A Monroe Doctrine for Japan
I
A JAPANESE Monroe Doctrine? Why not, if it really is a Monroe Doctrine and not an excuse for large-scale annexations? The idea, it is true, sends shivers down the conservative American spine, but there is no reason in the world why it should. If a Japanese Monroe Doctrine means something like Asia for the Asiatics, just as ours means America for Americans, it cannot harm the United States. It would hurt the rest of the world only if the new combination conspired to prevent trade with the western nations. But this seems highly unlikely, since Asia needs to trade with the West even more than the West needs to trade with Asia. Japan is no more likely than any other nation to destroy its own profits.
When President Roosevelt suggested that it would be a good idea to have Monroe Doctrines for Europe and Asia and Africa he had in mind, if anything concrete, some sort of benevolent association of the different groups of nations. For this, of course, the name ‘Monroe Doctrine’ was completely misleading. The Monroe Doctrine does not envisage any association of nations. It is merely a warning to the world, issued by the United States. If you are going to have a Monroe Doctrine for Europe and Asia it will have to be a declaration by some single nation, and that nation would inevitably be Germany in Europe and Japan in East Asia. If those names could be replaced by Great Britain and China, people would be less worried, but it is inconceivable that any effective declaration of this kind can be made by any except the strongest nation of the group.
But if we should decide that we do not approve this Monroe Doctrine for Asia, this flattery by way of imitation, there is still nothing that we can do about it. One of the first tenets of successful diplomacy is not to get excited about something over which we have no control and over which we can never obtain control. In the Far East we do not even want control. It is foolish to protest unless there is a strong possibility that the protest may be effective. A hundred years ago both Great Britain and France cast covetous glances on the Hawaiian Islands, a British officer at one time even going so far as to annex the islands in the name of his country. The American Government immediately warned the world that it would not tolerate the acquisition of these islands by a European power. It was an understandable protest, and it was effective. A similar protest as to Australia or some territory across the Pacific would have been ignored.
But, people ask, why should it be Japan which proclaims this new doctrine of East Asiatic solidarity at just this time? Is its action not similar to that of Italy, jumping in at the end of a war to grab some of the spoils? Of course there is something of this, although Japan does not appear to be seeking territorial gains. Any nation will time its actions to accord with opportunity. But there is another and immediate cause which actually corresponds with recent American pronouncements concerning European possessions in the Western Hemisphere. Japan feels that its own safety may be jeopardized and that the status quo of the Orient will be seriously deranged if European possessions in that part of the world change hands. Most discussed of these possessions have been the Dutch East Indies.
Japan is dependent for tin and rubber on these fortunate islands; so, with the addition of British Malaya, is the United States. Because, until recently, British possessions seemed safe enough, Malaya has been ignored and all attention turned to the Indies. So long as the islands belong to the Netherlands, neither nation has any reason to fear that these essential supplies will be cut off. But if they should be taken over by Great Britain or by Germany the situation would be very different. Thus, as the war in Europe developed, the Department of State in Washington and the Gaimusho (foreign office) in Tokyo both expressed their fears over any attempt to occupy the islands by a foreign power. Strange as this may seem to Americans, Japan was just as much afraid that the United States might take over as the United States was fearful of Japan. When Germany overran the Netherlands, the fears of both became more acute, Washington primarily looking for trouble from Berlin, Tokyo more worried as to what London would do, the East Indies being on the highroad to Australia.
Japan, in this case, was borrowing direct from our own Monroe Doctrine the principle that European possessions, while their ownership will not be questioned, cannot be bought and sold, captured or annexed, by other nations because this would inevitably mean trouble in the neighborhood. Our statement on the Dutch East Indies was based solely on the idea that our trade in vital raw materials might be interfered with. It therefore had not the justification behind the similar statement by Japan, since no Monroe Doctrine idea was involved. It was irritating to Japan precisely as a similar statement made by Japan about Greenland would have irritated this country.
These various declarations, it must be noted, were issued with no thought of acquisition of territory, but only of maintaining the status quo. Japan, at the time, had no more intention of annexing the islands than had the United States. It would, however, have been more serious for Japan than for us to have the islands fall into anarchy because of having no government, since the whole neighborhood would be affected. For us it was a trade question, and that appeared to depend on maintenance of Dutch sovereignty. For Japan it was a trade question also, but, even more important, it was a question of keeping the European war out of the Far East. There were thousands all over the world who hoped that the Queen of Holland would leave her first place of refuge and proceed with all speed to Batavia. Such unmistakable evidence of intention to maintain Dutch sovereignty would have quieted both fears and discussions, and would have settled the controversy immediately. As it was, fears grew on rumors and Japan was pushed toward her declaration of Asia for the Asiatics.
