Japanese Studies, Vol. 25, No.

3, December 2005

Bridging the Gaps: New Views of Japanese Colonialism, 1931 1945

SANDRA WILSON, Murdoch University

Recent writing in English shows a range of new approaches to and interpretations of Japanese colonialism between 1931 and 1945. Earlier bodies of work tended to focus on the aims, strategies and structures of Japanese rule throughout the empire, especially the formal empire. Newer studies have not abandoned these concerns, especially in relation to geographical areas, notably Manchuria, that have only just begun to emerge or re-emerge in English-language writing on Japanese colonial practice. At the same time, however, there is now much greater recognition among historians of Japan that the colonial relationship is shaped by the colonised as well as the colonisers; that life in the metropolis itself is affected deeply by its colonies; and that mainstream studies of modern Japanese history should include Japans formal and informal colonies as a matter of course. In this essay I identify three major trends in works that have appeared in the last ve years or so: a spurt of interest in Manchuria and other areas of northern China, a reconsideration of the major stages of empire, and an expanded understanding of what constituted colonialism and who participated in it.

Sixty years after the end of the Japanese empire, a generational change is underway in studies of Japanese colonialism.1 New interpretations are certainly evident in works produced in both English and Japanese.2 This essay sets out some major new trends, surveying recent works in English on Japanese colonialism of the period 1931 1945, with an emphasis on publications that have appeared within the last ve years or so. For the purposes of this essay, I dene colonialism in the loosest possible terms, including both formal and informal colonies: that is, territories in which Japanese rule was formally instituted and recognised, principally Korea and Taiwan, as well as those in which Japanese rule was less direct or open, especially in China, and including Manchukuo.3 Earlier bodies of work tended to focus on the aims, strategies and structures of Japanese rule throughout the empire, especially the formal empire. Key works, still much used by researchers, teachers and students, included those by Hilary Conroy, W. G. Beasley, Ramon Myers, Peter Duus, Mark Peattie, Andrew Nahm and Patricia
An earlier version of this paper appeared as Rekishi kenkyu no danso o kakyo suru monoNihon shokuminchi (193145nen) kenkyu no shinkenchi, in Nenpo Nihon gendaishi henshu iinkai (ed.), Teikoku to shokuminchiDai Nippon teikoku hokai rokuju nen (Nenpo: Nihon gendaishi dai 10 go). Tokyo: Gendai shiryo shuppan, 2005, 211 228. I would like to thank Anne-Marie Medcalf and an anonymous reader for this journal for their comments on drafts of this paper. 2 For comments on trends in recent Japanese-language works, see Mori and Yanagisawa, Tokushu ni atatte, ii v, and other essays in this volume. 3 For a discussion of the concepts of formal and informal empire as applied to Japan, see Duus, Introduction/Japans informal empire in China, 18951937.
ISSN 1037-1397 print=ISSN 1469-9338 online=05=030287-13 # 2005 Japanese Studies Association of Australia DOI: 10.1080=10371390500342790
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288 Sandra Wilson Tsurumi.4 Newer studies have not abandoned these concerns, especially in relation to geographical areas, notably Manchuria, that have only just begun to emerge, or re-emerge, in English-language writing on Japanese colonial practice. In keeping with recent trends in studies of European and US colonialism, however, there is now much greater consciousness among historians of Japan that any colonial relationship is a two-way affair, and that this understanding should be reected in scholarship more forcefully than was usual in the past. One implication is a greater recognition that the colonial relationship is shaped by the responses of the colonised as well as the intentions and actions of the colonisers. Another is that life in the metropolis itself is seen as affected deeply by its colonies: the mother country is no longer accepted as the modern, civilised nation that on the one hand imposes its will abroad through its colonial agents, and on the other continues along its own, independent historical trajectory. A third implication is an acknowledgment that mainstream studies of Japanese history should include consideration of the colonies as a matter of course: all or most topics in modern Japanese history will be relevant to the colonies, and vice versa, and colony and metropolis should no longer be in separate baskets. Andre Schmid raised these and other issues in 2000, remarking that English-language studies of Japan have been slow to interweave the colonial experience into the history of modern Japan, in effect divorcing the history of Japans colonies from the history of the main islands. In an article that included trenchant criticism of earlier scholars including Myers and Peattie, Schmid argued that most historical writings on Japan in English have been nation-centered, to the neglect of those forces transcendent to the nation, especially when those forces have derived from Asia. The result has been an approach to history that Schmid characterises as topdown, metrocentric, and that renders colonial history tangential to the main narratives of the modern Japanese nation.5 Schmid was writing in particular about the history of the Meiji period and the neglect of issues relating to Korea, but the same point applies to later periods and to other parts of Japans formal and informal empire. This new understanding of colonialismthat it should be treated as part of mainstream history rather than a set of more or less separate topicsis undoubtedly a demanding one. It represents an ideal that is easier to extrapolate than actually to put into practiceas Myers and Peattie pointed out in a published reply to Schmids criticism of their work.6 The task of producing work that gives due weight to the perspectives of the colonised and to the impact of the colonies on the metropolis brings us face-to-face with the need to nd new types of sources, to read sources in more than one language when most researchers who write in English have already had to expend considerable time and energy studying Japaneseand to engage with the research of specialists on other parts of Asia, not just those who work directly on Japan or its colonies. The integration of colonial history with the mainstream of Japanese studies thus means decentring Japanese history to an extent. Results of such efforts are only just beginning to emerge, and are of course uneven.

