Kokutai

is a concept in the Japanese language translatable as "system of government", "sovereignty", "national identity, essence and character", "national polity; body politic; national entity; basis for the Emperor's sovereignty; Japanese constitution" or nation.

Etymology

''Kokutai'' originated as a Sino-Japanese loanword from Chinese ''guoti'' (; "state political system; national governmental structure"). The Japanese compound word joins and . According to the ''Hanyu Da Cidian'', the oldest ''guoti'' usages are in two Chinese classic texts. The 2nd century BC ''Guliang zhuan'' () to the Spring and Autumn Annals glosses ''dafu'' () as ''guoti'' metaphorically meaning "embodiment of the country". The 1st century AD ''Book of Han'' history of Emperor Cheng of Han used ''guoti'' to mean "laws and governance" of Confucianist officials.

Before 1868

The historical origins of ''kokutai'' go back to pre-1868 periods, especially the Edo period ruled by the Tokugawa shogunate (1603–1868).

Aizawa Seishisai (会沢正志斎, 1782–1863) was an authority on Neo-Confucianism and leader of the Mitogaku (水戸学 "Mito School") that supported direct restoration of the Imperial House of Japan. He popularized the word ''kokutai'' in his 1825 ''Shinron'' (新論 "New Theses"), which also introduced the term ''Sonnō jōi'' ("revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians").

Aizawa developed his ideas of ''kokutai'' using the idea that the Japanese national myths in the ''Kojiki'' and ''Nihon Shoki'' were historical facts, believing that the Emperor was directly descended from the sun goddess Amaterasu-ōmikami. Aizawa idealized this divinely-ruled ancient Japan as a form of ''saisei itchi'' (祭政一致 "unity of religion and government") or theocracy. For early Japanese Neo-Confucian scholars, linguist Roy Andrew Miller says, "''kokutai'' meant something still rather vague and ill defined. It was more or less the Japanese 'nation's body' or 'national structure'."Miller, Roy Andrew (1982). ''Japan's Modern Myth''. New York: Weatherhill.

From 1868 to 1945

From 1868 to 1890

Katō Hiroyuki (1836–1916) and Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835–1901) were Meiji period scholars who analyzed the dominance of Western civilization and urged progress for the Japanese nation.

In 1874, Katō wrote the ''Kokutai Shinron'' (国体新論 "New Theory of the National Body/Structure"), which criticized traditional Chinese and Japanese theories of government and, adopting Western theories of natural rights, proposed a constitutional monarchy for Japan. He contrasted between ''kokutai'' and ''seitai'' (政体 "government body/structure"). Brownlee explains.

The concept of the ''kokutai'' was popularized during the Meiji era as Japanese elites had embraced a "crude Social Darwinism" as their guiding principles, seeing nations as being locked in perpetual struggle with one another for dominance, and as such the purpose of the Japanese state was first and foremost as a machine for conducting foreign policy. In order to maintain support for the existing social system and for this view as the state for a machine for conducting foreign policy, the idea of the ''kokutai'' was popularized with the Japanese people being liked to one vast family under the rule of the patriarchal god-emperor. The American historian M. G. Sheftall wrote that the concept of the ''kokutai'' was the ideological foundation stone of Japanese militarism, writing for millions of Japanese the ''kokutai'' was "...the mystical embodiment of the essential unity of the Japanese people, inextricably bound up with ''völkish'' ideas about the mythical divine origins of the nation, all under the august beneficence of the institution of the divine emperor and the proverbial protection of several millennia worth of ancestral ghosts. For the IJA mperial Japanese Armyand tens of millions of Emperor Meiji's subjects, the ''kokutai'' was not merely a source of pride and spiritual power for the nation, it was the lifeworld of the nation ''in toto'', not only in social and political terms, but also in theological and cosmological terms, and no means were too extreme and no sacrifice too great if deemed necessary for its survival". Sheftall wrote this way of viewing the ''kokutai'' as divinely sanctioned by a god-emperor led to a certain psychological in-balance as it was difficult for those who believed in the ''kokutai'' to accept any setback, which explains the immense rage that periodically erupted over any setback to Japan. In 1905, the Treaty of Portsmouth mediated by the American president Theodore Roosevelt ended the Russian-Japanese war, where Japan made gains, but nowhere near what was expected as the costs of the war had nearly bankrupted Japan, and thus the treaty was more favorable to Russia than it was assumed would be the case. The Treaty of Portsmouth led to anti-American rioting breaking out all over Japan and was presented in Japan as a national humiliation.

