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The Importation of Geopolitics into Japan

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Japanese Geopolitics and the Western Imagination

Part of the book series: Critical Security Studies in the Global South ((CSSGS))

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Abstract

Japan’s importation of geopolitics can be divided into two periods: 1925 to the mid-1930s and the mid-1930s to 1945. This chapter examines the former period, when geopolitics was imported but not widely accepted. The first application of German geopolitics refuted the white supremacism in the Pacific region. Although this first appreciation attracted but a few followers, it was the interpretation in this period that set the orientation of Japanese geopolitics, in which geographical determinism was transformed into ecological fatalism. With this conception, Japanese geopoliticians argued that there had been a different world order from Europe in the Pacific region. In this chapter, it is also demonstrated that even in European geopolitics, there had been continuous mutations of the theory of the state as a living organism.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This term was translated in a several different ways in Japanese.

  2. 2.

    Rōyama will be discussed in the next chapter.

  3. 3.

    For this type of analysis of Japanese geopolitics, see Takagi (2009).

  4. 4.

    Some of these are different titles of the same book.

  5. 5.

    According to Spang (2001), Haushofer published some articles in Japanese newspapers from the 1920s.

  6. 6.

    Two geographers had already introduced Wittfogel’s criticism before geopolitics became a fascination (Kawanishi 1933; Satō 1939: cf. Research Division, South Manchuria Railway Company 1942).

  7. 7.

    It has been argued that the enigmatic relation between German geopolitics (particularly Haushofer) and Nazism was largely a myth (see Heske 1987; Kost 1989; Ó Tuathail 1996: 111–129; Murphy 1997).

  8. 8.

    This term is from German geopolitics, particularly Haushofer. See the next section and Spang (2013).

  9. 9.

    Zhongyong, a concept originated from China. For a detailed discussion on this concept, see Qin (2016).

  10. 10.

    The International Geopolitical Institute Japan, whose members include politicians and retired self-defense officials, was established in 2011. It is interesting to note that it is the Anglo-American geopoliticians, such as Mackinder, Mahan, and Spykman, not German ones, who are gaining popularity in contemporary Japan, with a few translations of their works (e.g. Mackinder 2008; Spykman 2017; Mahan 2010) being continuously republished.

  11. 11.

    Dower (1986: l.3503–3512) points out that American leaders during WWII believed that the Japanese and the Germans were trying to mobilize black Americans to demand for racial equality. Indeed, in the 1930s, the Japanese did attempt to influence the opinions of the black population in the United States.

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  1. Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Atsuko Watanabe

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Watanabe, A. (2019). The Importation of Geopolitics into Japan. In: Japanese Geopolitics and the Western Imagination. Critical Security Studies in the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04399-5_6

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