Cipango - French Journal of Japanese Studies Imperialist vs Rogue. Japan, North Korea and the Colonial Issue since 1945 The present paper is an attempt on grasping with the Japanese colonization in Korea through two main issues: the colonial past as an important stake in the Japan-North Korea negotiations since 1945, and the status of the Japanese colonization among the Japanese public debate.
In 1991, during the negotiations aiming at the normalization between Japan and North Korea, « settling the past » constituted a main issue before reaching to the consensus of the P’yŏngyang Declaration, the 17th of September 2002. The Declaration mentions apologies for the colonial domination and preconizes a strong « economical cooperation », meaning actually the payment of indemnities to North Korea, and re-enacting the same type of resolution decided toward South Korea some 35 five years ago.
In Japan, the persistence of regional security issues with North Korea (the threat of ballistic and nuclear missiles, repeated abductions of Japanese citizens) and the well mediatized idea of North Korea as a « rogue stat...

Adrien Carbonnet 2017-11-27
Criticising Colonialism in pre‑1945 Japan From the beginning of Japanese colonial rule, some people began to raise their voices to criticize this new domination on overseas people. During the Taishō democracy period, these voices began to be heard, prior to be smothered during the 1930’s. There were many people who doubted the capacity of the Japanese State to assimilate colonialized populations. We can separate these contestators of the colonial system in three major trends of ideas.
1) A moral movement, which emerges basically as a fierce criticism of repressive police and army’s methods against colonial populations (especially after the 1919 independence movements in Korea).
2) An economical criticism, inherited from the western liberal philosophy, stating that colonization cost more than it can bring in profits. This trend does not really care about the colonial situation in itself, but consider that the colonial programme is short-termed enterprise as colonial people will obviously struggle against the colonial ruler and...

Pierre‑François Souyri 2017-11-27
The Beginnings of Japan’s Economic Hold over Colonial Korea, 1900-1919 For this first study in French language on the economics of the Japanese colonial empire, we have chosen to focus on the Korean case, from the establishment of the first railways on the peninsula in 1900 until the crisis of the colonial system in 1919 (March 1st Movement). The colonization of Korean was promising: an extensive land with a large population located very close to Japan. But rapidly, it was hampered by several grave difficulties. The colonial main infrastructures, as railways and banking system, suffered from, alternatively, the lack of investment and the “Manchuria policy” promoted by Terauchi Masatake. The industrial production remained marginal, despite its vigorous growth. This sector has been stimulated greatly by a stock-exchange fever starting in 1916, but suddenly collapsed as the bubble burst in 1919. The exterior trade of Korea (including with Japan) continued to increase its deficit. Japan used the colony just to obtain rice an iron ore, but the lack of inves...

Alexandre Roy 2017-11-27
The History Textbook Controversy in Japan and South Korea This paper deals with the history textbook crisis of 2001 following the authorization of the revisionist textbook from the Society for History Textbook Reform. Our purpose is not to delve into that textbook but to examine both the reactions it sparked in South Korea, where it was deemed to be the tip of the iceberg of a wider problem affecting all Japanese history textbooks, and the response that supporters of the revisionist textbook gave to South Korean criticisms. Beyond the mutual charges of “distorting” history, the comparative analysis of the controversial issues reveals far less discrepancies than the diplomatic row triggered by that crisis may have suggested. Comparison with succeeding editions of the textbooks indicates that both sides have drawn the conclusions to avoid a similar crisis.

Samuel Guex 2017-11-27
Manchuria and the “Far Eastern Question”, 1880‑1910 Manchuria came into the modern world history during the last third of the nineteenth century. It was an epoch of great colonial expansion. Before then, the aim in expansion had been commercial. With a superior technology in firearms, the United Kingdom, the United States and France had imposed on both China and Japan unequal treaties and open ports. However, limited in power, this superiority did not allow for large scale, conquest type of war. Hong Kong and Shanghai symbolized the success and limitations of this politic. Associated with China, neighbouring with Korea, cut off the Japanese sea by the Russian projection, Manchuria that has no decisive economic attraction, stay out of the pivot. However, in less than a decade, the combination of the new conditions would drag it in the middle of hard conflicts. The irruption of war would be explained by the progress of railways and steam navigation, to which the natural environment of Manchuria was favourable, because of the central pl...

