Studies In Thought And Action Of Japanese Right-wing Forces During The Meiji Era

Right wing force in Japan is an important political force on the stage of history. Their thoughts and actions affect Japan’s domestic affairs and foreign policies. Nowadays, a revival of right-wing will not only mislead the future steps of Japan but also lay a tough political issue between China and Japan which cannot be ignored. Base on that, it is necessary to trace the source and explore the historical track of the evolution and the structure of the thoughts of such a political group that has a complete development history and had vital influences on modern Japanese national strategies.By taking the thoughts and actions of the right-wing forces of Japan in Meiji period as its research subject, using the methods of positivism and comparison historiography, taking the theory of international politics, psychological history and other related disciplines as references, and also combining organization and individual cases, in order to get a panoramic view of its development process and genealogy, this essay will search deep down to its ideological composition, characteristics of operation mechanism and processing tracks.By sorting the inner logic of the right-wing’s history, this paper roughly divided the Meiji Period history into three stages:from1868to1877, led the armed rebellion against the Meiji Government; from1877to1881, speculated into the civil rights and freedom movement; from1881to1912, turned to national chauvinism expansion after it left the civil rights and freedom movement. Corresponding to the three stages, there were three processes of the right wing’s intellectual history, through nationalist to liberal civil rights and then to national chauvinism. The division of three s development stages has generally covered and calibrated the historical characteristics of the evolution track of right wing in Meiji Period. It also sketched out its transformation trajectory along with the international and domestic political situation changes, from anti-government to anti-system, and to be pervious to the government and acted as its jackal for external expansion. The core values such as "Kingdom of God","Worship of the Mikado (the Emperor of Japan)", and "idea of mission" were gradually presented in this transformation trajectory.This essay suggests, prior to the establishment of "Genyosha"(1881), there had been an "early right wing" historical stage. The external crusade force stepped down due to the failure of the "Seikanron (crusade against Korea)" and aliened with the discontent bushi (Warrior class) in Fukuoka to constitute the organizational foundation of the early right wing force. Additionally, the internal war party and the civil rights party of the external crusade force took two distinct anti-government approaches, armed rebellion and the civil rights and freedom movement. This has prepared for its development approach, its default development approach, as an important opportunity for its boom, and also offers the possibility of spiritual link to Saigou Takamori. While "Kyoshisha","Kaikonsha","Koyosha" and other right-wing organizations were established in the movement, as predecessor organizations of Genyousya, they actually have completed the early right-wing genealogy.The dross of traditional Japanese culture, modern culture of worship the Emperor, Saigou Takamori’s "political reform","the East Asian Strategy" and other thoughts are regarded as important theoretical sources of the right-wing ideology in this article. Based on this, the core triple ideological structure was built-the concept of "The kingdom of God","Worship of the Mikado (the state system)" and "Mission". These three elements interact and co-dominant with each other to dominate the behavior and actions of the right wing, and has become the spiritual force of its foreign expansion. Expansion plans including "China policy" and "military buildup", together with the joint impact of imperial power and national rights, has formed the dimension of the right-wing’s expansion to North Korea and China. Propositions such as "Unit Japan and Korea" and "Defending Shina(China)" that were advocated by the right-wing became the guise of the inclusionary actions to Korea and China. This has actually accelerated the pace of aggressive militarism of Japan.Right-wing force conspired with the government, considering colonial expansion to overseas as the only way to build a modernized Japan. This action has tied the hope of Asian rejuvenation to Japanese militarism, and was responsible for the disasters it has brought to the people of Asia. Right-wing force of Japan was born on the subrogation point of Bakumatu and the Meji Era. It firstly aimed at armed rebellion against the government, then involved in the the civil rights and freedom movement, after that, it turned to national chauvinism and finally became the jackal for external expansion of the government. These processes showed the switch from appropriate to unjustifiable aggression of Japan’s modernization process as well as the trajectory of individual cases.