By using metaphors of the “family” that were prevalent in Confucian philosophy, [Imperialists] could argue that their Asian neighbors owed them loyalty and obedience and this, in turn, could then justify stiff regulations separating [Imperialists] from their colonized subjects and at times brutal enforcement of [Imperial] rule.
While this discourse on “brotherhood” and “mixed origins” dominated the early years of the empire, advocates of a view of Japanese as “pure blood,” uncontaminated by their inferior Asian neighbors circulated as a minority view.
An ethnically distinguished national consciousness remained, nonetheless, very strong in the domestic consolidation, colonial policies and projections in Asia, and international relations with the West. As the crises in China intensified in the wake of the [Imperial] invasion of Manchuria and as the resistance of Koreans proved to be more durable than the “brotherhood” ideologues had imagined, “pure blood” advocates began to win the day.^32^
As total war erupted in China in 1937 and war with the U.S. began in 1941, [Imperial] racial discourse swung hard toward an articulation of Japanese racial superiority based on the idea of Japanese purity.^33^ During WWII, [Imperial] racial politics aligned with German racial ideologies and fueled the ideological battles among different races and nation‐states.
[…]
Hitler’s Mein Kampf was also studied by [Imperial] scholars and its first full translation was published in 1932.^38^ The American business community also became impressed by the propaganda effort, and Edward Bemays, a key CPI member who also published the book Propaganda in 1928, went on to build the first public relations industries in the U.S. Bemays stated that it was possible to “regiment the public mind every bit as much as an army regiments their bodies.”^39^
The [Imperial] government emulated the U.S. and [Reich] propaganda agencies, and multiple [Imperial] agencies were created and mobilized, including the Cabinet Board of Information, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, military propaganda specialists, Special Higher Police (Tokko Keisatsu) personnel, both public and private media, commercial advertisers, publishers, and writers who all worked to implant and disseminate [Imperial] Japan’s justification of imperial ventures against perceived internal enemies such as communists, socialists, anarchists, and Korean and Chinese nationalist subversives.^40^
[I]mperial ventures in China and other regions were also justified in order to prevent Western Powers’ intrusion in Asia and bring liberty for all Asians from the tyranny of white rule, though [Imperial] Japan’s racial narratives themselves instituted much of the same vision of racial hierarchy of the West that they supposedly disparaged.^41^
(Emphasis added.)
Click here for events that happened today (August 19).
1923: Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto, one of Benito Mussolini’s educators, perished.
1934: The German referendum that year approved Adolf Schicklgruber’s appointment as head of state with the title of Führer.
1941: As Joseph Goebbels met with his Chancellor, the Axis captured Gomel and Kherson. Likewise, the Third Reich and the Kingdom of Romania signed the Tiraspol Agreement, rendering the region of Transnistria under control of the latter.
1942: The Axis successfully repelled Operation Jubilee: the amphibious Allied assault on Dieppe, France. Additionally, the Axis exterminated scores of Mountain Jewish families who remained in Menzhinskoe by machine gun fire, and it liquidated a workers’ ghetto in Kovel. Axis police teams also conducted house‐to‐house searches in the Kaunas ghetto.
1943: Axis defenses along the Mius River succumbed to a breach near Stalino (now Donetsk), Ukraine, and Luftwaffe Chief of Staff Oberstgeneral Hans Jeschonnek suicided. Less importantly, the Wehrmachtbericht daily radio report mentioned Paul von Kleist.
1944: Paris, France rose against Axis occupation with the help of Allied troops. Axis troops in the Falaise pocket in France received orders to break out, and Field Marshal Günther von Kluge committed suicide by taking cyanide near Metz, France after being relieved of his command and recalled to Berlin.
1945: Tōkyō told its troops that surrendering under the terms of a ceasefire would not be considered a loss of honour under the bushidō, which demanded fighting to the death. Thousands resultingly began laying down their arms as the Soviets landed on Maoka to deal with more Axis holdouts. (Coincidentally, the Kuomintang lost against the Communists in the Battle of Yongjiazhen as the Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh, took power in Hanoi, Vietnam.) On the other hand, Malayan nationalist leader and Axis collaborator Ibrahim Yaacob (who, despite his name, seems to have been a gentile) and his family escaped Malaya for Java. Hiroshi Nemoto also became the commanding officer of the Axis’s North China Area Army while still retaining his command over the Japanese Mongolian Garrison Army. At Mui Wo, Lantau Island, Hong Kong, Axis commander Lieutenant Chozaburo Matsumoto ordered several civilians nearby to be tied to stakes and beaten in retaliation for a Chinese assault. When company commander Lieutenant Yasuo Kishi returned to duty later that day, he ordered the arrest and beheading of village elders Tsang Sau and Lam Fook. Later in the evening, Matsumoto ordered further arrests.