MPAS2001 UNDERSTANDING EAST ASIA II: Imperialism and Civilization

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MPAS2001 UNDERSTANDING EAST ASIA II Imperialism
and Civilization
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Imperialism and Civilization

• Constructs on East Asian Society Imperialism and
  Civilization (1840 1945)
• Occidentalism vs. Orientalism or Civilization
  vs. Barbarism
• On this lecture
• The outline of modern imperialism in East Asia
• Legitimating Discourse Orientalism and
  Civilization
• East Asian uses of civilization

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Modern Imperialism in East Asia

• Three phases
• Western intrusion and opening up East Asian
  countries (1840-1894)
• Mixed Western and Japanese imperialism 1895-1904
• Expansive Japanese imperialism 1905-1945

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Modern Imperialism in East Asia

• The 1st Phase
• The British empire as the vanguard
• Opening of Qing empire
• The Opium Wars 1839-1842, 1858 1860
• Unequal treaties Treaty of Nanjing 1842 and the
  Treaty of Tianjin 1858 (1860)
• Extraterritoriality rights
• Opening trade
• Foreign concessions as the off-shot of development

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Picture 4) The Treaty of Nanjing (in the HK City
Museum)
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Modern Imperialism in East Asia

• Opening of Japan
• The US Perry mission in 1853
• The Treaty of Peace and Amity 1854, The Harris
  Treaty 1858
• Unequal treaty system
• Led to Meiji Restoration 1868
• Japan learned fast how to emulate the West is
  international practice and military technology

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Modern Imperialism in East Asia

• Opening of Korea
• Like Japan, Korea has closed its borders to the
  rest of the world (except China) during the 19th
  century
• Resistance to gun boat diplomacy lasted longer
  that in China or Japan
• Qing China forced Korea to open up and assume
  unequal treaties in 1876
• Attempt to balance power vis-a-vis Japan, failed

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Modern Imperialism in East Asia

• 2nd phase mixed Western and Japanese imperialism
  1895-1904
• Sino-Japanese War 1894-1895
• Japanese de facto annexation of Korea
• The question of the partition of China the
  scramble for further concessions

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Picture 1) A contemporary cartoon on the
partition of China
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Map 1) Foreign concession areas in Eastern China
around 1900 (source Suuri Maailmanhistoria 12,
193)
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Modern Imperialism in East Asia

• 3rd phase Expansive Japanese imperialism
  1905-1945
• During this time the Western powers had reached
  the limit of their expansion and were on defence
• Now Japan had became the active imperialist actor
  in East Asia

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Modern Imperialism in East Asia

• Defeat of Imperial Russia 1904-1905
• Annexation of Korea 1910
• Encroachment of Republican China (Manchuria 1931,
  further expansion)
• War with China 1937 1945
• WW II in the Pasific and Eastern Asia 1941 1945
• The defeat of Japan ended the period of actively
  expansive territorial colonialism in East Asia -gt
  the Cold War had new rules (lecture 3)

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Map 2) Japanese Imperialism in East Asia
1872-1918 (Source Suuri Maailmanhistoria 12)
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Orientalism and Civilization

• The Orient first constructed in the works of
  Western geographers, historians, and linguists in
  the 18th century as a area distinct from Europe
• The Orient included all countries East of the
  Balkans
• Before this, Enlightenment thinkers (such as
  Voltaire, Leibniz, Adam Smith and Benjamin
  Franklin) mostly favourable for the Orient,
  especially China

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Orientalism and Civilization

• In late 18th early 19th century the European
  representations of the region began to change
• Europe changed due to industrial and national
  revolutions
• Imperialist rivalry intensified
• Now Asia / Orient became important as the other
  of the progressive and more advanced West

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Orientalism and Civilization

• The notion that East Asia had a stagnant history
  became popular in early 19th century onwards
• J.G. von Herder (1744-1803) China as a mummy
  wrapped in silk
• Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886) das Volk des
  ewigen Stillstands
• G.W.F Hegel (1770-1831) Chinese (and thus East
  Asian) history lacked change
• James Legge (1815-1897) Confucianism against
  progress

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Orientalism and Civilization

• The Journal of Peking Oriental Society (1866)
  Chinese history is unlikely to ever became part
  of the larger history of humanity.
• The newly acquired qualities of the Western
  societies were seen progressive
• Nation states
• Rationality in administration, sciences and
  commerce
• Industrial production relations
• Democratic / constitutional institutions
• Hygiene, clothing, manners, etc.

