Competing imperalisms in Northeast Asia, 1894-1953: Interconnections and Resistance

Lead Research Organisation: Queen's University Belfast
Department Name: Sch of Hist, Anthrop, Philos & Politics

Abstract

CONTEXT

In recent years, the 'turbulent triangle' between China, Japan, Korea and Russia has been a focus of global attention. This zone of Northeast Asia is a vital geostrategic and economic location, and the legacy of conflict during the period of this project remains keenly felt and continues to influence international relations in Northeast Asia.

The period to be studied by researchers working on this project was one of intense imperial competition in Northeast Asia, involving Britain and the US as well as the Northeast Asian powers, and it had enduring implications. The project runs from the start of the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894, through the Russo-Japanese War, the First World War, the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Second World War in the Pacific, the Chinese Civil War, and the Korean War up until the Korean Armistice in 1953.

Japan was the dominant imperial power in the region during this period until 1945. Japan began seizing the Chinese Eastern Railway, a Russian-owned line, during the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. Ultimately Japan drove Russia out of Manchuria, and it occupied Korea from 1910. The Russian Revolution in 1917 ended Tsarist imperialism, but the increasing assertiveness of the USSR led to the Soviet reconquest of Sakhalin in 1945, along with the seizure of the Kuril Islands: both remain disputed by Japan seventy years later. Another legacy of the Cold War in Asia, the Korean War, has never formally ended. US troops are also still in Japan more than six decades after the end of the postwar occupation.


AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

This project on the history of Northeast Asia will establish an international and interdisciplinary research network. This will bring together researchers based in Japan and the UK to work collaboratively. We will use innovative methods, including from disciplines outside history such as historical geography and history of art, to identify the transnational, global and local influences which shaped the region in this period. Links between Britain and Japan in this region during the period of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance (1902-1923), will also be a particular focus.

By working collaboratively, researchers on the project will be able to learn from comparisons and connections to adjacent areas of research, and so will build up a more complete picture of the conflicts, connections and resistance which shaped the subjugated territories of Korea and Manchuria, and the adjacent region. The project will consider the impact on communities, daily life, trade, infrastructure and the borders, enabling us to understand the influence of imperial competition, connections and resistance in the region, and so to understand the enduring impact of the conflicts and tensions of this period.

During the 16-month project, researchers will produce scholarly publications including an edited volume and a journal article. We will also publish a paper on the legacies of this region's history of imperialism and subjugation, aimed at policymakers. In addition, researchers will curate public exhibitions on this theme in the UK and Japan, and will establish a website aimed at general readers and students.


BENEFITS

The history of this region is of enormous interest to scholars, but the benefits of this research are much broader. A better understanding of the past is essential to make sense of the complex pressures at work in the region today; this is a vital consideration in a region widely perceived as critical to global stability. Through this research project, researchers will gain and share new insights.

Planned Impact

In addition to the academic beneficiaries (see above), the research connections and outputs associated with this project will have significant public value in the UK, Japan and elsewhere.

Historical research into Northeast Asia's 'turbulent triangle' (Cook 2014) is of interest and significance worldwide. The region has 'unparalleled geopolitical and geoeconomic significance', and its traumatic legacy of conflict requires 'historically and culturally informed narratives' (Kim 2004, xiii) to make sense of the region's complex history and the long shadow it casts in contemporary affairs. The project will explore in particular the historical legacies of imperialism, identity, migration, communications, networks and representations. It will have particular relevance to those interested in international relations, borderland economies, minorities, migration, and political legitimacy.

This work will be of interest to public and foreign policy stakeholders in the UK, Japan and elsewhere; government and non-governmental organisations in the region, particularly Japan, Russia, China, and South Korea; the media; and others interested in transnational connections in the region. The project will also benefit the growing numbers of specialists in Japan, the UK and elsewhere working on contemporary Northeast Asia between academia and public policy. We will work with existing contacts and partners to disseminate the research, and will also actively seek out new research links (see Pathways to Impact for details).

The Joint Lead Institution for this project is the Centre for Public History (CPH) at Queen's University Belfast, an emerging international hub for excellence in public engagement, with world-leading expertise in contested histories and post-conflict reconciliation. The CPH will host the second conference and will support the approaches to widening impact outlined in this proposal. Both UK-based and Japan-based researchers on the project have particular interests in public history, especially media and current affairs, public policy, and exhibitions. All these three areas are particularly emphasised in the project detail below. The project will also provide online resources through which educators, students and the general public can learn more about the historical connections in this pivotal region of global interconnection.

Non-academic users are already involved in the project design, and this will be carried through the execution and dissemination stages, when journalists, policy researchers, museum professionals and others will be included in project and network activities, and consulted about proposed project outputs. The project will work with existing contacts and partners in the UK, Japan and elsewhere, and will actively seek out new research links.