The European war gave Japan still another reason for the enunciation of her new doctrine, although this reason should have prohibited the use of the name ‘Monroe Doctrine.’ Japan was at war with China, and the question of shipment of supplies through alien territories to the government of Chiang Kai-shek had been very serious, and still was, in principle at least. The war in Europe seemed to give the Japanese a heavensent opportunity to isolate the government in Chungking from all foreign war materials except Russian. It seemed unlikely that Great Britain and France would risk a new conflict in the Far East merely to keep open a route over which war supplies had been passing to a Government of China for which everybody might have deep sympathy but which could not be of any help in the conflict. This case was not in the least parallel with that of the Dutch East Indies. It seemed rather that Japan was demanding rights in Burma and IndoChina the giving of which to other Asiatic nations it would fiercely resent.
In this Japan turned completely away from our conception of the Monroe Doctrine to a claim of overlordship utterly repugnant to the principles of that doctrine and dangerous to the future peace of the world. There would be plenty of effective protests from Great Britain if the United States began to tell the colonies and dominions what they could and could not do. So far as Indo-China was concerned, France, of course, gave in. It had no alternative. Great Britain, pushed to the wall and fighting for its life, agreed to close the Burma route for three months on condition that Japan opened peace negotiations with China. Our State Department’s protest was justified neither by law nor by good sense.
II
Such things as fear over the future of Japanese trade in the Far East and the desire to hasten the end of the war with China were among the immediate causes of the Japanese declaration, aided, of course, by the thought that new principles could hardly be challenged by a world at war. But the essential, underlying reason was much more profound. It was the operation of economic factors, and particularly of one economic factor which is often ignored or brushed aside. Yet this principle explains a great deal that has happened and is happening now in various parts of the world and may well be an indication of how a new world order will develop after the war.
The principle may be stated as follows: a highly industrialized territory always dominates economically neighboring territories which are technically less advanced. This domination is not so apparent in such neighbor territories as are most progressive. It may be fiercely resisted by more backward states or regions, but they must submit in the end. The domination does not need to be political; it is far less likely to be resented and resisted when politics plays no part. It consists in setting the pace in economic matters, preferably through the play of natural forces rather than through the acts of individuals, no matter how laudable their motives. It is easier to get angry at an individual than at an economic trend.
From this point of view, look at the situation on the North American continent. It is no insult to Canada or Mexico or Central America to say that the United States is the most thoroughly industrialized nation, the richest, the most advanced technologically. This is not owing to form of government, or merely to size; not only because we have had a resourceful and progressive people, vast mineral resources, and far-reaching farm lands; not because of our climate or our rivers and lakes; rather a combination of all these has produced our railroads and our highways, our factories and our great organizations of trade — all the things which make the United States the supreme economic power of the continent. Only the degeneration of the American people, their oversatisfaction with themselves, a growing softness of fibre that would make them shrink away from fearless endeavor or from a fight for mastery, can destroy this preeminence.
Canada is least affected, because Canada also is highly progressive; but equally is this true because Canada is bound by the closest ties to the mother nation overseas. This means that the great trade currents are strongly diverted into east-west channels, whereas the natural flow is across the border, north and south, at least so far as there are needs which could be fulfilled by one or the other nation. Mexico, on the other hand, less progressive, with practically no industrial development except what has come from the United States, is wholly within our orbit, little as it may like to admit the fact, much as it may chafe under the knowledge. There may be sporadic attempts to break away, but they can never be successful until Mexican development approximates our own. The same thing is true of Cuba and of all the territories of the Caribbean region.
Or look at Europe. When England was the greatest industrial nation its influence in Europe was paramount. But as British supremacy in manufacture and trade was more and more challenged, and as Britain more and more emphasized empire trade and subsidized such trade, the economic mastery of Europe passed to that great industrial region extending from the Ruhr through Belgium into Northern France. It did not, in this instance, coincide with nationality, which seemed to be a good thing for the peace of the world. But this hope was vain, because, as time went on, Germany, the most virile nation in the combination, began to struggle for political as well as economic leadership. There are many reasons for the war in Europe, but not the least of them, though certainly the least considered, is this German struggle to maintain and to extend always more and more widely its economic domination.
