Pan-Asianism in the Wartime Writings of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean Intellectuals in a Transnational Space at Kenkoku University in Japanese-Occupied Manchuria

Abstract

Kenkoku University (Nation-Building University, abbreviated as Kendai) was founded in 1938 by the Kwantung Army, the Japanese army of occupation of the northeastern provinces of China, commonly designated Manchuria. Kendai was the only institution of higher learning administered directly by the Manchukuo’s governing authority, the State Council, which was dominated by Japanese officers. Kendai recruited male students of Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese, Mongolian, and Russian backgrounds, who applied to the school of their own volition and passed very competitive entrance examinations.1 The school aimed to nurture a generation of leaders who would actualize the pan-Asianist goal of minzoku kyōwa, or “ethnic harmony,” one of the founding principles of this ostensibly independent state.2 To experiment with this pan-Asianist education, not only Japanese but also non-Japanese intellectuals joined the faculty.