Studies 37:1 (201 1)

ever. While acknowledging that Pan-Asianism never became official policy,

Yamamuro Shin'ichi has suggested that the division between ideology and
policy, especially after 1931, was perhaps not as rigid as previous scholar-
ship has claimed.2 Eri Hotta in a recent book makes an even stronger argu-
ment against earlier studies when she explains, "Pan-Asianism . . . played an
integral and critical role in Japan's wartime policy formulation."3
The understanding that Pan-Asianism held no sway in Japan's Ministry
of Foreign Affairs before the 1930s, however, remains the paradigm. The
conventional wisdom is that pragmatic Meiji leaders, aware that close ties
to Asia - particularly China- would raise fears among the Western powers
of an Asian alliance, maintained a suitable distance in their relations with
the mainland while they modernized their nation. Once Japan became a
power around the turn of the century, association with the Western powers
was deemed more fitting than with Qing China, which by that time was
an empire teetering on the brink of ruin. Japanese foreign policymakers,
at least outwardly, were Western oriented and few offered competing Pan
Asianist-inspired policies.
This is not to say that government officials or politicians with Pan-
Asianist leanings were absent. Indeed, many early opposition party poli-
ticians struck Pan-Asianist chords in criticizing the government's foreign
policy.4 Some within the government, moreover, openly supported the
Pan-Asianist movement. A privy councilor and president of the House of
Peers, Konoe Atsumaro headed the Tõ-A Dõbunkai (East Asian Common
Culture Association) that sought to "protect" China through Japanese po-
litical and economic intervention on the mainland.5 The most well-known
Pan-Asianist who directly influenced foreign policy in the period before the
Manchurian Incident was Goto Shinpei. Goto served in a variety of govern-
ment posts in the late Meiji and Taisho periods, including South Manchu-
ria Railway director (1906), Colonization Bureau (Takumukyoku) director
(1912), home minister (1916-18), and foreign minister (1918). During his
brief stint as foreign minister, Goto strongly supported Japanese expansion
into China and Siberia.6 Lastly, in addition to cooperating with some Pan-

2. Yamamuro, "Nihon Gaiko toAjiashugi nokosaku," pp.3-32.

3. EriHotta, Pan-Asianism and Japan s War, 1931-1945 (New York: Palgrave Mac-
millan, 2007), p.1.
4. See Yamamuro, "Nihon Gaikõ toAjiashugi nokõsaku," pp.4-6; andSven Saaler,
"The Construction ofRegionalism inModern Japan: Kodera Kenkichi andhisTreatise on
Greater Asianism,'" Modern Asian Studies, Vol.41,No. 6 (2007), pp.1262-63.
5. Formore onKonoe, see Yamamoto Shigeki, Konoe Atsumaro: sono Meiji kokka to
Ajia-kan (Tokyo: Minerva Shobõ, 2000); andMarius Jansen, "Konoe Atsumaro," inAkira
Iriye,ed.,TheChinese and Japanese: Essays inPolitical and Cultural Interactions (Prince-
ton:Princeton Press,
University 1980),pp.107-23.
6. Formore onGoto, see Kitaoka Shin'ichi, Goto Shinpei: gaiko tovijon(Tokyo: Chuo
Kõronsha, 1988).

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 Gates: Uchida Yasuya 3

Asianist organizations, the government also allowed independence activists

from several Asian countries, such as India and Indochina, to freely enter
and agitate in Japan and only cracked down on such activity after years of
French and British requests.7 In each of these ways, the government did
permit a sort of informal "public diplomacy" in an attempt to endear Japan
to the extent possible to its Asian neighbors.8
This informal diplomacy notwithstanding, the Japanese government
firmly guided official policy away from Pan-Asianist doctrines and toward
joining the Western-dominated international system. Other than Goto, the
statesmen in control of foreign policy prior to the 1930s are generally thought
to be uninfluenced by Pan-Asianism. This essay presents the unusual and
overlooked case of Uchida Yasuya (also known as Kõsai, 1865-1936), a
foreign policymaker who was also a onetime Pan-Asianist.9 Unlike Goto,
who served as foreign minister less than a year, Uchida headed the foreign
ministry in parts of the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s. He is the only foreign min-
ister who can make such a claim. As a Pan-Asianist who rose through the
ranks to become a high-level policymaker, Uchida presents an interesting
case study for better understanding the relationship between Pan-Asianism
and foreign policy and to examine why the movement failed to influence
Japanese diplomacy in the period before the Manchurian Incident. First, the
essay explores in detail Uchida's Pan-Asianism. It then shows how the basis
of his Pan-Asianist thought allowed for a quick ideological reorientation to
imperialism once Japanese security and status as a power improved after
the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. Finally, the article weighs in on the issue
of Pan-Asianism's impact on foreign policy in the early 1930s by looking at
Uchida's own experience as foreign minister in the wake of Japan's creation
of the puppet state of Manchukuo.
Uchida was a Pan-Asianist early in his diplomatic career and penned
several unpublished treatises outlining his beliefs and plans for Japan and
Asia.10 The Pan-Asianism of Uchida and others like him was a defensive

7. Pan-Asianist organizations that received government assistance include theGenyõsha

(Black Ocean Society), theKokuryukai (Black Dragon Society orAmur Society), and the
Tõ-A Dõbun Shoin (Institute ofEast Asian Common Culture). Sven Saaler, "Pan-Asianism
inModern Japanese History," inSven Saaler and [Link] Koschmann, eds., Pan-Asianism
inModern Japanese History : Colonialism, Regionalism and Borders (New York: Routledge,
2007), p.4.
8. UrsMatthias Zachmann makes thisargument regarding "public diplomacy" inhis
China and Japan intheLate Meiji Period: China Policy and the Japanese Discourse on
National Identity, 1895-1904 (New York: Routledge, 2009), p.75.
9. Anexception is Miwa Kimitada who has examined Uchida's Pan-Asianism inthe
context ofhispolicies during theManchurian Incident. Miwa Kimitada, "Manshö jihen to
Uchida Yasuya," Toki nokadai, Vol. 20,No. 3 (1976), pp.120-29.
[Link] treatises, along with Uchida's other Pan-Asianist writings, arecollected in
Uchida Yasuya Denki Hensan Iinkai, ed.,Uchida Yasuya (Tokyo: Kajima Kenkyujo Shup-
pankai, 1968) (cited hereafter as Uchida Yasuya ) and intheunpublished manuscript of

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4 Journal of Japanese Studies 37:1(2011)

brand of thought that was mutable and often reactionary. He was more con-
cerned about Western intentions for Japan than he was about unifying the
Asian peoples of the world. Uchida's main goal was no different than that
of the other Meiji leaders guiding the ship of state: assure the security of
Japan and, later, of its empire from Western encroachment. Whether Ja-
pan achieved this goal through Pan-Asianist policies, Uchida, in the end,
did not much care. The opportunism Uchida displayed by abandoning Pan-
Asianism for policies based on imperialism shows how small a role ide-
ology played in Meiji-era diplomacy. This was not because Pan-Asianism
was ideologically impure or disjointed but because Pan-Asianist inspired
schemes were not as effective as becoming an imperialist power and joining
the international system in achieving the ultimate goal of protecting Japan
from Western encroachment. Accordingly, upon taking the reins of the for-
eign ministry in 1911,Uchida did not steer a course toward Asian unity but
rather maintained the alliances and relationships with the Western nations
that his Meiji-era mentors in the foreign ministry had forged to give Japan
a seat at the table of the great powers. Joining the West, rather than uniting
with Asia, had proven to be more effective at achieving the overarching goal
of securing Japan's empire at the turn of the century and would continue to
do so under Uchida's stewardship in the 1910s and 1920s.
However, when Uchida feltthe empire was threatened in the 1930s in
Manchuria, he chose to maintain the security of Japanese imperial interests
rather than cling to the Western-dominated international order. As foreign
minister (1932-33), his backing of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo,
while perhaps an outward manifestation of earlier Pan-Asianist beliefs, was
really grounded in his determination to secure the Japanese empire. While
Uchida subscribed to Pan-Asianism as a young diplomat, the imperialist
policies of his terms as foreign minister suggest ideology had far less to do
with his policymaking than realist calculations of imperial interests. As a
key event in the history of Pan-Asianism, the Manchurian Incident certainly
provided an ideological wave that swept through Japan at a popular level
and impacted official government rhetoric but, as Uchida's case suggests,
merely lapped at the feet of the policymakers. Before looking at Uchida's
Pan-Asianist writings and his policies as foreign minister, this essay first
pro-
vides a survey of scholarly attempts to define and categorize Pan-Asianism
in an effort to locate Uchida's particular brand of Asianist thought.

A Moving Target : Scholarly Perspectives on Pan-Asianism

Defining Pan-Asianism presents numerous challenges, in part because

of the term's long history and myriad variations in use. Disagreement among

held
Uchida's biography attheDiplomatic Records Office
oftheMinistry
ofForeign
Affairs,
Tokyo: "Uchida Yasuya denki
Aoki Arata, sõkõ," 14vols.

