The conservative imaginary: moral re-armament and the internationalism of the Japanese right, 1945–1962

Abstract

Moral Re-armament (MRA) was an international religious movement that caught the attention of politicians, industrialists, and union leaders around the world in the 1940s and 1950s, including three (future) Japanese prime ministers – Nakasone Yasuhiro, Hatoyama Ichirō, and Kishi Nobusuke. This article examines their involvement in MRA, showing that it provided them with an internationalist register – and network – to adjust older, prewar ideas about state power, national community, and Asian regionalism to the age of the Cold War and decolonization. In so doing, the article investigates the origins of the postwar conservative imaginary arguing that, far from being narrow nationalists, Nakasone, Hatoyama, and Kishi were in fact convinced internationalists of the right. By shedding new light on the political culture of key representatives of the Japanese ruling classes, the article adds to the understanding of the country’s negotiated transition from fascism and empire to liberal democracy. It also provides a prehistory to the politics of the Right in contemporary Japan.

Keywords:

• Moral Re-armament
• modern Japanese history
• conservatism
• Kishi Nobusuke
• Nakasone Yasuhiro
• Hatoyama Ichirō

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Cyril Michaud and Audrey Bonvin for sharing their knowledge of the history of MRA.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 See Nakano (2013), Ishikawa (1996), Kitaoka (1992). For studies by political scientists, see Curtis (1999), Samuels (2003). Richard J. Samuels has written a sophisticated comparative study of Japanese and Italian politics in Samuels (2003).

2 Shindō Ken and his study of two key conservative intellectuals, Fukuda Tsuneari and Takeyama Michio, is an exception (Shindō 1991).

3 An exception is John Dower’s biography of Yoshida Shigeru, which highlights how Yoshida’s postwar politics displayed the authoritarian imprint of Imperial Japan (Dower 1979).

4 Three notable exceptions are the following studies. The American angle on MRA is the subject of Sack (2009). Boobbyer has examined the thought of Frank Buchman in Boobbyer (2013). Schieder has written a fine-grained analysis of the transpacific circulation of MRA plays. See Szendi-Schieder (2016).

5 Buchman, as quoted in Sack (2009, 107).

6 Some of the activities of MRA in Southeast Asia are described in Ford (2017, 80–83) and Tan (2018, 59–115).

7 The most detailed, if hagiographic, account of MRA’s activities in Japan is the memoir of Basil Entwistle, a key operative of the movement. For the ways in which this delegation was formed, see Entwistle (1985, 15–38).

8 Recent studies of fascism in Japan include Hofmann (2015) and Young (2017, 274–296).

9 NARA, RG319, A1/134, 7361354, ‘Nakasone Yasuhiro’.

10 See also L’Illustré, 22 June 1950.

11 Nakasone ‘Representation to General MacArthur’. The acerbic tone and bold requests incurred the ire of MacArthur, whose first reaction was to toss the letter into the bin.

12 ‘Representation to General MacArthur’, 8–10; 23. Nakasone explained, that the ‘people who have no attachment to the culture and tradition of their own country are inferior people’.

13 ‘Representation to General MacArthur’, 6–7, 13, 15.

14 For a detailed account of party politics under the Occupation see Masumi (1985, 73–174).

15 Political scientists have devoted much attention to the ‘1955 system’, but less so to the road that led to it. See, especially, Schoppa (2011) and Curtis (1999).

16 LC, unnamed letter to Frank Buchman, 17 April 1954.

17 LC, Basil Entwistle to Frank Buchman, 4 February 1954.

18 Nippon Times, 25 June 1955, ‘MRA Special Supplement’.

19 For Yoshida’ anti-labour legislation, for example, see Dower (1979, 333–340).

20 Dower (1979, 111).

21 Hatoyama’s wife attended also other MRA events on several occasions. See, for example, Hatoyama Ichirō and Hatoyama Kaoru (1999, 252, 316, 400).

22 ACV PP 746/5.2.2/162, ‘Report on Japan’.

23 Nippon Times, 25 June 1955.

24 ‘Hi-sōtō Hatoyama-shi ni genmei’, Asahi Shinbun, 1 April 1938. He restated these impressions in Hatoyama Ichirō (1938). After the war, he insisted that he had not personally authored this book, an argument supported by some scholars. But this line of defence contradicts statements Hatoyama made in the contemporary press.

25 Masumi (1985, 80). See also NARA file.

26 LC, letter Michael Henderson to Ken, 22 September 1962. The Center was right next to the Mitsui villa, which had purchased the land from Prince Kanin, a prewar military leader who supported the Axis and had a distinct for state Shinto.

27 Samuels (2003, 144–148). Kishi, as quoted in Ōta Naoki (2005, 278). While on the continent, Kishi worked with right-wing elements in the Army, especially Amakasu Masahiko, and counted yakuza and fixers among his inner circle. He profited from the opium trade, corruption, and was an indefatigable womanizer. After the war, he would reminisce that in Manchuria ‘I came so much, it was difficult to clean it all up’. As quoted in Driscoll (2010, 267). For overviews of Kishi’s years in Manchuria, see Samuels (2003, 143–148, 242–248). A detailed account can be found in Ōta Naoki (2015).

28 As Samuels points out, several exponents in MITI had been reformist bureaucrats under Kishi (Samuels 2003, 149).

29 Kang and Hyun (2016, 198). Nor did Kishi lose the old habits of corruption: see Samuels (2001). For American overtures to Kishi, see Schaller (1995).

30 Kishi as quoted in Ikeda (2016, 145, 149). For Kishi, the postwar Constitution represented all that was wrong in postwar politics (Kang and Hyun 2016, 199.)

31 As quoted in Ikeda (2016, 139). See also Kang and Hyun (2016, 213–214).

32 Kishi, 165.

33 Entwistle (1985, 147–148). LC ‘Letter To Kishi To be handed by George Eastman “Our Opinions Concerning Korea/Japan Relations”’.

34 LC, Letter Jerry Nelson, Los Angeles, California, 11 April 1957.

35 Entwistle (1985, 153–154). LC ‘Prime Minister Kishi Breaks Japanese-Korean Deadlock’, 30 April 1957.

36 ACV PP 746/5.2.2/164.

37 Undated letter from Nobusuke Kishi to Ngô Đình Diệm, in NAC2, PTTĐICH 21949, ‘Hồ sơ liên quan đến hoạt động của Ông Nobusuke Kishi – thủ tướng Nhật Bản năm 1957–1962’. I thank Mitchell Tan for sharing this document.

38 For the significance of Bandung on Japanese foreign policy, see Kweku (1995, 15–24); Miyagi (2001).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Start-Up Grant [1 8 H 0 5 6 2 7].

Notes on contributors

Reto Hofmann

Reto Hofmann is Senior Lecturer in Asian Studies at the University of Western Australia. He is the author of The Fascist Effect: Japan and Italy, 1915–1952 (Cornell, 2015) and his work has appeared in the Journal of Contemporary History, Journal of Global History, and Journal of Asian Studies (forthcoming). He is writing an international history of Japanese conservatism in the middle of the twentieth century. He may be contacted at [email protected]