Conroy, The Japanese Seizure of Korea, 18681910; Beasley, Japanese Imperialism 1894 1945; Myers and Peattie, The Japanese Colonial Empire, 18951945; Duus et al., The Japanese Informal Empire in China, 18951937; Duus et al., The Japanese Wartime Empire, 1931 45; Duus, The Abacus and the Sword; Peattie, Nanyo; Nahm, Korea under Japanese Colonial Rule; Tsurumi, Japanese Colonial Education in Taiwan, 18951945. 5 Schmid, Colonialism and the Korea problem, 951, 957. 6 Peattie et al., Communications to the editor.

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Certain older concerns remain. For example, academic investigation of atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army and other agents in colonial and semicolonial areas continues, with new developments evident in the increase of interest not only in the events themselves, but also the recollection and historiography of those events. In one example, Mariko Asano Tamanoi examines the case of a group of Japanese women in Harbin who died of typhoid in 1940, possibly as victims of Japanese biological warfare; a new, updated edition has also appeared of Sheldon Harris study of Japanese biological warfare between 1932 and 1945, which was originally published in 1994.7 Comfort women continue to attract attention, as shown by the publication of Yuki Tanakas book, as well as an English translation of Yoshimi Yoshiakis 1995 work, Ju gun ianfu.8 Several articles link current politics with the events of the colonial period by focussing on post-war debates, including recent debates, about the signicance of various crimes. In an article published in 2003, for instance, Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi reviews the different viewpoints on the comfort women issue.9 Nevertheless, looking at the eld overall, studies of Japanese colonialism now undoubtedly feel different. As will be discussed in more detail below, newer works are more likely to focus on the culture of empire rather than its formal, administrative aspectsreecting not only the approach outlined above, but also, perhaps, an increased focus on the same issues in mainstream studies of Japanese historyand more likely to explore at least some of the complex links between the colony and the metropolis. The same trends are also evident in recent work published in Japanese.10 Newer analyses often explore a larger range of themesincluding lm, radio, art, music, tourism, education, technology, law, gender, religion and sport, amongst others11and are concerned at least as much with daily life as with politics and economics, if not more so. Newer studies also analyse the roles and experiences of a wider variety of colonial agents: not only bureaucrats and soldiers, for example, but also doctors, anthropologists and other professional groups. Within the general framework discussed above, I identify three major trends in recent English-language studies of Japanese colonialism between 1931 and 1945: a spurt of interest in Manchuria (and other areas of northern China); a reconsideration of how the empire should be periodised, or what its major stages were; and an expanded understanding of what constitutes colonialism and who participates in it. Taken as a whole, the newer trends reect not only the insights of previous generations of scholars, but also the inuence of postcolonial studies and of theoretical and empirical work on other areas of the globe. As such, they represent attempts to bridge a number of gaps between scholarly areas: between the history of Japan and that of its colonies; between Japan and other Asian countries; between centre and periphery, global and local, culture and politics. The result is a lively and stimulating eld of historical research.
Tamanoi, War responsibility and Japanese civilian victims of Japanese biological warfare in China; Harris, Factories of Death. 8 Tanaka, Japans Comfort Women; Yoshimi, Ju gun ianfu; Yoshimi, Comfort Women. 9 Wakabayashi, Comfort women. There are also a number of recent works on the Nanjing Massacre and later reactions to it, which I have omitted from this essay as they seem to me to be more properly considered as part of the history of the Sino-Japanese War than of colonialism. 10 For comments on these trends in Japanese-language works, see Mori and Yanagisawa, Tokushu ni atatte, ii iv; Miyamoto, Shokuminchi to bunka. 11 See Miyamoto, Shokuminchi to bunka.