In summary, this project will provide: 1) a historical framework through which to consider the legacy of imperialisms, interconnections and conflict which shaped modern Northeast Asia; and 2) materials to inform broad publics in the region and beyond about the history and legacy of imperialism in Northeast Asia.
 
Title CIRN exhibition 
Description Prof. Peter O'Connor and Prof. Peter Robinson contributed original publications from their personal collections which were demonstrative of the various historical narratives on Northeast Asia in the first half of the 20th century. The resultant exhibition was hosted at the McClay Library, Queen's University Belfast, to coincide with CIRN2, and was curated by CI ADA and Research Assistant PM. The exhibition ran from 2nd- 23rd September 2019, and was organised three main themes: 1.The Times (of London) Japanese and Russia Supplements from the 1910s; 2. Manchuria: contested territory between China, Russia and Japan; 3. The old and new competing imperialisms in Northeast Asia, 1894-1953. 
Type Of Art Artistic/Creative Exhibition 
Year Produced 2019 
Impact The exposition was seen by hundreds of people, students, staff and other visitors to McClay library. The timing and location was particularly conductive to the wider dissemination of the project's themes as it was situated at the entrance to the library with many fresh undergraduates visiting it for their first time. The exhibition has been reinterpreted in a digital format, hosted through Omeka, and as such has a much wider outreach potential as a remote exhibition. 
 
Title Koto Concert by Dr Ayako Hotta-Lister 
Description Dr Ayako Hotta-Lister performed a koto concert in the evening of day one CIRN2 in Belfast, which was open to the general public. It provided a social and creative space for the conference participants and members of the general public to engage with the themes of the conference in an informal and holistic way. She gave an introduction on the instrument and its history as well as she performed a series of pieces from classic to modern ones. 
Type Of Art Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) 
Year Produced 2019 
Impact Dr Ayako Hotta-Lister is a well-known koto performer with a discography. Her concert generated interest among the general public, and some of the audience got in touch with Dr Hotta-Lister after the concert to learn more about the Japanese traditional music. 
 
Description The project aimed to establish a collaborative network of historians who are specialists or interested in the Northeast Asia region. Besides three conferences organised to establish the networks and strengthen the research ties, the project has provided as outcomes: a co-edited volume to be published, a couple of non specialist articles, one art exhibition at the McClay library (QUB) and a related online exhibition, a koto concert, and it produced a website and a blog page.
The projected resulted in new research into topics including the use of GIS software to map and visualise global, transnational and cross-border activities, using case studies of statesmen to evaluate their impact on foreign policy and border relations, the impact of cross-border relations on the ways in which national identity is interpreted, the influence of global actors on border relationships, and the experience of diasporic communities who have migrated across domestic borders. The unique environment of imperial interfaces in Northeast Asia in the late 19th and early 20th century facilitated these wide ranging research areas to come together under one project, and the fact that the papers for each conference were pre-circulated enabled the network community to influence and interlink with the more specific topics under investigation.
The programme was enriched by cultural experiences, and provided a space for academic of any background, nationality, and level from postgraduate students to emeritus professor to participate and have a fair exchange of ideas.
Exploitation Route The project has already taken forward by the JSPS project based in Waseda University and directed by the CI TR.
The methodology successfully applied for this project can be the basis for a bigger project regarding the same area or extended to Northeast and East Asia, therefore including the whole of China, Mongolia and Taiwan. The future project can expand also its temporary parameters to the whole 19th and 20th centuries, making it more contemporary.
The theoretical basis of the project have also been successful as they can offer new parameters to evaluate current political and military events, as well as to examine the change of geopolitics.
Sectors Education

Culture

Heritage

Museums and Collections

Security and Diplomacy

 
Description CIRN research focus on NE Asia
Geographic Reach Multiple continents/international 
Policy Influence Type Influenced training of practitioners or researchers
Impact The series of conference and the debate that they opened between the participants have helped to increase the attention and focus on a region and area which is, traditionally, under-researched, especially from a collaborative perspective. The project has provided an opportunity to consider Northeast Asia as a region in itself, and considering the territories occupied by Northeast China, Korea, Japan and Russian Far East as an autonomous centre instead of a distant borderland, which had little to do with the political centre of each of these countries. The focus on a region scarcely populated in part and overcrowded in others along a turbulent period, from the first Sino-Japanese War to the end of the Korean war, has brought to the attention of specialists the need to work in a more collaborative and interdisciplinary way to offer also possible analysis to current issues such as the fact that still nowadays Russia and Japan have not signed a peace treaty after World War Two.
 
