5 - Further Successes and the Limits of the Racial Middle Ground – The California Crisis

Summary

There is a notion of continuity in the negotiation zone from its inception up to its current state in this study. While the reasons for its maintenance and the actors involved varied, the feeling that Japan was an exception among ‘coloured’ races and had to be treated differently remained constant. During the First Sino-Japanese War, granting a special racial status to Japan was made easier by the fact that its enemy was China. Widespread contempt for the alleged backwardness and weaknesses of the Chinese helped to build the image of Japan as a Western proxy in the East. The context of the Russo-Japanese War was far more complex. Fear was added to the equation, and both the Japanese and the Russian side actively tried to influence the effectiveness of the middle ground.

One point, however, needs to be emphasised: the middle ground described up to this point was only relevant for international relations. It had nothing exceptional, if anything at all, to say about interpersonal relations and it is important not to be misguided in believing that the preferential treatment of the Japanese nation automatically extended to Japanese individuals. Statesmen often have different perspectives and agendas than their citizen. In the West, politicians were at first concerned with what meaning Japan would have for future relations in the Far East. On the societal level, the concern was more with what influence the Japanese, as individuals, would have on the daily lives of people. People chose to view the Japanese in the frameworks of economic competition, social norms, morality and racial purity. In some cases, the frameworks used by state and civil society actors could overlap. However, the latter tended to disregard the potential threat of Japan as a nation in favour of the one posed by Japan as a race. State actors, on the other hand, kept in mind that the existence of Japanese individuals implied the presence of a Japanese state in the background. This discrepancy in priorities was nowhere more obvious than in the interactions between Japan and the United States.

Becoming visible: Japanese immigration to the United States

American sympathetic feelings towards Japan started to fade away once the Russo-Japanese War ended, leaving the Japanese confused about their status in the world. Much of this can be attributed to a change in the visibility of Japan and its people.