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290 Sandra Wilson Manchuria Boom The last few years have seen a distinct boom in English-language studies of north-east China, or the region known as Manchuria, and its relationship with Japan, with as many as ve books as well as several articles published in English since 2000.12 One welcome feature of this new level of interest in Manchuria is that the analyses have been produced by specialists on both Japan and China, leading to a much richer debate and to the availability of new information to scholars on both sides. The perspectives brought by the different scholars working on this area are also quite distinct, which, again, makes the study of Manchuria a very stimulating one. The literature at present shows new views or differences of opinion about the place of the Manchurian Incident of September 1931 in the history of Japanese rule in Manchuria as well as in popular consciousness in the Japanese main islands; a new perspective on responses of the Chinese in Manchukuo to Japanese intrusion; and the beginnings of debate about the meaning of the label puppet state as applied to Manchukuo. Many readers will be familiar with Louise Youngs book on Manchukuo, which was published in 1998 and hence will not be covered in detail in this essay. Young emphasises the centrality of Manchukuo to Japanese life from 19311932 onwardsboth as a discursive construct and as an actual destination of emigration and investmentand what she claims was the enormous impact of Manchuria on Japan in cultural terms. Though her assertion that the impact [of Manchukuo] on the Japanese metropolis was as profound as Japans impact on Northeast China13 seems to me to be exaggerated, given the power imbalance between the two, Youngs approach has undoubtedly been a fruitful and inuential one. My own work on the responses within Japan to the Manchurian crisis of 19311933 treats a shorter period than does Youngs book, and partly for this reason, reaches a quite different conclusion. I argue that the war fever generated within Japan by the invasion of Manchuria may have been intense, but was also transitory; and that the formal cease-re between Japanese and Chinese forces signed in May 1933, or alternatively, Japans announcement of withdrawal from the League of Nations three months earlier, brought an end to the crisis and a sense of return to some kind of normal life for most Japanese people. At the same time, I argue that for groups dedicated to the progressive political ideals that had emerged from Taisho democracy, including womens groups and labour unions, the Manchurian crisis did constitute a dening moment, prompting a decisive break from previous patterns of thought and behaviour.14 There is also disagreement on a specic issue relating to Manchukuothe emigration of Japanese farmers to the region. Young sees the campaign to settle Japanese farmers in Manchuria between 1932 and 1945 as a sign of the successful mobilisation of the Japanese people in the service of imperialist goals, with thousands of Japanese people rushing to join their nations colonialist project in north-east China.15 Again, partly because I have concentrated on the initial period of settlement, my analysis differs, and I see the concrete results of the emigration project as negligible, though I recognise that in rural Japan the idea of emigration to Manchuria certainly had considerable rhetorical power in the early 1930s.16 Mori Takemaro, dealing with the longer period and providing a valuable
12 The books are: Mitter, The Manchurian Myth; Matsusaka, The Making of Japanese Manchuria, 1904 1932; Wilson, The Manchurian Crisis and Japanese Society, 193133; Duara, Sovereignty and Authenticity; Tamanoi, Crossed Histories, The edited volume by Tamanoi appeared too late for detailed comment in this essay. 13 Young, Japans Total Empire, 430. 14 Wilson, Manchurian Crisis. 15 Young, Japans Total Empire, Chapters 7, 8. 16 Wilson, Securing prosperity and serving the nation; Wilson, Manchurian Crisis, 146149.

