著者

戸部 良一

出版者

財団法人 日本国際政治学会

雑誌

国際政治 (ISSN:04542215)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.1982, no.71, pp.124-140,L11, 1982-08-30 (Released:2010-09-01)

参考文献数

70

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The aim of this paper is to examine SHIRATORI Toshio's views and thoughts on Japan's foreign relations, as one of the typical advocates of Kodo Diplomacy in the 1930's. The main reason why his diplomatic thought should be the subject of careful study lies in the fact that he was regarded as a “philosopher” of Japanese diplomacy by the younger bureaucrats in the Foreign Ministry and he influenced their thoughts and behaviors.With the impact of the Manchurian Incident, SHIRATORI began to declare that Japan should return to Asia. He attacked the evils of Western Civilization and denounced the Washington Treaty System as an international order in the Far East which symbolized the interests of the Occidental (especially Anglo-Saxon) powers, though he had not challenged it in the 1920's. Then he sought an ideological basis to guide Japanese diplomacy, and tried to construct a conceptual framework of a New World Order based upon Japanese morals and interests.At first he looked upon Soviet Russia as the arch enemy whose influences had to be driven out of the Far East. But, as Japan had been bogged down in a war of attrition with China since 1937, he refrained from saying that Russia was the enemy of Japan and the other peoples of Asia. He stressed the global confrontation between the “have” countries, which championed the Popular Front, and the “have not” countries, whose ideological basis was totalitarianism. His search for a new moral world order was joined with Nazi Germany's world view. He began to advocate the tripartite alliance among Germany, Italy and Japan, and then a quadruple one between these three powers and Russia. Britain, which he had regarded earlier as a partner of Japan in driving out Russia from the Far East, became his (and Japan's, in his view) arch enemy. At last he emphasized the wickedness of Jewish financial capitalism which ruled the Anglo-Saxon powers, and in the spring of 1941 he predicted that a war between Japan and the United States would be inevitable, though he was suffering from mental ill health at that time.Did his attempt and effort to seek an ideological or moral basis for Japanese diplomacy achieve satisfactory results? This question is answered in the conclusion of this paper.