This brings us back to the Far East. Fifty years ago a declaration by Japan establishing a Monroe Doctrine for Asia would have been one of those futile diplomatic gestures which lead nowhere. Today the situation is wholly different because Japan has become the great industrial nation of the East and is therefore the economically dominant power of the region. The so-called Monroe Doctrine proclaimed by Japan ought not to mean any curtailment of trade with the rest of the world. Except for the fact that different groups of nations are likely to coordinate their activities more and more, this new doctrine of the Far East should mean that trade will increase rather than diminish. With greater coordination of effort there should be higher general prosperity, and therefore an increased demand for foreign commodities. Japan would not worry about its own exports to other East Asiatic countries, because lower standards of labor, as compared to the West, and greater proximity would ensure its predominance in the sale of competitive goods. In noncompetitive goods it would not be interested.
It should thus be clear that a Japanese Monroe Doctrine, so far as it brought about closer cooperation among Asiatic nations and consequently an improvement in living conditions, would be of value abroad as well as locally. It would be dangerous, harmful locally as well as abroad, only if it meant cutting off trade with the West. This would only accentuate the national differences that lead to war.
As a ‘keep off the grass’ sign, an Asiatic Monroe Doctrine would have to be backed by force, exactly as our own Monroe Doctrine is backed by force. Here Japan is already in the ascendancy. In a military sense it is recognized as supreme in the Orient even more clearly than in an economic sense. Nobody can say — at least no military man will say — just how wide an area can effectively be defended by a militarily dominant power. Perhaps as good a guide as any would be the radius over which a plane could fly with a load of bombs and return. This might be put at a thousand miles. But it cannot be the sole measure. Other questions must be answered. How strong are the economically dependent states as to their navies? Would a combination of their navies be able to defeat the navy of the sponsor state? If they have strong armies could those armies, alone or in combination, be effectively used against the state controlling the regional economic group?
Regarding all these factors Japan is in a position somewhat similar to ours — stronger than ours, if anything, because in Japan invasion would be practically impossible. The Japanese can easily prevent any communication with the Asiatic mainland, and invasion from any other direction would be unthinkable. On the other hand, we have Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, and, although we certainly do not expect to be invaded by either, we are here discussing only geographical factors. Japan could be bombed from the air, but so could we, if any neighboring territory were in unfriendly hands. It is thus clear that Japan, unless attacked by Russia, is in a position to enforce compliance with the hands-off doctrine in East Asia just as surely as we can on the North American continent and in the Caribbean.
But under any interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine this military power should be used only to repel attempts to seize territory. If Japanese military power can be used similarly in the Far East, protecting the different states from outside aggression and therefore helping to keep the peace, its influence will be beneficent. If, on the other hand, it becomes an aggressive force within (he region, its influence will be wholly bad. Neither must it be used to disrupt international trade, but rather to protect it. It must not threaten the political integrity of the weaker nations, but instead act as a. guaranty to their sovereignty — a guaranty never thrust into the foreground and therefore irritating, but recognized as a force which will prevent outside influence from interfering with normal internal development.
III
‘This all sounds very beautiful,’ people will say, ‘but how about China? After what Japan has done in China it cannot ever be trusted. Is not all this talk about the Japanese military as a possible stabilizing influence pure nonsense? And why should it be Japan anyhow that proclaims an Asiatic Monroe Doctrine?’
The questions are well taken and cannot be precisely answered because, except for the last question, they are in the realm of theory. If there is to be a Monroe Doctrine for East Asia, the only nation which can effectively sponsor it is Japan, since, as we have seen, Japan is unquestionably the dominant economic and military power of the Orient. For any other nation of the Far East to proclaim such a doctrine would be futile. But then, can Japan be trusted?
After all, since Japan emerged from its isolation less than a century ago its promises have been at least as sincere as those of western nations — and that, alas, remains true even today, when Japan has been ripping through treaty provisions whenever its pledged word seemed to work to its own disadvantage. Unfortunately, it is not being cynical to say that nowhere, any longer, is there much respect for a pledge. We Americans like to think ourselves better than most, but a list of our broken promises, including the recent shameless disregard of one of the principles of the Hague Treaty, would be surprising and unpleasant reading for most honorable Americans. And it is fair to say that there are thousands of honorable Japanese just as there are thousands of honorable Americans who believe that a pledge is sacred and are sorry and ashamed for the broken promises of their nation.