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comparison with Japanese emigration to Korea, likewise concludes that in every respect that one can think of, Japans wartime project to promote emigration to Manchuria was a total failure.17 Regardless of whether the emigration project as a whole should be deemed a success or not, however, Japanese settlers did go to Manchuria, and their experiences there constitute an important part of the history of Japanese colonialism. In recent years a number of former settlers have published recollections of their experiences, or recounted them to researchers. Such recollections not only provide new information on and interpretations of life in Japanese-controlled Manchuria, but also raise more general issues of historical memory, both individual and collective. One exploration of these issues in relation to Japanese farmer-settlers in Manchuria is to be found in an article by Mariko Asano Tamanoi, who highlights the politics of memory amongst the former settlers in the same way that scholars working in other areas have done.18 Two other important works, by Mitter and Duara, further complicate the broad picture of Japanese rule in Manchuria. China historian Rana Mitter focuses on Chinese resistance to and collaboration with the Japanese in the initial period after September 1931, arguing that actual Chinese resistance has been exaggerated, and that while there were undoubtedly many notable instances of resistance, in fact cooperation with the Japanese became the norm at the provincial and local levels.19 Such cooperation is partly explained by earlier Japanese efforts at social imperialism in the regionthat is, attempts made by such means as inserting appropriate articles in the Chinese-language, Japanese-owned press to persuade the population of north-east China that Japanese imperialism was benevolent and that the Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek and the Manchurian warlord Chang Hsueh-liang were untrustworthy. In tying such earlier discourse to the post-1931 cooperation of local elites with the Japanese authorities in Manchuria, Mitter implies the necessity to modify earlier understandings of Japanese ineptness on the propaganda front: in his analysis, efforts to win the hearts and minds of the population of north-east China had begun to meet with success. The collaboration of local elites with the Japanese after September 1931, according to Mitter, was in fact important to the initial success of the Kwantung Army in seizing control of Manchuria. On the other hand, the image of resistance was crucial to the formation of Chinese nationalism in the longer term. Activists from northeastern China who ed Manchuria after the Japanese invasion chose to present the Japanese action as an issue of national concern to all Chinese, in an attempt to put pressure on Nanjing to send troops to retake Manchuria. In part, this attempt involved the creation of a powerful discourse about spontaneous Chinese resistance to the Japanese in Manchuria. In common with Louise Young, Prasenjit Duara emphasises the complexity and modernity of Manchukuo as a political and discursive structure.20 While acknowledging the reality of Japanese power in Manchukuo, he insists on the need to go beyond the interpretation of Manchukuo as merely a Japanese puppet state, and to take seriously Manchukuos dominant ideologies, especially that of sovereignty. In a study that concentrates more on discourse than on actual political structure, Duara shows how the rhetoric of modern nationalism was used to present Manchukuo as an independent, civilian nation-state, in particular demonstrating the use that was made of the discourses of rights, autonomy and pan-Asianism. The experiment in Manchukuo, according to Duara, really was an attempt to build a new kind of nation-state, albeit one that was always intended to be
17 18

Mori, Colonies and countryside in wartime Japan, 197. Tamanoi, A road to a redeemed mankind. On issues of memory, see also Lim and Wong, War and Memory in Malaysia and Singapore. 19 Mitter, Manchurian Myth, 100. See also Mitter, Evil empire?. 20 Duara, Sovereignty and Authenticity.

