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Asia Pacific Modern
Race for Empire: Koreans as Japanese and Japanese as Americans during World War II
Race for Empire offers a profound and challenging reinterpretation of nationalism, racism, and wartime mobilization during the Asia-Pacific war. In parallel case studies—of Japanese Americans mobilized to serve in the United States Army and of Koreans recruited or drafted into the Japanese military—T. Fujitani examines the U.S. and Japanese empires as they struggled to manage racialized populations while waging total war. Fujitani probes governmental policies and analyzes representations of these soldiers—on film, in literature, and in archival documents—to reveal how characteristics of racism, nationalism, capitalism, gender politics, and the family changed on both sides. He demonstrates that the United States and Japan became increasingly alike over the course of the war, perhaps most tellingly in their common attempts to disavow racism even as they reproduced it in new ways and forms.
520 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2011
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March 12, 2015
In this work, Fujitani uses a comparative methodology to analyze the shifting racial discourse in the Japanese and American empire during World War II. Looking at Korean colonial subjects and Japanese Americans side by side, Fujitani argues that the empire’s colonial repertoires regarding the management of racialized populations significantly shifted from one characterized by “vulgar racism” to that of “polite racism.” Instead of engaging in outright racist practices through means of exclusions and creations of difference via violence and acts of brutality, the Japanese and American empires turn to embrace a new rhetoric that disavows racism and promotes the betterment of colonial subjects via self-governance. Fujitani presents two striking aspects of Japanese and American colonialism and their treatments of “foreign” populations: the notion of inclusionary racism that is covalent with the concept of self-governing subjects and ambivalence of belonging—who can be counted or discounted in the imperial race-management machines. The transnational approach also teases out the dialectics of race in colonial Korea and America—both reinforced, influenced, and responded to each other in logical manners under the many constraints of international pressure, hegemonic ideology, and the rights to rule over colonial subjects. As Fujitani has put it, “the model of each total war regime throughout the world strengthening itself by mobilizing colonial subjects and racialized minorities stimulated the others to follow, resulting in a global system of mutual and multidirectional agitation and emulation (10).”
Fujitani successfully highlights the strenuous efforts from both the Japanese and American empire to strategically disavow racism in implementing wartime policy. Specifically, the Japanese empire created a voluntary conscription system that allows Korean colonial subjects to participate in the Japanese army under Japanese names and express their loyalty to the empire. At the same time, with the promotion of co-prosperity sphere and Pan-Asianism, Japan employed a race-evasive language that emphasized the efflorescence of a multi-ethnic empire and the sameness of blood and racial lineage with Korean and other Asian nation-states. In the theoretical grounding of Foucault’s self-governance and bio-power, the state, rather than focusing on blatant marginalization of “other” population, has the power to decide between who is useful or dangerous to the state and who is to remain or be exterminated with such evaluative barometers. This discursive procedure of subject-formation constitutes self-governed subjects through the modern political technology of health, education, democracy, and the rights to vote. This logic also applies to the case of Japanese Americans who were initially condemned as traitors to the host country but was immediately incorporated into the American empire as it denounced racist practices on a broad scale soon after the establishment of internment camps. America, for fear of losing the political legitimacy in the Asia-Pacific sphere, engaged in the so-called inclusionary racism that, on the one hand, constituted Japanese American as loyal subjects to its causes; on the other hand, it evaded the nature of the Asia-Pacific war as a race war by drawing international attention to the inclusive policy of acknowledging their civic practices through military participation and other active wartime roles. These racialized populations became imperial sacrifices, trapped in complex ideological clashes of citizenship and belongings, survivals and the threats of extermination.
The striking parallels between the Japanese and American’s regulatory mechanisms in managing its racially diverse populations shed new light on the interdependency of hegemony in the Asia Pacific and what motivates this relationship. The rhetoric deployed by Japan, valorizing it as the leader of the Asiatic race, seeks to undermine American’s influences as a competing global hegemon. This, in turn, posed a threat to American’s imperial ideology in the Pacific. It consequently responded by an inclusive policy that condemned racist practices by acknowledging the Japanese Americans as part of the empire that could be shown through their devotion and loyalty. These responses from the two empires push discursive practices to another level. First, previously condemned subjects must be strategically drawn back to the “fit” and compatible populations. Second, they must be disciplined in a way that allowed them to be capable of self-governance and knowledge through a process that Foucault termed “governing of self-governing.” And finally, as they became full-fledged colonial subjects, their fates are decided by the nation-states. Their existence is conditioned by a high level of constraints and/or commitments to the state, as Fujitani has wittily phrased “welcome to the nation, go get slaughtered and we promise you a long and pleasant life (77).”
