The next meeting of the Japan History Group (JHG) at the Institute ofSocial Science (ISS),
University of Tokyo, will be held on Tuesday,11October 2016, at 6:00 PM in Centre Meeting Room No.
549(CentreKaigi-shitsu), 5th floor of the Akamon Research Building, Hongo Campus.

Presenter: Professor Eric Han, College of William & Mary

Title: "The death of Sino-Japanese friendship: Lessons from the later
political career of Inukai Tsuyoshi"

Discussants: Professor Masataka Matsuura, Rikkyo University

Abstract:
Parliamentarian Inukai Tsuyoshi (1855–1932) was a key figure inpan-Asianism and the development of
party politics pre-war Japan. Thispaper will focus on the culmination of his career: his 1929 visit
to SunYat-sen’s mausoleum and travels through China; and his 1931 rise to thepost of Prime Minister
and failure to resolve the Manchurian crisis. Bothdevelopments show him at the height of his
political influence—domesticallyand internationally—and yet his efforts ended in failure. The paper
willevaluate the significance of this failure for the concept of internationalfriendship.

The issue of “friendship” in international politics is a difficult andundertheorized one. While a
political realist perspective might denyfriendship anything beyond instrumentalism, the term is a
fixture ofdiplomatic discourse. Historically, there have been numerous treatiesproclaiming “amity,
” including the “unequal treaties” that forced Japanopen in the nineteenth century. Moreover,
governments today regularly speakof friendship between nations as a part of their public diplomacy.
Even ifit is not commensurate with friendship between individuals, friendshipbetween nations is more
than simply “cheap talk”—since it clearly carriesmeaning in the minds of both leaders and publics.

Inukai invoked this sort of discourse in promoting “Sino-Japanesefriendship”; it was part of a
wider pan-Asian project. He also cultivatedpersonal friendships with Chinese leaders, as well as
other pan-Asianactivists (Miyazaki Torazô, Kayano Nagatomo, etc.). However, Inukai was nota prolific
writer or a thought leader, but rather a politician with a widenetwork of influence. I argue that it
was in his political praxis that wecan see a linking of the personal and national modalities of Sino
-Japanesefriendship. By examining the failure of these forms of friendship in thewake of Japan’s
invasion of Manchuria I hope to explore the politicalpotentials (and limits) of Sino-Japanese
friendship in his historicalmoment.

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Dr. Naofumi NAKAMURA
Professor of Business History
Institute of Social Science,
The University of Tokyo
naofumin[at]iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp
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