292 Sandra Wilson colonial. This seems to me to be an interesting but problematic approach. It is useful in that it highlights the murkiness inherent in the concept and the operation of a puppet state. On the other hand, if the form of government instituted in Manchukuo was new, it was new principally because it attempted to disguise the reality of Japanese power. In the context of a broader argument about the relationship between Japanese imperialism and national identities in Asia, Li Narangoa and Robert Cribb also briey question the label of puppet state as applied to Manchukuo. Li and Cribb feel that the term tends to obscure the complexity of the relationship between the hegemonic power and its local subjects. Manchukuo and other Japanese-sponsored governments in China, they argue, did the bidding of the Japanese in most respects, but at the same time also reected and responded to the legitimate and long-standing interests of their subjects.21 Again, the implications of such questioning of the concept of the puppet state need fuller exploration before they can be considered convincing. To recognise that the operation of a puppet state still left room for local initiative is to recognise a degree of ambiguity inherent in a puppet state (or probably most other forms of government, especially colonial government); it does not mean that that state was not still primarily subject to outside power. Scholarly interest in Sino-Japanese relations in the northern regions of China in the years 19311945 has not been restricted to Manchuria. One notable addition to the eld is China historian Marjorie Dryburghs study of north China, which not only expands our knowledge of Japanese activity in the region, but also adds to the growing number of analyses of Chinese reactions to Japanese intrusion.22 Dryburgh pays particular attention to the inuential military commander and provincial governor Song Zheyan, who commanded the 29th army and was governor of Chahaer before his appointment as chairman of the Hebei-Chahaer Political Council, a body nominally under the control of Nanjing but established in 1935 as a concession to Japanese pressure for political arrangements in north China that would be autonomous from the central governmentor in other words, subject to Japanese inuence rather than that of Nanjing. Dryburgh gives a clear picture of Songs unenviable position, subject as he was to direct pressure on the one hand from Japanese military gures, but formally responsible on the other to a central government that wanted to avoid being seen to make damaging concessions to the Japanese in north China, yet was unwilling to risk open confrontation with the Japanese. Dryburghs account of events in the middle of the 1930s expands the range of actors in the story beyond those at the national level, and at the same time draws our attention to the complex ways in which regional, national and international considerations interacted in China in the 1930s to produce the central governments policy on Japan. Recently, the strong interest shown by Japanese military forces and other agents in Mongolia has also begun to be recognised, and several articles explore Japanese activity in the region. While James Boyd discusses Kwantung Army interest in Mongolia,23 an article by Li Narangoa focuses on the efforts of the Japanese authorities to inuence and modify Mongolian Buddhism.24 Japanese leaders wished to discourage Chinese inuence over Mongolians, and at the same time to encourage modernisation in Mongolia in order to make the region more useful for future Japanese operations on the Asian
21 22

Li and Cribb, Introduction, 13. Dryburgh, North China and Japanese Expansion 19331937. For a short treatment of the cultural and rhetorical dimensions of Japans activities in north China in the middle of the decade, see also Dryburgh, The problem of identity and the Japanese engagement in North China. 23 Boyd, In pursuit of an obsession. 24 Li, Japanese imperialism and Mongolian Buddhism, 19321945. See also Nakami, Mongol nationalism and Japan.