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Orientalism and Civilization

• The West was thus regarded as the dynamic,
  developing, forward-looking and thus rightly
  conquering part of the world
• The Orient was now perceived as remaining stuck
  to its traditional ways, that were the past of
  Europe

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Orientalism and Civilization

• Oriental Despotism backward
• Irrational administration, little sciences,
  superstitions
• Low hygiene, bad manners
• Inferior languages and races
• Unchanging societies
• Stagnant histories on over phases of historical
  development

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Orientalism and Civilization

• The view that history progressed in stages
  developed during this time (Hegel, Adam Smith,
  Marx)
• History and societies progressing in stages from
  primitive to modern
• Made the West most advanced part of the world
• The Orient needed the West to develop and
  progress
• European modernity was also the future of the
  Oriental nations
• Spreading Civilization served as the
  justification of colonialism and imperialism

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Orientalism and Civilization

• Prasenjit Duara Nation state and Civilization as
  the two great constructs introduced and
  manipulated by the West in the 19th century
• Civilization can also be seen as a
  counter-principle to nationalism a higher source
  of unity and moral authority
• A way of identifying and ordering values in the
  world.
• However, a nation can hijack Civilization

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Orientalism and Civilization

• The notion of Civilization had its pre-modern
  counterparts in East Asia (lecture 1 Chinese
  wenmin, Japanese ka)
• With imperialism Western definition of what
  Civilization really meant became dominant
• Western social organisation with its
  progressive features
• To be without Civilization was a warrant to be
  civilized i.e. colonized by the West

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Orientalism and Civilization

• Civilization made imperialism and colonialism
  appear both inevitable and justified
• Duara Mission which exemplified the desire not
  (simply) to conquer the Other, but to be desired
  by the Other.
• To be a nation was to be civilized and vice versa
  
• Civilization based upon Christian and
  Enlightenment values became the only criterion
  whereby sovereignty could be claimed in the world

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Orientalism and Civilization

• Could be found in the legal language of various
  unequal treaties of the time
• The treaties referred principally to the ability
  and willingness of subjected states to protect
  life, property, and freedoms (of foreigners) as
  legal rights
• They also presupposed the existence of the
  institutions of the modern European state
• Caused the collapse of Chinese and Japanese
  notions of civilization and them as its centre

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Orientalism and Civilization

• The heyday of Civilization as a Western based
  thing lasted to the I WW
• After the Great War the collapse in the faith of
  European rationalism made it possible for to
  redefine Civilization on more indigenous basis
• At this time the notion of civilisations (or
  cultures) as equal got headway in Europe (e.g.
  Spengler and Kultur, Arnold Toynbee A Study of
  World History)
• gt The shift from a singular notion of
  Civilization to multiple civilizations

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Japan and Civilization

• Japan most influential in this in East Asia
• Due their ascend in relative power, the Japanese
  had most power in defining the use and content of
  Asian civilization in East Asia
• But before she could engage in creating a
  counter-argument to Civilization, Japan had to
  first assume the European ways
• Only so could Japan became to be appreciated and
  seen as a one of the great powers
• In effect, the Japanese claimed inheriting the
  leadership of Asian civilization because of its
  successful mastering of the Western Civilization

