We must do away with economic imperialism

by About Japan Editors  At the coming peace conference, in joining the League of Nations Japan must insist at the very least, that repudiation of economic imperialism and nondiscriminatory treatment of Orientals and Caucasians be agreed upon from the start. Militarism is not the only thing injurious to justice and humanism. Although the world has been saved from the smoke of gunpowder and the hail of bullets by Germany’s defeat, military might is not all that threatens nations’ equal right to survival. We must realize that there is invasion through money, conquest through wealth. Just as we repudiate military imperialism, so in the same spirit we should naturally repudiate economic imperialism, which seeks to profit by monopolizing enormous capital and abundant natural resources and suppressing other nations’ free growth without recourse to arms. I cannot avoid grave misgivings as to how far economic imperialism can be repudiated at the coming peace conference, led as it is by England and America, which I fear will unsheathe the sword of their economic imperialism after the war.

If we cannot subdue this rampant economic imperialism at the peace conference, England and America, which have profited most from the war, will promptly unify the world under their economic dominance and will rule the world, using the League of Nations and arms limitations to fix the status quo that serves their purpose. How will other countries endure this? Deprived of arms to express their revulsion and indignation, they will have no choice but to follow England and America, bleating in their wake like a flock of meek sheep. England has lost no time in trumpeting a policy of self-sufficiency, and many are advocating that other countries be denied access to its colonies. Such are the contradictions between what England and America say and what they do. This, indeed, is why I am wary of those who glorify England and America. If such a policy is carried out, needless to say it would be a great economic blow to Japan. Japan is limited in territory, poor in natural resources, and has a small population and thus a meager market for manufactured products. If England closed off its colonies, how would we be able to assure the nation’s secure survival? In such a case, the need to ensure its survival would compel Japan to attempt to overthrow the status quo as Germany did before the war. If this is the fate awaiting all late-developing countries with little territory and no colonies, not only for the sake of Japan but for the sake of establishing the equal right to life of all nations of the world on the basis of justice and humanism, we must do away with economic imperialism and see that countries do not monopolize their colonies but accord other countries equal use of them both as markets for manufactured products and as suppliers of natural resources.

The next thing that the Japanese, especially, should insist upon is the elimination of discrimination between Caucasians and Orientals. There is no need to dwell on the fact that the United States, along with the English colonies of Australia and Canada, opens its doors to Caucasians but looks down on the Japanese and on Orientals in general and rejects them. This is something at which the Japanese have long chafed. Not only are Orientals barred from employment and forbidden to lease houses and farmland, but still worse, it is reported that in some places an Oriental wishing to spend the night at a hotel is required to have a Caucasian guarantor. This is a grave humanitarian problem that no defender of justice, Oriental or otherwise, should overlook.

At the coming peace conference, we must see that the English and Americans show deep remorse for their past sins and change their arrogant and insulting attitude, and we must insist, from the standpoint of justice and humanism, that they revise all laws that call for discriminatory treatment of Orientals, including of course rescinding immigration restrictions against Orientals. I believe that the coming peace conference will be the great test of whether the human race can bring itself to reconstruct a world based on justice and humanism. If Japan does not rashly endorse a pacifism centered on England and America but steadfastly asserts its position from the standpoint of justice and humanism in the true sense, it will long be celebrated in history as the champion of justice.

Context.
The 27-year-old Konoe Fumimaro expressed these apprehensions about Great Britain and the United States not long before he left Tokyo in late 1918 as a delegate to the Paris Peace Conference. Despite having made stunning strides economically and militarily over the previous half century, many Japanese remained bitter about the unequal treatment they had received at the hands of the imperialist Western powers. They also resented the discrimination they continued to experience abroad, particularly in immigration restrictions that barred most Japanese from emigrating to the United States. In the peace conference that followed this speech, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson would add to the resentment by blocking the passage of a racial equality clause. Konoe served as prime minister twice, in 1937-39 and 1940-41.

Questions.
1. Why, in Konoe’s mind, was economic imperialism as pernicious as military imperialism?
2. What was Konoe’s attitude toward colonialism generally? (Be sure to note the latter part of his second paragraph.)
3. What various historical circumstances might have lain behind Konoe’s deep mistrust of the British and Americans?

Terms.
“Coming peace conference.” He refers here to the Paris Peace Conference, called at Versailles to bring World War I to an end. The conference began in January 1919 and lasted a full year.
Orientals. This term was widely used from the 15th century until the early 1900s to denote the peoples of East Asia. It is regarded as offensive by most East Asians today.
Immigration restrictions. Beginning in the early 1900s, the United States began limiting Japanese emigration to the United States in response to both racism and American workers’ fears that their jobs would be taken; all Japanese were barred from coming to the United States in the Immigration Act passed by Congress in 1924.

Source: Konoe Fumimaro, “Against a Pacifism Centered on England and America” (Ei-Bei hon’i no heiwashugi o haisu), 1918, in Japan Echo 22, special issue (1995), 14.

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