Fujitani successfully highlights the strenuous efforts from both the Japanese and American empire to strategically disavow racism in implementing wartime policy. Specifically, the Japanese empire created a voluntary conscription system that allows Korean colonial subjects to participate in the Japanese army under Japanese names and express their loyalty to the empire. At the same time, with the promotion of co-prosperity sphere and Pan-Asianism, Japan employed a race-evasive language that emphasized the efflorescence of a multi-ethnic empire and the sameness of blood and racial lineage with Korean and other Asian nation-states. In the theoretical grounding of Foucault’s self-governance and bio-power, the state, rather than focusing on blatant marginalization of “other” population, has the power to decide between who is useful or dangerous to the state and who is to remain or be exterminated with such evaluative barometers. This discursive procedure of subject-formation constitutes self-governed subjects through the modern political technology of health, education, democracy, and the rights to vote. This logic also applies to the case of Japanese Americans who were initially condemned as traitors to the host country but was immediately incorporated into the American empire as it denounced racist practices on a broad scale soon after the establishment of internment camps. America, for fear of losing the political legitimacy in the Asia-Pacific sphere, engaged in the so-called inclusionary racism that, on the one hand, constituted Japanese American as loyal subjects to its causes; on the other hand, it evaded the nature of the Asia-Pacific war as a race war by drawing international attention to the inclusive policy of acknowledging their civic practices through military participation and other active wartime roles. These racialized populations became imperial sacrifices, trapped in complex ideological clashes of citizenship and belongings, survivals and the threats of extermination.
The striking parallels between the Japanese and American’s regulatory mechanisms in managing its racially diverse populations shed new light on the interdependency of hegemony in the Asia Pacific and what motivates this relationship. The rhetoric deployed by Japan, valorizing it as the leader of the Asiatic race, seeks to undermine American’s influences as a competing global hegemon. This, in turn, posed a threat to American’s imperial ideology in the Pacific. It consequently responded by an inclusive policy that condemned racist practices by acknowledging the Japanese Americans as part of the empire that could be shown through their devotion and loyalty. These responses from the two empires push discursive practices to another level. First, previously condemned subjects must be strategically drawn back to the “fit” and compatible populations. Second, they must be disciplined in a way that allowed them to be capable of self-governance and knowledge through a process that Foucault termed “governing of self-governing.” And finally, as they became full-fledged colonial subjects, their fates are decided by the nation-states. Their existence is conditioned by a high level of constraints and/or commitments to the state, as Fujitani has wittily phrased “welcome to the nation, go get slaughtered and we promise you a long and pleasant life (77).”
February 23, 2015
This book. This big old book. It partially confounds me.
Fujitani creates a comparative argument, detailing how the Japanese Empire and the United States incorporated hated ethnic minorities - the colonized Koreans and the Japanese Americans, respectively - into their militaries to win World War II. The author reveals many fascinating parallels between the events in both countries, such as that Japanese leaders were inspired in their treatment of Koreans by the way the American government treated its ethnic minorities. Both nations used extensive questionnaires to determine the loyalty of Korean and Japanese American men and see if they were fit for military service. Koreans and Japanese Americans joined the two empires' respective militaries, but had complex reasons for doing so. Some Koreans felt genuinely patriotic toward Japan, plenty of Japanese Americans felt patriotic toward America, and plenty of coercion, subtle or not, happened in both locations. Finally, many similarities exist between the propaganda films made in Japan during the war, and the films about Japanese American soldiers made in America during and after the war. Fujitani makes a compelling case that the Japanese and American empires, for the sake of obtaining more soldiers, moved from exclusionary racism to a more inclusive racism, even as discriminatory practices like the Japanese internment camps and the use of Korean women as "comfort women" took place.
Where I take issue with the manuscript is Fujitani's reliance on Michel Foucault's ideas of biopower (how the state incorporates different populations into the national people) and governability (how to coerce people into making nominally free choices). I don’t want to sound like some sort of anti-theory or anti-idea Luddite, but I found Fujitani’s use of these Foucauldian concepts like “biopower” a bit problematic. It’s the dilemma of data-driven versus data-derived arguments. Foucault, a hybrid philosopher-historian, did his research for his History of Sexuality project, accumulated data (or, at least, historical information), and derived his idea of biopower from that data. All well and good. My discomfort begins in Fujitani’s introduction, when Fujitani says he will explore “biopower” and “governability” in WWII-era Japan and America. Fujitani then opens Chpt. 1 with a long theoretical discussion of biopower and governability. Is Fujitani looking for these ideas in his data – in other words, letting his pre-existing ideas of biopower and governability drive the way he reads his sources? Certainly, we all have ideas swirling around our heads when we read, yet I am concerned that, when one privileges certain concepts as much as Fujitani does, one will look only for evidence that reinforces those concepts. Instead of deriving philosophical or theoretical ideas from evidence, one winds up selecting evidence based on pre-existing ideas – a data-driven argument, instead of an argument derived from data.