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mainland. The political and social inuence of the monasteries in Mongolia, together with their important role in education and health care, made them targets of sustained Japanese attention. Results, however, were limited from the Japanese point of view. Stages of Empire In part, as noted above, the different viewpoints on Manchuria, and on the signicance of the Manchurian Incident, represent different viewpoints on timing, and hence on imperialist history more generally. Young emphasises the centrality of Manchukuo from 19311932 onwards, and I treat the years 19311933 as a more or less selfcontained period, though one with critical ramications for later events. One approach tends to emphasise 19311932 as a turning-point in popular consciousness of imperialism, whereas the other does not.25 Two other new books are also relevant to conceptions of the stages of empire. Though both of them focus on earlier decades, and hence for the most part are outside the scope of this essay, they nevertheless have signicant implications for interpretations of the period 19311945. Tak Matsusaka analyses Japans relationship with Manchuria in the years 1904 1932.26 In emphasising the importance of an earlier stage in Japans relationship with Manchuria, he challenges the view that 19311932 was the critical turning-point. Though he recognises the signicance of the creation of Manchukuo, Matsusaka stresses crucial continuities before and after 19311932, arguing that in a sense, the Manchurian Incident was only a brief, climactic episode, and that much of southern Manchuria was already under a state of virtual occupation before then, especially through the instrument of the South Manchurian Railway Company. More broadly, much of what we see emerging in Manchukuo in the 1930s, including economic programs, seems rather familiar, recognizable as logical extensions of patterns, trends, and policies established well before 1931.27 Whether September 1931 constitutes a major rupture or not is thus a crucial issue in any assessment of the Japanese empire over time, but it is not the only one. Turning to Korea, Alexis Dudden has produced an important study of the rhetoric, especially the legal rhetoric, used to justify Japans annexation of its neighbour in 1910.28 Like Matsusakas, Duddens book has broad implications for understandings of the later period as well, and for the whole question of continuity, rupture and periodisation in Japanese colonialism. In the past there has been a tendency to regard Japanese imperialism of the late Meiji period as conceptually discrete from developments in the 1930s and 1940s,29 but Duddens analysis undermines such an assumption. Her major concern is with the ways in which Japanese policy-makers of the Meiji period adapted existing international law to suit their own purposes, and with the specic discourse of Japanese colonisation in the early twentieth century. She also comments on the growth of the discipline of scientic colonialism in Japan, with particular reference to Nitobe Inazo who was, among , other things, professor of colonial studies at Tokyo Imperial University. Overall, Dudden argues strongly that if we look at colonialism not solely in military and political terms, but also through the rhetoric used to justify it at the time, it is much easier to see
See Wilson, Rethinking the 1930s and the 15-year war in Japan. Matsusaka, Making of Japanese Manchuria. 27 Ibid., 1, 5, 391. 28 Dudden, Japans Colonization of Korea. See also Dudden, Japanese colonial control in international terms. 29 Dudden, Japans Colonization of Korea, 143.
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294 Sandra Wilson that the earlier and later periods of Japanese colonialism are linked in fundamental ways. Conceptually, in other words, the colonialism of the 1930s onwards was not distinct from that of the Meiji period: the intellectual foundations had been set well beforehand. Expanding the Scope of Colonialism As suggested above, understandings of what constitutes colonialism and who participates in it have broadened considerably in recent years. Older approaches continue to bear fruit. Susan Townsend, for example, has produced the rst intellectual biography in English of the scholar Yanaihara Tadao and a critique of his writings on Japanese colonialism, with chapters on Yanaiharas writings on Taiwan, Korea, Manchuria, the South Sea island mandates and China, and on the Yanaihara Incident of 1937, in which Yanaihara was forced to resign from Tokyo Imperial University after criticising Japans foreign policy in his articles.30 Townsend presents Yanaihara as a critic who accepted the legitimacy of colonialism, but believed that colonial policy should strive towards realisation of a redeeming idea, namely, that while imperialism was theoretically bad, empires themselves could be good if they acted to civilise and modernise the colonies. At the same time, growing interest in the cultural aspects of empire, a trend that can be seen across colonial studies elsewhere as well, has prompted new examination of different groups and individuals who were caught up in Japans colonising project, as well as analysis of a broader range of structures through which Japanese rule operated. Newer conceptions of colonialism recognise that it consists not just of the direct application of force, but rather should be seen as an integrated cultural and economic system, with power exercised in a variety of ways. Such an approach, for example, underpins the essays in the volume edited by Shin and Robinson on Japanese-controlled Korea, which examines a wide range of structures and themes from the legal system to the mass media, industrialisation and technology.31 Most importantly, it has become clearer that colonialism is something that is made by many different hands. Ofcials, soldiers and police are familiar gures in colonial studies, but many others have joined their ranks, including some who had been born in the subordinated territories. Certain professional groups, including doctors, anthropologists and writers, have provided a particular focus. Recent writers are also well aware that colonialism does not consist of a unidirectional ow of power, whether military, political or cultural. Different groups and individuals in areas controlled by Japan are accordingly studied not just to show how they functioned as agents of colonialism, but also how colonialism in turn affected them professionally: the ways in which they operated as professionals in the colonial context, how professional knowledge was acquired and deployed under colonial rule, and how ambiguous was the position that professional groups found themselves in under Japanese rule. The best studies clearly reveal the points of convergence and conict between professional groups and individuals and colonial politics, especially in the case of those who saw themselves as agents of modernity or science. Several such chapters appear in a volume edited by Shimizu and van Bremen on Japanese anthropology in the wartime period.32 Tsu Yun Hui, for instance, examines the case of Japanese and Taiwanese folklorists studying and writing about Taiwanese folklore under colonial rule.33 When required to legitimise their activities, Tsu shows that
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Townsend, Yanaihara Tadao and Japanese Colonial Policy. Shin and Robinson, Colonial Modernity in Korea. 32 Shimizu and van Bremen, Wartime Japanese Anthropology in Asia and the Pacic. 33 Tsu, For science, co-prosperity, and love.

