A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower (3 page)

And yet, of all the nations on the planet, Japan has come closest to annihilation. It is the only nation ever to have suffered nuclear attack. Many among its enemies in the Second World War genuinely believed the extermination of the Japanese race was necessary for the safety of humankind. Even humanitarians like Franklin Roosevelt seemed to think ‘ethnic cleansing’ might be beneficial all round.

In the end, the Japanese survived. Far from being annihilated, Japan is one of the most powerful nations on earth. Far from being forced into inter-ethnic breeding, the Japanese remain ethnically one of the most homogeneous of all populations.

Japan’s arrival in the world arena has been dramatic. From a quaint and obscure land of paddy fields and feudal despots just a hundred and fifty years ago, it rapidly became a major contender among the imperialist powers, a military threat to the world order, and then, its crisis passed, an economic superpower. For many westerners, exotic and patronising nineteenth-century images of coolie-hatted rice farmers, doll-like geisha and funny little men trying to look civilised gave way to brutal warlords and fanatical samurai soldiers mindlessly loyal to an evil emperor. After the war the images changed again to slave-like workers controlled by ruthless capitalists out to dominate the world – and who succeeded in doing so. For many Asians, especially Chinese and Koreans, the one-time ‘land of dwarfs’ ceased to be a backward pupil. The pupil became a harsh master, and a vicious and exploitative one at that. Though they respect Japan’s inspirational economic achievements, many Asians have still not forgiven Japan for its prewar and wartime behaviour in their lands.

Not all images have been negative. Among westerners, at the start of the twentieth century Japan was respected for its military victories over China and Russia and was considered an ally by some powers. After its defeat in the Second World War, it was admired for the way it set about the task of rebuilding the nation. The ‘economic miracle’ that soon followed was an object for analysis, and would-be imitators looked for the key to success in its educational system, its political organisation, and particularly its management practices. Among Asians, alongside the wartime images of rape and pillage and murder there is also a grudging recognition that Japan has at least put Asia on the map in terms of world respect, and overturned western condescension. Many Asian nations have openly tried to model their economies on Japan’s, despite a few pitfalls. Some, notably Malaysia, have positively sung its praises.

Even though Japan at the turn of the millennium fell from grace a little as a result of its economic recession and holes in its management practices, it is still clear that the current prevailing image of Japan, and its impact on the world, is largely economic in nature – though in recent years it can also claim to be a technological and cultural superpower. In fact, Japan’s focus on economic growth at the expense of quality of life and other matters has been one of the major criticisms levelled at it. At least an image of economic obsession is better than one of military fanaticism.

To understand the makings of an economic superpower it is not enough just to examine its economic development. Certainly this is
important, and is dealt with in some detail in these pages. However, Japan’s postwar drive to achieve economic supremacy cannot be separated from its prewar drive to achieve military supremacy – nor from its nineteenth-century drive to modernise and become a world imperialist power, nor even from its grand ambitions of the seventh century to be taken seriously as a civilised nation. It is vital to consider the historical progress of the nation in broad terms.

The progression through history of any nation owes much to chance and circumstance. In Japan’s case, it was largely a matter of luck that the ancient Chinese and Koreans did not take Japan seriously enough to make a concerted effort to occupy it, or that the Mongols did not do a better job of their botched invasions in the thirteenth century. The Japanese were fortunate again that in the sixteenth century the European powers of the day were more interested in exploiting the New World than Japan, thanks to a chance discovery by Columbus. Similarly, western powers of the nineteenth century were more interested in carving up China than bothering about Japan. And if America had decided to be more punitive and less constructive after the war, Japan would have been powerless to prevent it. At any of these turning points fortune could have turned against Japan instead of for it, and produced a different history.