I guess if I was writing this book, I would have read up on theory, then set those ideas aside, read primary sources, and afterwards considered where the evidence augmented or supported the theory ideas. I’m not fully convinced that Fujitani set aside his preconceived notions of biopower and governability when he began his primary source research. As such, I wonder how much he shaped his argument to live up to the lofty intellectual standards of Michel Foucault.
(NOTE: The theoretical quandary I’ve outlined really is applicable only to history, secular religious studies, and other social sciences. It might apply to English or other literary studies, but it seems that scholars in those fields are more comfortable letting preconceived theories guide their reading. Similarly, in theology, scholars are talking all the time about abstract ideas that pre-exist everything else. In theology, you can absolutely let the a priori shape your reading, because you’re looking for your particular religion on Earth.)
Fujitani creates a comparative argument, detailing how the Japanese Empire and the United States incorporated hated ethnic minorities - the colonized Koreans and the Japanese Americans, respectively - into their militaries to win World War II. The author reveals many fascinating parallels between the events in both countries, such as that Japanese leaders were inspired in their treatment of Koreans by the way the American government treated its ethnic minorities. Both nations used extensive questionnaires to determine the loyalty of Korean and Japanese American men and see if they were fit for military service. Koreans and Japanese Americans joined the two empires' respective militaries, but had complex reasons for doing so. Some Koreans felt genuinely patriotic toward Japan, plenty of Japanese Americans felt patriotic toward America, and plenty of coercion, subtle or not, happened in both locations. Finally, many similarities exist between the propaganda films made in Japan during the war, and the films about Japanese American soldiers made in America during and after the war. Fujitani makes a compelling case that the Japanese and American empires, for the sake of obtaining more soldiers, moved from exclusionary racism to a more inclusive racism, even as discriminatory practices like the Japanese internment camps and the use of Korean women as "comfort women" took place.
Where I take issue with the manuscript is Fujitani's reliance on Michel Foucault's ideas of biopower (how the state incorporates different populations into the national people) and governability (how to coerce people into making nominally free choices). I don’t want to sound like some sort of anti-theory or anti-idea Luddite, but I found Fujitani’s use of these Foucauldian concepts like “biopower” a bit problematic. It’s the dilemma of data-driven versus data-derived arguments. Foucault, a hybrid philosopher-historian, did his research for his History of Sexuality project, accumulated data (or, at least, historical information), and derived his idea of biopower from that data. All well and good. My discomfort begins in Fujitani’s introduction, when Fujitani says he will explore “biopower” and “governability” in WWII-era Japan and America. Fujitani then opens Chpt. 1 with a long theoretical discussion of biopower and governability. Is Fujitani looking for these ideas in his data – in other words, letting his pre-existing ideas of biopower and governability drive the way he reads his sources? Certainly, we all have ideas swirling around our heads when we read, yet I am concerned that, when one privileges certain concepts as much as Fujitani does, one will look only for evidence that reinforces those concepts. Instead of deriving philosophical or theoretical ideas from evidence, one winds up selecting evidence based on pre-existing ideas – a data-driven argument, instead of an argument derived from data.
I guess if I was writing this book, I would have read up on theory, then set those ideas aside, read primary sources, and afterwards considered where the evidence augmented or supported the theory ideas. I’m not fully convinced that Fujitani set aside his preconceived notions of biopower and governability when he began his primary source research. As such, I wonder how much he shaped his argument to live up to the lofty intellectual standards of Michel Foucault.
(NOTE: The theoretical quandary I’ve outlined really is applicable only to history, secular religious studies, and other social sciences. It might apply to English or other literary studies, but it seems that scholars in those fields are more comfortable letting preconceived theories guide their reading. Similarly, in theology, scholars are talking all the time about abstract ideas that pre-exist everything else. In theology, you can absolutely let the a priori shape your reading, because you’re looking for your particular religion on Earth.)
