■ What went wrong in Japan's 150 years
Looking at the past 150 years of modern history, Japan can be said to have been adrift. There has been much discussion about Japan's modern history in the postwar forum, in history, and in political science . However, surprisingly few comments have touched on the core of the issue. Regarding the war against the United States, which ultimately led to its downfall, questions such as "Why couldn't the war be stopped?", "Why did the military run wild?", and "Why did Japan end up losing the war?" have always been asked by the "nation," and rarely by the "people."
However, the essence of modern history lies in "popular sovereignty." One strong thread runs through modern Japanese history: the structural flaw that prevented the people from becoming political actors. As long as we overlook this point, Japan's 150 years will never be understood.
When I write this, I hear the counterargument that "Even today, there are a few genuine republics in which the people are truly the main actors in politics." However, I will ignore this. This is because "popular sovereignty, in which the people are the main actors in politics," is the ethos of modernity. Therefore, to naively, or with some kind of intentional falsification, describe the period from the Meiji era onwards as the era of modernization would be a revision of history.
The reality of the Meiji Restoration was not the creation of a Western-style civil society. It was the construction of a military state. The people were not welcomed as political actors, but were incorporated as "subjects" who were obligated to conscription, pay taxes, and be loyal.
Moreover, these triple obligations were heavier than in the Edo period. During the Edo period, farmers suffered from tax payments, but they were not sent to the battlefield. However, the Meiji state, after abolishing the samurai class, began to equip farmers, townspeople, and artisans with guns and send them to the battlefield as soldiers in the "Emperor's army." This does not mean that samurai no longer existed; rather, the role of the samurai was expanded to include "the entire nation."
Equality of the four classes was a device to homogenize the people for the state and make them easier to mobilize, and was never an idea to liberate the people as political subjects. Japan's 150 years have been a period in which a state without the people has continued to exist, albeit in different forms. Unless we can see through this structure, Japan will continue to drift.
■Shoin Visits Shozan—The Birth of Modern Japan's "Original Sin"
During the Kaei era, when the shock of the arrival of the Black Ships shook the air of Edo, Sakuma Shozan repeatedly told his students at his private school in Edo, "Conquer the barbarians with the barbarians' methods." Shozan coldly recognized the overwhelming superiority of Western science, technology, and military power. At the same time, however, he had absolutely no intention of submitting to the West.
Let's imagine the day when Shozan summoned Yoshida Shoin, a young genius from Choshu, to Edo. Shoin knocked on Shozan's door without even obtaining permission from his domain. Sakuma Shozan is said to have admonished Shoin, who was eager to expel the barbarians, saying:
"We must open the country. But open it for the sake of expelling the barbarians."
Shoin took these words to heart and later preached the idea of "opening the country, building up strength, and setting out to expel the barbarians" to young people at the core of the Meiji state, including Yamagata Aritomo, Ito Hirobumi, and Shinagawa Yajiro. What was preached at the Shoka Sonjuku was not the ideals of a Western-style civil society, but rather opening the country to expel the barbarians, enriching the country and strengthening its military, and building a military state. Herein lies the "original sin" of modern Japan.
■ "Expelling the barbarians means building a nation that cannot be despised by foreign countries."
Before the Battle of Toba-Fushimi began, Saigo Takamori's subordinates, Arima Tōta and Nakamura Hanjirō, visited Iwakura Tomomi, who told them, "Once this battle is over, we must expel the barbarians." The two conveyed Iwakura's determination to Saigo, who advocated opening the country, and asked him, "Why open the country now, when you've always talked about expelling the barbarians?" Saigo responded with the following advice:
"Sonno Joi was a means and an excuse to overthrow the shogunate. Joi, Joi, was what inspired the people to overthrow the shogunate."
In 1854, the year after Perry's arrival, the young Saigo Takamori, then 23 years old, visited Fujita Toko, a leading figure in Mitogaku.
Toko's words had a profound impact on Saigo's actions for years to come. Toko's words on this occasion can be summarized as follows: "Opening the country is inevitable. A new nation centered on the Emperor should lead this. After building up national strength, we should face the great powers with dignity." "Joi does not mean drawing the sword, but rather enriching the country, easing internal unrest, and building a system that cannot be underestimated by external threats."
Toko did not believe that "Joi" meant expelling foreigners by force. Rather, he believed that "Joi" meant "building national strength and creating a nation that could not be underestimated by foreign powers." This was ideologically continuous with Shozan and Shoin's "opening the country to expel the barbarians," and gave rise to Saigo's cold-hearted political view that "Sonno Joi was just an excuse to overthrow the shogunate."
Japan did not simply learn from the West. It learned in order to surpass and eventually attack the West. This ideology was premised on the rejection of Western-style civil society, the refusal of popular political participation, and the establishment of a militarized state.
