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東亜聯盟 - East Asia League/Tōa Renmei
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東亜聯盟協會 - East Asia League Association/Tōa renmei kyōkai
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7050
Badges of East Asia League/東亜聯盟協会章
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東亜聯盟 - East Asia League/Tōa Renmei
reverse
東亜聯盟協會 - East Asia League Association/Tōa renmei kyōkai
+ punched number
7050
The Greater East Union of Nations (Daitogappo ron) of Tarui Tokichi, who proposed a great united nation of the countries of Asian yellow peoples (Ajia ojin-koku no ichidai renpo), ended in Japan’s annexation of Korea. Out of the Manchurian Incident, Ishihara Kanji’s idea of an East Asian League (Tōa Renmei) was created.
Lieutenant General Kanji Ishiwara.
Association was founded in October 1939.
About a year later it had about 15 000 members and started to publish its own journal.
Lieutenant General Kanji Ishiwara.
Association was founded in October 1939.
About a year later it had about 15 000 members and started to publish its own journal.
Short Historical Overview of the East Asia League*
The East Asia League was officially founded in Tokyo on October 1939 as Tōarenmei kyōkai, with Kimura Takeo 木村武雄 (1902–1983), who was a member of the House of Representatives at the time, as secretary. The movement’s core members consisted of Ishiwara’s allies from Manchuria, such as Miyazaki Masayoshi 宮崎正義 (1893–1954), who were disillusioned with what they saw as a forsaking of ideals and a descent into colonialism; ex-military figures, and a number of academics. Kimura also brought into the movement a number of members from Nakano Seigō’s 中野正剛 (1886–1943) right-wing Tōhōkai 東方会 who disagreed with the latter’s insistence on expanding the war in China and Southeast Asia, as well as farm union activists from Northeastern Japan, and several politicians. It is important to note that while I am discussing the EAL as a religious movement, the EAL began as a political movement, and its initialfocus was to a large degree a product of the impasse of the China war: a forum to attempt to bring the war to an end.
The EAL’s core ideology was the “Showa restoration” (Shōwa ishin 昭和維新): similar to how the domains came together to form the nation-state in 1868, the aim now was that the different nation-states should come together in a Pan-Asian block, shedding off the yoke of Western imperialism in Asia. The East Asia League would be based on the three principles of political independence, economic integration, and common defense. All this was in anticipation of the coming “final war.” While these aims sound close to some of the aims of the Japanese government, including the Konoe declaration of 1938, and the later Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, this should be balanced by the facts that the eal was one of the few opposing voices against the war in China, suffered from heavy criticism from right-wing groups and the Japanese government, and later police surveillance and even arrest and torture of its members.
The EAL also set up branches in China, first in Beijing (May 1940) as the China East Asia League branch, in September in Guangzhou (Chūka tōarenmei kyōkai, 中華東亜連盟協会), and on 24 November in Nanjing, the East Asia League China Comrades Association (Tōarenmei chūgoku dōshikai 東亜連盟中国 同志会). Among others, Wang Jingwei 汪精衛 (1883–1944), the second-most important figure of the kmt, who had fled Chongqing to seek accommodation with the Japanese and set up the collaborationist government in Nanjing, became a key member. It is most likely that Wang was sympathetic to the EAL because he agreed with its Pan-Asianist principles, and because he saw to advance the position of the Nanjing government through the eal. It is uncertain if the Buddhist dimension played any role in the Chinese branches of the EAL. In China, Ishiwara and the EAL did not, as one would expect, strongly emphasize Buddhism as a shared cultural heritage that binds Asia together. They instead promoted the benevolent “Kingly Way” (ōdō 王道) as Asian, in contrast to the “Way of force” (hadō 覇道) of the imperialist Western powers, a trope not unique to the eal.