The plain fact is that there has got to be a spiritual regeneration, not only in Japan and Germany and Italy, but in Great Britain and France and the United States. Britain’s Monroe Doctrine covers the Empire, but few of the stones of which the Empire is built are bloodless. The Spaniards in the past and the French in more recent years pushed forward their empires with contemptuous disregard of the rights of others. Whatever the apologists may say, our own Mexican War was a war of conquest. It is no answer to claim that the world is better off for those conquests — that they all advanced civilization. The same claim will undoubtedly be made a hundred years from now by Germany, Italy, and Japan, if they are still independent and powerful nations; and it stands to reason that we cannot, from our own narrow outlook of the present, refute this claim.
The American Monroe Doctrine was no self-denying ordinance. We did not pledge ourselves never to expand. We did seize the southwest United States, and at other times we should probably have taken more territory if it had seemed to our advantage. We therefore have no right to insist, much as we should like to, that unless the Japanese Monroe Doctrine contains a self-denying clause it is wholly pernicious. The Japanese move into Manchuria ten years ago, induced by pressure of population and the need for security in certain raw materials, — which needs the Japanese felt overrode even treaty provisions and national promises, — had probably more justification than our own move into California. In both cases subsequent developments have proved the conquests wise for the territories in question and for the world. The Manchurian invasion seems to us worse only because it is so recent that the moral obloquy of it blinds us to the resultant benefits.
On the other hand, certain facts due to modern conditions have made conquests and the enslavement of peoples far more dangerous and less lucrative than in former years. Rapidity of communication has greatly increased the power of world public opinion. When the Japanese bomb open cities in China, the cabled news reaches America within a few hours. Funds for China relief flow more freely and Americans cry for an embargo on Japan. In the old days we should have heard nothing until the war was over. When it was learned recently that the Germans were seizing cattle and foodstuffs on which the peoples of France and Belgium depend to save them from starvation next winter the moral indignation of America rose to the boiling point. Not many years ago we should have heard nothing until starvation had actually set in. Acts of terrorism have thus become more dangerous to the nations indulging in them, because instantaneous news mobilizes world indignation.
This same rapidity of communication, moreover, has made international trade as simple and as lucrative as domestic trade — always, of course, when it is not hamstrung by embargoes and prohibitions and exchange difficulties. It is therefore generally true that a dominant economic nation or region will find itself more prosperous, will make more money and exert greater influence, through peaceful economic cooperation than through conquest. Japan is just as capable of learning these facts as is any other nation.
It would thus seem that self-interest, once the theory of an Asiatic bloc was established, would induce Japan to carry on by means of coöperation rather than through attempted conquest. The China adventure has certainly not been of such a nature as to induce Japan to go blithely into similar attempts at conquest. In fact, except for a few fire-eating militarists, what Japan wants above all else is peace. It is always acutely conscious of the Russian bear peering hungrily across a narrow sea, sending its emissaries to spread the gospel of communism. Japan wants to be free to deal with that bear when the time comes. The wise men of the nation are afraid also of a victorious Germany — know full well that any irritation caused in Eastern Asia because of British and French possessions would be as nothing compared to the menace of a German Hongkong or a German Indo-China or a German Singapore. Everybody knows there is a campaign of excited Japanese militarists against Britain, but this seems to be temporary, the immediate result of events in Europe. Japan feels its great dependence on the United States, and above all does not want to quarrel with this country. If this idea of an Asiatic Monroe Doctrine sponsored by Japan is accepted by the rest of the world, the chances of a peaceful Orient after the Chinese war is settled will be far greater than if Japan feels itself thwarted in its just as well as its unjust ambitions.
IV
Whether we like it or not, the stake of the United States in the Orient is very large. This is not the place to discuss the Philippines, and momentarily the Philippines must be lumped with the possessions of the other western nations in the Far East. But, omitting the Philippines altogether, our stake is still large — sentimentally, in our missions and educational work; materially, in our trade. American missions are far more numerous in China than elsewhere; on the other hand, our trade is greatest with Japan. It is also very important with the Dutch East Indies and Malaya. Japan buys more annually from us; we buy more from the Dutch and British colonies than they buy from us. And it must be remembered that our purchases are largely of essentials, like tin and rubber, which are not elsewhere produced in sufficient quantities. We could get on without buying from Japan, but to stop selling to Japan would be disastrous, especially to the cotton growers of the South.