Thus, modern Japan began not with the goal of building a nation for the people, but with the goal of building a military state that could stand shoulder to shoulder with the great powers.
■ A country where the "people" were never born - the idea of civil rights was crushed before it could even develop
In Europe and the United States, after civil revolutions, "governments of the people, by the people, for the people" were established.
However, in Japan, the seeds of the people becoming political actors were nipped in the bud before they could even grow. The Chichibu Konminto incident is a symbol of this. Despite the impoverished farmers rising up "to survive," the government suppressed them as a "rebel army."
As the Freedom and People's Rights Movement spread throughout the country, the government launched a thorough crackdown, using the escalating incident as an excuse, fearing that the people would become the main players in politics.
In the Takebashi Incident of 1878, early in the Meiji era, conscripted Imperial Guard soldiers rose up in protest against unfair treatment. However, the government punished them mercilessly and reorganized the military as the "Emperor's Army." This established a system in which the people were treated not as subjects of the state, but as a "resource" to be mobilized for the state.
And here the false image of equality of the four classes is superimposed. Equality of the four classes was merely an equality meant to "enlist equally in the military, pay equally in taxes, and enforce equal loyalty." Heavier chains were placed on the people than in the Edo period.
In Europe and the United States, the bourgeoisie and middle class overthrew monarchies, bound royal power through constitutions, and became the main players in politics through parliaments.
However, in Japan, the state bound the people before they could become political subjects. As a result, there were no "people" in Japan. There were only "subjects."
■ Chichibu Kominto Uprising—The place where the flames of the people's revolution were lit
From spring to autumn, I often travel to Okuchichibu. From the window of the Chichibu Railway, the mountains loom, the air is clear, and it's filled with nostalgic scents.
As you approach Minano-machi, you'll see a monument to the Chichibu Kominto Uprising Site standing quietly on the side of the road. No matter how many times I pass by, it stirs a shiver in my heart. This is because this is the first place in Japan where the people rose up against the state.
On October 31, 1884 (Meiji 17), farmers in Chichibu County rose up in armed revolt, demanding the postponement of debt payments and the reduction or exemption of miscellaneous taxes.
Influenced by the Freedom and People's Rights Movement, they called themselves the "Konminto" (People's Party), and on November 1st of the following year, they took control of Chichibu County, burned loan shark documents and government documents, and established a kind of "commune" in Omiya-go (present-day Chichibu City center).
This uprising was of a different nature to the peasant uprisings of the Edo period. The farmers of Chichibu "tried to change the state in order to survive." However, the Meiji government labeled them a "rebel army." The police and military police struggled, and eventually the Tokyo Garrison's soldiers were sent in, and on November 4th, the uprising was effectively crushed. After the incident, approximately 14,000 people were punished, and seven people, including Tashiro Eisuke, were executed.
Every time I stand in front of the Minanomachi monument, deep in the silence, I can hear the "sound of the people being trampled on by the state." This
was not limited to Chichibu. In Fukushima, Kabasan, Osaka—popular anger erupted all over Japan in the final stages of the Freedom and People's Rights Movement. Yet the government mercilessly suppressed them. This completed a structure in which the people were mobilized
not as subjects of the state, but as a "resource" for the state .
■The Imperial Constitution was a "constitution to bind the people"
The Constitution of the Empire of Japan, which was finally enacted by the Meiji state, is often called "the starting point of the modern constitutional state." However, it can be concluded that this is merely a name. While the constitutions of Britain and France were "chains to bind power," the Imperial Constitution of Japan was designed as chains to bind the people.
The independence of supreme command separated the military from the Diet and the Cabinet, and the supreme power of the Emperor concentrated all state power in the hands of the Emperor. The Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors instilled absolute obedience in military personnel, and the Imperial Rescript on Education instilled the values of loyalty, filial piety, allegiance, and sacrifice in children across the nation.
This constitution was a system that did not treat the people as political subjects, but rather as a ``resource'' for the state.
The triple obligations of conscription, tax payment, and loyalty were now fully institutionalized. The Imperial Diet existed, but it was not a place to reflect the will of the people. The Diet was merely a place to "explain" the will of the nation, and the voice of the people did not move the nation forward. In this way, the Meiji regime completed a dual structure: a constitutional state on the surface, but a military state in reality.
It was this dual structure that led to the later Sino-Japanese War and the war against the United States, rendered the democratization that followed Japan's defeat a mere formality, and led to the rigidity of politics today.
■The Meiji State's "System of Irresponsibility"
The postwar thinker Maruyama Masao called this structure created by the Meiji state a "system of irresponsibility." While the emperor was placed at the center of the state, that center bore no political responsibility, and the military, bureaucrats, political parties, and media exercised power in the name of "for the emperor."