But a nation’s historical development also owes much to the way in which it responds to circumstance – how it makes the most of opportunities and in a sense makes its own luck. These patterns of response, at least in Japan’s case, are based on values and practices that often have deep roots in its history. It is impossible to understand fully Japan’s emergence as a modern superpower without some understanding of these. It is important to start at the beginning, tracing Japan’s development, and noting these continuities as they emerge and recur.

Along the way lie a number of probable surprises. For example, Japan has the oldest pottery vessels yet discovered anywhere in the world. On the other hand, despite its association with rice, it was the latest of all Asian nations to cultivate it. The medieval samurai was typically quite unlike his modern idealised image of a loyal warrior who fought to the death for his lord. In the eighteenth century Japan had the world’s largest city, and the world’s most literate population. In the nineteenth century, Japan was not just following the west, as popularly believed, but busily resurrecting practices from its ancient past. In the twentieth century, Pearl Harbor was not the first Japanese strike in the Pacific War, nor was America the first western victim. Moreover, America had plans to strike Japan first. And for all his
massive impact during the Occupation, it was not really MacArthur who designed postwar Japan but little-known planners in Washington’s State Department, particularly Hugh Borton.

There are also mysteries and controversies. Who exactly were the Yayoi invaders of more than 2,000 years ago? Where did they come from? How many came? Why did they come? Who was the mysterious Queen Himiko of the third century, and where was her realm of Yamatai located? Was it the same as the later Yamato, from which modern-day Japan derives? Why did the Japanese furiously adopt firearms after they were introduced by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, but not bother to do so when the Mongols introduced them three centuries earlier? In more recent times, just how much of a surprise was Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor? How close was Japan to developing its own atom bomb? How guilty was Hirohito?.

Japan’s history is many things. It is an adventure story, fascinating reading even just as a simple chronicle of events. It is a mystery story, with intriguing questions yet to be fully answered. And it is a textbook, with many lessons – both dos and don’ts – for the Japanese themselves and for the world at large.

P
ART
O
NE

F
ROM THE
S
TONE
A
GE TO
S
TATEHOOD:
M
YTHS
, P
REHISTORY, AND
A
NCIENT
H
ISTORY
(
TO
710)

1.1   Making Gods of Emperors: Ancient History According to Japan’s Myths

In Takamagahara (the Plain of High Heaven) a number of deities have come into existence. Below lies a swirling mass of liquid. Two of the deities, Izanagi (‘He Who Invites’) and Izanami (‘She Who Invites’), are sent to turn this liquid into land. Izanagi dips his spear into the liquid and the drops that fall coagulate into the island of Onogoro (‘Self-Curdling’ Island). The two deities descend to populate it.

Numerous divine offspring are produced, not only by vaginal birth but from other bodily parts and even from bodily waste. The God of Fire, alas,is one deity born vaginally, and Izanami is burned to death as she gives birth.

Her distraught husband Izanagi travels to Yomi, the Land of the Dead, to try to bring her back to the Land of the Living. However, she is shamed and angered when he sees her maggot-riddled body, and she chases him out of Yomi. As he bathes himself in a river to wash away the pollution of death, deities emerge from his clothes and eyes and nose. They include the Sun Goddess Amaterasu (‘Light of Heaven’) and the Storm/Sea God Susano-o (‘Wild Male’).

Izanagi sends Amaterasu to Takamagahara to rule over the heavens, while Susano-o is given the sea to rule. The wayward Susano-o, however, disobeys his father, who banishes him.

Before heading into exile Susano-o visits his sister Amaterasu in Takamagahara. At his suggestion they produce a number of children, but quarrel over his motives. Susano-o then torments his sister. He destroys the ridges between her rice-paddies, smears excrement on the walls of her palace, and throws a flayed pony through the roof of her weavingshed. Amaterasu retreats into a cave, plunging the universe into darkness.

The other deities try to lure her back out. They hang a mirror and jewelled necklace in a tree. One goddess then performs a lewd dance, exposing herself and making all the other deities laugh uproariously. Intrigued by the laughter Amaterasu peeps out from the cave, sees the jewels and mirror, and comes out to inspect them. The deities seize her and block up the entrance to the cave with a boulder. Susano-o has his banishment enforced.

