The Vanishing Empire of Japan, The Resurgent Empire of Japan: Two Empires Revisited
I've posted on the same tile before.
I posted that with the Russia/Ukraine situation, it might be a good idea to consider the Japanese Empire and Manchukuo in the past...
penginsengen.hatenablog.com
Once again, I will try to reiterate the argument.
Of course, the title is a parody of two militarisms, hard Japanese imperialism and soft (ideological) Japanese imperialism, the former (in terms of military and economic power) has fallen so far that even if one starts talking about "Once upon a time, there was a country called the Empire of Japan that fought a world war against almost the whole world..." at this rate, the Japanese themselves would not even know it was true.
→No way! Such a small country in the Far East! This will be the reaction.
(And looking at the United Nations the other day, Russia has become the Empire of Japan...).
But on the soft side, the Japanese are becoming more and more imperialized.
For the younger generation, even the "Empire of Japan" is a product of the fantasy world, a fictional nation that appears in shipbuilding games, or a story in a game. Its actual existence is being forgotten.
However, this is precisely why we need to pay attention to the soft aspects of the Empire of Japan.
First of all, the fall of Japan, including the Corona disaster, has become increasingly decisive. While the economic damage is greater than in other countries, the actual number of deaths is not necessarily higher. It can be said that Japan is doing well in the face of an aging population and increasing vulnerability.
Conversely, however, even at this level, the economy is in a severe decline, medical care is on the brink of collapse (the good fight in the field is truly amazing), and the limits are becoming apparent. It is like the Empire of Japan to be able to manage by the struggle of the frontline, but this has always been the case, and the same is true for the hardware as well. We have yet to develop a vaccine (China and Russia have perfected one, albeit an old-fashioned type... and Japan is still behind in everything. The good news is that a cure is likely to be developed, but digitization remains at a global low, and there is nothing on the political front either. Well, the U.K. and the U.S. are not much better....
It is inevitable that we have lost 30 years of our history, and what we have lost in military power, we will regain in economic power! This has become almost impossible to achieve.
In such a situation, some nationalists are marching in the direction of conspiracy theories, hate, and the day after tomorrow, but there is nothing they can do about it. Since they cannot win the technological war, they are trying the cultural and historical war, but it will not produce good results. There is no cause for historical revisionism in the first place. It is a foolish act that is disrespectful to our predecessors, and it is a fool's errand to bury even (a little) glory of the real Empire of Japan.
Although I will not cite the evidence in detail, the continuity between the prewar and postwar periods has always been pointed out. In the end, postwar Japan, which turned its wartime economic system and total war system to economic warfare, was in a sense the Empire of Japan itself, which was also demonstrated in the frenzy of the bubble economy.
The nationalists aimed at a "world-renowned Japan" not through military power but through economic power, and as far as this was concerned, it was only latent and did not require much publicity. For example, even if it was said that it was only about the economy, it was enough if it was only about the economy. Militarily, Japan also had a large presence in the Far East as a partner of the United States.
However, this has gradually changed since the 1990s, when the "lost 30 years" began, also known as the "third defeat.
The balance of power in the Far East has been shifting toward China, both militarily and economically. On the other hand, with the end of the Cold War, the U.S. was asked to shoulder its fair share of the burden, and faced a situation where it was not appreciated even if it offered money (Gulf War).
With the digital defeat, Japan has thoroughly retreated and China is on the rise. Even in the Far East, the power relations changed in this relationship.
China has finally overtaken Japan in terms of GDP, and in terms of technology, China is becoming dominant, especially in digital technology. This is not surprising considering the difference in population. China is also losing ground in terms of the number of papers and top citations, but this is unavoidable considering the number of people.
Nevertheless, the sinking of the country on all fronts will be unbearable, especially for nationalists and nationalists.
Therefore, since around 1990, reactionism, historical revisionism, and conspiracy theories have been all the rage, and there have been many theories about the collapse of China, and the "politics" section of bookstores has become an "abuse" section, as it is still today. The "politics" section of bookstores has become, and still is, an "abuse" section, with abuse all over the place (this applies to leftists, globalists, and liberalists to some extent).
Along with the lost 30 years, the Japanese people themselves must have lost their sense of direction.
Because it was not "the past" that was lost, but "the future"...or rather, "hope".
The lost 30 years were not only a loss, but also a loss of "hope" for the future.
We can now only predict a future of continued decline.
The sense of stagnation and the Lindy Effect*, or rather the Matthew Effect*, will continue and accelerate the decline.
The Lindy Effect
The average life expectancy increases with age. In this case, the longer the declining trend continues, the longer the subsequent declines will continue.
For more information, click here↓.
**Matthew Effect: This is from the Bible.
It is explained as "the law of economic virtuous and vicious cycles, in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
What is the Matthew Effect? How to Reverse the Matthew Effect and Succeed (uteimatsu.com)
In conclusion, nationalists and nationalists will be frustrated, but they have no choice but to accept the fact that the offensive is no longer over.
What then?
We should not spend our efforts living in a world of meaningless hate and conspiracy theories or trying to revise history.