October 31, 2013
I don't know how many stars to give to a book that is too close to my familiar turf any more. Overall, we should all welcome well-researched books that attempt to go against the historiographical grain. The biggest argument (ok, Foucauldian governmentality/biopolitics aside) is the comparison itself. Comparing Japanese Americans and Korean Japanese used to be unthinkable in usually left-leaning scholarship in Japan and Korea, and I am curious of how this book is being received in Asia right now. The Japanese empire should be understood in comparison to many different polities -- multiethnic America, USSR, contemporary China, etc. And this book does exactly that. A nice step forward.
That said, I think he left out some important discussion. Why is there "empire" in the title of the book, when it treats the Japanese imperial state as a nation-building state? Isn't his argument that the Japanese racial policy reflected Foucauldian governmentality, not the logic of empire (then why emphasize "empire")? It leads us to demand that he expand on the claim that the US and Japan were both "postcolonial empires" -- need more clarification and explanation. It's too important! I also wonder, as Foucault himself kinda thought that biopolitics was a post-fascist mode of rule, what is Fujitani's opinion about "Japanese fascism" -- was it just the acceleration of biopolitics, rather than something comparable to Nazism/Italian Fascism, or is he saying all fascist nations were products of biopolitics? -- need clarification again!
In a nutshell, the argument itself is simple but provocative to those who are used to nationalistic historiography. If you like Foucault, you'll like it. The comparison is interesting, but to be honest, the governmentality argument goes a lot easier in the Japanese-American case than the Korean-Japanese case.
That said, I think he left out some important discussion. Why is there "empire" in the title of the book, when it treats the Japanese imperial state as a nation-building state? Isn't his argument that the Japanese racial policy reflected Foucauldian governmentality, not the logic of empire (then why emphasize "empire")? It leads us to demand that he expand on the claim that the US and Japan were both "postcolonial empires" -- need more clarification and explanation. It's too important! I also wonder, as Foucault himself kinda thought that biopolitics was a post-fascist mode of rule, what is Fujitani's opinion about "Japanese fascism" -- was it just the acceleration of biopolitics, rather than something comparable to Nazism/Italian Fascism, or is he saying all fascist nations were products of biopolitics? -- need clarification again!
In a nutshell, the argument itself is simple but provocative to those who are used to nationalistic historiography. If you like Foucault, you'll like it. The comparison is interesting, but to be honest, the governmentality argument goes a lot easier in the Japanese-American case than the Korean-Japanese case.
April 3, 2012
Fujitani has done a splendid job as always. By explaining historical incidents, not in convoluted scholarly language but in a brilliant language, without reducing the work to populist tale, Fujitani explains the policies of the US empire towards Japanese Americans and the Japanese empire towards Korean Japanese. A must-read for Conspiracy fans.
August 16, 2019
Race for Empire: Koreans as Japanese and Japanese as Americans during World War II
Record, this is the second book in three days that I started and stopped because I had no will or time to stomach the auhor's bullshit. I stopped when he seemed to suggest that Japan was less racist because its navy accepted Koreans in 1943 unlike the US. And combine that with prior statements regarding volunteers and he seems to dismiss the actual manpower need of total war and empire building.
And these were only the last in a long line of examples. In fact it started very early on when I hoped that the first passage in the preface would not be a harbinger of doom, because it sounds like someone who would dismiss critique at affirmative action as racist, even though it actually discriminates against Asian Americans and apparently very often supports "black" Americans who are not descendents of American slaves. But I kept my hopes up, a´for the time being.
But sadly, the bad omens kept coming. Like when I realized that he was using the word "ethnic" as synonym for "ethnic minority;" but at least the author's usage of the word for the relation between Japanese and Koreans, suggested consistency and lack of double standard. Well, in this regard. In other cases I was not so sure.
That he mentioned the Nazis and placed them in contrast to the Japanese and Americans was perfect to either show is ignorance or double standard, because despite what he suggests here, the Nazis basically did the same: over the course of the war, they included more and more non-Germans into their armed forces. The SS alone had thousands of non-Germans among their ranks, not just ethnic Germans from outside Germany as he suggests here. And it did not stop later on.
In fact, I wondered whether the author even realized that by what he suggested so far (the whole veiled/changing racism to win allies) by the USA and Japanese regimes (which btw. he seems to be hesitant to fully call an empire), could also be applied to the Nazis, unlike what he states here? The Nazis also adjusted their rhetoric and to a degree ideology to justify their alliances. And not just the alliance with the Japanese, but they changed it to basically accommodate Turkey, Egypt and Persia. Among other things as every look into the European axis forces in general and Wehrmacht and SS in specific shows.
He also claimed that the Nazis promoted an uncomplicated ideology of racial purity and superiority unlike the Japanese regime.... BULLSHIT!!! That might seem to be the case in popular media but I can assure you that the Nazi racial ideology was anything but uncomplicated, that thing was highly contradictory and often motivated by outside factors. So do not trust this author when it comes to the Nazis.