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Japan and Civilization

• Japanese Pre-Meiji conception of civilization was
  based on mibunsei (social order)
• Individuals either were or were not part of it,
  not nations
• The Meiji regime could not continue this
  vis-à-vis the West
• The Meiji period represented the height of the
  effort to make Japan a Civilized nation
• Bunmei kaika (Civilization and Enlightenment)
  period c. 1870 - 1900

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Japan and Civilization

• Civilianizing the Japanese was a top-down
  project undertaken sometimes against strong
  opposition
• The modern version of Civilization became equated
  with the standards of industrialised world
• The elites adaptation of Western clothing,
  hairdo, hygiene standards
• Emphasis on learning science and acquiring
  Western technology
• Acceptance of Western social ideas

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Japan and Civilization

• Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835-1901) a leading figure in
  this
• The call for Japan to leave Asia in 1885
• The rejection of China as the centre of
  civilization, Japan joining the Civilized nations
  of the West as equal

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Picture 2) Fukuzawa Yukichi (Source Wikipedia)
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Japan and Civilization

• Meiji restoration was thus a project of bringing
  Civilization to Japan
• Highly successful in many respects
• Between 1894 and 1905 Japan succeeded in
  reversing the unequal treaties and began to gain
  access to "Civilized" society
• Made possible by successful modern wars

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Japan and Civilization

• However, in Japan the notion of an alternate
  civilization was created that centred around the
  concept of Asia
• This development had began before the WW I
• The traditionalist samurai rebellions one
  expression, but did not have a well defined
  agenda
• Among the sharpest critics of Civilization was
  Okakura Tenshin (1863 1913)

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Japan and Civilization

• A cosmopolitan artist and a writer who wrote in
  English
• The influential book The Ideals of the East
  (1904), declared that Asia is one
• One" in humiliation, of falling behind in
  achieving modernization, and thus being colonized
  by the West
• An early expression of Pan-Asianism
• Believed that Asian countries all differed from
  Western Civilization in their promotion of peace
  and beauty

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Japan and Civilization

• Okakura did advocate that Japan become the leader
  of an Asian federation because it could harmonize
  the best of Asian civilization with that of
  Civilization
• Japan bringing modern material progress to Asia
  while introducing spirituality to Modernity

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Japan and Civilization

• The Pan-Asianist notion that Asians were closely
  related actually invented at this time
• Produced during the early 1900s depicted Japan
  as the leader in Asian struggle against West
• Developed and spread by the students from other
  Asian countries who came to Japan to study its
  success

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Japan and Civilization

• For Japan this was a compelling construct because
  it made the familial relationship between Asian
  peoples appear natural
• Did compel an entire nation, under the right
  circumstances, to pursue its destiny in Asia
• A more aggressive reading of this ideology
  appeared in during and after the Russo-Japanese
  War
• Based upon the notion of a confrontation of
  Eastern versus Western civilizations

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Japan and Civilization

• However, such view become commonplace in the
  aftermath of the Russo-Japanese War
• Prime Minister and field marshal Yamagata Aritomo
  in 1914 Asia for the Asians
• Fuelled by the American racial exclusions of
  Chinese and Japanese
• Between the Wars Pan-Asianism contributed to
  envisioning the Pacific as the theatre of an
  decisive East-West showdown

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Japan and Civilization

• One adherent of the aggressive reading was
  Ishiwara Kanji, an officer behind Mukden Incident
  1931 that led to the occupation of Manchuria by
  Japan
• Ishiwara thought that the period of world
  conflict was fast approaching, and Japan would
  draw upon the strength and resources of China and
  lead the yellow races to defeat the white race

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Japan and Civilization

• The ultimate victory over America would liberate
  Asia from the enslavement of Western colonialism
• With the Mukden Incident and leaving the League
  of Nations in 1933 Asia became the active slogan
  in Japanese politics
• Nationalism and Pan-Asianism used together in
  building Japanese militarism

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Japan and Civilization

• Ishiwara was a true believer in Pan-Asianism,
  however, most Japanese were content to just to
  colonise Asia, not liberate it
• The WW II was known the Japanese as Greater East
  Asia War
• The Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere a
  colonial device based on this ideology

