Roy Vu

HIST 6393- Empire, War and Revolution

February 23, 2000

Dr. Buzzanco

A Review of Akira Iriye’s After Imperialism

During the decade of 1921-1931, political forces in the Far East reached their zenith on economic diplomacy and definite confrontation loomed ahead. What were these political forces? In After Imperialism, Akira Iriye asserts that Japan frustrated by economic diplomacy with China and the Western powers of Great Britain and the United States, turned to more radical measures on Manchuria as the military leaders gained strength over weak civil bureaucrats. Iriye also focuses on the power struggle in China between Chiang Kai-Shek and the Kuomintang nationalists, the Soviet-influenced Chinese communists, and the Manchurian state under Chang Tso-Lin. However, he argues those Western powers, such as, the U.S. and Great Britain, remained neutral about China’s call for official recognition, tariff autonomy and as an equal economic power. Ironically, despite the eventual unification of China under Chiang Kai-Shek, Soviet Union became the first country to officially recognize China’s autonomy. In the end, Iriye points out that in the 1920s, the Far East countries of China and Japan sought out a new world order where the former concentrated on unification and sovereignty while the latter wanted a policy of co-existence and co-prosperity with other Asian countries that would provide land and abundant natural resources to solve two major Japanese concerns: overpopulation and lack of resources.

Iriye focuses on two of the more powerful Asian countries that rose above the imperial ashes and attempted to establish their own identity in this new world order in the Far East. He describes their political actions of this crucial post-imperialist decade hence the name of the book, After Imperialism. Iriye goes in depth on China’s pursuit of tariff autonomy, trade reciprocity, and recognition as an equal trading power among Japan and Western countries. He places Great Britain and the U.S. in the background because of their neutrality and their wait-and-see approach as to whether Chiang Kai-Shek could unite the Kuomintang and form a moderate nationalist Chinese government. The relations between China and Japan received more attention as he described how in the early part of the decade, Chiang Kai-Shek tried to appease with Japanese demands in China and in turn, receive an equal trading status from Japan. The Japanese leaders under Prime Minister Kijuro Shidehara and later Giichi Tanaka, wanted guaranteed protection and safety of Japanese businesses and properties in China as well as imposing treaties that would insure an independent Manchuria under Chang Tso-Lin that would fit in Japan’s co-prosperity model. However, later in the decade as Chiang Kai-Shek finally secured China and Manchuria under the Kuomintang, and received autonomous recognition from the Soviet Union and Western powers, Japan’s co-prosperity plan failed in Manchuria and lost economic power as China replaced Japan as the U.S.’s leading export nation in Asia. Japan’s failures led to the rise of the military junta over the weakened civil bureaucrats as they gained the support form the Japanese public. The book ends with the rise of militarism of Japan and the military overthrow of the civilian government that led to a more aggressive policy in Manchuria and China in 1930.

Iriye’s work provides many historical attributes on the relationship and the failure of economic diplomacy between China and Japan prior to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931. However, he ignores another essential element that should have been thoroughly discussed during this Asian crisis: the pre-Cold War struggles in Asia. Iriye does not analyze in-depth the pre-Cold War struggles which came as a surprise since he described how Japan and the western powers wanted Chiang Kai-Shek not only to defeat the left wing of the Kuomintang under Sun Yat-Sen but to oppressed the Soviet-influenced communists in the rural areas. Japanese Prime ministers, Shidehara and Tanaka made public reassurances to Chiang Kai-Shek that if he succeeded as a moderate nationalist, they would support his government. The Japanese preferred Chiang Kai-Shek who positioned himself as a moderate nationalist and were against the Chinese communists (Iriye, 132). Iriye also claims that the Japanese approved of Chiang Kai-Shek’s purges and suppression against the communists (144). Iriye does deserve credit for arguing the paradoxical fact that Chiang Kai-Shek and the communists were more united in their attack on foreigners’ rights and privileges in China (92-93). Both the moderate Kuomintang and the communists had policies that contained elements of nationalism and anti-foreignism.

The war between communists and non-communists also goes beyond the inner struggle for power in the Kuomintang and Japan’s reactions. Iriye mentions the role of the Soviet Union and China and the U.S. reactions toward the Russian initiatives. However, he needed to analyze at a much greater depth on this important political maneuvering between the Soviets and the Americans. Iriye states the real American fear of China falling under communism in the 1920s. He quotes John MacMurray, an U.S. official minister in Peking (Beijing) at this time: “I believe that action such as I have indicated could yet keep China from becoming a hostile agent of Soviet Russia against western powers, including the United States. If this situation is not resolutely met, it will mean the downfall of western influence in the Orient” (139). Iriye indicates the American officials were in fear of a Soviet domination in East Asia.

Iriye declares that by 1927, the Soviet initiative in China has been thwarted by the Kuomintang and Japan. However, the Soviet threat remained apparent for the Japanese leaders. Iriye states that “It was assumed that Japan’s interests and rights there could be solidified only if that region was not dragged into war and that only a peaceful Manchuria could withstand the potential threat of the Soviet Union” (113). Thus, the author presumes that besides the abundant natural resources and land for an overcrowded population, Japan’s interests in Manchuria included a buffer zone against the Soviet threat of its co-prosperity plan of Asia.

Iriye does write about the American initiative in East Asia but not to a great extent. He states that “there is no question that the United States had fully participated in the diplomacy of imperialism. It had not only acquired territories in the Pacific but had also entered into various agreements with China, Japan and Western powers to respect the status quo in the Far East extend political and economic influence there” (10).

The Americans had a great interest in maintaining an economic model in East Asia that would benefit the U.S. and Western powers. However, Japan as a “Western-like power” in Asia, attempted to establish a new world order of co-existence and co-prosperity in the Far East that would aid Japan’s economy and heightened its military prestige. However, Iriye asserts that neither Great Britain nor the U.S. was really interested in assisting Japan to develop its conception of a Far Eastern Order (300). Rather, both the British and American governments in the 1920s took a standby approach in Asia and advocated for a moderate Chinese government in China that would be strong enough to stand on its own against Japan while eradicating the communist forces at home.

In relation to the class the discussion, the question that connects this reading with the lecture on defining revolution and counterrevolution is this: Should both the Kuomintang and the communists be considered as revolutionary movements despite their differences in ideology? Unfortunately, Iriye does not distinguish Kuomintang's government or the communist movement as revolutionary. He does state some differences between the two and explained the power struggle within the Kuomintang itself between Sun Yat-Sen and Chiang Kai-Shek. On Chiang Kai-Shek, Iriye assesses that “unlike the communists, he was willing to distinguish between friendly foreigners and imperialist governments” (94). However, he argues that the most spectacular communist gains in China were registered in the field of organized mass movements in the countryside (91). So Iriye addresses the differences but did not quite extend them to define what kind of revolutions had occurred in China in the 1920s.

Iriye also reveals the preparations for war by both the Japanese military leaders and U.S. official in the near future. Again, he does not thoroughly analyze the strained relations between Japan and U.S. and the anticipated confrontation between them that actually occurred twenty years later. However, Iriye successfully conveys the political situation in the Far East during the 1920s. His thesis on the failure of economic diplomacy between Japan and China, and Japan and the Western powers that frustrated Japan’s new world order of a co-prosperity, remains strong and adequate. Published in 1965, After Imperialism is a well-written book on the political situation in East Asia during the 1920s.