And too bad for thim: I read Dower's War without Mercy as well! His statements regarding the Nazis were bad enough as it is, also he seems to claim that Japan was not as racist as claimed. Btw. whoever claimed that in popular media and "common sense?" Can anyone name a film or so that did that? Well anyone in the english speaking movie world that is (I have seen East Asian ones who straight up portray them as racist). Plus, even by his statements the Japanese were forced into this. And whatever he stated would apply to the Nazis well. And his statement about the Japanese recruiting Indians fits very well, because, guess who also did that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_...
At that point I was not even at 6 % of the book and even though he still intrigued me but my radar was on because not only did he attribute Japanese racism in large part as an effect of Euro-American discourses on racial difference without addressing the parts that are native to Japan, but when it came to Koreans he spoke of politicians and voting but never once mentioned forced labor or the effects discrimination had, like placing them on the same level as Burakumin.
Ignoring the fact that I got some serious apologetics vibes from this book and that it barely, used the term discrimination, what this guy uses several big sentences for could be easily said in one sentence. Only after barely 50 pages or so did he mention the word discrimination. Took him long enough. And maybe that is not his intention, but he sounds as if he wants to claim that the Japanese empire somehow would give Koreans equality instead of having them as second class citizens at best. In fact, he doesn't just seem to be apologetic about Japan but the USA as well. Or maybe his "big words" just come across as too vague to be sure.
At that point I stopped reading and I haven't looked back ever since.
July 31, 2020
A brilliant insight into the convergence between the U.S. and the Japanese empires during the Second World War in their endeavor to mobilize their respective minority--Japanese-Americans in the former and colonized Koreans in the latter. The success of this endeavor hinged upon what Fujitani calls a conversion from "vulgar racism" to "police racism," whereby the necessity to win the war created the need to disavow racism and recognize their minorities as being capable to exercise free-will and pledge allegiance to the empire they served respectively. This turnabout, even if it was not intended, thus created new opportunities of belonging for the previously marginalized minorities. Of course, Fujitani is careful to point out how this new mode of belonging--one that was based on culture and choice than biological race--was differentiated significantly by gender. As shown by the comparison between Japanese women and Korean women, the latter was, in a way, doubly subjugated by the Japanese colonizer and their Korean male counterpart even as the Korean male found himself bound to the nation more strongly than ever. The book does not fully delve into the effects of this important legacy of the Second World War in the postcolonial era, except that Japanese-Americans became celebrated war heroes in America while Koreans (and Taiwanese) have been almost immediately and completely erased from Japanese historical memory. Fujitani opens up new avenues of thinking about the relationship between race and empire as well as between East Asian studies and other disciplines in academia.
January 11, 2024
Race for Empire: Koreans as Japanese and Japanese as Americans during World War II.
That's it!
This is The Name of The Game!!
The book presents a number of documentary evidences and reveals that Koreans intentionally pretended to be Japanese during World War II.
After Japan's defeat, the global deep state in the UK and the US turned Japan and Korea against each other. (Divide and Rule) They created a system to channel money from the defeated Japan to the globalists via South Korea through religion and pachinko.
That's it!
This is The Name of The Game!!
The book presents a number of documentary evidences and reveals that Koreans intentionally pretended to be Japanese during World War II.
After Japan's defeat, the global deep state in the UK and the US turned Japan and Korea against each other. (Divide and Rule) They created a system to channel money from the defeated Japan to the globalists via South Korea through religion and pachinko.
June 18, 2022
Was hoping for more about Korean Americans as Japanese but still learned a few things.
May 24, 2013
Foucault works great with Fujitani (they've become almost indistinguishable to me, sInce his first book, Splendid Monarchy). There are definitely virtues (e.g. the concept of biopower makes an unlikely comparison possible - Japanese in the US and Koreans in the Japanese army), though it also makes his analysis a little too predictable. I also wonder if his argument about “polite” vs “vulgar” racism might not be obscuring the realities of military oppression and discrimination against Koreans. Given that racism is vulgar by nature (read Dower's War without mercy), isn’t the distinction between “vulgar’ and “polite” a bit superfluous? Also can we use the same idea of "race" to talk about Koreans and Japanese Americans ? And Koreans have no real voices in his analysis, while Japanese immigrants seem to mostly speak thru US official documents. Since I really liked his first book, I am a bit disappointed this time, but still a provocative read.
February 14, 2013
It is a long book. And since I had to read it for class, I only had 1 week to digest it, which I think is definitely not enough.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews