The History of US-Japan Relations: From Perry to the Present ed. by Tosh Minohara

Abstract

Reviewed by: The History of US-Japan Relations: From Perry to the Present ed. by Tosh Minohara Peter Mauch The History of US-Japan Relations: From Perry to the Present. Edited by Tosh Minohara. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. 352 pages. Hardcover, €88.39/¥12,317; softcover, €25.99/¥3,509. This overview of the Japanese-US relationship throughout history is an English translation of Nichibei kankei shi (Yūhikaku, 2008), a Japanese-language volume edited by preeminent diplomatic historian Iokibe Makoto and containing chapter-length contributions by teams of Iokibe's students and associates, including Kusunoki Ayako and Shibayama Futoshi. The translation, which has been ably edited by Tosh Minohara (himself one of Iokibe's many students), was sponsored by the Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture as part of its ambitious Japan Library collection. The book under review is a worthy addition to the series, especially when considered as a text for the undergraduate classroom. The work opens, logically enough, with the arrival in Edo Bay of Commodore Matthew Perry's Black Ships. Chapter 1 introduces the reader to Japan's mid-nineteenth-century entry into the international order conceived and dominated by the West, and it does a good job of locating the Japanese-US relationship within that broader context. Chapter 2 deals with the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including Japan's successful wars against China and Russia and the United States' victory over the Spanish. It gives genuine insight into this intensely interesting period in relations between the two countries, which was characterized by the coincidental arrival of both "at the center stage of international politics" (p. 23). The next two chapters move on to a time of increasing trans-Pacific friction. Chapter 3, which concerns itself with the years before, during, and after World War I, is particularly lucid in its treatment of the "race issue" (pp. 46–49, 60–61). Chapter 4 opens with a brief but illuminating summary of Prime Minister Hara Takashi's foreign policy, followed by a discussion of the Japanese-US relationship through the Washington Conference and beyond. At that conference, the two nations, together with Britain, limited naval armaments according to the ratio of 5:5:3 for the United States, Britain, and Japan and also agreed not to interfere in Chinese politics, allowing Japan and the United States to "revert to a policy of mutual cooperation" (p. 69). The chapter discusses these as well as less positive currents, most notably the problem of Japanese immigration to the US. [End Page 305] Chapter 5 begins with an account of the "differing approaches to China" taken by the two countries (p. 83). It documents Japanese aggression toward China from the 1931 Manchurian Incident onward and the US response thereto, moving seamlessly into a discussion of Japan's subsequent designs on Southeast Asia and the crisis these events precipitated in Japanese-US relations. Readers will doubtless find the analysis valuable, although the parts on Foreign Minister Matsuoka Yōsuke's foreign policy may come across as confusing. Why did Matsuoka conclude the Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact and set Japan on a course to "pursue its southward advance policy" (p. 96) if he genuinely hoped to avoid war with the United States? Why did he, almost as soon as he concluded the neutrality pact, abandon the southward advance policy and instead urge military action against the Soviets? This is particularly puzzling if, as the authors suggest, Matsuoka was aware even before the conclusion of the pact "that Germany planned to . . . open up a new front against the Soviets" (p. 96). Such questions are not meant to imply that the authors are wrong in their assessment of Matsuoka's actions; rather, the confusion perhaps indicates the difficulties inherent in summarizing Matsuoka's complicated and (frankly) incoherent policies. This reviewer admits to having read chapter 6, on the Pacific War and the subsequent military occupation of Japan, with particular interest. In a nod to Iokibe's scholarship, the chapter focuses less on battles and military successes and losses than on wartime planning in Washington (and, to a lesser extent, Tokyo) for the postwar future. It provides a neat overview of the endgame...