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 Gates: Uchida Yasuya 5

historians begins with whether Pan-Asianism is a comprehensive ideol-

ogy or an intellectual leaning. For example, the eminent Japanese scholar
of Pan-Asianism Takeuchi Yoshimi terms Pan-Asianism a "tendency in
thought," not a coherent ideology.11 In a recent book, historian Cemil Aydin
harbors the same skepticism, arguing that Pan-Asianism failed as an ideol-
ogy because itwas neither realistic nor intellectually appealing.12 Eri Hotta,
however, comes down strongly on the other side of the debate by citing
Pan-Asianism's "actual political consequences" as proof of the existence of
a "very potent and real ideology."13 Other historians do not take a stand on
this question but instead use words such as Pan-Asianist "belief," "thought,"
"movement," and "ideology" interchangeably.
Most historians do agree, however, that there are two fundamental con-
cepts underlying most strands of Pan-Asianism. First is the belief that there
was a cohesive "Asia," defined culturally, geographically, or racially. The
second basic tenet is that Western imperialism threatened Asia to the point
where Asian nations ought to join together for protection. In most versions,
Japan would serve as the leader in an Asian alliance, but the form of this
union as well as the "leadership" position Japan was to occupy were open
to a variety of interpretations among the different types of Pan-Asianists.
In the Meiji era, these interpretations were known by catch phrases that
represented particular Pan-Asianist movements, including Ajia rentai-ron
(Asian solidarity), Nichi shin kyõchõ-ron (Sino-Japanese coalition), and
Ajia kaizõ-ron (Reform Asia).14 The sheer number of movements, groups,
and individuals espousing various Pan-Asianist doctrines renders general-
ization particularly difficult.
Nonetheless, a few scholars have attempted this task. Miwa Kimitada
uses broad strokes to paint Pan-Asianists as one of two kinds: those who
believed Japan must work with other Asians to fight off the West and those
who believed Japan was able to achieve its own national security by itself.
The former, Miwa explains, identified Japan as a part of Asia while the latter
considered themselves to be the self-appointed leaders of Asia.15 It is this
latter group that would come to dominate Pan-Asianist discourse from the
turn of the century through the end of the Pacific War.
Although Hotta divides Pan-Asianist ideology into three strands rather
than Miwa's two, she essentially reaches the same conclusion. Hotta calls
her firsttype of Pan-Asianism "Teaist" after its ideological progenitor
Okakura Kakuzõ (Tenshin), known in the West as the author of The Book

[Link] Yoshimi, Ajiashugi (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 1963), p.45.

[Link] Aydin, ThePolitics of Ant i-We sterni
sminAsia: Vision ofWorld Order in
Pan-Islamic and Pan-Asian Thought (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), p. 180.
[Link], Pan-Asianism and Japans War, p.3.
[Link] Junji, Meiji shiso nojitsuzo (Tokyo: Sobunsha, 1977), pp.3-4.
[Link] Kimitada, "Pan-Asianism inModern Japan: Nationalism, Regionalism and Uni-
inSaaler andKoschmann,
versalism," eds.,Pan-Asianism inModern Japanese History, p.21.

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6 Journal of Japanese Studies 37:1(2011)

of Tea. Teaist Pan-Asianism was based on Okakura's writings and asserted

a unitary, nonmaterialist Asia that was culturally and philosophically com-
parable or possibly superior to the West. Asia, with Japan as one of its lead-
ing members, Okakura argued, was a civilizational equal to the West and
thus could resist the advance of Western civilization.
The second type, Sinic Pan-Asianism, revolved around the shared cul-
tural basis of an Asian alliance between China and Japan (and possibly Ko-
rea). This shared culture was captured in the slogan dõbun dõshu (common
script, common race) that highlighted the use of Chinese characters in the
writing systems of the continent and the archipelago as well as the belief
that Asians were of the same race. Those Japanese who supported Chinese
nationalism, like Konoe Atsumaro and Inukai Tsuyoshi, made up the ranks
of this Sinic Pan-Asianism for they tended to view a strong China as an
extension of Japan's own interests.
This view of China contrasted with Meishuron or "Japan as leader" Pan-
Asianism - Hotta's third type - whose adherents regarded a weak China as
a threat to Japanese national and regional interests. Japan thus had a duty to
make China and other Asian nations strong in the same way Japan itself had
done following the Meiji Restoration. Japan would take the leading role to
''raise Asia" ( kõ-A ). Prominent members of this category included the more
vocal and radical supporters of Japanese expansion on the Asian continent,
such as Uchida Ryõhei (no relation to Yasuya) and Tõyama Mitsuru at the turn
of the century and, later in the 1920s and 1930s, Kita Ikki and Ishiwara Kanji.
With this understanding of the variations of Pan-Asianism, we should
firstexamine a competing theory for how Japan could confront Western
imperialism in Asia before moving on to Uchida's own writings. This ri-
val doctrine was known as Datsu-A (Leaving Asia) and received its fullest
and most forceful explanation in an 1885 article by Fukuzawa Yukichi.16
According to Fukuzawa:
We do nothave time towait for theenlightenment of our neighbors so that
we can work together toward thedevelopment of Asia. Itis better for us to
leave theranks of Asian nations and cast our lotwith civilized nations of
theWest. As fortheway of dealing with China and Korea, no special treat-
ment is necessary just because theyhappen tobe our neighbors. We simply
follow themanner of theWesterners inknowing how totreat them.17

[Link] Narsimhan argues that Datsu-A theory didnotoriginate with

Fukuzawa butthat itwas thegeneral trend ofthought from themid- 1880sonward. She
does creditFukuzawa as theone most responsible for itspopularization inJapan. Sushila
Narsimhan, Japanese Perceptions ofChina intheNineteenth Century: Influence ofFukuzawa
Yukichi(New Delhi: Phoenix Publishing, 1999),pp.116-23.
[Link] Yukichi, "Datsu-A ron," inTakeuchi, ed.,Ajiashugi , p.40; English trans-
lationinDavid [Link], Japan: ADocumentary History (Armonk, N.Y.:M.E. Sharpe, 1997),
p.353.

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 Gates: Uchida Yasuya 1

From this itis easy to understand how Japanese intellectuals and politicians
could use Fukuzawa's theory to justify both Westernization and expansion
in Asia. He called for Japan to pursue foreign relations with China and Ko-
rea in ways similar to those of the Western nations. In the late nineteenth
century, this could have meant only a realist foreign policy conducted more
often than not toward imperialist objectives. Uchida's Pan-Asianist beliefs
or perhaps simply his thought in general incorporated some of the above
concepts stressed in the Datsu-A theory. In this way, Uchida was prob-
ably like many of his contemporaries who, when facing the prospects of
Western imperial encroachment, grasped at whatever intellectual straws
were around him at the time in an effort to bring peace and purpose to an
anxious mind.18

"
Promoting Asia Uchida's Early Pan-Asianist Thought
Uchida's career as a Pan-Asianist writer spans roughly four years, begin-
ning in 1890 and lasting until 1894. His Pan-Asianist output took a variety
of forms - all unpublished - including diary entries, policy memorandums,
treatises, and miscellaneous notes. It is not known to what extent Uchida
shared his writings with others, but considering that most were contained
in his personal journals and diary, itis unlikely that anyone but perhaps his
closest confidants had an opportunity to read them. Uchida might have felt
constrained in sharing his writings due to his junior position and the fact
that his attitude so directly opposed the pro-West stance of the Meiji gov-
ernment. While Uchida's circumspection may have limited his influence on
the Pan-Asianist movement, itdid not diminish the intensity with which he
subscribed to Pan-Asianist ideals early in his career.
Writing at night after busy days in the agriculture ministry secretariat,
Uchida jotted down preliminary (and random) thoughts on Japanese foreign
policy in August 1890.19 The general thrust of his writings was that Japan
should follow a Plan to Promote Asia (Ajia shinkõ saku ) and that the first
step of this policy should be the union (ketsugo) of Japan, Korea, and China.

[Link] Kõji argues that there was noclear linebetween theWestern-oriented

Datsu-A adherents and the Asianists arguing forsome kind ofAsian [Link] was ideo-
logical cross-pollination between thetwogroups and membership inone didnotpreclude
future orevencurrent membership intheother. Indeed, Fukuzawa himself espoused Asian-
istideals before authoring "Datsu-A ron." Okamoto Kõji, '"Nihon toAjia' ka 'Ajia noNi-
hon'ka,"inOkamoto Kõji, ed.,Kindai Nihon noAjia-kan (Tokyo: Minerva Shobõ, 1998),
pp.18-19. ForFukuzawa, see Banno Junji, "'Tõyõ meishuron' to'Datsu-A Nyü-0-ron: Meiji
chuki Ajia shinshutsu-ron niruikei," inSatõ Seizaburõ and Roger Dingman, eds.,Kindai
Nihon notaigai taido (Tokyo: University ofTokyo Press, 1974),
pp.35-64.
[Link] was briefly posted totheMinistry ofAgriculture as Mutsu Munemitsu's
personal secretary when Mutsu was appointed agriculture ministerintheYamagata Aritomo
cabinet (1889).

