ABSTRACT
The historian Nakamura Masanori views modern Japanese history in the context of an oscillation throughout modern history between ‘internationalism and nationalism, Westernisation and chauvinism’.3
In other words, he conceptualises the choices faced by modernising Japan in terms of tensions between an emphasis on the maintenance and defence of Japanese values, and the acceptance of the free interaction of Japan within a larger framework that would integrate Japan as one member of a broadly conceived international community. A somewhat similar dichotomy is applied by those who see pre-war Japan engaged in a struggle between democracy and dictatorship, the latter represented by either the army or ‘fascism’. However, nationalism and internationalism are not necessarily mutually exclusive antonyms. Depending on the way the terms are interpreted, a nationalist may very well be able to favour cooperation with other nations in an international order that provides equal and fair chances to all nations. Ishibashi Tanzan was one of the few Japanese who represented this alternative, wishing to enhance Japan’s national interest through cooperation within a wider international order. Different from nativists, who saw the Japanese state in mythical terms, Ishibashi dared to compare the state to an enterprise, an organisation with rational goals that needed to be run in a rational manner.
