ABSTRACT
What did the post-League international order mean to Japan in the 1920s, and what were the implications of the IPR’s Pacific Community or the American-led regional order? Who joined the Japanese Council of the IPR (JCIPR), and what role did they play in regional and domestic politics? This chapter demonstrates that JCIPR members supported the post-League order and the American-led regional order in the 1920s. Their view would become more critical in the 1930s, leading some members to advocate an alternative regional vision, the New Order in East Asia. This changing view was closely related to their growing reformist inclinations – New Liberalism in the 1920s, and statist reformism (kakushin shugi) in the 1930s. Like their counterparts in the United States and other countries, JCIPR members were not opposed to the state or the empire even in the 1920s. This was reflected in their two key roles as non-official post-League internationalists – international publicists and think-tank members. Their cooperative relationship with the state was accentuated in the 1930s, and their significance would increase especially after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937.