Fukuzawa Yukichi was an influential author translator for the Japanese Embassy to the United States (1860). His 1875 "Bunmeiron no Gairyaku" (文明論の概略 "An Outline of a Theory of Civilization") contradicted traditional ideas about ''kokutai''. He reasoned that it was not unique to Japan and that every nation could be said to have a ''kokutai'' "national sovereignty". While Fukuzawa respected the Emperor of Japan, he believed ''kokutai'' did not depend upon myths of unbroken descent from Amaterasu.

Meiji Constitution

The Constitution of the Empire of Japan of 1889 created a form of constitutional monarchy with the ''kokutai'' sovereign emperor and ''seitai'' organs of government. Article 4 declares that "the Emperor is the head of the Empire, combining in Himself the rights of sovereignty", uniting the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government, although subject to the "consent of the Imperial Diet". This system utilized a democratic form, but in practice was closer to an absolute monarchy. The legal scholar Josefa López notes that under the Meiji Constitution, ''kokutai'' acquired an additional meaning.

This stemmed from drafter Itō Hirobumi's rejection of some European notions as unfit for Japan, as they stemmed from European constitutional practice and Christianity. The references to the ''kokutai'' were the justification of the emperor's authority through his divine descent and the unbroken line of emperors, and the unique relationship between subject and sovereign. The "family-state" element in it was given a great deal of prominence by political philosophy.W. G. Beasley, ''The Rise of Modern Japan'', p. 80 Many conservatives supported these principles as central to ''Nihon shugi'' (日本主義, "Japanism", or ''Nihon gunkoku shugi'', Japanese militarism), as an alternative to rapid Westernization. ''Nihon shugi'' is an ideology that values the traditional Japanese spirit and sets the tone of the state and society; it emerged in this period as a reaction to the Meiji government's radical Europeanization policy. Nihon shugi is a kind of "''kukka shugi''" (国家主義, lit. "statism" or "nationalism") ideology. ''Nihon Shugi'' opposed 'Europeanism' (欧化主義), democracy and socialism, which were considered unrelated to Japanese traditions, and during the Taishō and Shōwa era, it emphasized the ''Kokutai'' ideology centered on the emperor as opposed to Marxism.

Initially, perceived threats to the ''kokutai'' were seen as coming from abroad, but starting in the early 20th century there was a tendency to see threats to the ''kokutai'' as coming from within. The internal threats to the ''kokutai'' were seen first and foremost as class consciousness as Japanese peasants moved to cities to become the working class of the Japanese industrial revolution while other Japanese rose up to become a new middle class, both developments which were seen as threatening the ''kokutai'' between dividing Japanese society into classes with different interests. Other perceived threats to the ''kokutai'' were socialism and the rise of a trade union movement along with the rise of consumerism which were as seen as threatening the spiritual unity of the ''kokutai''. Finally, "Westernization" in a cultural sense was seen as damaging the ''kokutai'' by introducing foreign ideas into society. Paradoxically, the Russian-Japanese war emphasised these concerns about the cracks in the unity of the ''kokutai'' as it was believed that the principle reason for Russia's defeat was the gulf between the aristocratic officers of the Imperial Russian Army vs. the "salt-of-the-earth" common Russian soldiers, and that if a similar gulf were to emerge in Japanese society, then Japan too would be defeated in war.

