Nanyō in the Rise of a Global Japan, 1919-1931

Dickinson, Frederick R (2018). Guo, Nanyan; Shogimen, Takashi (eds.). Nanyō in the Rise of a Global Japan, 1919-1931. Japanese Studies down Under: History, Politics, Literature and Art. Kyoto, Japan: International Research Center for Japanese Studies. pp. 117–127.

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Abstract: onday, April 16, 1923, marked a giant step for Japan’s imperial family. After four days of rough seas, Crown Prince Hirohito disembarked into the comfortable 75-degree climate of the “land of perpetual summer.”2 Although Taiwan had been incorporated in 1895, this was the first time that an heir to the Japanese throne had set foot in the southernmost reaches of the formal Japanese empire. Befitting the magnitude of the occasion, the prince was welcomed by a 21-gun salute, a hundred fully dressed ships and a throng of native peoples.3 From April 16 to 27, Hirohito visited schools, factories, military installations, and shrines throughout the island. On April 18, he met with over 500 aborigines, including 45 tribal leaders, and enjoyed an animated display of native dance.4 As the headline of the pictorial coverage in Japan’s most popular bi-weekly, The Sun (Taiyō), read, “Taiwan Overjoyed.”5 Just four years earlier, Japanese delegates had sat at the victors’ table at the Paris Peace Conference, an irrefutable affirmation of Japan’s rise, for the first time in history, to the rank of world power. At the same time, Japan had been entrusted with the Marshall, Mariana, and Caroline Islands in the South Pacific as League of Nations mandates for its robust support of the Allied cause during the First World War. The new status as world power and Pacific empire had a significant impact on Japan’s previously unwavering attention to the Asian continent...