Nor should we give up on economic growth. Those who engage in foreign hate, conspiracy theories, and historical warfare are defeatists of a sort, and in a sense, there is no defeat in the hate war. We just have to hate as best we can. In a sense, there is no defeat in the war of hate. When it comes to substantive battles, even the so-called "Net Woyo" becomes a defeatist.
A not-so-good example is the cyber-attack on Japan by the Korean right-wing, which was intercepted by 2chan nerds, and the attempt to welcome the Koreans with moe and fujoshi. Well, the South Koreans also gathered personnel, but they were not able to target the attackers, and there were many misdropped bombs.
And what did the netizens do? but it seems that they were unable to mount an effective attack. Well, "Net Wyo" was the right wing of the Internet.... In a sense, it is wonderful that they are law-abiding, but it seems that they do not go into battle (this is a kind of cyber battle) where their abilities are tested, even though they hate a lot.
Good or bad, the white right-wingers (also active in Ukraine), Russian right-wing writers (who take guns and go to the front themselves), numerous right-wing religious groups (Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, you name it), and the Korean right-wingers are also engaged in cyber warfare, but only cyber warfare.
*For more information on white right-wing groups, see also
The Shadowy Leader in the Ukraine Crisis--U.S.-Russia Backed White Right Wing Naval Warfare (Shoji Rokuji) - Personal - Yahoo!
The nature of this is quite different from these...it is all talk.
In case you missed it, here is the attack from South Korea
Cyber-terrorism incident on 2Chan from a Korean domain - Wikipedia
But the scale of these counterattacks was less than half of those made from South Korea to Japan." Even half is said to be an exaggeration. The firefight, for example ... was only slow for a while, for five minutes," the South Korean government site said. and so on.
In addition, in the current cyber warfare, even a single person can achieve great results in some cases.
For example, there is this
Security Researcher Pissed Off After Being Hacked by North Korea Returns → Shuts Down the Entire North Korean Internet | Gizmodo Japan (gizmodo.jp)
Individuals.
This is how hackers were born... History of hacking: LabaQ (labaq.com)
It turns out that you can do quite a bit.
In such a situation, it can be said that it is the "netizens" who cannot fight back in this way.
Nevertheless, it is quite good to be law-abiding. It may be just a lack of skill or defeatism that prevents them from going into battle, but let's just say that the Japanese are highly law-abiding.
This is a bad example, and it is true that the Japanese do not engage in individual combat, but only fight when it is legal to do so in a group, and when the atmosphere is right.
But their defeatism will not change even if you defend them as "the Japanese people are not going to fight individually.
After all, they are a declining country and are left to decline.
Rightists, nationalists, nationalists, etc. should be doing something more constructive than indulging in hate, revisionist history, and conspiracy theories that are meaningless counterattacks.
For example, they should be engaged in activities to promote the Japanese language, translate foreign literature (which also has the aspect of enriching the Japanese language), and promote the Japanese language in other countries. It is also beneficial from a nationalistic point of view to be able to read various things in Japanese), preservation of vanishing cultures and their incorporation into Japan, and so on.
And yet, on the other hand, the Japanese Empire is being revived.
Freedom of the press and the atmosphere are typical of Japan, as is the voluntary cooperation of the media (which, as usual, is not cooperation at all). But more than that, it is a philosophical aspect.
It is generally said to be conceptual, but in my opinion it is not.
Look at the city, there are many foreigners. Despite Corona, there are still a lot of them.
Yes, in fact, the ideology of "example" that supported the old Japanese Empire has become a reality by now.
Under that ideology, the former military academies and the military accepted a lot of human resources from the Asian region. Chiang Kai-shek is well known, as is the great general (Kim Il-sung, although the real Kim Il-sung has been found to be a definite graduate, but the theory that he was a Soviet double who became a northern general still prevails), and former President Park (his father's side) was an officer of the former Empire of Japan.
The Myanmar military's story of studying abroad was criticized, but for them, Japan, which is still their mother country, is a kind of suzerain state (General Aung San, the father of the Myanmar military, switched sides at the end of the war from the Imperial Japanese Army to Britain, but continued his relationship with Japan after the war and often took sides during trials).
Although few have pointed this out, the current situation is consistent with the "example" ideology of the nationalists under the Empire of Japan (which even boasted of the Empire's human diversity before the war), and in this respect, in fact, the Empire of Japan is undergoing a revival.
It is interesting to note that Japan, a "declining country," is nevertheless, in a sense, reviving the Empire.
This situation is unusual.
The way the empire is simultaneously in decline and becoming an empire is just like that of the Roman Empire.
Will something like the historical Mediterranean happen in Japan?
That seems unlikely looking back to the past. However, I do not think it is wrong to study the trajectory they followed for the sake of Japan in the future.
In conclusion
The Empire of Japan as a military and economic empire is on the verge of complete extinction. However, some of the ideas they infamously espoused are, in a sense, being resurrected today. How to think about this other empire requires going back to the ideologies of the past. Otherwise, what may appear to be leftist notions of globalization and racial fusion may be the ghosts of the Empire of Japan.