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8 Journal of Japanese Studies 37:1(2011)

His reasoning was that as Western power grew in East Asia, Japan's security
became increasingly imperiled to the point that only by combining forces
with its Asian neighbors could Japan resist the foreign threat.
Uchida expounded on his policy for Asia in 1891 in a collection of notes
that he titled "Random Thoughts and Miscellaneous Writings." He began
with a sort of social Darwinist rant: "If a country's national policy is not one
based on acquiring civilization and enlightenment and suppressing all other
[tendencies], then itwill be impossible to avoid a disastrous fate in today's
world where the strong eat the weak." However, Uchida, at least in 1891, was
not advocating armed aggression against foreign countries. Rather, "We
[Japan] will use our civilization and enlightenment to make the helpless
submit." Due to its close proximity, the most likely candidate, according
to Uchida, was Korea, for which Japan must finally "realize the policy of
opening the peninsula" that ithad initiated with the Treaty of Kanghwa in
1876. Following Korea was China, into which Japan needed to "inject the
air of civilization" ( kaimei no kaki o chünyü shi) to "create a major power"
(taikoku no sõshi seshimeru ) lest itbe devoured by the Western powers.20
Uchida's use of "civilization" (kaimei or kaimeishugi) in his writings
from 1891 suggests that he is referencing the notion of a universalistic civi-
lization, epitomized by the advanced societies of western Europe and the
United States. Most government officials and intellectuals in Japan sub-
scribed to this civilizational worldview.21 Indeed, the Meiji state's modern-
ization policies were pursued in order for Japan to achieve equality with the
West based on the idea of an attainable universalistic civilization. Thus, it
appears that in 1891 Uchida is not necessarily calling for Japanese domina-
tion over Korea and China. Rather, he thinks Japan should win them over
with its civilization and enlightenment. Once civilized and thus stronger as
countries, Korea and China would be better allies, Uchida believed. None-
theless, owing to the fact that Japan was already civilized and would have
taken upon itself the aid of its neighbors in achieving that same end, Japan
would of course serve as the leader (meishu) of the East Asian union.
In his call for an East Asian union, Uchida was out of touch with gov-
ernment policy and the Japanese public in general. As Matthias Zachmann
has argued, by the 1880s official and popular support for a Sino-Japanese
alliance had all but evaporated as Japan sought to distinguish itself as a
civilized nation from Qing China, which was regarded as an empire in de-
cline.22 Still, Uchida's scheme had things in common with the Sinic type

20. Uchida Yasuya,p.14.

[Link] this
conception ofcivilization, Uchida was similar tomost
Japanese Pan-
Asianists atthetime.
PrasenjitDuara, "The Discourse ofCivilization andPan-Asianism,"
Journal of World Vol.12,No. 1(2001), p.101.
History,
22. Zachmann, China and Japan inthe Late Meiji Period , p.25.

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 Gates: Uchida Yasuya 9

of Pan-Asianism of the Kõ-A-Kai (Society for Raising Asia), founded in

Tokyo in 1880. The society, which in 1883 changed its name to the Ajia
Kyõkai and eventually merged with Tõ- A Dõbunkai in 1900, was Japan's
first
Pan-Asianist organization. To preserve Asian independence in the face
of Western encroachment, the Kõ-A-Kai worked to foster cooperation be-
tween Japan, China, and Korea based on common cultural and racial links
among their respective peoples.23 Uchida's "Plan to Promote Asia" could be
seen as a variation of this strand of Pan-Asianist thought, though at least at
this point Uchida was not explicitly including references to a shared Asian
culture or race, which was in keeping with his desire to civilize (presum-
ably to the Western or universal standard) Japan's Asian neighbors. None-
theless, his ultimate goal for China in 1891 was to "create a major power"
whose union with Japan would inevitably strengthen Japan's position against
the West.
Considering this viewpoint, itis not surprising to learn that Uchida op-
posed the Japanese government's foreign policy in 1891. Far from "inject-
ing the air of civilization," the Meiji leaders maintained only formal ties
with China, preferring to concentrate on relations with the Western powers.
In stating his opposition to this approach, Uchida noted that China was a
"sleeping lion that needed to be reawakened."24 Uchida believed that Japan
needed to take an active part in great-power politics. He pointed out that
Japan already had some experience at this in its acquisition of the Ryükyö
Kingdom, the Taiwan Expedition of 1874, and its various activities on the
Korean Peninsula. Interestingly, Uchida saw no inconsistency in "awak-
ening" China with one hand and playing the role of a great power at the
expense of the Qing Empire with the other. Here we see the first glimpse
of the inherent contradiction in Uchida's Pan-Asianism, something that was
common to many Pan-Asianist thinkers in the prewar era: becoming a great
power in East Asia ultimately meant trampling those Japan was professing
to lead.
Before looking at Uchida's Pan-Asianist writings from his time stationed
abroad, itis important to remember that in 1890-91 the threat to Japan was
general, even normative, in nature. Western gunships did not menace Japan
but rather it was the "strong eat the weak" ( jakuniku kyõshoku ) way of
the world that clearly put Japan at the mercy of the Western powers.25 Be-
cause the threat was perhaps more theoretical than real, when Uchida did

23. For more oftheKõ-A-kai, see KurokiMorifumi, "The Asianism ofthe Koa-Kai and
theAjia Kyokai: Reconsidering theAmbiguity ofAsianism," inSaaler and Koschmann, eds.,
Pan-Asianism inModern Japanese History, pp.34-51.
24. Uchida Yasuya, p.14.
25. This view ofcompetition intheinternational
systemwas commonly held intheearly
Meiji period, especially by"realist" commentators.
Zachmann, China and Japan inthe Late
Meiji Period, p.24.

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10 Journal of Japanese Studies 37:1(2011)

mention Western countries by name, he singled out only Russia and its
Trans-Siberian Railway as those Japan should be particularly on guard
against, noting, "Russia is not our good friend."26
Uchida's personal experiences came to influence his Pan-Asianist poli-
cies. By 1891, Uchida, just three years into his career as a diplomat, had
been abroad only once as an apprentice secretary in the Washington lega-
tion and had not yet set foot on the Asian mainland. When Uchida witnessed
firsthand the Western penetration of East Asia two years later, the threat
became tangible instead of merely theoretical. The result, as we shall see,
is a revised policy highlighted by a much more aggressive brand of Pan-
Asianism than that which he penned in 1890-91.

"
Japan As Leader Uchida's Later Pan-Asianist Thought
In 1893, Uchida was posted to London to serve as legation secretary.
His voyage from Tokyo to London routed him through the major European
colonial outposts of Hong Kong, Saigon, and Singapore. This look at Eu-
ropean imperialism in Asia, coupled with Russia's earlier announcement
of the Trans Siberian Railway, alarmed Uchida, who perceived the reality
of the West encroaching upon Japan. Uchida believed the Western pow-
ers would continue to acquire territory because of the way they conducted
their foreign policies. "European foreign policy is just like fishing for goby,"
explained Uchida in July 1893:
First, if you catch a goby using good bait, thenyou can catch others
using that bait. On top of that, you can use thatgoby as bait to catch
other goby. When Europeans first obtain a chunk of land, whether byac-
cident or design, they use this incident as bait . . . then they
obtain other
land and soon absorb all of [Link] only have tolook atFrance's policy for
Indochina.27

He offered a more explicit evaluation of the methods employed by the West

when he wrote that "Europeans are now encroaching on our territory through
the guise of protecting their commercial rights. They say their commercial
rights are being infringed upon, but they just use this as a pretense."28 This
biting critique of the West and the harsh tone of the writing is a new devel-
opment in Uchida's career as a Pan-Asianist writer.
In Uchida's mind, Western encroachment was not only a problem of real-
politik for Japan - the more land the Western powers acquired, the stronger
they became vis-à-vis the island nation of Japan
- but italso represented a
problem for all of Asia, indeed for all nonwhite peoples. According to Uchida:

26. Uchida p.14.

Yasuya,
[Link].,
p.24.
p.18.
28. Ibid.,

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 Gates: Uchida Yasuya 11

Westerners have become arrogant. They infest places throughout the

world, oppressing innocent peoples and ceaselessly encroaching on their
land. The Asian race, as thesavior of all the peoples of theworld, has as its
mission the restoration of the declining fortunes of these various peoples
and the stopping of the infestation of the Westerners.29

