West Across the Pacific: American Involvement in East Asia from 1 ...

Critics may offer various suggested changes, additions, and/or corrections, including—even—the title, in particular the possible use of the bolder words “Intrusion into.” Intrusion does seem a rather negative word, implying unwelcome, unwanted, and perhaps even forceful entry. On the other hand, most Americans who followed Commodore Perry to Japan received welcome and appreciation for helping Japan become a modern nation and, as for China, for trying to promote trade and the open door. So perhaps American Involvement in…not Intrusion into…is more suitable after all. We shall perhaps be able to judge by the end.

For now, I should like to start with just a few examples of the semicontradictory aspects of the early chapters of this book. Japan could have bitterly resented (and some did resent) the (1898) annexation of Hawaii by the United States, especially because the Japanese outnumbered Americans some 50,000 to about 10,000 in Hawaii at the time, not to mention Japan’s consideration of sending warships. However, a sudden willingness by the Japanese government occurred: to accept the annexation and even to send a representative bearing congratulations to the annexation ceremony. Why? A very simple and documented reason—a single cablegram from London via St. Petersburg to Tokyo’s up-to-then belligerent foreign minister, Okuma Shigenobu, from his party and government superior, Ito Hirobumi. Contained in Japanese Foreign Office Documents (Nihon Gaiko Bunsho), it reads: “Since England and other European powers are indifferent about the American annexation of Hawaii, Japan will find herself in an extremely difficult position if she opposes it strongly. Therefore it is better to drop the matter at some opportune time and let it take its natural course.”

Chapter 1 includes discussion of the Hawaiian and Philippine annexations. Japan’s giving up on opposing American involvement and the annexation in either Hawaii or the Philippines resulted in giving Japan a fairly free hand in her gradual seizure and annexation of Korea, but further Japanese expansionist focus on Manchuria accompanied by American determination to limit Japanese immigration to the United States resulted in a shift in American-Japanese relations from mutually friendly to chilly reserve.