Towards the Construction of a New Regionalism? The End of East Asian Colonialism: Japanese Responses and Reactions to the Games of Asia

Abstract

As well as establishing a trade community within East Asia such as the East Asian Community (EAC), is it possible to unite East Asia through sport? In particular, can Japan be reintegrated into the region via sport? Japan has been greatly influenced by the cultures of East Asia not least through Chinese literature, religious values and extensive trade over centuries even in the long period of national isolation which continued until the Meiji Revolution in 1867. Cultural ethics and long established religious values inherited from Asia, to an extent, were replaced by Western ethics and values in the late nineteenth century. This shift was reflected idiomatically. ‘WAKON-KANSAI’ (a fusion of Japanese spirit and Chinese knowledge) became ‘WAKON-YOSAI’ (a fusion of Japanese spirit and western knowledge). In particular, the assimilation of British ethics embedded in upper middle and upper-class education and the associated assimilation of the ideology of Athleticism was adopted in order to build a strong modern nation-state never to be conquered by the Western countries and, in addition, to ensure Japanese hegemony in Asia. In terms of sport, this latter ambition was at its peak in the Far Eastern Championship Games in the 1930s. Japan’s defeat in 1945 resulted in ‘cultural indifferentism’ towards Asia. The Tokyo Olympiad 1964, however, played a significant role in national recovery from devastated national pride. Nonetheless defeat still reflected a new inwardness. Even China’s astounding achievements in the 2010 Asian Games did not cause sensational surprise, and certainly not delight, in the Japanese media. Japan turned its face away. This essay argues that much Asian culture has been embedded in Japanese culture; much replaced by Western culture. If economics can create a new East Asia, can sport too create a new East Asia? In particular, can Japan become part of a new East Asian regionalism in which its regionally greatly resented past imperial history is relegated to history and Japan becomes part of a regionally integrated new history with sport the catalyst of assimilation? Will Tokyo 2020 be a catalytic agent of a new regional political transformation? The odds are against it but can the odds be shortened?

Appendix: More Literature on Japanese Imperial Atrocities

Part One: Japanese Imperial Atrocities in China

‘Japan’s Refusal to Acknowledge Its War Guilt and Atrocities’ and ‘Japan’s Refusal to Acknowledge Its War Guilt and Atrocities – Part 2’. The Pacific War (Website), available at: http://www.pacificwar.org.au/JapWarCrimes/Denying_truth.html, and http://www.pacificwar.org.au/JapWarCrimes/Denying_truth2.html, accessed, 21 January 2016.

Lipman, Ryan. ‘Revealed: The Chinese Documents “Proving” that Japan’s Occupying Army Forced Asian women to work as sex slaves’. Daily Mail, 29 April 2014, available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2615533/China-claims-Japanese-army-forced-women-work-sex-slaves.html, accessed, 21 January 2016.

Yang, Daqing, ‘Review Essay - Convergence or Divergence? Recent Historical Writings on the Rape of Nanjing’, The American Historical Review 104, no. 3 (June 1999), 842–865.

‘日军侵华暴行——南京大屠杀 Nanjing Massacre: 300,000 Chinese People Killed, 20,000 Women Raped …’ available at: http://www.cnd.org/njmassacre/, accessed, 21 January 2016.

Part Two: Japanese Imperial Atrocities in Korea

D-Bo, ‘Japan Looking For International Support as They Launch Revisionist Campaign for Wartime Atrocities – Korea and China Protest’, Koogle.tv, 25 June 2014, available at: http://koogle.tv/media/news/japan-looking-for-international-support-as-they-launch-revisionist-campaign-for-wartime-atrocities-korea-and-china-protest/, accessed, 21 January 2016.

Kim, Hyung Kook. ‘Review - Reviewed Work: The Politics of Anti-Japanese Sentiments in Korea: Japanese-South Korean Relations under American Occupation, 1945-1952. by Sung-Hwa Cheong’. The Journal of Asian Studies 52, no. 1 (February 1993): 179–181.

Wikipedia. ‘Anti-Japanese Sentiment in Korea’, available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Japanese_sentiment_in_Korea, accessed, 20 January 2016.

Wikipedia. ‘Japanese War Crimes’, available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes, accessed 21 January 2016.