The West threatened the very welfare of East Asia and that of Asia and
Africa as well. Uchida thus explicitly introduced race into his Pan-Asianism
for the first time. According to Uchida, Westerners were clearly evil -
vermin-like in their capacity to infest- and the Asians, led by Japan, were
the heroes who would come to save the day.
If the above characterization of the West did not make itclear that Uchida
had abandoned his conception of a universalistic civilization, he does so in
his 1893 treatise, "Kõ-A saku: ichimei Nihon meishuron" (Raise Asia plan:
in other words, Japan as the leader), when he writes, "Asia is the world's
most ancient land and is thus the motherland to all the other continents. In
actuality, she is a superior continent with a superior race of people, religion,
and culture. Someday she will reclaim this destiny that is rightfully hers."30
Gone is the talk of civilizing Korea and China. In its place, Uchida affirms
Japan's role as the rightful leader of Asia and goes on to explain that Japan
must protect the weak by defeating the strong. Uchida's tour of Western
colonial strongholds in Asia and the perceived threat they posed to Japan
was enough to transform his Pan-Asianism from the more cooperative Sinic
strand into the aggressive Meishuron type that would dominate Japanese Pan-
Asianist discourse from the turn of the century until the end of World War II.
The Western threat was so severe and the Raise Asia Plan so crucial to
Japan's survival that Uchida devised his own schemes to alert the general
Japanese public and enact his plan. One way he thought he might warn
the Japanese people was by publishing a novel based on his own experi-
ences. He went so far as to outline the plot and devise a title for the book:
Nisshin Kansaburõ den: ichimei kõ-A daigaikõ seisaku (The life of Nis-
shin Kansaburõ: one person's complete foreign policy for raising Asia).
The title character's surname, Nisshin, combined the Chinese characters
for Japan ( nichi ) and Qing China {shin), and the given name, Kansaburõ,
had the character for Korea (кап) followed by the common Japanese given
name suffix of "saburõ." Nisshin Kansaburõ was of course the fictitious
version of Uchida; the astute reader would be clued into his main policy
goal just from reading the title. The plot incorporated Uchida's own ex-
periences and provided ample room for him to offer his theories and
observations.31

[Link].,
p.25.
p.21.
30. Ibid.,
[Link] be found
inibid.,
pp.28-29.

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12 Journal of Japanese Studies 37:1(2011)

In formulating this project, Uchida was most likely influenced by seiji

shõsetsu , Japanese political novels that were popular in the 1880s and ex-
pressed the political views of the author, most often through the main char-
acter.32 Uchida's story had much in common with one of the most successful
of the seiji shõsetsu, Kaj in no kigû (Unexpected encounters with beauties,
1885-97) by Shiba Shirõ (Tõkai Sanshi), though itis not known if Uchida
had read it.33 Both included real historical people as characters and the main
character acted as a proxy for the author. Most important, both Shiba and
Uchida used the voice of the protagonist to espouse anti-West positions and
Pan-Asianist ideals.
According to Uchida's outline, his story would begin with the outbreak
of war in the Pamir Highlands, a mountainous region in Central Asia where
the British, Russian, and Chinese empires intersected. The military capa-
bilities of the combatants in the Battle of Waterloo - Britain, France, and
Russia - would serve as a model for the detailed discussion in the book.
The story would then turn to Kansaburõ himself with an explanation of his
family genealogy and a brief glimpse of his childhood. The reader would
go along with Kansaburõ as he traveled to London via Shanghai and Singa-
pore, where he would see with his own eyes the erosion of the Qing Empire
and the power of Britain in East Asia. The next plot point has Kansaburõ
dispatched to Beijing, where he explains to the Chinese the absolute neces-
sity of forming an alliance with Japan.
The story outline becomes even more disjointed when Kansaburõ heads
to the United States. Kansaburõ somehow survives a shipwreck during
his trans-Pacific voyage but is then inexplicably caught in a snowstorm in
the Rocky Mountains, which provides the ending to the novel. Due to the
fantastic nature of the story, Uchida secretly wished that someone such as
Meiji novelist Kõda Rohan, whose stories often featured heroic charac-
ters, would assume the task of writing the story.34 The dire state of affairs
for Japan in East Asia was so important to Uchida that he believed only
a renowned writer would be able to properly convey this story to the ill-
informed public.

32. Thanks go toan anonymous reviewer forpointing outthesimilarity between

Uchida's proposed novel
andKajin nokigii.
On seiji shõsetsu,see Donald Keene, Dawn to
theWest: Japanese Literature
oftheModern Era , Fiction (New York: Holt,Rinehartand
Winston, 1984),
pp.76-95.
33.Tõkai Sanshi, Kajin nokigû, inSeiji shõsetsushii.
Vol.3 ofNihon gendai bungaku
zenshil (Tokyo: Ködansha. 1965). Also see AtsukoSakaki, "Kajin noKigû: The Meiji Politi-
cal Novel andtheBoundaries ofLiterature," Monumenta Nipponica, Vol.55,No. 1(Spring
2000), pp.83-108.
34. That Uchida preferredRohan toShiba Shirõ perhaps casts doubtonwhether Uchida
hadreadKajin nokigil. Formore onRohan and hisheroic see Keene, Dawn to
characters,
theWest, pp.150-64.

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 Gates: UchidaYasuya 13

Warning the public in order to drum up popular support for Uchida's

plan for Asia was an important first step, but that alone was not enough to
convince the Japanese government to change its policy. That would have
to be done by Uchida himself. Uchida wrote a life plan he titled "Grand
Program" (Dai Keikaku) in the summer of 1893 that had the ultimate goal
of enhancing Japanese security through an Asian alliance. According
to this life plan, Uchida would resign from the foreign ministry in 1897 and
become a member of the Diet to publicly attack the government's foreign
policy.35 After serving as a Diet member for seven years, Uchida would
become a cabinet member around 1904 and then, sometime in the next
five years, form his own cabinet to carry out his Raise Asia Plan. Thus,
in creating his Grand Program, Uchida had mapped out how he would
achieve his plan from the year he wrote it in 1893 as a junior diplomat up
to its enactment in 1909 as prime minister. This shows not only Uchida's
unbridled ambition but also his deep commitment to protecting Japan by
strengthening Asia regionally under Japan's leadership, against Western
imperialism.
Uchida further developed his Raise Asia Plan in late October 1893 with
his treatise "Nihon no kokuze" (Japan's national policy). The first of two
policies stated, "Japan, China, and Korea must unify their power into one
and confront Britain, or Russia, or France, or Germany, or the United States.
By means of the alliance, Japan, China, and Korea will control the infesta-
tion of the Westerners. We will make plans for the promotion of the Asian
race."36 He then explained that in order for Japan to maintain Asian hege-
mony, itneeded to control China and Korea, but the international environ-
ment did not currently permit Japan to establish the necessary conditions
that would make that control possible. Japan, therefore, would need to enact
changes in the world's state of affairs.
Uchida, of course, had a plan for this, which he divided into two parts,
the diplomatic and the political. First, in the realm of diplomacy, Japan
would watch the motives of the Western powers and prevent their participa-
tion in the affairs of Japan and Qing China. "Then, little by little," Uchida
explained, "we will promote our relations with China and Korea and with
each event or affair, our power will increase and we will realize hegemony."
With the foreign policy formula outlined, Uchida turned his gaze to the
domestic political situation in Japan: "We must awaken the great martial
spirit [of the Japanese]. The entire country will be soldiers. In particular, we
need to organize the navy and increase the number of ships. We must also
inspire the soldiers and then we will have a chance of success." Despite his

[Link] "Grand Program" isintheunpublished manuscript

ofUchida's biography:
Aoki,
"Uchida Yasuya denki Vol. 1.
sõkõ,"
36. Uchida Yasuya,p.23.

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14 Journal of Japanese Studies 37:1 (201 1)

call to arms, Uchida was not a one-dimensional militarist. Rather, he was

keenly aware of the need to win over people's hearts and minds and to main-
tain a thriving economy. He continued, "And, we must expand education.
Japan should become the center of education in Asia. All people, moreover,
should aim to encourage prosperous new industries, including the shipping
industry."37
"Japan's National Policy" was thus a particularly comprehensive plan
for Japanese foreign policy in Asia. While the underlying ideological basis
for this foreign policy was Japanese hegemony over Asia, which was to
be organized into an East Asian alliance (dõmei) under Japanese leader-
ship, Uchida also paid attention to the practical ways in which Japan could
achieve this. Diplomatic, military, educational, and economic policies were
all crucial to Japanese efforts to become the leader of Asia. In short, Japan
needed to become the dominant country in the region in all areas that con-
tributed to the overall power of a modern nation.
Naive notions of grateful Chinese and Koreans freely following Japan's
lead did not delude Uchida's thinking, however. In one of his journal entries
in July 1893, Uchida admitted that while China was to be an ally, itwas cru-
cial that Japan occupy the leadership position and that itmight be necessary
to fight with China to do so. An entry a few weeks later expounded further
on the need for a fight: "From ancient times, there has been a kind of hostil-
itybetween Japanese and Chinese and between Japanese and Koreans. If
there is not the inevitable fight [between Japan and the other two] to eradi-
cate these feelings, then resolute and true cooperation and peace must not be
expected."38 After the battle, China would assume a subservient position in
the alliance of the three Asian countries. The union was of paramount im-
portance to Uchida because he believed there was no other way to confront
the power of the West. Japan simply could not do italone.
The key to establishing the alliance was Korea. According to Uchida,
itwas Japan's duty to make China recognize Korea's independence as soon
as possible; otherwise the two would come to blows over the peninsula.
Despite his earlier justifications of the need for a fight between Japan and
China, such a conflict over Korea would do great damage to Uchida's policy
of promoting Asia. Uchida proposed a policy that regarded Korea as an
"independent nation" and "maintained itas such" through Japanese power.
If Korea did not appreciate such a policy and continued to "feel indebted
to China, we [Japan] must make them independent [from China] and make
them understand our kindness."39 In addition to securing Korean indepen-
dence, Japan, Uchida hoped, would also promote Korean development and
the establishment of a constitutional government.