He goes to Izumo (Shimane Prefecture), where he has various adventures. On one occasion he slays a monster that has been devouring children. In one of its eight tails he finds a sword, which he later presents to his sister Amaterasu as a token of remorse.

The sword, mirror, and jewels still form the imperial regalia of Japan.

Susano-o’s son, Okuninushi, is credited with pacifying the wild land. A hero, he becomes the victim of numerous treacherous acts by his jealous brothers and even by his father Susano-o. They murder him several times, but he is restored to life each time.

Okuninushi’s sons agree to a request from Amaterasu to let her descendants rule the land. Her great-great grandson, Jimmu, becomes the first ruler of Japan.

Japan’s ancient myths were first recorded in the late seventh century, eventually appearing as the
Kojiki
(Record of Ancient Things) in 712 and the
Nihongi
or
Nihon Shoki
(Chronicle[s] of Japan) in 720. They were initiated by Emperor Temmu (r.673–86), who wanted to legitimise the supremacy of the imperial family by giving it divine origins.

Given this aim, it is curious that no real distinction is made between deity and mortal, either behaviourally, morally, or in terms of creation. Apart from a few unexplained references to mysterious aboriginals,
¹
the people of the myths seem to be earth-born descendants of gods or demigods, meaning that almost all Japanese could claim divine descent. At least the imperial family could claim descent from the
supreme
deity, Amaterasu, and not the fallen deity Susano-o.

The chronicles are obviously unreliable as records of historical fact.
²
Nevertheless, to the cautious observer they still provide a valuable means of understanding Japan’s ancient past.

In broad terms, they reveal a clash between the imperial family (represented by Amaterasu’s line) and a rival family based in Izumo (represented by Susano-o’s line), which ended with the supremacy of the imperial family being ‘agreed to’. This is almost certainly a reflection of real events. However, the political slant of the accounts plays down the importance of Izumo. A dramatic hint of its actual threat as a rival power-base was revealed in 1984 with the discovery there of a cache of 358 bronze swords dating back around two thousand years. This was more than the total number of ancient swords found anywhere else in Japan.

The unusual and specific nature of many of the events in the myths, such as the incident with the flayed pony, also strongly suggests actual persons and occurrences. Such incidents provide an interesting commentary on life in ancient Japan – a world of violence and sudden death, a world where brutality and raw emotion prevail over finer feelings, and where parents kill or abandon their children and brother slays brother.

Cruelty seems to have been commonplace. On one occasion Okuninushi’s brothers split open a tree, keep it open with a wedge, force him into the opening, and then remove the wedge, crushing him to death. Out of sheer malice the same brothers also trick a live skinned rabbit into bathing in saltwater and then lying in the wind, to suffer torment when its body blisters. Another episode describes a prince killing his elder brother – in the sneakiest of ways, when his victim is in the toilet – and then pulling off his limbs and throwing them away.
³

Such cruel acts are not unknown in myths and early histories elsewhere in the world. But what is quite distinctive about the Japanese myths is an avoidance of moral judgement as to good and evil. Certain acts bring censure and punishment, but no moral sermonising. For example, Susano-o is simply removed as disruptive rather than condemned as evil. Gods and their earth-born descendants are as good and as bad as each other. Behaviour is accepted or rejected depending on the situation, not according to any obvious set of universal principles. This is exactly what many commentators remark upon in present-day Japanese behaviour. The roots of such behaviour clearly run deep.

1.2   The Earliest Inhabitants (to ca 13,000
BC
)

No-one is quite sure when the first humans appeared in Japan. Claims have been made for a date as far back as 500,000 years, and some even expect a history of a million years to be proven in due course. The general agreement at present allows for around 200,000 years, though the earliest definite human fossil remains are only about 30,000 years old.
⁴