Conclusion: Sharing History between the “Good People” of China and Japan

So my piece was not selected for an essay contest, and that is disappointing, but second best of course is being featured on my own private soap-box. This is the conclusion to the piece, where I attempt to weave together miscellaneous musings on history, subjectivity, and Sino-Japanese relations.

Niki Fumiko articulates the point that the Japanese perpetrators of the massacre of Chinese after the Great Kantô Earthquake were after all, “good people.” This is not in any way intended to justify their actions. Her point is that under ordinary circumstances they probably considered themselves to be good and ordinary folk, just like you and I. Yet they were capable of picking up bamboo spears and perpetrating these atrocities under extraordinary circumstances. By framing the issue in this manner, she turns the question of responsibility for the massacre back onto ourselves; instead of simply indicting “the Japanese,” Niki is pulling us out of our complacency to reflect on whether that could have been us.

My own discussion of the aftermath of the Kantô Earthquake illuminates the presence of people who at even the darkest of times stood up to the frenzy of ethnic hatred and through their actions undermined the simple categories of Chinese victim and Japanese perpetrator. More than the “good people” who perpetrated the massacres, the story of these unnamed Japanese who defended and harbored Chinese students and laborers compels us to question the way we have constructed Sino-Japanese relations in terms of ‘us versus them’. They force us to reflect on the hegemonic power of national identity, and how it can compel us to forget our other forms of identity -- as human being, brother, or sister. Only when we recuperate that consciousness can we approach an understanding of how humans who fundamentally share so much in common, can paradoxically deem themselves so starkly divided.

In searching for a way forward, I have chosen to discuss historical method for three important reasons: First, the Sino-Japanese conflict revolves around unresolved issues of historical interpretation. Second, the national history paradigm demarcates boundaries between people at the sites of their culture and identity. And finally, the theoretical critique of objectivity in recent decades lies at the heart of the movement to revise Japanese textbooks. Because historical practice is so tightly interwoven with the problem, it may hold the key to its resolution. Recent debates over historiography suggest that history is not a source of transcendental, universal knowledge, but rather a human enterprise, attempting to bridge the gaps between individuals and subjectivities. Thus, when we conceive of history as a transnational consensus-building project, we are not only producing a reliable, pragmatic body of knowledge. By promoting dialogue across national borders this very practice can draw Chinese and Japanese interpretations of war responsibility closer together, and undermine the importance of national subjectivity in our views of each other.

It is no easy task for history to bear the complexity of emotion and subjectivity. The public debate over history and textbooks in the spring of 2005 served as an inter-subjective flashpoint, but failed to generate significant consensus between China and Japan. Worse, it reemphasized the gap in consciousness that exists between people of the two countries, and thus produced a context in which fewer, rather than more people in Japan and China are willing to see each other as people with similar values. Nevertheless, I see this as an empirical failure of consensus-building, rather than a failure of method. Participation in a shared historical project can enable a more global historical consciousness, and hence a cultural milieu ever slightly more conducive to recognizing each other, regardless of nationality, as fellow humans.