[Link].
38. Ibid.,
p.24.
[Link].,
p.39.

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 Gates : UchidaYasuya 15

It is interesting to note that Uchida's ideas regarding Korea were partially

inconsistent. The above Korea policy was from his writing in October and
November 1893. Just three months earlier, in July, Uchida commented that
Korea must become a Japanese colony. As he explained - and lamented:
Due toour past relations under Meiji foreign policy, Korea has no good
feelings toward us. The tendency has been forKorea tolean on China for
support. Therefore, we should confront this problem with raw power. We
must follow a policy of ruling them. If theEuropeans were inour position,
they
would rule over all of Korea. Oh, really, how many times have we lost
providential opportunities?40

These contradictions notwithstanding, the multiple positions Uchida held

on Japan's Korea policy are perhaps not surprising given the regularity with
which Japanese officials and intellectuals changed their approach to Korea.
Hilary Conroy has argued that those who advocated Japanese participa-
tion in Korean affairs often switched between idealistic notions of Korean
independence, realistic concerns about Japanese security, and reactionary
calls for a Japanese-Korean union in justifying their demands for action.41
Uchida seems to be in the reactionary camp but maintained a strong sense
of the reality of Japanese security and perhaps had occasional flights of
liberal fancy.
As relations between Japan and China over Korea drew closer to crisis,
Uchida became a staunch reactionary. In May 1894, he wrote that Japanese
policy for China should be, first, to defeat it in war. For Korea, Japanese
policy should have the goal of eventual annexation. Though he provided no
timetable, Uchida did offer several ways Japan could achieve annexation,
including encouraging Japanese emigration to Korea, mixed marriage, the
learning of the Japanese language by Koreans, and also bringing Korean
students to study in Japan.42
Counter to his plan of annexing Korea was Uchida's policy for Qing
China. Writing in October 1893, Uchida bemoaned the decline of the Qing
Dynasty but also held hopes for Chinese reform that would "restore the
great deeds of their ancestors."43 Because he felt the Qing collapse was
inevitable, Uchida urged Japanese officials to develop policies to effectively
manage Qing-Japanese relations. The policy Uchida advocated, unsurpris-
ingly, was an alliance between Japan and China, most likely realized after
forcing China's submission through military conflict. Once China submit-
ted and Japan could revive China, the Middle Kingdom would be a strong
Asian country once again and contribute to the power of the Asian alliance.

40. Ibid.,
p.24.
[Link] Conroy, "Chosen Mondai: The Korean Problem inMeiji Japan,"
Proceedings
of the Vol. 100,
American Philosophical Society, No. 5 (15,1956),
p.453.
42. Uchida Yasuya , p.30.
p.35.
43. Ibid.,

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16 Journal of Japanese Studies 37:1(2011)

According to Uchida, "this policy is the duty of our empire and also pro-
vides protection."44
China for Uchida was a country rushing headlong into ruin. It was Ja-
pan's duty to push China off the tracks of disaster and back onto those of a
strong international power. War was the only way to effect this change. In-
terestingly, this view was uncommon among Japanese foreign policy com-
mentators, Pan-Asianist or not, at the time.45 The Japanese government and
intellectuals justified war against China in 1894 by arguing that ithad been
an oppressive force in East Asia, not only in Korea but earlier in the Ryükyü
Kingdom as well. Only after the hostilities ended did the argument that
the war compelled China to reform its ways come to be the main Japanese
justification for the conflict.46
For Uchida, establishing an alliance with China through an aggressive
war was a method to ultimately protect Japan. His policy was essentially
a defensive preemptive strike: Japan would force China to submit and then
revive itto create a strong Asian alliance before the Western powers could
dismantle China, thereby eliminating a Japanese ally and threatening Japan
even more. Of course, preemptive strikes are by nature not defensive. This
contradiction did not matter to Uchida, who was solely concerned with the
welfare of his country. To him, defensive ends justified the offensive means.
Confronting the Western imperial powers was the true goal of a union
in whatever form between China, Korea, and Japan. That is, Uchida's Pan-
Asianism was a direct product of his assessment of Western military might,
not of cultural similarities between Japan and its neighbors. In addition to
the union, Uchida had other ideas on how to manage the European powers
and the United States. Writing in July 1893, Uchida urged Japan to skillfully
manage relations with Britain, Russia, Germany, and France and to follow
a policy of using one power to control another.47 He developed this policy
several months later in October when he wrote of the need to drive wedges
between Russia and Britain and between France and Germany. In the same
month, Uchida displayed some of the realistic pragmatism, perhaps learned
from his mentor Foreign Minister (1892-96) Mutsu Munemitsu, that would
characterize his approach to foreign policy later in his career when he wrote

44. Ibid.
45. Other than Pan-Asianist writer
Kitamura Saburõ, there appear tobenoothers who
maintained such a plan.Inhis1888book, Tõyõ saku,Kitamura argued that a Sino-Japanese
warwas necessary todetermine thetrueleader ofAsia and for theretobetrue cooperation
between China and Japan. Itisunknown ifUchida hadread thisbook orwas aware ofitsargu-
ment when hewrote hisownplanin1893. Miwa Kimitada, "Fukuzawa YukichTs 'Departure
from Asia': APrelude totheSino-Japanese War," inEdmund Skrzypczak, ed.,Japan s Mod-
ernCentury andCharles E. Tuttle,
(Tokyo: Sophia University 1968),p.25.
46. Zachmann, China and Japan inthe Late Meiji Period, pp.25-34.
47. Uchida Yasuya, p.21.

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 Gates : UchidaYasuya 17

that Japan should cooperate with Britain when itwas in Japan's interests but
then, when circumstances changed, Japan would be better served cooperat-
ing with Russia.48
Here Uchida essentially admits that his Pan-Asianist beliefs did not pro-
vide a realizable method to achieve his goal of securing Japan at that time.
That is, Uchida employed an opportunistic cooperation strategy because he
knew Japan was not in a position to challenge the West. "We cannot easily
look down on the power and wealth of [the Western] countries," Uchida
wrote in October 1893.49 Again turning out to be clairvoyant, Uchida then
commented that Japan must prepare to defeat China and turn its sights to-
ward Russia. Relations with Britain, moreover, would be key, since it too
was wary of Russian expansion and held similar interests in China. In one
flurry of writing, Uchida not only prophesied the major events in Meiji-
era Japanese foreign policy (the Sino-Japanese War, the Anglo-Japanese
Alliance, and the Russo-Japanese War), he also provided hints of his own
switch from advocating Pan-Asianist ideals to supporting polices based on
imperialism.
Uchida's Pan-Asianism progressed from the more cooperative version
he professed in 1890-91 to his "Japan as Leader" plan for Asia just two
years later. The firsthand view of Western imperialism in Asia that Uchida
obtained on his way to London highlighted Japan's own weaknesses and
prompted this change in his thinking. Instead of civilizing its neighbors,
Japan would lead a colonized Korea and a defeated but revived China in an
effort to remove the Western powers from the region. Still, Uchida could
not shake the feeling of Japan's vulnerability and, in stark contrast to those
Japanese Meishuron Pan-Asianists who would come to prominence in the
early 1900s, people like Tõyama Mitsuru and Uchida Ryõhei, Uchida did
not dismiss the importance of cooperation with certain Western countries.
As a product of his times, he displayed both the commonly held view of a
"predatory, racist West"50 and an insider's awareness of the impossibility
of confronting the Western imperial powers in Japan's weak, undeveloped
state. His Pan-Asianism and his calls for cooperation can each be under-
stood in terms of these two views.

