Japanese Imperialism: Politics and Sport in East Asia

Rejection, Resentment, Revanchism

J.A. Mangan, Peter Horton, Tianwei Ren, Gwang Ok, J.A. Mangan, Peter Horton, Tianwei Ren, Gwang Ok, J. A. Mangan

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN:
  9789811051043
• Print ISBN:
  9789811051036
• Subtopic: Japanese History

This cutting edge collection presents a political reading of the power of modern sport in Asia. Providing an interdisciplinary study of political and cultural tensions in Asia, past and present, through the key case-study of sport, it illuminates the complex practices and legacies of Japanese imperialism across East and Southeast Asia through the 20th century and beyond. Focusing on the deep background to contemporary dynamics of intraregional tensions, it examines sport both as a tool of imperialism and as an agent of reconciliation as the region gears up to the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Offering a unique contribution to East Asian Studies, Colonial and Postcolonial Studies and Sport Studies, this work represent key reading for students and scholars of East Asian studies, International Politics and Sports Diplomacy.

Part I
Prelude

© The Author(s) 2018

J.A. Mangan, Peter Horton, Tianwei Ren and Gwang Ok (eds.)Japanese Imperialism: Politics and Sport in East Asiahttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5104-3_1

Begin Abstract

1. Empires: Dead, Dying and Dormant

J.A. Mangan¹ 

(1)

Strathclyde University, Swanage, UK

 

End Abstract

Past Empires: Impact

We live in a world that empires have made. Indeed, most of the modern world is a relic of empires: colonial and pre-colonial, African, Asian. European and American. ¹

Failed Empire: Grandiosity

It is Japan’s mission to be supreme in Asia, in the South Seas and eventually the four corners of the world. ²

Future Empires: Inevitability

The age of the west is at a crossroads, if not at an end. ³

…as empires come and empires go, at some stage the power of the United States will wane and another great power will rise up to fill the vacuum. This ambition, and an impatience to force events, has made Asia an unpredictable and dangerous place for all of us. ⁴

Past Empires: Relics Revisited

There is no longer need to turn away from the Empire… It no longer has that power to seduce the young…We can look at it directly, because it is only a moon now, not a sun. We can look up into the heavens, and study it, as a burned-out star, or rather a constellation of stars. ⁵

Close Circle: From the Ruins of Empire to Japanese Imperialism

Pankaj Mishra’s impressive From the Ruins of Empire : The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia ⁶ tells only part of the story of the remaking of Asia . It omits the legacies of Japanese imperialism with the longevity of regional resentment now expressed inter alia through the powerful political medium of modern sport. This potency was considered briefly in The Olympic Games : Prism for East Asian Politics and Geopolitics. ⁷ It is considered more fully in Japanese Imperialism : Sport as Regional Resistance, Rejection and Revanchism—Past into Present. During the period of Japanese Imperialism , sport was used as a statement of resistance and a declaration of rejection. In Japanese post-imperialism it is used now as an avowal of revanchism. Sport as imperial regional demonstration and post-imperial remonstration has been strangely overlooked in studies of East Asian political relationships. Its aspects are not without political resonances. They reveal the power of political memory. They transmit messages of political significance. With Tokyo the location of the 2020 Olympic Games Japanese Imperialism : Sport as Regional Resistance, Rejection and Revanchism—Past into Present is especially relevant. Perhaps Tokyo 2020 presents the prospect of reconciliation in accordance with Olympian idealism. Perhaps the unclosed door of memory will be closed. Perhaps!

Notes

1. 1.
   John Darwin, Unfinished Empire: The Global Expansion of Britain (London: Allen Lane, 2012), 1.
    
2. 2.
   ‘Imperial Japan. History of WW2’, available at: http://​www.​history.​co.​uk/​study-topics/​history-of-ww2/​imperial-japan.
    
3. 3.
   Niall Ferguson, Empire (London: Penguin Books, 2004), 215.
    
4. 4.
   Humphrey Hawksley, ‘Prologue’ in, Dragon Fire (London: Macmillan, 2000), xv.
    
5. 5.
   Martin Green, Dreams of Adventure: Deeds of Power (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980), 344.
    
6. 6.
   Pankaj Mishra, From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia (London: Picador, 2012).
    
7. 7.
   J.A. Mangan, Qing Luo and Sayuri Guthrie-Shimizu, (Eds.) The Olympic Games: Prism for East Asian Politics and Geopolitics – London 2012 and Tokyo 2020 (Beijing: Communication University of China, forthcoming).
    

Part II
Prologue

© The Author(s) 2018

J.A. Mangan, Peter Horton, Tianwei Ren and Gwang Ok (eds.)Japanese Imperialism: Politics and Sport in East Asiahttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5104-3_2

Begin Abstract

2. Empires: West and East—Curious Conjunction and Contemporary Consequences, Complexity and Circumstances

J.A. Mangan¹

(1)

Strathclyde University, Swanage, UK

End Abstract

W.G. Beasley declared in his carefully nuanced Japanese Imperialism 1894–1945,

I do not believe in mono-causal explanations of complex historical phenomena, especially those which endure over long periods of time. Even a concept as broad as economic determinism, central though it is to this subject, does not seem to me a sufficient basis on which to analyse imperialism, either in the case of Japan , or more generally. Hence I do not find it necessary to make a choice between the theories of internal ‘push’ and external ‘pull’. Both are relevant. ¹

And added aptly,

I do not believe that the human impetus towards imperialism needs explaining. Men, acting individually or in communities, have always sought to establish dominion over others, where they could. What the character of a society, or the international circumstances with which it has to deal, does indeed determine is the timing and direction of the impetus, the degree of its success and failure, the kind of advantages that are sought, the institutions that are shaped to g...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontmatter
• 1. Prelude
• 2. Prologue
• 3. Regional Reactions and Responses: Korea
• 4. Regional Reactions and Responses: China
• 5. Regional Reactions and Responses: Taiwan
• 6. Regional Reactions and Responses: Hong Kong and Singapore
• 7. Revanchism or Reconciliation?
• 8. Epilogue
• 9. Coda
• Backmatter