Meanwhile, in Japan itself, the EAL set up twenty-nine branches in different prefectures in the period 1940–1941, and it published a journal, titled Tōarenmei. Its membership reached around 16,000 by the end of the war (although some claimed a membership of 100,000). This means that the EAL was in terms of numbers a larger organization than the more well-known Kokuchūkai, which reached around 7,000 members at its peak. The EAL experienced a moment of crisis in January 1941 when influential factions in the Army (Tōjō Hideki, Ishiwara’s nemesis, was Minister of the Army at the time) moved against Ishiwara and the EAL and the government officially denounced the EAL on 14 January 1941. The direct background was that Kimura Takeo had assembled a delegation of members of both houses of parliament to go to China in early 1941 in order to pursue peace objectives. In March of that year, Ishiwara was put in the reserve, ending any further prospects of a career in the army.
The long-term background of this clash was Ishiwara’s earlier opposition to the China war and his rivalry with hardliners in the army. But outside of army politics, right-wing “Japanists” groups such as the Genri nippon 原理日本 society and others criticized the eal for betrayal of the Kokutai, defeatism in the war with China, and for attempting to turn Japan Chinese and communist. The EAL was very critical of the Army, the government, and especially Japanese businessmen and adventurers in China, and was too much committed to political independence of the new Chinese government in Nanjing. It also came to advocate a genuine independence of Manchuria and later a form of self-rule of Korea, but within a larger Asian federation. A second problem was that the eal’s proposals called for a supranational entity in East Asia, and one in which the nation of
Japan would not necessarily play a leading role. This was in line with Ishiwara and the EAL’s idea of the nation-state as a temporary stage of history, an idea that ran counter to the nationalist ideas of its opponents.
In October 1941, Ishiwara Kanji took on the direct intellectual leadership of the East Asia League, and emphasized that the movement had failed in the Diet, and from now on should be considered “not a political movement, but a true cultural, moral, and ‘semi-religious movement’ (junshūkyō undō 準宗教運動),” that should serve as a force that the nation could employ “to cease the war in China and form an East Asian block,” and in society, “to become a motivating force for the organization of the people”. Ishiwara also presented the movement as an “antiwar movement”. He further
implemented a number of reforms in the movement, such as a mandatory membership fee (1 yen and 20 sen per year), which, despite the risk of alienating poorer farmers, Ishiwara thought would raise the level of determination and membership consciousness. A second important reform was the establishment of branches “adapted to the local circumstances, and not limited to one branch per prefecture” . This meant that local branches would have considerable autonomy and could reflect local concerns and culture. This was a measure that was to prove very important and stimulating, in particular for its largest branch in the Shōnai 庄内 region, which comprises the western part of Yamagata prefecture, which is culturally and linguistically distinct from the eastern part, and separated from it by high mountains. Despite the adverse circumstances, the EAL continued to operate during the war years. It was during this time too that the eal can be said to have deepened its roots in the Tōhoku region, especially in Shōnai, and expanded its membership among farmers. The eal also began to place more emphasis on local reform and agricultural techniques.
The end of the war in 1945 brought some profound changes. In practice, any possibility for an Asian League rapidly dissolved with Japan’s defeat and the development of the two power blocks and the cold war. The possibility that Japan would ever lead in a war against the United States vanished under the reality of defeat and the dissolution of Japan’s armed forces. Japan also faced a general spiritual crisis, food shortages, and huge problems of how to rebuild the country. The EAL tried to remain true to its core principles by advocating some radical solutions for reform of the country. However, in January 1946, the postwar Japanese government and the GHQ ordered the eal to disband, to which the eal responded by changing its name from Tōarenmei dōshikai, first to the “Self-supporting Fertilizer Propagation Association” or Jikyū hiryō fukyūkai 自給肥料普及会, then to the National Party (Kokumintō 国民党), which in turn was disbanded on 14 August 1951, on the day before the third anniversary of Ishiwara’s death, before his grave. The next day, members formed the Kyōwatō 共和党. The East Asia League’s postwar existence and activities should not be
treated as less important than the pre–1945 period. In the postwar period, the movement grew in membership, found new goals, adjusted its visions, and the time during which it was active in the postwar period was at least as long as its pre–1945 existence. Throughout the late 1940’s and 1950’s, the organization remained active and published journals to spread its ideas.