In 1910, the Army Minister Tanaka Giichi engaged in a project in "mass social engineering" by founding the semi-official ''Zaigo Gunjin Kai'' (Imperial Military Reserve Association) that worked closely with the Army Ministry to "spread militaristic thought among the population at large" as its founding charter put it. The purpose of the ''Zaigo Gunjin Kai'' was to solidify support for the ''kokutai'' as defined by the Imperial Japanese Army, which marked the beginning of the IJA as a political force. In 1915, the Imperial Military Reserve Association founded the Youth Associations designed to provide realistic military training for Japanese high school students. Later on in the 1920s, the Army Minister General Kazushige Ugaki founded the Youth Training Schools and the Attached Officer Program under which active duty serving officers worked as teachers in every elementary school and every high school in Japan. Under the Attached Officer Program, IJA officers taught the youth of Japan military tactics and drill, gymnastics and what Sheftall called "a heavy dose of indoctrination in ultra-nationalistic ''kokutai'' ideology under the guise of 'civics'". This militarization of the educational system led to a marked xenophobic and militaristic mood amongst the Japanese people who had been indoctrinated into believing to fight and die for the god-Emperor as the leader of the ''kokutai'' was their highest duty.

Taishō Democracy

From the Xinhai Revolution to the enactment of the Peace Preservation Law (1911–1925), the most important pre-World War II democracy movement "Taishō Democracy" occurred. During the Taishō Democracy, the political theorist Sakuzō Yoshino (1878–1933) rejected Western democracy ''minshu shugi'' (民主主義 lit. "people rule principle/-ism") and proposed a compromise on imperial democracy ''minpon shugi'' (民本主義 "people based principle/-ism"). However, as Japanese nationalism grew, questions arose whether the ''kokutai'' emperor could be limited by the ''seitai'' government.

The Peace Preservation Law of 1925 forbade both forming and belonging to any organization that proposed altering the ''kokutai'' or the abolishment of private property, in effect criminalizing socialism, communism, republicanism and other anti-Tenno ideologies. The Tokkō ("Special Higher Police") was established to investigate political groups that might threaten Tenno-centered social order of Japan.W. G. Beasley, ''The Rise of Modern Japan'', p. 184. .

World War II

Tatsukichi Minobe (1873–1948), a professor emeritus of law at Tokyo Imperial University, theorized that under the Meiji Constitution, the emperor was an organ of the state and not a sacrosanct power beyond the state. This was regarded as ''lèse-majesté''. Minobe was appointed to the House of Peers in 1932 but forced to resign after an assassination attempt and vehement criticisms that he was disloyal to the emperor.Andrew Gordon, ''A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa to the Present'', p. 199, ,

Great efforts were made to foment a "Japanese spirit" even in popular culture, as in the promotion of the " Song of Young Japan". Piers Brendon, ''The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s'', p. 441

The national debates over ''kokutai'' led the Prime Minister Prince Fumimaro Konoe to appoint a committee of Japan's leading professors to deliberate the matter. In 1937, they issued the ''Kokutai no Hongi'' (国体の本義, "Cardinal Principles of the National Body/Structure"Gauntlett, John Owen and Hall, Robert King. ''Kokutai no hongi: cardinal principles of the national entity of Japan''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University press, 1949.). Miller gives this description. Increasingly, the ''kokutai'' was defined in militarised terms in the 1930s with calls being made for a ''gunkoku'' ("military nation") under which the entirety of the Japanese nation would be mobilised for war in peacetime with Japan to become a modern Asian version of ancient Sparta.

It clearly stated its purpose: to overcome social unrest and to develop a new Japan. From this pamphlet, pupils were taught to put the nation before the self, and that they were part of the state and not separate from it.W. G. Beasley, ''The Rise of Modern Japan'', p. 187 It also instructed them in the principle of hakkō ichiu ("eight cords, one roof"), which would be used to justify imperialism.

Brownlee concludes that after the ''Kokutai no Hongi'' proclamation,

The Ministry of Education promulgated it throughout the school system.

