Interwar Japan beyond the West The Search for a New Subjectivity in World History

In the late nineteenth century, Japan was the only non-Western country to have successfully faced the challenges of Westernization. At the end of the Meiji Era, just three decades after the end of the country’s feudal age, it became Great Britain’s ally, while its soldiers were deployed in Beijing, operating alongside the great European powers. Meanwhile, in Japan, the perception of a scientifically and technologically advanced West came to be imbued by negative connotations, generated by the threatening Western presence in Asia. In order to avoid succumbing to the European imperialist yoke, Japan has itself gradually converted its international status by embracing an imperialistic identity. The new image of the world responding to the current historical situation could only result from a philosophy immersed in historicity, far from its metaphysical dimension. In a philosophy mediated by history, self-awareness would have coincided with the “historical manifestations of history”. Based on these premises, the Chūōkōron group seemed to have presented Japan’s hegemonic aspirations as an expression of its “real historical manifestation”. This sounded like an explicit declaration of ideologically supporting the country’s involvement in the war. But what is the meaning that the participants in the debates attributed to the idea of Japan’s “real historical manifestation”? The answer lies in a moral obligation that the country saw as “the duty” of world history: overcoming modern civilization while promoting a new culture.