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Abstract
One notable characteristic of the Iwakura Mission was, in Tanaka Akira’s words, its historical and cultural “continuity in discontinuity.” While its leaders were mostly from the aristocracy and the powerful Satsuma and Chōshū domains with little experience in the West, the secretaries who assisted them were former Tokugawa retainers that were experts in foreign affairs. The ryūgakusei, or overseas students, who were in the United States or Europe prior to the mission’s arrival and joined them on site, were another group that exemplified the “continuity.” Reform-minded daimyo and the progressive members of the Tokugawa regime had dispatched many to the West during the Tokugawa period with the very purpose to become useful servants to assist Japan’s quick and successful modernization. Once recruited to the mission, these ryūgakusei served as guides, interpreters, and investigators, collecting and compiling information on various institutions and policies in the respective countries. The knowledge, experience, and linguistic skills they had acquired and the network they created while abroad were vital in facilitating the Iwakura Mission and the new Meiji government’s subsequent effort of modernization.
Abstract
This article briefly examines the life of Mori Arinori, who in 1871 became Japan’s first resident diplomat in Washington, D.C., with the primary assignment of making preparations for the upcoming Iwakura Mission. Mori’s pedigree of being from a samurai family from Satsuma domain and his unusual background of having already lived in Britain and the United States led senior officials of the new Meiji Imperial government to name Mori to the all-important position of being Japan’s top representative to the United States despite his youth – he was only 23 years old at the time of his appointment. Notwithstanding his occasional impatience with Japanese traditions and the more reserved senior officials of the Iwakura Embassy, Mori’s connections in Washington D.C., his understanding of American society, and his skill at the English language significantly contributed to the institutional, cultural, and economic information that members of the Japanese delegation gathered. Mori’s post-Washington career as an intellectual, diplomat, and top education official in Japan in the late 1870s and 1880s also contributed to his country’s progression from the collapse of the Tokugawa Shogunate to the cusp of Japan’s international recognition as a major power in a world being transformed by industrialization and imperialism.
Abstract
In U.S. press reports, the visit of Meiji Japan’s Iwakura Mission in 1872 presented both an opportunity for Americans to facilitate progress in Japan and evidence of social reform already underway there. As an opportunity, the mission served as a potential medium for American efforts to improve the Meiji government’s treatment of Japanese Christians. Many American political and religious leaders hoped to convince the mission ambassadors that freedom of religion was an essential component of civilization and a prerequisite for engaging with the treaty powers on equal terms. As evidence of social reform, the five Japanese girls who came with the mission to study in the United States embodied Japan’s new commitment to expanding educational opportunities for women. Focusing on the themes of religion and gender in U.S. newspaper coverage, this article shows how Americans projected onto the Iwakura Mission their own images of the United States as an inspiration and model for reform in Japan. Treating the mission as both an opportunity and evidence, the U.S. press depicted it in a self-congratulatory fashion to embellish Americans’ national identity as a people committed to progress.
Abstract
The horrific human experimentation Ishii Shirō and his colleagues conducted at Unit 731 is a dark chapter in China’s War of Resistance against Japan. Less well known, however, is the U.S. role in covering up this atrocity with a postwar decision to grant immunity to the perpetrators in exchange for the research data they possessed. Moreover, there exist strong allegations to this day in China that the United States subsequently conducted bacteriological warfare against Chinese and North Korean civilians in the Korean War. This article examines how memories of this “victor’s justice” remain a strong component of Chinese patriotic education today. It argues that China’s “century of humiliation,” which focuses on Chinese victimization at the hands of foreign imperialists, did not end in 1949 with the formation of the People’s Republic of China, but rather the Chinese Communist Party employs it today to portray Chinese victimization at the hands of U.S. imperialism through at least the end of the Korean War in July 1953. Furthermore, this article suggests that understanding Chinese public memory of Unit 731 is extremely relevant to understanding contemporary Sino-American relations because these memories help shape public perception of the United States for ordinary Chinese.
Abstract
During the 1990s, American neoconservatives grew concerned over a burgeoning People’s Republic of China (prc) threatening the newly democratic government of Taiwan. They wanted the United States to bolster Taiwan’s standing in the international community, commit to defend the island, end strategic ambiguity, and prevent further entrenchment of the prc into international organizations. Some went as far as advocating for diplomatic recognition of Taiwan and Taiwanese independence. Neoconservatives frequently employed Wilsonian rhetoric to shore up support for Taiwan. Despite this liberal veneer, their foreign policy positions and thinking built on the approach of such groups as the China Lobby and New Right. This article’s analysis of neoconservative viewpoints on U.S. policy toward Taiwan shows how the neoconservatives in the United States evolved from earlier conservative positions, rather than injecting liberalism into gop foreign policy positions on Taiwan and the prc.