Wither Pan-Asianism: Uchida and the Russo-Japanese War

It is significant that Uchida's short career as a Pan-Asianist writer came

early in his time in the foreign ministry when he served in junior positions
and before Japan achieved "equal" status among the powers. Once the ne-

48. p.27.
Ibid.,
49. Ibid.,
p.25.
50. Jansen, p.114.
"Konoe Atsumaro,"

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18 Journal of Japanese Studies 37: 1 (201 1)

gotiations heated up with the British in 1894 over treaty revision, Uchida, as
secretary in the London legation, did not return to his Pan-Asianist theories.
Soon after successful revision, Japan joined the imperialist club with the
acquisition of Taiwan following its victory in the Sino-Japanese War. Ja-
pan's international status was on the rise, as was Uchida within the foreign
ministry.
In 1901, Uchida was appointed minister to Qing China. Even though
his busy schedule prevented him from penning more Pan-Asianist plans,
Uchida had not completely abandoned his earlier ideas. The main issue
Uchida confronted as minister to China was Russian encroachment into
Manchuria. His proposed solution, like his earlier writings, reveals a two-
pronged approach to confronting this Western menace to Japanese interests
in Korea and to Japanese security. Uchida first sought to bring about Sino-
Japanese cooperation by going through Yuan Shikai, an influential general
and viceroy of Zhili Province (modern Hebei), who was ethnically Han Chi-
nese. Uchida believed that, because of his ethnicity, Yuan would not con-
cern himself with the disposition of Manchuria. After a war with Russia for
influence over southern Manchuria, Uchida feltJapan should support Yuan
in heading the Qing government. With Yuan in power, Uchida believed,
China would consent to Japan's predominant position in Manchuria and
also join Japan as an Asian ally.51 This line of reasoning presents a peculiar
mixture of Pan-Asianist and imperialist thought that, it could be argued,
presages Japanese actions in Manchuria three decades later.52
The second key component to Uchida's strategy of limiting Russia's
presence in Manchuria was the 1902 Anglo-Japanese Alliance. When he
received news about the alliance from Tokyo, Uchida became giddy with
excitement and immediately visited British Minister to China Ernest Satow
to show him a copy of the alliance terms. Satow wrote in his diary after
being shown the alliance that Uchida "thinks itthe most important political
event that has occurred for a long time, and that the Japanese could if they
were so minded turn out the Russians from Manchuria."53 With Britain now
watching its back, Japan could take on Russia without fear of other powers
ganging up on [Link] believed Japan must not miss the opportunity to
solve the Manchuria problem (Manshü mondai). Writing in his own diary,
Uchida resolutely stated, "We will crush Russia with one blow and delight
the world."54

[Link] Yasuya,
p.70.
52. Hotta
makes theargument that Japan'sefforts atnation
buildinginManchuria in
the1930s were
anexpression ofPan-Asianist imperialism. Hotta,
Pan-Asianism and Japan s
War,pp.107-39.
[Link] Public Records Office
30/33/16/4
Ernest
Satow Papers: Private
Journal.
February12,1902.
54. Uchida Yasuya, pp.67-68.

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 Gates: Uchida Yasuya 19

That is, of course, exactly what happened: Japan defeated Russia in

Manchuria in 1905. Japan did so without the assistance of China, which re-
mained on the sidelines as a neutral party, despite Uchida's pleas to Tokyo to
include the Chinese as allies. Uchida's initial disappointment at the Katsura
Taro cabinet's decision not to include China in its war plans was quickly re-
placed by his joy over the acquisition of Russian interests in southern Man-
churia. It is in Japan's acquisition of imperialist concessions in Manchuria
that we see Uchida discard any remaining Pan-Asianist pretenses.
As minister to China, Uchida joined Foreign Minister Komura Jutarõ in
negotiations over Chinese recognition of the terms of the Portsmouth Peace
Treaty that concluded the Russo-Japanese War. During the negotiations,
Uchida and Komura pressed the Chinese for recognition of Japan's lease
of the Liaodong Peninsula and ownership of the South Manchuria Railway
(SMR). The Chinese delegation sought to limit Japanese concessions and
rights in Manchuria by appealing to the Pan-Asianist ideal of creating a
true partnership between China and Japan.55 The erstwhile Pan-Asianist
Uchida would have none of this, replying, "Japan risked the fate of the na-
tion in fighting Russia for these very concessions. If we had not reached an
agreement with Russia over these articles, we would still be fighting. These
are the most important articles."56 The idealistic hopes of an alliance with
China that Uchida had held two years earlier were now completely replaced
by realistic calculations of empire. Japan's hard-fought position in Manchu-
ria now trumped any notions of achieving an Asian union.

Uchida as a Policymaker

Realist calculations of Japan's imperial interests and its place in the

Western-dominated international order continued to form the basis of Uchi-
da's policies when he served as foreign minister, firstfrom 191 1 to 1912 and
then from 191 8 to 1923. As a regional power and a member of the imperial-
ist club, Japan and its security were no longer directly threatened. By 1911,
Japan had escaped a perilous time in its history by "Leaving Asia" rather
than pursuing Pan-Asianist ideals. Uchida sought to keep Japan firmly on
that path.
The Chinese Revolution of 1911 was the main policy issue confronting
Uchida in his first term as foreign minister. His reaction to this potential
opportunity to fulfill Pan-Asianist goals of uniting two independent Asian
nations is indicative of how far he had moved away from his earlier writings
on achieving an Asian union. Uchida irked many Sinic Pan-Asianists, who

[Link] AlbertWhite, TheDiplomacy of theRusso-Japanese War(Princeton: Prince-

tonUniversity 1964), p.335.
Press,
56. Aoki, "Uchida Yasuya denki Vol. 2.
soko,"

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20 Journal of Japanese Studies 37: 1 (201 1)

actively supported Chinese nationalism, by initially backing the falling Qing

regime. He also linked Japan's policy to that of its ally Britain. The calculus
of imperialism and imperialist relations was behind both decisions. The
Qing, rather than the unknown commodity of the revolutionaries, would be
more likely to provide the stability necessary for the maintenance of Japan's
Manchurian interests. Similarly, since both Japan and Britain had extensive
interests in China and desired continual calm so as not to interrupt those
interests, itwas natural to unify policy and actions between the two allies.
One of the most vocal Pan-Asianist critics of Uchida and his policy
for the Chinese Revolution was parliamentarian Inukai Tsuyoshi. In a Diet
session, Inukai commented that, "It is now an open secret that the Japanese
Government's sympathy leaned first toward the reigning dynasty in China.
The policy was afterward changed under the convenient cover of strict neu-
trality. The result is that a want of confidence in Japan exists both at Beijing
and among the revolutionaries."57 Uchida further angered Fan-Asianists and
some in the Japanese army by quashing plans to provide military support to
anti-Qing independence movements in Manchuria and Mongolia. Imperial
calculations were at the heart of this decision as well, for Uchida and Japan
soon after signed a treaty with Russia that divided Inner Mongolia into
Japanese and Russian spheres of interest.
Interestingly, as Uchida was abandoning his earlier beliefs, Pan-Asianism
was becoming more and more mainstream in the halls of government. The
term "Asianism" came into widespread use after Diet member Kodera
Kenkichi published his "Dai-Ajiashugi-ron" (Treatise on greater Asianism)
58
in 1916. Pan-Asianist thought could be found in myriad forms in leading
popular and scholarly publications following World War I.59 In 1921, one
scholar, Nagase Hösuke, even argued that a Pan-Asianist foreign policy based
on establishing an Asian league should be immediately implemented.60 No
longer sharing Nagase's opinion, Uchida, as foreign minister from 1918 to
1923, kept Japan firmly on its previous course: retaining Japan's interna-
tional position through cooperative or accommodative diplomacy with the
Western powers, nonintervention in China, and the maintenance of Japa-
nese interests in Manchuria.61 These policies were consistent with those he
pursued during 1911-12 and contained few traces of Pan-Asianist influence.

[Link] York Times,January 28,1912.

58. Saaler, "The ConstructionofRegionalism inModern Japan,"
pp.1269-87.
[Link] "Ajiashugi tosono shuhen,"
Tetsuo, inFuruya ed.,Kindai Nihon
Tetsuo, no
ninshiki
Ajici (Tokyo: Ryokuin Shobõ, 1996), pp.62-98.
60. Saaler, "Pan-Asianism inModern Japanese History" pp.6-7.
[Link] Burkman uses thephrase "international
accommodationism," insteadof
internationalcooperation, todescribe Japanese foreign
policy vis-ct-vis
theWestern powersin
the1920s. Thomas [Link], Japan and the League ofNations: Empire and World
Order,
I9I4-1938 (Honolulu: University ofHawai'i Press, 2008).