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under various circumstances they argued that they were conforming with the scientic mission of the Japanese to research the cultures of colonised peoples; that the information they acquired had practical value for Japanese rule in the Asian region; and even that they acted out of admiration for Taiwanese culture. Sasaki Shiros chapter in the same volume examines anthropologist Ishida Eiichiros research in South Sakhalin, while Choe Kilsung analyses the relationship between the anthropologist Akiba Takashi and the Japanese colonial government in Korea.34 Ming-cheng M. Los book, by contrast, discusses Taiwanese doctors under Japanese colonial rule, again emphasising the intersection of professional knowledge, ethnicity and modernity in the colonial context. The case of Taiwanese doctors, Lo argues, demonstrates unintended and unpredictable interactions between the processes of professionalization and colonization,35 with the doctors at different stages engaging in anti-colonial movements; retreating to a more private life in civil society; and, nally, embracing the modernity apparently represented by the colonisers civilisation. Leo Ching also analyses the cultural dimension of Japans occupation of Taiwan, with particular emphasis on the formation of Taiwanese cultural identities and their relationship to Japanese colonial discourses.36 Faye Yuan Kleeman continues the focus on the culture of empire in Taiwan, analysing the role of writers in the discursive creation of the empire.37 Kleeman examines the works of Japanese visitors to Taiwan and also to the South; of a prominent Japanese expatriate author in Taiwan, Nishikawa Mitsuru; and of native Taiwanese authors who wrote in Japanese. Agents of the Japanese empire, Kleeman argues, sought to create not only the mechanisms of government and administration in the colonies, but also an East Asian literary sphere that was coterminous with the Japanese empire and centered on the Japanese literary and cultural tradition.38 As these examples indicate, the expanded conception of how colonialism works that is evident in recent research leads to a stronger emphasis on the variety of responses and experiences of the colonised. The common understanding of colonialism among specialists has come a long way from the model of Japanese repression and local resistance that was once familiar, and understandings of relationships within the Japanese-occupied territories are now much more complex. One crucial issue is the ethnic diversity of Japans empire and the ways in which that diversity conditioned the experience of colonialism. Not that ethnicity itself was necessarily a xed category. As Mariko Asano Tamanoi shows, ofcial racial classications in Manchukuo, for example, were complex and uid.39 Tamanoi essentially reinforces the point Barbara Brooks made in 1998 about Koreans in Manchuria.40 In both cases, interpretations of ethnicity and belonging changed over time; according to Brooks, for example, Koreans were by no means inevitably excluded from discourses of Japaneseness. But ethnicity, however understood and categorised, undoubtedly did make a difference within Japans empire. Paul Kratoskas edited book highlights the separate experiences of particular ethnic minorities in South-East Asia and the differing impact of Japanese occupation on them, as well as the ways in which various people within minority populations sought to
34 Sasaki, Anthropological studies of the indigenous peoples in Sakhalin; Choe, War and ethnology/ folklore in colonial Korea. 35 Lo, Doctors within Borders, 7. 36 Ching, Becoming Japanese. 37 Kleeman, Under an Imperial Sun, 4. 38 Ibid., 2. 39 Tamanoi, Knowledge, power, and racial classications. 40 Brooks, Peopling the Japanese empire.