By 1937, "election purification", originally aimed at corruption, required that no candidate set the people in opposition to either the military or the bureaucracy.Andrew Gordon, ''A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa to the Present'', p. 196, , This was required because voters were required to support imperial rule.

Some objections to the founding of the ''Taisei Yokusankai'' (Imperial Rule Assistance Association) came on the grounds that ''kokutai'' already required all imperial subjects to support imperial rule. Conservative thinkers voiced concerns that the establishment of an empowered class of aides to the emperor was akin to the creation of a new shogunate.

For the leaders of Japan's "fascist-nationalist clique", writes Miller, "''kokutai'' had become a convenient term for indicating all the ways in which they believed that the Japanese nation, as a political as well as a racial entity, was simultaneously different from and superior to all other nations on earth."

This term, and what it meant, were widely inculcated in propaganda. The final letters of kamikaze pilots expressed, above all, that their motivations were gratitude to Japan and to its Emperor as the embodiment of ''kokutai''. A sailor might give his life to save the picture of the Emperor on a submarine.

During World War II, some anti-modernist intellectuals argued that prior to the Meiji Restoration, Japan was always a classless society under a benevolent emperor, but the restoration had plunged the nation into Western materialism (an argument that ignored commercialism and ribald culture in the Tokugawa era), which had caused people to forget their nature. To recover their traditional identity, Japanese citizens had to actively participate in the war effort.

"Japanist" unions endeavoured to win support by disavowing class violence and pledging support for nation and emperor. Nevertheless, because of the mistrust of unions in such unity, the Japanese went to replace them with "councils" in every factory, containing both management and worker representatives to contain conflict. Like the Nazi councils they were copying, this was part of a program to create a classless national unity.

Because many religions had figures that distracted from the central emperor, they were attacked, such as the Oomoto sect condemned for worshipping figures other than Amaterasu, and in 1939, the Religious Organization authorized the shutting down of any religion that did not conform to the Imperial Way, which the authorities promptly used.

Hirohito evoked the ''Kokutai'' in his surrender broadcast, which announced the Japanese acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration (unconditional surrender).

Post-1945

By the surrender of Japan in 1945, the significance of ''kokutai'' diminished. In autumn 1945, GHQ forbade circulation of the ''Kokutai no Hongi'' and on 15 October repealed the 1925 Peace Preservation Law. By the enactment of the Constitution of the State of Japan (3 May 1947), the Emperor's sovereignty and the ''lèse-majesté'' were repealed.

Nevertheless, some authors, including Miller, believe that traces of Japanese ''kokutai'' "are quite as vivid today as they ever were".

In the 21st century, Japanese nationalists, such as those affiliated with the Nippon Kaigi lobby, have begun using the phrase "kunigara" (国柄, "national character").

Notes

See also

*'' An Investigation of Global Policy with the Yamato Race as Nucleus''
* Gekokujō
*Huaxia
*Imperial Rescript on Education
* Japanese Historical Text Initiative
*Hirohito surrender broadcast (Gyokuon-hōsō)
* Kokuchūkai (Column of the Nation Society)
* National Spiritual Mobilization Movement
*Shinbutsu-shūgō
* Socialist thought in Imperial Japan
*Statism in Shōwa Japan
* Uyoku dantai (Nationalist groups of Japan)
* Yangmingism
*Yasukuni Shrine

References

* Daikichi, Irokawa. ''The Culture of the Meiji Period''. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970.
* Kitagawa, Joseph M. "The Japanese ''Kokutai'' (National Community) History and Myth", ''History of Religions'', Vol. 13.3 (Feb., 1974), pp. 209–226.
* Antoni, Klaus ''Kokutai – Political Shintô from Early-Modern to Contemporary Japan''. Eberhard Karls University Tuebingen, Tobias-lib 2016. . Open Access publication

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Japanese nationalism
Japanese historical terms
Politics of the Empire of Japan
Kokkashugi
Japanese words and phrases
Japanese mythology