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 Gates: Uchida Yasuya 21

It must be noted, of course, that while Uchida's policies remained

consistent, the international environment in which he was devising those
policies had changed since his firstappointment as minister. Wilsonian in-
ternationalism, named after U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and guided
by his ideals of multilateralism, anti-imperialism, and self-determination,
had replaced the old prewar diplomatic paradigm of bilateral alliances, se-
cret treaties, and imperialist calculations of national interests. Uchida con-
fronted this new milieu through a combination of adaptation and resistance.
To avoid Japanese isolation and continue his policy of cooperation with
the powers, Uchida simply replaced his previous reliance on bilateral alli-
ances and agreements with reliance on multilateral ones. He begrudgingly
replaced his beloved Anglo-Japanese Alliance with the Four-Power Treaty
of 1921 in which Japan, the United States, Britain, and France agreed to
consult each other regarding issues in the Pacific. This treaty was in ad-
dition to Japan's participation in the collective security apparatus of the
League of Nations, of which Japan was a founding member.
Japan's new multilateral approach also extended to its policy for China
south of the Great Wall. Ending the previous cabinet's policy of granting
loans to Chinese warlords in return for Japanese concessions on the main-
land, Uchida led Japan's participation in a new Four-Power Loan Consor-
tium that held the goal of promoting economic development throughout
China. Uchida also refused to permit Japanese intervention in the struggles
between warlords in northern China in the early 1920s. In one instance,
Uchida even granted concessions to the Chinese in an effort to further co-
operation between the two countries.62 Roundly attacked in the Diet for
pursuing a weak policy, Uchida explained that the new China policy of
"coexistence and coprosperity" ( kyõzon kyõei ) would ultimately improve
Sino-Japanese relations and thus benefit Japanese interests.63
Uchida's goal of "coexistence and coprosperity" with China, which
sought to promote economic development on the mainland through Sino-
Japanese cooperation, replaced the expansionist diplomacy toward China
that characterized the World War I years and became Japanese policy un-
til 1927. This policy is commonly associated with Uchida's successor as

foreign minister in the mid-1920s, Shidehara Kijurõ (1872-1951), a diplo-

mat known for his commitment to liberal internationalism and the absence
of any Pan-Asianist sympathies.64 Although Uchida and Shidehara were

62. The concession came intheform oftheSino-Japanese Postal Agreementof1922in

which Japanagreed toreturn administrationofall postal agencies inChina under
itscontrol
totheChinese government.
63. Aoki, "Uchida Yasuya denkisoko," Vol. 7,Part 2.
64. Forthisview, see, for
example, Ian Nish,"AnOverview ofRelations between China
and Japan,1895-1945," China Quarterly, Vol.124(1990), pp.611-12.

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22 Journal of Japanese Studies 37: 1 (201 1)

not close personally, the two did work closely together. Shidehara served
briefly as Uchida's vice minister from 1918 until being appointed ambas-
sador to the United States in 1919. While in Washington, Shidehara was in
constant contact with Uchida, especially during the Washington Confer-
ence (1921-22), in which the ambassador served as Japan's main nego-
tiator. When Shidehara became foreign minister in 1924, he continued
most of Uchida's policies, such as Japanese participation in multilateral
agreements and nonintervention in China proper. The two differed on their
approach to Manchuria, however. Shidehara considered Manchuria a part
of China while Uchida believed itto be a separate region that required its
own policy.
It is in Uchida's policy for Manchuria that we see the vestiges of the
Meiji-era imperialist diplomacy Uchida had pursued earlier. While Uchida
was open to adapting his policy for the powers and China, he was much
more rigid when it came to Japanese interests in Manchuria. In the im-
mediate postwar period, Uchida succeeded in preserving Japan's sphere
of interest in Manchuria by excluding it from discussion at the Washing-
ton Conference and by removing Manchuria from the purview of the Four
Power Loan Consortium.65 Moreover, attempts by the Chinese to nullify the
Peking Treaty of 1905, which affirmed Japan's position in Manchuria and
which Uchida helped negotiate, were flatly rejected by Uchida using argu-
ments based on international treaty law.
While Uchida was careful to separate his China and Manchuria policies,
this dualistic approach would prove unworkable when confronting a unified
China in the early 1930s. Imperialism and Pan-Asianism would again play
a role in Uchida's foreign policy, but the former would provide the mo-
tive while the latter, now without much influence, would supply merely the
justification.

The Return of Pan-Asianism ?

The news of an explosion on the SMR line just outside Mukden

(Shenyang) on September 18, 1931, took newly appointed SMR President
Uchida by surprise. At first,
he was worried and anxious over the poten-
tial negative ramifications of the occupation of the city by the Japanese
Guandong Army. Foreign Minister Shidehara Kijürö had appointed Uchida

[Link] theWashington Conference, see Sadao Asada, "Between theOld Diplomacy and
theNew,1918-1922: The Washington System andtheOrigins ofJapanese-American Rap-
prochement," Vol.30,No.2(2006), pp.225-29. Fortheloanconsortium,
Diplomatic History,
see Sadao Asada, "JapanandtheUnited States, 1915-1925" (Ph.D. diss.,
Yale University,
1963),pp.87-92; andOfficeoftheHistorian, Department ofState,ForeignRelations ofthe
United States,
/9/9,Vol.1(Washington: Government PrintingOffice.1934),p.480.

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 Gates: Uchida Yasuya 23

one month earlier to help solve the Manchuria-Mongolia Problem (.Manmõ

mondai ) that by that time had come to represent a host of issues, includ-
ing Chinese railway competition, boycotts against Japanese businesses and
products, labor strikes, anti-Japanese demonstrations, and refusals to lease
land to Japanese residents. Uchida changed his tune, however, and came to
support the army's position when, a week after the bombing, the Guandong
Army commander debriefed him on plans to create an independent though
Japanese-controlled state named Manchukuo. From October 1931 through
his appointment as foreign minister in July 1932 and up to his resignation in
August 1933, Uchida was a tireless supporter of Japan's mission in Manchuria.
The formation of a "national unity" cabinet, following Prime Minis-
ter Inukai Tsuyoshi's assassination in May 1932, provided Uchida with the

opportunity to enact his Manchuria policy once again as foreign minis-

ter. Uchida's main policy goal was Japanese recognition of Manchukuo, a

policy he had held since the early days of the Manchurian Incident and one
he firmly believed would end Japan's Manchuria problem. In an address to
the Diet in August 1932, Foreign Minister Uchida outlined Japan's policy
toward Manchukuo: Japan would recognize Manchukuo as soon as pos-
sible, Japan had not violated any international treaties, and Japan would
work to convince the world of the justness of Japanese actions.66 For the
most part, Diet members welcomed Uchida's remarks, especially because
they had unanimously passed a resolution calling for Japanese recognition
of Manchukuo two months earlier. Nonetheless, to emphasize his resolve to
implement the policy, Uchida stated that he and the people of Japan "would
not give up one inch, even if the country [Japan] is turned into scorched
earth."67
Japan officially recognized Manchukuo less than a month later. Uchida
then turned his attention to the upcoming discussion in the League of Na-
tions over the Lytton Report. The league had dispatched a commission led
by Lord Lytton of Britain to Northeast Asia to investigate the Manchurian
Incident; the commission published its findings in October 1932. Although
not singularly critical of Japan, the report recommended that China retain
sovereignty over Manchuria. Having just officially recognized Manchukuo,
Uchida and Japan were in no position to accept this as a solution. Talks at
the league lasted several months, with Uchida steadfastly refusing to coun-
tenance any league resolution that excluded the maintenance and recog-
nition of Manchukuo as a solution to the Sino-Japanese dispute. One of

inUchida Yasuya,
66. Uchida's speech can be found pp.350-56; StateDepartment Rec-
Record Group 59,894.00/430, held
ords, attheNational Archives,College Park,Md.; and
New YorkTimes, August 25,1932.
67. Uchida Yasuya, p.359.

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24 Journal of Japanese Studies 37: 1 (201 1)

the main reasons for the Japanese delegation's withdrawal from the League
Assembly in February 1933 was Uchida's intransigence over the issue of
Manchukuo.
Throughout the Manchurian Incident, Uchida defended the creation of
Manchukuo as well as Japanese recognition of the new "state" by mix-
ing arguments based on international law, which were employed in league
deliberations, with Pan-Asianist rhetoric. Following a May 1932 meeting
in Manchuria with the Lytton Commission, Uchida handed Lord Lytton
a memorandum in which he argued that a proposed international man-
date over Manchuria would not be acceptable to the Japanese people
because they feltthat they "had saved Manchuria for its inhabitants from
foreign domination" by fighting two wars in the past. According to Uchida,
the only possible solution was Japan's recognition of and assistance to
Manchukuo as a means to develop the region into a model of stability and
economic prosperity for China to follow.68 When Uchida met with the com-
mission in Tokyo two months later, this time as the newly installed foreign
minister, he insisted that the creation of Manchukuo was an indigenous,
fully legitimate expression of independence and that Japan, acting in self-
defense against hostile Chinese forces, had merely supported that expres-
sion.69 Later, in a speech to the Imperial Diet in January 1933, Uchida hit
another Pan-Asianist chord when he argued that the world must come to
realize that "any plan for erecting an edifice of peace in the Far East should
be based on the recognition that the constructive force of Japan is the main-
stay of tranquility in this part of the world."70 Uchida, at least rhetorically,
seems to have returned to the Pan-Asianism of his junior years in the foreign
ministry as he guided Japan through a time of crisis during the twilight of
his career.71

68. Uchida's memorandum can befound inStateDepartment Records, Record Group

59,793.94-Commission/296. Fora Japanese translation, see Uchida Yasuya , pp.334-38.
[Link] record ofthemeeting can befound inState Department Records, Record Group
59,793.94-Commission/307, Grew toStimson, July 25,1932.
70. "The Address ofCount Uchida, Minister forForeign Affairs,atthe64thSession
oftheImperial Diet,January 21st,1933," Diplomatic Records Office, Japanese Ministry
ofForeign Affairs, JapanCenter forAsian Historical Records (JACAR) reference code
B0203 1340100 ([Link]
[Link] hisPan-Asianist rhetoric andJapan's withdrawal from theLeague ofNa-
tions,Uchida would continue hisearlierpolicy ofcooperative relationswith theWest fol-
lowing theconclusion oftheManchurian Incident. He replaced themultilateral relations
framework ofthe1920s with theone based onbilateral relations
thathehademployed as
foreignministerprior toWorld [Link] onUchida's foreign policyfor theEuropean
powers andtheUnited see Rustin
States, Gates, "Meiji Diplomacy inthe Early 1930s: Uchida
Kõsai, Manchuria, and Post-withdrawalForeign Policy,"inMasato Kimura andTosh Mino-
[Link].. Tumultuous Decade: Japan's Challenge totheInternational System, 1931-194 1
(Toronto: UniversityofTorontoPress, 2011).