Description 1252 Departmental Scholarship - Department of Histories and Humanities
Amount € 13,000 (EUR)
Organisation Trinity College Dublin 
Sector Academic/University
Country Ireland
Start 08/2021 
End 08/2022
 
Description Ellen McArthur/Holland Rose Trust Funds
Amount £1,500 (GBP)
Organisation University of Cambridge 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2020 
End 05/2020
 
Description Grace Lawless Lee Travel Fund
Amount € 840 (EUR)
Organisation Trinity College Dublin 
Sector Academic/University
Country Ireland
Start 11/2021 
End 06/2022
 
Description Information Netwok of Empires in North-East Asia
Amount ¥16,510,000 (JPY)
Funding ID 20H01473 
Organisation Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) 
Sector Public
Country Japan
Start 03/2020 
End 03/2023
 
Description QUB Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (with National Museums Northern Ireland)
Amount £46,827 (GBP)
Organisation Department for the Economy, Northern Ireland 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 08/2020 
End 08/2023
 
Title CIRN Manchuria map set 1 
Description With the first dataset on treaty ports, customs and railways, a colleague from the Geography and Archeology School created the first set of interactive digital maps. The data allowed the geographer, by using the historical GIS, to compile a series of maps, which can show through the heat models the region's various aspects such as population density, railways ownership, differences in railways gauged by the variety of countries present in the region, waterways, and other related aspects. The dataset was compiled through this project, and the research coordinates of the localities were drawn from Harvard China Historical GIS. 
Type Of Material Data handling & control 
Year Produced 2019 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact The first set of maps is made of static models, this aspect prompted us to research a model for an interactive set of map. 
 
Title CIRN Manchuria map set 2 
Description The second series of map presents an interactive aspect, allowing the user to directly engage with the map, and manipulate the datasets to produce different visualisations, depending on the locality being investigated. 
Type Of Material Data handling & control 
Year Produced 2020 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact This series of maps communicates research data to the viewer in a direct visual way, and gives the researcher agency over the ways in which they can engage with the materials. 
 
Title CIRN Manchuria treaty ports/customs 
Description The database collects data from different sources about treaty ports and customs locations along all the Northern border of China (including present day Mongolia), divided by povinces and smaller localities. It provides the dates when the treaty ports and the customs were opened, the type of communication network they were linked by (i.e. railway, waterway, paths), it indicates if those localities were on the border for trade and/or served as network hubs. It was compiled on a spreadsheet. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2016 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact This was the first database compiled in order to create the first set of interactive digital maps. The data allowed the geographer with the historical GIS to compile a series of maps, which can show through the heat models the region's various aspects such as population density, railways ownership, differences in railway gauges by different countries present in the region, waterways, and other related aspects. 
 
Description SPbSU 
Organisation Saint Petersburg State University
Country Russian Federation 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution The group of QUB academic launched the call for a collaboration with colleagues at Saint Petersburg State University to work on the initial pilot project about the Sino-Russian border, funded in 2018 by the AHSS of QUB. The initial successful grant has provided the possibility to fund the trip by Prof. Nikolay Samoylov, Head of the Department of Theory of Social Development of Asian and African Countries and Director of the Centre for Chinese Studies. Samoylov's visit, the collaboration between the two teams of the initial pilot project, with its initial successful results, has provided ground for further collaboration and the visit to the Saint Petersburg State University on September 2021, where the third and last conference for this grant will happen.
Collaborator Contribution The Department of Theory of Social Development of Asian and African Countries at Saint Petersburg State University will host the third and final conference of the grant. The colleagues from SPbSU have along the years provided datas, primary sources and other information to make the project viable, they have actively participated in conferences and events organised by the project and contributed scholarly to any request. They have provided access to rare archival material for this project
Impact Manchuria map set 1. They will contribute with chapters to the co-edited volume.
Start Year 2019
 
Description Waseda 
Organisation Waseda University
Country Japan 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution A four-night visit from the UK team allows time for a two-day introductory conference addressing conceptual issues and methodologies, followed by a project meeting. This was followed up by four research project meetings during the conference in Belfast, focusing on the exhibition, a meeting with the Russian partners, a focus group for the Editorial Board, and finally the general CIRN research network meeting. To further support the social engagement of the network, a Koto Presentation and Performance by Dr Ayako Hotta-Lister was hosted by QUB on the first night of the conference.
Collaborator Contribution Participation by researchers based in Japan outside Tokyo opens up broader opportunities for collaboration, and consolidates their participation in the network.
Impact The first conference allowed to tune the research interest of the two teams, and discuss the best way to continue. No publication at this stage. The team based in Japan and led by Prof. Tsuchiya Reiko has been awarded in 2020 a three years grant by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, for the project "Information networks of Empires in North-East Asia" "????????????????????" (April 2020 to March 2023), to which the UK based team as well as Russia colleagues from Saint Petersburg State University have been invited to collaborated and so to further the research started with the CIRN project.
Start Year 2019
 
