Sun Yat-sen, finding more political freedom for his activities in Japan than in his own China, founded an organization that later developed into the Nationalist Party in Japan in 1905. In 1924, one year before his death, however, he gave a lecture at Kobe asking the Japanese if they were going to be the tools of Western hegemonism or to walk in the Eastern Royal Road. What has brought about this change in his attitude towards Japan?
Sun had gradually got disappointed with Japan in a matter of two to three decades. In so doing he was not at all alone among the leaders of Asian nations. What was crucial in understanding Japan was that she annexed Korea in 1910. From that time onwards Japan's Asian policies were based on the need to protect Korea as a Japanese territory. Also it was on this basis that Japan became on a par with the Western imperialist powers in Asia and the Pacific.
The Chinese Revolution took place the very next year. It did not immediately pose a threat to the Japanese rule over Korea. A much greater threat came somewhat later, towards the end of 1920s when, after Sun's death, the Chinese Nationalists' move to integrate the whole of China under one government was getting momentum, and was proceeding northward. The warlord over the Chinese Northeast, Zhang Xue-liang, made it clear that he would hoist the Nationalists' flag in the area. In this sense Zhang was an important successor to Sun. Later in 1936, he went against the order of Jiang Jie-shi, the then head of the government and the army, to fight the civil war against the Communists, and arrested him. He then surrendered to Jiang, remained his prisoner for a long time, and breathed his last in Taiwan.
It was in order to thwart such a move as Zhang's that Japan went into military action to cut off the Northeast from China proper in 1931. It was a move ultimately to secure Korea.
What was of more immediate threat to Japan was that of republicanism in China, as the Revolution established the first republican government in the whole of Asia, while Japan was under a monarchical rule cementad by myth and legend. It was being shaken as a dozen socialists had been put to death under the pretext of plotting to assasinate the Emperor in 1911, the year of the Revolution. So Japan was getting increasingly uncomfortable with the revolutionary movement. It was more so when the Chinese Communists put up a common front with the Nationalists for the unification of the country.
When at his death-bed Sun said that the Revolution was not yet completed, he was keenly aware that it was facing powerful adversaries both within the country and without. After 1931, when Japan established a puppet state in the Northeast, many of her educated people expressed the view that it should be a kingdom as republicanism would not suit the Chinese. Japan also exploited it in many ways. Those factors were both in order to secure korea for Japan, and to prepare an all-out conquest of China. The planned conquest of China became a failure because of the Chinese resistance, which made Japan plunge into one more and final war.
Has Sun's and the Revolution's hope been realized? Not yet. China herself should get democratized. If that is done, Taiwan will be willing to be a part of China.
What about Japan? We will talk about it before long.
No comments:
Post a Comment