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China and Civilization

• In China the great reformer and historian Liang
  Qichao was perhaps the most influential advocate
  of the necessity for China to become Civilized
• After him the 1919 generation continued this
• However, also in China the discourse of Eastern
  civilization flourished from 1911 until 1945

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China and Civilization

• The popular Chinese journal Dongfang zazhi
  (Eastern Miscellany)
• The notion of the superiority of the still or
  quiet civilization of the East which was obliged
  to rescue the world from the restless
  civilization of the West
• On its pages thinkers and activists such as Li
  Dazhao, Liang Qichao, Liang Shuming, Hu Shi, Feng
  Youlan, Chen Duxiu, Zhang Dongsun debated the
  relation of Western and Chinese civilizations

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China and Civilization

• Sun Yat-sen a Pan-Asianist
• Put forward the notion of wangdao, or the way of
  the ethical monarchs and peaceful rulership,
• Opposed to the unethical and violent way (badao)
  of the hegemon (the way of the West)
• Through this Sun actually appealed to the
  Japanese to renounce the Western methods of badao

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China and Civilization

• The Kuomintang theorist Dai Jitao picked up by
  Suns Pan-Asianism and kept it alive in the
  1930s in a journal entitled Xin Yaxiya (New
  Asia)
• Thus, in the 30s the idea of Pan-Asian
  civilization was used against the West by the
  Japanese and Chinese, but also against each other

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Conclusion

• After the WW II the Pan-Asian idea had became so
  connected to the Japanese occupation that the
  notion of an Asian civilization became passé in
  East Asia and its connotations negative
• Recently the Asian values debate has resurrected
  it somewhat (lecture 5)
• During decolonialization the concept of
  civilization became ethnographic meaning that
  was taken to social science without its original
  hierarchical meaning

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Exercise 2

• Based on the discussion on Civilization and
  Orientalism, analyse the poem by Rudyard Kipling
  The White Man's Burden below. How are the natives
  and white man depicted in it? How is colonialism
  justified in this poem?

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Exercise 2

• The White Man's Burden (1899)
• Take up the White Man's burden--Send forth the
  best ye breed--Go bind your sons to exileTo
  serve your captives' needTo wait in heavy
  harness,On fluttered folk and wild--Your
  new-caught, sullen peoples,Half-devil and
  half-child.Take up the White Man's burden--In
  patience to abide,To veil the threat of
  terrorAnd check the show of prideBy open
  speech and simple,An hundred times made plainTo
  seek another's profit,And work another's gain.

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Exercise 2

• Take up the White Man's burden--The savage wars
  of peace--Fill full the mouth of FamineAnd bid
  the sickness ceaseAnd when your goal is
  nearestThe end for others sought,Watch sloth
  and heathen FollyBring all your hopes to
  nought.Take up the White Man's burden--No
  tawdry rule of kings,But toil of serf and
  sweeper--The tale of common things.The ports ye
  shall not enter,The roads ye shall not tread,Go
  make them with your living,And mark them with
  your dead.

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Exercise 2

• Take up the White Man's burden--And reap his old
  rewardThe blame of those ye better,The hate of
  those ye guard--The cry of hosts ye humour(Ah,
  slowly!) toward the light--"Why brought he us
  from bondage,Our loved Egyptian night?"Take up
  the White Man's burden--Ye dare not stoop to
  less--Nor call too loud on FreedomTo cloke your
  wearinessBy all ye cry or whisper,By all ye
  leave or do,The silent, sullen peoplesShall
  weigh your gods and you.

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Exercise 2

• Take up the White Man's burden--Have done with
  childish days--The lightly proffered laurel,The
  easy, ungrudged praise.Comes now, to search your
  manhoodThrough all the thankless yearsCold,
  edged with dear-bought wisdom,The judgment of
  your peers!