Abstract
At the clashing conjuncture of ‘Westernization’ and ‘Japanization’ Japan’s modernity faced the expansion and disruption of ‘imperialization’. This paper examines modern Japanese urban histories through the analysis of Japan’s oversea expansion and the construction of colonial cities and therefore aims to illustrate the historical particularities of ‘Japanese modernity’.<BR> Japan’s turn to colonization and imperialization is distinguished is distinguished from other western cases since she endeavored to territorialize nearby regions. This neighbor imperialism is most prominent when we examine the urban development of colonial cities and the colonial migration and settlement. The urban structure of colonial cities revealed the strong legacy of traditional Japanese cities. Japanese empire experienced ‘great transformation’ since the early 1930’s when she colonized Manchuria and the experiemtn of Manchukuo empowered her to stand as an independent ‘Japanese empire’ shaking off the shadow of the Western imperialism. Therefore, the urban structure and architecture of Manchukuo can be said to have been the spatial realization of this new Japanese imperial ideology.<BR> Japanese imperialism underwent inner conflicts and fluctuations due to the duality of ‘assimilation’ and ‘differentiation’. This study showed that these conflicts are the results of ‘Japanization’ and ‘Westernization’ during the Japanese nation state building based on the emperor system. ‘Japanese modernity’ and ‘Japanese empire’, the complex of different and conflicting historical process, tried to confront such inner paradox by expanding external territories. However, the physical duality of urban space exposes the real nature of colonialism such as discrimination, repression and violence despite the ostensible discourse of assimilation and equality. This expansion of the emperor system ideology to that of regional integration such as ‘Asia Co-prosperity’ and ‘Great Asia’ escalated the unevenness and unconformity of imperial space and eventually such empty ideology was driven to catastrophe.
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