Description CIRN dashboard 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The CIRN Project has since its very beginning utilised a multimedia platform to engage with both academic and general public, to inform, share info and recruit people into the research network.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL https://blogs.qub.ac.uk/competingimperialisms/
 
Description CIRN exhibition 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Study participants or study members
Results and Impact In concomitance with the CIRN2 conference, the McClay Library at Queen's University hosted a related exhibition for three weeks. The exhibition was curated by the PI and research assistant PM. It was based on original publications belonging to the private collections of two participants, Prof. Peter O'Connor and Prof. Peter Robinson.
The exhibition was organised around three main themes, bringing together historical narratives on Northeast Asia in the first half of the 20th century.
The exhibition's themes were organise in the following order:
1. The Times (of London) Japanese and Russia Supplements from the 1910s;
2. Manchuria: contested territory between China, Russia and Japan;
3. The old and new competing imperialisms in Northeast Asia, 1894-1953.
The exposition was seen by hundreds of people, students, staff and other visitors to McClay library. The timing and location was particularly conductive to the wider dissemination of the project's themes as it was situated at the entrance to the library with many fresh undergraduates visiting it for their first time.
The exhibition has been reinterpreted in a digital format, currently hosted through Omeka, and is available online.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL https://asia-belfast.net/cirn/omeka/exhibits/show/shigeru-exhibition-japanese-em
 
Description CIRN1 : Waseda 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Study participants or study members
Results and Impact On April 19 and 20, 2020 the Graduate School of Political Science at Waseda University hosted the first conference of the project entitled "Competing Imperialisms in Northeast Asia: Concepts and Approaches, 1894-1953". It saw the participation of 23 international scholars from Japan and the UK, who presented their research on the following themes: Imperialism and anti-imperialism, borderlands, press and state, images of empire, perceptions of the Anglo-Japanese relations, global geostrategies, migration and dislocation in Northeast Asia. The outcome from this conference was the preparations of 'Works-In-Progress' in anticipation of CIRN2 in Belfast.
Two keynotes speeches were delivered, one by Prof. Umemori Naoyuki and one by Dr Aglaia De Angeli.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL https://blogs.qub.ac.uk/competingimperialisms/waseda2019/
 
Description CIRN2: Belfast 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Study participants or study members
Results and Impact On September 6 and 7, 2019, the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Political Sciences with the Centre for Public History at Queen's University Belfast hosted CIRN2. Entitled "Competing Imperialisms in Northeast Asia: Contested History and Histories of Contestation, 1894-1953", it saw the participation of 22 international scholars. 'Works-in-Progress' resulting from the research presented at CIRN1 were pre-circulated in the weeks leading up to CIRN2, and so, the conference provided opportunities for both presentation of research and the workshopping of novel concepts in each area.
Discussion revolved around the following themes: decolonisation, empire and imperialism, disputed territories and territorial occupation, migration and displacement, imperialism in media, visuality and ideologies, empire and propaganda, Russo-Japanese imperial rivalry.
The conference was attended by scholars from Japan, Russia, Belgium, Germany, Ireland and UK.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL https://blogs.qub.ac.uk/competingimperialisms/qub2019/cirn-2-programme/
 
Description CIRN3: St Petersburg 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Study participants or study members
Results and Impact The third and final conference of the CIRN hosted by the Saint Petersburg State University was initially to be hosted in March 2020, but was postponed to September 2021 owing to Covid restrictions. The Covid restrictions presented both limitations and opportunities. For example, we were not able to undertake the visit to the Kunstkamera, however, attendance at the conference significantly increased as the programme changed to a remote workshop.
It offered an opportunity to deepen a key theme of the project, especially related to the Russian and Soviet governments approach to Northeast Asia. The final meeting also provided the project's participants the platform to coordinate future research and finalise plans related to completing the current project, including publishing and dissemination outcomes.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://blogs.qub.ac.uk/competingimperialisms/st-petersburg/
 
Description Koto Concert by Dr Ayako Hotta-Lister 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Dr Ayako Hotta-Lister performed a koto concert in occasion of the CIRN 2 in Belfast open to the general public.
She gave an introduction on the instrument and its history as well as she perfomed a series of pieces from classic to modern ones.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Visit to the Kunstkamera - Fully coordinated but physical visit cancelled owing to Covid. 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Study participants or study members
Results and Impact A visit to the Kunstkamera, the ethnographic museum in St Petersburg, Russia, organised by Dr Dmitri Mayatski and Dr Paulina Rut, curator of Chinese section of the Kunstkamera. The purpose of the visit was to review archival holdings of photographs in the museum's Chinese collection.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021