The Ghost of Ultra-Nationalism Haunts Japan

Japanese people are fighting over their history. The issue at hand is their interpretation of the origins of the Pacific War. A group of scholars, schoolteachers, and journalists, led by University of Tokyo professor Nobukatsu Fujioka, has recently begun to assault the prevailing orthodox Japanese interpretation of the war. This orthodox view, which sees the war as a fundamental fault of Japanese society, is opposed by a revisionist group, which claims that the Japanese entrance into the war was just and legitimate. Interestingly, the revisionists call their view liberal and the orthodox view masochistic. The revisionist opinion has roused a controversial debate in Japan, for some see this revisionism as a revival of the devastating pre-war ultra-nationalism and fear that a Japanese foreign policy in transition may allow the country to be pulled once again in this undesirable direction. The revisionists also allege that the orthodox view is a product of U.S. occupation policy—a stance that could have a significant impact on U.S.-Japanese relations and Japanese foreign policy in general.

Yoshinori Kobayashi, author of Analects of War, is one of the main advocates of the revisionist movement. Analects of War is a comic book, for Japan has a highly developed “comics culture.” Manga, or Japanese comic books, are an important medium for common Japanese people: many of these books target adults and sometimes deal with political and economic issues. Analects of War is one such example. For this reason, it has brought the revisionist interpretation of history high visibility. In fact, the aim of this book has been to diffuse the revisionist view—particularly among Japan’s younger generation, which is unlikely to read academic books on the war. As one of the best selling books in Japan in 1998, it seems to have achieved its objective. ² Although revisionists remain in the minority, their view is clearly gaining momentum.

The roots of the revisionist debate lie in a diplomatic event in 1982 during which South Korea and China criticized Japanese textbooks for depicting inaccurately the pre-war Japanese invasions into these countries. ³ Consequently, some Japanese began to discuss how textbooks should present the Pacific War and how the Japanese should interpret it—an important question often forgotten in Japan. In the past five years, the issue has been given a renewed boost—a direct result of campaigns organized by the revisionists, who are fed by the dire straits of the Japanese economy and growing uncertainty of the Japanese security environment (both discussed below)—and has come to command growing public attention. Several study groups are forming to provide historians and schoolteachers with opportunities to discuss the current state of history education, and leaders of these groups are holding symposia open to the general public. ⁴ Had revisionists conducted these sessions before Japan’s economic and security environment became questionable, they would not have attracted such public attention.

The orthodox interpretation of the Pacific War, dominant throughout the postwar period, is characterized by a rejection of Japanese foreign policy from 1930 to 1945. According to this position, policymaking in those years failed to reflect the peaceful will of the Japanese people with terrible consequences for domestic and foreign policy. Because the Japanese imperial army controlled the government in collaboration with “big business,” Japan went to war to satisfy the military’s belligerence and the economic interests of big business. Thus, the imperial army—and ultimately the Japanese pre-war authoritarian political system that allowed it to capture the government—was responsible for the expansionist policies and warmongering that culminated in World War II. Moreover, the orthodox view holds that the role of the United States, which won the war and came to occupy Japan, was that of a benevolent liberator and reformer of Japanese society.

Challenging this orthodox view, Kobayashi argues that Japan waged war for legitimate reasons. He claims that the fundamental purposes of the war were justifiable, even though there may have been many concrete...