I had the honor of serving as tea lady again for the Sino-Japanese History study group. Today was a special round-table of Chinese and Japanese scholars working on research of the Sino-Japanese War, beginning with a speech by 張海鵬 who is the 中国社会科学院近代史研究所所長 and followed by other Japanese and Chinese scholars making their own ten minute comments on the state of joint research in the field. As my own professor 平野先生 pointed out in his wrap up of the whole event, the keyword for this round-table was without a doubt 「率直」 (frankness, directness) which everyone agreed was something needed in their joint research of this sensitive historical period. I was surprised to notice a lot of mention of some of the more prickly questions in historiography that I felt are buried in the research I have seen from the group so far.
張海鵬 (Zhang Haipeng) talked broadly about three different aspects of joint research in Sino-Japanese relations. He said some 500 books had been published directly on the topic since 1994, a number which I can only hope is not true (I have only read half a dozen or so). A second trend he talked about was that researchers from one country often demand something in the work of the other. For example, Chinese scholars pointing out areas wanting in Japanese research and so on. Professor Yamada would later make points along these lines. Finally, he concentrated on cooperative research which was funded or otherwise encouraged by each respective government. He said the Japanese Diet had supported joint research since 1995, in 1997 a Sino-Japanese research center was set up. Some kind of joint research project between the 中国社会科学院 and Japan was coming to an end 2004, something he regreted. He concluded by saying that the 30 years since 1972 were the best three decades of joint research (I don’t find this particularly suprising, since they are the only 30 years in which the two countries have had official relations since they were at war) and that he saw the biggest obstacle in the future was the Japanese government officials and their lack of historical consciousness (認識）. I missed some of his points in the middle because I was busy pouring tea and spilling on some professor’s notes.
Professor Yamada (I think it might be 山田辰雄) had lots of interesting points. He said that in order to make progress on joint research the Japanese side would have to 率直ly face the “truth” with regards to its invasion of China. Echoing the standard Japanese criticism of Chinese research, he then said that the Chinese side needed to understand that most Japanese feel deep pain over the war and are not all revisionists so that the discussion can move beyond 「感情的」(emotional) accusations. He then went on to make some more refreshing comments which caught my interest. He said 「歴史は選択」”History is a choice” – historians choose the materials and questions. He then stereotyped Japanese and Chinese research in the same way Waseda Professor 劉傑 does in his lectures and book 『中国の歴史観』 To roughly paraphrase him, “The Japanese are vague about the end result, that is, that the war was taking place on Chinese soil. The Chinese start from the end result, that is, the war was one of invasion, and ignore the rich and diverse questions that can and need to be asked about the war.”
Now, putting aside his generalization of research on both sides, which I think is quite outdated, his last point is exactly the kind of thing which is motivating a whole generation of historians taking a fresh look at the war, and the colonial period in Korea and Taiwan. He went on to elaborate, saying that there is a need for more international research, more multi-faceted (多面的）research and new points of view (視覚）which accepted that the war and the relations between the two countries were far more complex than research up until now has allowed for, with undercurrents of cooperation, “competitive coexistence” (he said this in English, I don’t know where he got it) and hostility.
The next scholar wanted to focus on what he believed was a very important relationship between the archival materials (資料) and the truth (真実). His comments were essentially a direct critique of the empirical history (実証主義) which is the dominant mainstream of Japanese history, and indeed is the stereotype that most foreigners make of current Japanese historiography. He pointed out the way that any new archival document found saying that the forced laborers from the war were paid, or that comfort women were paid is immediately used by the right wing media to declare that no one was “forced” to do anything. I don’t think he had quite sorted out his thoughts, but I was shocked and pleasantly surprised to see this question, which also connects to Yamada’s point about「歴史は選択」being asked by this group of scholars. I remember when I first got to attend an event with this group, one historian asked me who I studied with in the US. When I answered that I wasn’t a PhD student yet but I was returning to the study history after taking a class with Professor Carol Gluck as a Masters student. He said, “Oh….” and then paused as if not knowing what to say, and then added, “Well, while you are studying history in Japan, please try to do some real empirical (実証) research.” His distaste for Professor Gluck and everything a group of scholars she often publishes with in Japan represent (in his mind presumably a more theoretical, perhaps postmodern brand of history), was hardly concealed in his tone.
The next scholar (I’m sorry I didn’t catch all their names) outdid even the last speaker in his attack on traditional history. He focused on a group of scholars he was part of that were trying to create an international history textbook for East Asia. He talked about the many huge problems in such a project. He spent a lot of time focusing on the “deconstruction of the nation” and a book to be published called 『国史の神話を越えて』(“Overcoming the Myth of National History”) written by scholars from all over East Asia. I couldn’t help grinning from ear to ear when I heard of how Japanese, Korean, and Chinese scholars were not only getting together to write an international history textbook of East Asia, but were also apparently also coming together to publish their critiques of the nation, and national history itself! This is a relatively radical agenda by traditional standards, and I’m curious what all the other scholars present were thinking when they were being told that “National history is a form of oppression (抑圧)” and that national history has a built in form of exclusiveness (排除) and concealment (隠蔽).
This interesting talk was followed by a scholar who focused on the state of archival material related to the Sino-Japanese war in China. He claimed that there are huge amounts of Japanese diplomatic correspondence and records that were left behind in Japanese consulates of China and the vast majority of these materials have still not been released. He claimed that some progress has been made. He said Qingdao library had recently “found” 20,000 Japanese files and was in the process of putting them in order for release (see my friend Jae’s blog entry about China’s recent release of some post war documents). He was pessimistic about the rest of the unreleased diplomatic documents. One of the obstacles to releasing the documents comes from the fact that the Chinese government might be put in a strange position with respect to releasing huge amounts of Japanese government documents to the public as if they were their own archives (not that this has stopped the Library of Congress). Also, he argued there was an issue of privacy, and this point was especially interesting to me: He says that the Japanese records have thousands of Chinese names in them, many of them of Chinese who collaborated with the Japanese during the war. The release of these documents could potentially cause huge embarrassment if not harassment for surviving “collaborators”. This is of course exactly what the Korean government and private organizations are trying to do explicitly in their attempt to expose politicians who collaborated or are related to Japanese collaborators (This is a fascinating issue I’m collecting info on and I’ll blog about some other time).
Professor Yamada, in some closing comments, brought the topic back to relationship between the practice of history and truth. Bringing up the controversial question of how the “Marco Polo Incident” started (the incident which kicked off full scale war in 1937) he seemed genuinely bewildered as he asked, “How is it that an international group of historians, all looking at the same incident, with the exact same archival materials, can come to such radically different interpretations?” This is no longer an issue that either surprises or troubles me. I’m more interested in the next question, “How do we deal with the fact that an international group of historians, all looking at the same incident, with the exact same archival materials, can come to such radically different interpretations?”