296 Sandra Wilson advance their own agendas under Japanese occupation.41 Such an approach greatly enriches understandings of how colonialism operated in practice by showing complications on the side of both coloniser and colonised, and the ways in which the separate interests of different groups were fostered or exploited by the Japanese, as well as by each other. Li and Cribbs edited volume, which sets out to discuss the relationship between Japanese territorial expansion and national identities in Asia, contains much analysis of the responses of the different colonised populations to Japanese attempts to remake them.42 Specic chapters include studies of Korea, Mongolia, China (including Manchuria), Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Taiwan. The volume as a whole identies basic contradictions in Japanese policy towards Asia, with Japanese authorities seeking at times to encourage other Asian nationalisms, at times to suppress or undermine them, and at times to fashion new ones. Li and Cribb thus conclude that the Japanese authorities displayed considerable ckleness towards the nationalist aspirations of other parts of Asia,43 at different times and places supporting it, abandoning it, spurning it, toying with it or ignoring it. Overall, the Japanese authorities believed national identity to be malleable, and were profoundly condent of their ability to shape cultures and identities.44 Yet they never developed any sophisticated understanding of existing local identities, and were always prepared to disregard them when they clashed with broader Japanese interests. A greater emphasis on responses to colonisation, on identities, and on the interplay among colonialism, nationalism and modernity tends to break down any remnants of a straightforward dichotomy between Japanese repression and local resistance in the areas under Japanese control. At a personal level, the oral histories of Koreans under Japanese rule in Hildi Kangs book Under the Black Umbrella suggest the complexities of life in colonial Korea, which defy any simple categorisation. Kang fully acknowledges that while imperial Japan undeniably oppressed the Korean people, all the same, some people, some of the time, led close to normal lives under Japanese occupation.45 Korean experiences of colonisation and responses to itas well as later memories of those experiences and responses were varied, with the stories Kang presents showing lives that range from poverty to riches, and from comfort and acceptance to fear and torture. Life under Japanese rule, Kang concludes, was never one-dimensional.46 The essays on the former British Malaya (Malaysia and Singapore) edited by P. Lim Pui Huen and Diana Wong tell a similar story, with a stronger emphasis on the multiplicity and complexity of memory itself,47 as well as the diversity of the experiences being recalled. Like Kang, the writers in this volume often emphasise the possibility of normal life in the colonies at least some of the time.48 Experiences differed according to ethnic group and social stratum. Hardship and misery were experienced by many; for others, colonial rule was a much more positive experience, even bringing with it at times a sense of self-respect and self-worth.49 Yet others experienced neither prosperity nor great hardship, and felt ambivalent towards the Japanese.50
41

Kratoska, Southeast Asian Minorities in the Wartime Japanese Empire. On South-East Asia, see also Tarling, A Sudden Rampage; Goto, Tensions of Empire. 42 Li and Cribb, Imperial Japan and National Identities in Asia, 1895 1945. 43 Li and Cribb, Afterword, 317. 44 Ibid., 318. 45 Kang, Under the Black Umbrella, xi. 46 Ibid., xiii. On related issues in Japanese-language works, see Miyamoto, Shokuminchi to bunka. 47 Lim and Wong, War and Memory in Malaysia and Singapore, vii. 48 See Wong, War and memory in Malaysia and Singapore, 4. 49 Wong, War and memory in Malaysia and Singapore. 50 Talib, Memory and its historical context, 135.

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In sum, recent trends in English-language writing on Japanese colonialism show that the eld is a healthy one. Not only are a variety of new works being produced; they are much more likely to be informed by a range of insights gained from the study of other colonialisms and other areas of knowledge. In the past, the mainstream of writing on Japanese history has often seemed isolated from scholarly trends elsewhere, as if operating in a world of its own. The latest writings on colonialism suggest that this is changing. Though there is plenty of work still to be done, studies of Japanese colonialism are starting to bridge some gaps. References
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