* excerpt from “Nichirenism, Utopianism, and Modernity: Rethinking Ishiwara Kanji’s East-Asia League Movement” by Clinton Godart. Japanese Journal for Religious Studies, 42/2, December 2015, pp. 235-274.
The East Asia League was officially founded in Tokyo on October 1939 as Tōarenmei kyōkai, with Kimura Takeo 木村武雄 (1902–1983), who was a member of the House of Representatives at the time, as secretary. The movement’s core members consisted of Ishiwara’s allies from Manchuria, such as Miyazaki Masayoshi 宮崎正義 (1893–1954), who were disillusioned with what they saw as a forsaking of ideals and a descent into colonialism; ex-military figures, and a number of academics. Kimura also brought into the movement a number of members from Nakano Seigō’s 中野正剛 (1886–1943) right-wing Tōhōkai 東方会 who disagreed with the latter’s insistence on expanding the war in China and Southeast Asia, as well as farm union activists from Northeastern Japan, and several politicians. It is important to note that while I am discussing the EAL as a religious movement, the EAL began as a political movement, and its initialfocus was to a large degree a product of the impasse of the China war: a forum to attempt to bring the war to an end.
The EAL’s core ideology was the “Showa restoration” (Shōwa ishin 昭和維新): similar to how the domains came together to form the nation-state in 1868, the aim now was that the different nation-states should come together in a Pan-Asian block, shedding off the yoke of Western imperialism in Asia. The East Asia League would be based on the three principles of political independence, economic integration, and common defense. All this was in anticipation of the coming “final war.” While these aims sound close to some of the aims of the Japanese government, including the Konoe declaration of 1938, and the later Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, this should be balanced by the facts that the eal was one of the few opposing voices against the war in China, suffered from heavy criticism from right-wing groups and the Japanese government, and later police surveillance and even arrest and torture of its members.
The EAL also set up branches in China, first in Beijing (May 1940) as the China East Asia League branch, in September in Guangzhou (Chūka tōarenmei kyōkai, 中華東亜連盟協会), and on 24 November in Nanjing, the East Asia League China Comrades Association (Tōarenmei chūgoku dōshikai 東亜連盟中国 同志会). Among others, Wang Jingwei 汪精衛 (1883–1944), the second-most important figure of the kmt, who had fled Chongqing to seek accommodation with the Japanese and set up the collaborationist government in Nanjing, became a key member. It is most likely that Wang was sympathetic to the EAL because he agreed with its Pan-Asianist principles, and because he saw to advance the position of the Nanjing government through the eal. It is uncertain if the Buddhist dimension played any role in the Chinese branches of the EAL. In China, Ishiwara and the EAL did not, as one would expect, strongly emphasize Buddhism as a shared cultural heritage that binds Asia together. They instead promoted the benevolent “Kingly Way” (ōdō 王道) as Asian, in contrast to the “Way of force” (hadō 覇道) of the imperialist Western powers, a trope not unique to the eal.
Meanwhile, in Japan itself, the EAL set up twenty-nine branches in different prefectures in the period 1940–1941, and it published a journal, titled Tōarenmei. Its membership reached around 16,000 by the end of the war (although some claimed a membership of 100,000). This means that the EAL was in terms of numbers a larger organization than the more well-known Kokuchūkai, which reached around 7,000 members at its peak. The EAL experienced a moment of crisis in January 1941 when influential factions in the Army (Tōjō Hideki, Ishiwara’s nemesis, was Minister of the Army at the time) moved against Ishiwara and the EAL and the government officially denounced the EAL on 14 January 1941. The direct background was that Kimura Takeo had assembled a delegation of members of both houses of parliament to go to China in early 1941 in order to pursue peace objectives. In March of that year, Ishiwara was put in the reserve, ending any further prospects of a career in the army.