However, no one takes ultimate responsibility. Responsibility is passed around, and there is no one to stop the state from running wild. Maruyama sees here the true essence of Japanese ultranationalism. It is the result of the state organizing the people as "objects of mobilization" before the people have had time to develop into political actors.
The people were not the masters of the state but a resource for it, and this structure made the rampage before the war possible and continued in a different form after the war.
The war with America marked the completion and collapse of the Meiji system
December 8, 1941. The moment the Japanese Navy launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the idea of "conquering the barbarians" that Sakuma Shozan spoke of to Shoin exploded into the reality of "expelling the barbarians" after about 100 years.
The autocratic government based on the Satsuma-Choshu clans that had overthrown the shogunate was destined to use "the art of the barbarians = modern science" to "expel the barbarians = overthrow the Americans and British." The contradictions contained within this Meiji system finally became uncontrollable and erupted.
It was not a battle for victory. The military cried out "protecting the national polity," politicians chanted "100 million deaths," and the media repeatedly called the "devilish Americans and British." Behind all this lay the fragility of a nation in which the people are not the main actors in politics.
The people had no power to stop the war. The Diet had no control over the military. The Emperor, who held supreme power , ultimately approved of the military's wishes , whether he was positive or negative . The people were caught up in a whirlpool of patriotism and self-sacrifice.
On August 15, 1945, the Imperial Rescript announcing Japan's defeat in the war was read out. At that moment, the Japanese people keenly felt the collapse of the Meiji system. However, this was not the end, but the beginning of a new "nation without the people."
■ The postwar period was not the "era of the people."
After the war, Japan appeared to have democratized. The constitution was revised, the electoral system was improved, and freedom of speech was guaranteed. But what was the reality?
On September 30, 1945, Emperor Showa was photographed visiting General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers. Kiyoshi Watanabe, the only survivor of the battleship Musashi, which was sunk in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines, saw the photo in the newspaper the next day and felt that "God had been shattered."
"We must cling tenaciously to our war experiences... In any case, if we forget the past and simply follow the orders of leaders blinded by self-interest, we will soon find ourselves in a terrible situation with the United States. This is the character of a country that dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and then brazenly claims that the attacks were strategically necessary. There is no telling when or how we will be treated again" (173).
The veteran's premonitions about the inhumanity and cruelty of the imperial state and its military proved correct, but the warnings he sounded from his experiences were not heeded.
After the war, Japan returned to being a nation whose direction was once again determined by external strategies, before the people became political actors.
The emperor system was preserved, the bureaucracy remained as it was before the war, and the Liberal Democratic Party established sole party dominance under the 1955 system.
Above all, the Japan-US security arrangements have determined the framework for Japan's security and diplomacy.
The postwar period was supported by the voices of war veterans who said, "We've had enough of war," but as that generation disappeared, the postwar period quietly came to an end. Postwar democracy faced its limits as a system before the people could become political actors.
After the end of the Cold War, Japan was remade into a “modern” country.
In the 1990s, with the end of the Cold War, Japan abandoned its "postwar" status and underwent a US-led restructuring. The China threat theory was formulated, the Japan-US security arrangements were redefined, the Self-Defense Forces were restructured as a complementary force to the US military, and nationalism was on the rise again.
The China threat theory is not a "natural occurrence," but a narrative created within the dynamics of international politics. The nationalization of the Senkaku Islands, the South China Sea issue, and the Taiwan emergency—all of these have functioned as devices to once again position Japan as a "frontline nation." The classic thesis of "divide and rule" has become a hegemonic strategy for the United States to "pit Japan against China and rule East Asia."
Meanwhile, the world was changing dramatically. The Global South was on the rise, the BRICS was expanding, and Pax Americana was beginning to waver. But Japan had lost the ability to interpret these changes. Why? Because a nation where the people are not the political actors lacks the ability to respond to external changes.
■ And Japan will sink into a long-term decline
The 30 years since the collapse of the bubble economy have not simply been one of economic stagnation. They have been 30 years in which a nation without its people has reached its limits. A declining birthrate, widening inequality, stagnant wages, a decline in Japan's international standing, and political rigidity are all inevitable consequences of a nation in which the people are not the main actors in politics.
Unable to overcome the structural flaws that had existed since the Meiji era, Japan sank into a long period of decline.
■ Conclusion—What this series aims to achieve
The series "Drifting Japan" is
a history of ideas that reinterprets the 150 years from the Meiji Restoration to the present from the perspective of a "nation without people" that repeats a pattern of "rock bottom, rise and success, and collapse."
Over the long term, the book will unravel the opening of the country to expel foreigners, the structure of the Meiji system, the inevitability of the war with the United States, the postwar fiction, the reorganization after the restructuring, and the structure of long-term decline, in order to get to the root of why Japan continues to drift.
Japan's 150 years have been one in which the people have not been able to take the lead in politics.
Unless we can see through this structure, Japan will continue to drift.