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 Gates: Uchida Yasuya 25

Conclusion

Historian Miwa Kimitada reads Uchida's foreign policy and his use
of Pan-Asianist rhetoric in the early 1930s as a return to ideological roots.
Miwa argues that Uchida cooperated with the Western powers out of ne-
cessity in earlier decades, while he waited for the opportunity for Japan
to kick out the West and rule over Asia.72 This interpretation is possible,
to be sure, but unlikely. Uchida had had opportunities before the 1930s
to remove Western influence from East Asia, such as the Siberian Inter-
vention (1918-22), but he did not take them. Indeed, Uchida had vehe-
-
mently opposed this operation a fact that Miwa admits is not easily
explainable according to his above theory.73 More important, we need to
remember the impetus behind the development of Uchida's Pan-Asianist
thought. Pan-Asianism for Uchida was a way to counter a Western threat
to Japanese security. It was Western encroachment in Asia, which Uchida
felt directly threatened Japan, that initially spurred him to put his Pan-
Asianist pen to paper, not any deeply held notions of racial or cultural soli-
darity or any strong desire for Japan to rule over all of Asia. To be sure,
when Uchida experienced Western imperialism firsthand by touring Eu-
ropean colonial enclaves in Southeast Asia, the tone of his Pan-Asianism
took an aggressive turn. Still, this change from Sinic to Meishuron Pan-
Asianism was a threat (or perceived threat) response rather than a deeply held
conviction.
When the threat dissipated, as was the case following the conclusion of
the Russo-Japanese War, Pan-Asianism quickly lost its appeal to Uchida.
He recast his policies in an imperialist mold that specifically sought to pro-
tect and expand Japan's newly won interests in Manchuria. Japan's bur-
geoning empire, together with its longstanding policy of cooperation with
the West- something Uchida had advocated even while proclaiming Pan-
Asianist ideals - accorded Japan status as a power which in turn, along with
its military might, provided for Japanese security in the decades before and
after World War I. As foreign minister during this time, Uchida conducted
foreign policy with the overarching goal of securing the empire. He devised
the policies of protecting imperial interests in Manchuria and pursuing co-
operative relations, both with the West and China, with this goal in mind. If
we use Uchida's experience as a case study, Pan-Asianism held no purchase
in foreign policymaking from the Russo-Japanese War to the early 1930s
because itwas predicated on a weak Japan threatened by the Western pow-
ers bent on expansion in East Asia. Without that threat, there was little im-
petus for Japan to ally with or lead its Asian neighbors.

72. Miwa, "Manshujihen toUchida Yasuya," p.122.

73. Ibid.,
pp.127-28.

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26 Journal of Japanese Studies 37:1 (201 1)

Moreover, Pan-Asianism continued to be an insignificant factor in

Uchida's policymaking in the 1930s because the threat to Japan did not
come from the West but from China. The Japanese effectively neutralized
this Chinese threat, Uchida believed, in their creation of Manchukuo. Uchi-
da's China policy after the Manchurian Incident was to be exactly the same
as that which he implemented in the early 1920s: noninterference in Chi-
nese politics and the expansion of Japanese economic interests.74 Uchida,
in 1933, believed Japan's position in the world to be sufficiently secured.
Thus, the Pan-Asianism Uchida espoused in the late nineteenth century
continued to be ill suited to the international environment, even in the early
1930s. Uchida's earlier "Japan-as-leader" Pan-Asianism had given way in
1905 to a "Japan-as-an-empire" orientation that remained constant in the
ensuing decades.
As the 1930s progressed, Pan-Asianist ideals increasingly colored gov-
ernment rhetoric and, to some extent, policy. Once a believer, Uchida was
wading against the Pan-Asianist tide. He was perhaps unique, especially
when compared to the avowed Pan-Asianists who would succeed him in
directing foreign policy, such as Hirota Kõki and Konoe Fumimaro. Still,
differences of opinion regarding Pan-Asianism's role in Japanese diplomacy
suggest that the lure of Pan-Asianism was varied and evolved over time.
Pan-Asianism, throughout its history, was both a means and an end for
its adherents. For Uchida in the mid-Meiji era, it was the potential means
to achieving Japanese security. For the more idealistic believers from the
Meiji through the early Showa periods, a unified Asia based on genuine
cooperation was the end itself. Finally, others, especially in the period from
the mid-1930s until the end of Pacific War, viewed Pan-Asianism as both: a
unified Asia under Japanese leadership (the means) would replace Western
imperialism with Japanese hegemony in the region (the end). Uchida clearly
viewed Japan's position in the world differently than this last group, espe-
cially in terms of the foreign threat to Japanese security and the best way to
coexist with China. But, this discrepancy does not invalidate his earlier Pan-
Asianist beliefs. Rather, itshows the enduring effectiveness of the Meiji-era
foreign policy in achieving the objective of securing Japan.
Using Uchida as a case study to explore the question of why Pan-
Asianism did not gain traction in foreign policymaking before the 1930s
makes itclear that an imperialist-oriented foreign policy achieved the same
fundamental goal as a Pan-Asianist policy: a strong, secure Japanese nation.
Because of this fact, Uchida easily abandoned Pan-Asianism and joined the
foreign ministry mainstream. The difference between the two policies, of
course, lay in Japan's relationship with the West. While the Pan-Asianists

[Link], ofcourse, didnotinclude Manchuria inUchida's formulation.

Formore
on
Uchida's China policyin1933,see Gates, "Meiji Diplomacy intheEarly
1930s."

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 Gates: Uchida Yasuya 27

wanted to remove the West from Asia, the mainstreamers were content with
joining them as imperialists. China's place in both conceptions was not
radically different in relation to Japan. China was to be "led" by Japan in
Meishuron Pan-Asianism and to be exploited in Japanese imperialism. In
either scenario, the Chinese occupied a subservient position to the Japanese.
Since an imperialist foreign policy had the critical element of not arousing
the suspicion of the Western powers like that of a Pan-Asianist policy, which
called for a unified Asia, imperialism, even in a modified form in the 1920s,
characterized Japan's international affairs until the early 1930s.
-
Japan's Manchuria policy instituted in the Meiji period and partially
formulated and enacted by Uchida- was incompatible with the growing
Chinese nationalism that held as a central goal the return of sovereignty
over all Chinese land. A Japanese Pan-Asianist, Ishiwara Kanji, and his
colleagues in the Guandong Army solved this incompatibility problem by
taking over Manchuria and establishing Manchukuo. In doing so, Ishiwara
essentially changed Japan's policy for Manchuria. Uchida acted opportunis-
tically by backing this new policy, but his support was based on his adher-
ence to his longstanding policy goal; for him, the promise of Manchukuo
lay in a more secure Japanese empire. In contrast, more militaristic ele-
ments in society like Ishiwara believed Manchukuo would be the launch-
ing pad for Japanese domination over Asia in preparation for an eventual
"race war" with the West. Manchukuo thus became the intersection of two
kinds of Japanese imperialism: the reactionary imperialism of the Meiji era
to which Uchida subscribed, and the anti-West, Pan-Asianist imperialism
of the 1930s pioneered by Ishiwara.75 As the decade progressed, the old
imperialist-oriented policies that Uchida pursued were gradually supplanted
by ones inspired by this new, more ideological imperialism, ultimately lead-
ing Japan to extend hostilities in China in the summer of 1937 and estab-
lish the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Uchida's weak devotion to
Pan-Asianism, however, suggests that the link between ideology and poli-
cymaking had not yet been firmly established by the early 1930s. During
the Manchurian Incident, the protection of real imperial interests that were
considered to be in danger was, in Uchida's mind, the policy objective while
abstract Pan-Asianist ideals were simply the policy rationale.

Bradley University

[Link] makes theargument that Manchukuo comes tobe anexpression ofJapanese

Pan-Asianist imperialism, which replaces Japan's earlier"anti-imperialist
imperial-
ism."Uchida's case supports Pan-Asianism and Japan's War,
Hotta's conclusion. Hotta,
pp.112-13.

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