Japanese Colonialism as an Anomaly - Essay Example

Japanese typically avoided suppressing its colonies and instead initiated a close cultural relationship with them. Different authors approach the anomaly in the Japanese way of taking control of its colonies from different perspectives. Ching focus on the anomaly from the point of view of the struggle Japanese colonies endured in changing their identity to become Japanese, hence the book title “becoming Japanese.” The book reveals the tension and challenges involved in the formation and shift of colonial identities (Ching 19). For instance, the Japanese colony, Taiwan, expresses multiple forms of national and cultural identifications; Chinese nationalist, Japanese culture, as well as, its own heterogeneous political and cultural practices. Becoming Japanese is a bridge of history and literature that brings out the anomaly in Japanese colonialism.

On the other hand, Peattie focuses on the Japanese colonialism anomaly in their book, The Japanese Colonial Empire, as the source and evolution of the modern empire. In this book, Japanese colonies such as Korea, Karafuto, and Taiwan are termed as an empire that is governed collectively (Peattie 51). It goes further to illustrate the policies and systems that governed it, as well as, the economic dynamics that encouraged it. According to Peattie, Japanese colonialism in the context of a modern empire that runs from 1895 to 1945 is by itself an anomaly in colonialism (23). Read More