We must not forget, moreover, that we can continue our essential purchases from the Dutch East Indies and Malaya indefinitely only if we remain on good terms with Japan, the dominant economic and military power of the Far East. This is a simple fact that it is useless to try to hide. It has become a fact partly because the war in Europe has loosed the bonds binding the colonies to their absentee landlords and has decreased if not entirely destroyed the power of those landlords to defend their possessions. It would seem, then, that the part of wisdom for the United States would be to welcome this Japanese Monroe Doctrine, not because we particularly like to accept it without greater clarification, but because it has in it seeds from which may grow crops which will be useful to us as well as to the Far Eastern group. If we should be the first to accept it, we should quickly regain our position as the best friend of Japan. We should, of course, be acting primarily to help ourselves, and this the Japanese would understand and applaud. But we should also be helping Japan to remove the menace of Germany from the Far East. Nobody as yet knows what demands Germany may make on the colonial possessions, in Asia, of the Allies or of the Netherlands when the war is over. There is always the possibility of annexation, if Germany is wholly victorious. In the long run this would be as disastrous to Japan as similar changes in the Caribbean would be to us. In fact it may be this very point which accounts for Japan’s use of the name ‘Monroe Doctrine.’ In the Western Hemisphere the Doctrine prohibits the transfer of territory from one European power to another. Might not a Japanese Monroe Doctrine maintain the same prohibition in Asia? In Japan, if our Government only realizes the fact, this is of vital importance. There would be no such thing as Asia for the Asiatics if Germany succeeds to the colonial possessions of England, France, and the Netherlands.
Nor would there be for the United States free access to the markets of the Orient. Germany in control of the Dutch East Indies and Malaya would insist upon practical monopoly of the products of these regions, would use their strategic raw materials for political purposes. The Japanese must know this as well as we do. They can look back on the German management of the ports held in China before the last war and can thereby gain some idea of what would happen today. If Japan, too deeply impressed with German power, should be tricked into an alliance to the extent of permitting Germany once more to get a foothold in the Far East, the honeymoon could last only a very short time. Such promises as Germany might make in order to gain the confidence and gratitude of the Japanese would go the way of other German promises when Japanese friendship was no longer necessary. The Monroe Doctrine of Asia would prove to be Asia for the Germans — not for the Asiatics.
The situation is intolerably confused. Our only endeavor must be to discover what is best for the United States, and then to act. Certainly we cannot prevent Japan from declaring a Monroe Doctrine for Asia, and we should therefore be unintelligent to oppose it. If we have the courage to applaud, Japan might well be willing to draw from our own past experience. Fortunately, we have in Tokyo as Ambassador an extraordinarily able man who is always completely American and has at the same time the full confidence of the Japanese, who know they can trust him to tell the truth and to be always courteous in doing it. With appropriate authority from Washington, Mr. Grew could cooperate with the Japanese to make the new Monroe Doctrine a success, useful to Japan and the group of nations which make up East Asia — in fact, to the world. For the sake of Japan, the sponsor, as well as for other nations, the Doctrine must not be permitted so to develop as to strangle trade by means of quotas and embargoes. There might in time be an East Asiatic customs union, but this could grow out of the Doctrine only as the result of real cooperation; it would not permanently hurt the rest of the world any more than the customs union between the states of the United States has hurt the world. Also, as the result of working together, there might gradually develop some unified plan of buying and selling, a development which will probably be necessary everywhere to meet the totalitarian purchasing and selling units.
Finally, it is said that Japan is rapidly becoming a totalitarian state itself. This may be brought about by the formation of a single political party. We Americans believe such a system dangerous to peace and a certain menace to steady national progress. But we must also remember that Prince Konoye, slated to be the head of the new single party, is one of the most honorable men in Japanese public life. He is no Hitler or Stalin, with delusions of grandeur, but a man working unselfishly for the good of his nation. Prince Konoye is not a man to cling to power, but rather one with a clear vision who would be the first to turn the nation back to a parliamentary system. This he undoubtedly would do if the Japanese Monroe Doctrine helps to bring peace, prosperity, and stability.
All these things are in the future. We cannot decide them, but we can influence their development if we are wise enough to be objective; if we are sufficiently patriotic to consider only the ultimate good of the United States; if we submerge sentimentality in common sense. The American Monroe Doctrine warns the rest of the world against interference with the political life of the two continents; it connotes similar restraint on our part toward Europe and Asia. An Asiatic Monroe Doctrine enforcing the same principles, emphasizing coöperation as against aggression, could only benefit, not injure, the United States.