The long-term background of this clash was Ishiwara’s earlier opposition to the China war and his rivalry with hardliners in the army. But outside of army politics, right-wing “Japanists” groups such as the Genri nippon 原理日本 society and others criticized the eal for betrayal of the Kokutai, defeatism in the war with China, and for attempting to turn Japan Chinese and communist. The EAL was very critical of the Army, the government, and especially Japanese businessmen and adventurers in China, and was too much committed to political independence of the new Chinese government in Nanjing. It also came to advocate a genuine independence of Manchuria and later a form of self-rule of Korea, but within a larger Asian federation. A second problem was that the eal’s proposals called for a supranational entity in East Asia, and one in which the nation of
Japan would not necessarily play a leading role. This was in line with Ishiwara and the EAL’s idea of the nation-state as a temporary stage of history, an idea that ran counter to the nationalist ideas of its opponents.
In October 1941, Ishiwara Kanji took on the direct intellectual leadership of the East Asia League, and emphasized that the movement had failed in the Diet, and from now on should be considered “not a political movement, but a true cultural, moral, and ‘semi-religious movement’ (junshūkyō undō 準宗教運動),” that should serve as a force that the nation could employ “to cease the war in China and form an East Asian block,” and in society, “to become a motivating force for the organization of the people”. Ishiwara also presented the movement as an “antiwar movement”. He further
implemented a number of reforms in the movement, such as a mandatory membership fee (1 yen and 20 sen per year), which, despite the risk of alienating poorer farmers, Ishiwara thought would raise the level of determination and membership consciousness. A second important reform was the establishment of branches “adapted to the local circumstances, and not limited to one branch per prefecture” . This meant that local branches would have considerable autonomy and could reflect local concerns and culture. This was a measure that was to prove very important and stimulating, in particular for its largest branch in the Shōnai 庄内 region, which comprises the western part of Yamagata prefecture, which is culturally and linguistically distinct from the eastern part, and separated from it by high mountains. Despite the adverse circumstances, the EAL continued to operate during the war years. It was during this time too that the eal can be said to have deepened its roots in the Tōhoku region, especially in Shōnai, and expanded its membership among farmers. The eal also began to place more emphasis on local reform and agricultural techniques.
The end of the war in 1945 brought some profound changes. In practice, any possibility for an Asian League rapidly dissolved with Japan’s defeat and the development of the two power blocks and the cold war. The possibility that Japan would ever lead in a war against the United States vanished under the reality of defeat and the dissolution of Japan’s armed forces. Japan also faced a general spiritual crisis, food shortages, and huge problems of how to rebuild the country. The EAL tried to remain true to its core principles by advocating some radical solutions for reform of the country. However, in January 1946, the postwar Japanese government and the GHQ ordered the eal to disband, to which the eal responded by changing its name from Tōarenmei dōshikai, first to the “Self-supporting Fertilizer Propagation Association” or Jikyū hiryō fukyūkai 自給肥料普及会, then to the National Party (Kokumintō 国民党), which in turn was disbanded on 14 August 1951, on the day before the third anniversary of Ishiwara’s death, before his grave. The next day, members formed the Kyōwatō 共和党. The East Asia League’s postwar existence and activities should not be
treated as less important than the pre–1945 period. In the postwar period, the movement grew in membership, found new goals, adjusted its visions, and the time during which it was active in the postwar period was at least as long as its pre–1945 existence. Throughout the late 1940’s and 1950’s, the organization remained active and published journals to spread its ideas.
* excerpt from “Nichirenism, Utopianism, and Modernity: Rethinking Ishiwara Kanji’s East-Asia League Movement” by Clinton Godart. Japanese Journal for Religious Studies, 42/2, December 2015, pp. 235-274.