ABSTRACT
When the Western European Powers in the days of their arrogant imperialism forced open the doors of the ancient Empires of China and Japan, they had little thought for the monstrous dangers to their supremacy in the East that they were thereby creating. To-day, when great possessions have made them ready to abandon imperialistic ambitions and to subscribe to a system of international justice, their statesmen may perhaps appreciate the tragic irony of a situation in which one of the victims of their predatory past has succeeded in shattering the most noble achievement of their benevolent present. For, whatever views one may hold about Japan’s activities in Asia, this, at least, is clear: the downfall of the League of Nations and, with it, the destruction of hopes for a peaceful world, began with the conquest of Manchuria in 1931. From then onwards the Western democracies have seen, with horror and alarm, a faithful rendering of policies which they had pursued vigorously in their unregenerate past, but which, they hoped, had been made impossible in the enlightened post-War world. Just as Great Britain in South Africa and India had used breaches of treaties, signed under duress by the other parties, as excuses for extending the areas under her control, so Japan was seen to be following the familiar imperialistic course. Just as Great Britain buttressed her Empire by securing control over nominally independent Governments, so Japan, her apt pupil, has set up puppet States, and in this way has been able to gather the spoils of military victory while posing as a champion of oppressed peoples and a bestower of peace on a disordered land. And just as Great Britain invested her ambition for Empire with a high moral purpose, so Japan has discovered, also, that she has been selected by the gods for lordship of other nations and, in particular, that her destiny is to give peace to the East and to free it from the tyranny of Western Powers. The “white man’s burden” has its parallel in Japan’s mystical charge to overthrow communism, to bring discipline and unity to Asia, and to create a world ordered according to the divine Emperor’s wishes. It is not agreeable for the Western democracies to be confronted with the same fanaticisms, excesses, and romantic follies that stained their own youth, just when they were prepared for a temperate and peaceful manhood.
