The Three Main Types Of Pan-Asianism Described By Eri Hotta

In the book “Pan-Asianism and Japan’s War 1931-1945”, Eri Hotta focuses on three main schools of Pan-Asianism. The "Teaist" Pan-Asian school of Okakura Tenshin, the Sinic thought of Konoe Atsumaro and Inukai Tsuyoshi and, finally, the Meishuron version of Pan-Asianism of Ishiwara Kanji and many others.

Teaist Pan-Asianism had a vision for geographical and conceptual boundaries of Asia to be a single group. It emphasized Asian commonalities in the vast philosophical dimension of Asian civilization, encompassing even the two great civilizations of China and India, whose Asiatic features were for instance embodied in the sophisticated art of appreciating and drinking tea.

Second, there was a type of Pan-Asianism that sought to create an alliance among Asian nations, frequently, but not exclusively, within the narrower geographical and cultural confines of East Asian nations. The idea that those who used the same writing system should be considered the same race proved compelling enough for the educated strata of Japan, and even to some in China.

Finally, the third type of Pan-Asianism represented a strand that would become enmeshed with Japan’s expansionist and ultranationalist programs, declaring Japan to be Asia’s preordained alliance leader in a crusade to save the rest of Asia from Western imperialism, again with varying geographical boundaries. A certain type of life philosophy celebrating self-sacrifice, moral rectitude, dedication to goals, and purity of motives were important features of Meishuron Pan-Asianists. People increasingly came to believe that the Japanese Empire had an active role to play in transforming China and other Asian nations in the image of Japans. For Asia to be stronger, it must become more like Japan, which had managed to modernize without sacrificing the superior spirit of ancient Japanese values embodied by its imperial institution.

While Meishuron argument constituted a critical component of Japan’s wartime Pan-Asianism, it is important, however, to recognize that the idea of Japan holding a unique position in Asia was not only promoted by this category of Pan-Asianists alone. Even Prince Konoe Atsumaro, who much preferred a union of China and Japan based on a common Sinic culture, acknowledged that Japan was unique among the yellow peoples of Asia in having escaped Western domination. All three types of Pan-Asianism implicitly shared the assumption of Japanese superiority in all spiritual, cultural, and material spheres. Pan-Asianists of different shades and colors were of one mind on the question of why they were Pan-Asianists, which was that “Asia was one” and “Asia was weak” and utterly and unconditionally at that. As a result, they concurred that something had to be done about it and that it ultimately had to be done by Japan, who was in a relatively better-off position than the rest.