Masuo Nishibayashi, Japan’s consul general in Boston, made his first trip to UMB a year ago as a guest of the school’s student Japanese Language Club to speak about Japanese culture and provide a firsthand account of life in the Pacific Rim island nation. Last Monday the Japanese Club asked the consul to give a lecture in light of the 150th anniversary of formal relations between Japan and the United States, celebrated on March 31.
Nishibayashi holds degrees from Tokyo University and Williams College and has served as director of Latin American and Caribbean Affairs at the Tokyo Foreign Affairs Ministry, as well as the Japanese consulate in New York. He spoke at the Healey Library’s University Club about the history of Japanese-American relations, breaking it down into three 50-year periods. Nishibayashi said the first period, 1854-1905, started with the arrival in Japan of U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew C. Perry, whose fleet arrived at Uraga Harbor on July 8, 1853.
Less than a year later, the Convention of Kanagawa officially opened trade between the two nations. Nishibayashi noted, “At the outset, America’s interests (in Japan) were not altruistic, but rather a mixture of self interest and a sense of mission: to lead an underdeveloped country into civilization. Americans believed that Japan would be happier under the guidance of the United States rather than that of Great Britain or Russia.”
The establishment of official trade with Japan was beneficial to the United States in that it established whaling supply bases in Japan to host U.S. whaling vessels, as well as requiring Japanese sailors to rescue and salvage wrecked American ships.
Given the indispensability of whaling to the American economy at the time, this was a major help. And even more importantly, the convention created Pacific Ocean routes that the United States could use to trade with mainland Asia without using the much lengthier Cape Town route.
On their end, the Japanese saw the United States as a benevolent Christian nation from which it could learn a considerable amount, while at the same time industrializing itself. Much of what Japan gained from contact with America was put to use during the Meiji Restoration Period, which brought wholesale changes to Japan’s political and social structures.
Nishibayashi also touched on a number of important individuals with ties to the New England area who played roles in the first fifty years of U.S.-Japanese relations, such as Amherst Agricultural College (later UMass Amherst) President William Smith Clark, who went to teach in Hokkaido and established a sister state relationship between Hokkaido and Massachusetts. Jo Niijima, who studied in Massachusetts, went on to establish Japan’s first Christian Academy. Nishibayashi then spoke of Umeko Tsuda, a young friend and student of H. W. Longfellow who later founded Japan’s first Women’s College. And Baron Juntaro Komura, who studied at Harvard and contributed to the creation of Japan’s reformed taxation system, later became the country’s foreign minister and represented Japan at the signing of the 1905 Portsmouth Treaty that ended its war with Russia.
The second 50-year period was marked by dramatic change in the relationship between the two nations. After 1905, Japan began challenging the United States’ power in the Pacific, highlighted by the former’s acquisition of Taiwan in response to the latter’s acquisition of the Philippines. The 1920s brought about a decade of tenuous cooperation, but the Great Depression of the early 1930s deteriorated it to the point of total disintegration. The growing hostility between nations culminated in World War II.
According to Nishibayashi, the post-war period brought about a new era of Japanese-American cooperation. The United States was the greatest benefactor in the reconstruction of Japan from the devastation wreaked on the island in the war. After reconstruction, economic co-dependence and mutual cultural interest between the nations rose above and beyond what they were during the first fifty years of relations. The nature of the current relationship, Nishibayashi noted, is easily visible in the popularity of Japanese electronics, cinema, music and anime in the United States, while Japanese show equal interest in American culture.
On the question of Japan’s support for the United States’ military campaign in Iraq, Nishibayashi explained that concern over the threat posed by North Korea and its secret missile program was an important factor in Japan’s decision to support ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom,’ albeit in a non-combat role.
The handling of Iraq was seen by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and the Japanese government as directly linked to the approach taken with North Korea, which, if allowed to build nuclear weapons, could directly strike every major Japanese city.
Japan represents the second largest contributor of resources for the Iraqi reconstruction after the United States, and this is the first direct action of this type taken by it. Additionally, since 86 percent of Japan’s oil is imported from the Middle East, its government sees stability in the region as vital to its economy. Nishibayashi also mentioned that much like in the United States, Japanese public opinion on the Iraq campaign is split 50/50.