Michel Vié 2017-11-27
Introduction Over one hundred years have now passed since the Kingdom of Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910. It was inevitable, then, that 2010 would be an important year for scholarship on the Japanese colonisation of Korea. In response to this momentous anniversary, Cipango – Cahiers d’études japonaises launched a call for papers on the subject of Japan’s colonial past in the spring of 2009.

Why colonisation in general and not specifically relating to Korea? Because it seemed logical to the journal’s editors that Korea would be the focus of increased attention from specialists of East Asia, at the risk of potentially forgetting the longer—and more obscure—timeline of the colonisation process. Indeed, the annexation of Korea was preceded not only by that of Taiwan, but also by a growing Japanese presence in Manchuria as of 1904. This is in addition to Japan having established a position of dominance in Korea as of 1876. Moreover, while the fall of Japan’s colonial empire coincided with the defe...

Arnaud Nanta and Laurent Nespoulous 2017-11-27
From the Kagerō no nikki to the Genji monogatari Murasaki Shikibu, author of the Genji monogatari, is generally acknowledged to have read the Kagerō Diary, the first autobiography written by a woman. In the course of writing the Genji, she seems to have adopted stylistic and narrative techniques from the Kagerō, including the incorporation of poetic quotations into a prose text, and “interior discourse.” Several Genji episodes, including Genji’s exile and the clash between the carriages of female rivals, have antecedents in the Kagerō Diary. By comparing the two texts, which are close in these respects, we can discern each writer’s unique vision and narrative technique.

Jacqueline Pigeot 2015-11-27
New Worlds: Matching and Recontextualizing Poetry Excerpted from Fiction in the Monogatari nihyakuban utaawase Prior to 1206, the poet Fujiwara no Teika (1162-1241) took two hundred poems (waka) from the Genji monogatari and the Sagoromo monogatari, both Heian-period novels, and matched them in the style of a poetry competition (utaawase). The resulting work is known as Hyakuban utaawase (Poetry Competition in One Hundred Rounds) or Genji Sagoromo utaawase (A Competition of Poems from the Genji and the Sagoromo). An analysis of Rounds 45-52 of the competition yields an understanding of Teika’s methodology in matching competing poems, and demonstrates that the work was created in order to reveal new artistic possibilities in waka.

Michel Vieillard-Baron 2015-11-27
The Art of Quotation The Tale of Genji played an important role in the development of renga, a genre in which vocabulary choice is critical to sequence formation. In the earliest phase of renga, poets used chapter titles as a linking device; from the fourteenth century on, they employed Genjikotoba, words or phrases taken from the Genji. The use of Genji kotoba in renga also reveals the essentially dynamic nature of this novel: the “Suma” chapter, much admired by poets, juxtaposes refinement (ga) and wildness and makes the hero a focal point for cosmic forces. Furthermore, Genji kotoba bring to light an ordering of the text based on reference to key expressions.

Sumie Terada 2015-11-27
Reflections on a Buddhist Scene in The Tale of Genji Buddhist motifs and allusions occur frequently in The Tale of Genji, but their presence has received little scholarly attention. This article addresses the famous opening passage of the “Wakamurasaki” (“Lavender”) chapter in which the hero first sees his future wife Murasaki. The scene is characterized by allusions to the Lotus Sutra, including the mention of the Dragon King’s daughter (Chapter 12) in connection with Murasaki (and later the Akashi Lady), and the image of the stupa suspended in midair (Chapter 11) that is introduced into a waka exchange. Analogous allusions are found in Heian-period shakkyōka (waka on Buddhist themes).

Jean-Noël Robert 2015-11-27