[EastCoastAmerican]

I often read of American history analysis of World War II defining Showa-era Japan as a fascist state during World War II.

Japan under Hirohito's rule was totalitarian and nationalistic, but was it fascist? An alliance with Italy and Germany does not necessarily make Japan fascist by default if they do not model their society on explicitly fascist ideals. General Hideki Tojo was a self-described fascist, but what of the Emperor?

This Wikipedia article mentions that European fascist parties influenced Japanese political figures, but they adopted only "some elements" as opposed to total acceptance and emulation.

What do you think?

[Section Leader]

There were individuals and movements in Showa Japan inspired by European fascism, but I don't think the society itself can be described as fascist. Fascism was a reaction against the liberal movements of 18th and 19th century Europe, Japan had never had a powerful liberal culture. The Showa era was essentially unreconstructed aristocratic authoritarianism in which certain fascistesque elements thrived in the nationalist militarism of the day.

[pugsville]

I would not say fascist pr Totalitarian, there wasn't the enforced unity and domination of one group/party. The relatively traditional leaders were in charge and there was some sort of plurality in those running the country, there was no a narrow political party with a defined dogma.

There were similarities with European fascists,ultra nationalistic, expansionist foreign policy, a belief in a resurgent nations reshaping the status quo.

[Far-Right Sage]

I consider the Empire of Japan of the Showa era Fascist; if not strictly confined to the term, it certainly adhered to a form of (lowercase) national socialism - the emphasis on the Bushido code to forge a proper militarist doctrine, as well as the economic function of the zaibatsu, which were subordinate to Tokyo. Since the war, these facets and others have not been completely erased, but merely changed form.

A more interesting analysis lies in the question of palingenesis. To what extent were men like Sadao Araki and Seigo Nakano, the Imperial Way Faction and the the rightist-socialists, forming a society built along the principles of a deserved and cleansing rebirth, as opposed to underscoring the values which to some extent have always existed in Japanese society? To some extent these values can be said to be interrupted with the modernization programs, the defeat of the Satsuma Rebellion and Saigo Takamori, and the opening of Japanese markets to Western commerce. The slight liberalization/modernization of some aspects of Japanese society can perhaps be said to have begun to reverse itself as the Japanese ruling class realized the sun had set on the feudal age, but feudal era values could be preserved and reworked into the nationalistic framework of an early 20th century ethnic state/empire. Perhaps this consciousness arose in 1905 following Moscow's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, and became more pronounced following the seizure of German colonial property in China (Tsingtao/Qingdao), the conclusion of WWI, and the realization that the despite the productivity of Japanese industry and the muscle of the Imperial Japanese Navy, the Western colonial powers (chiefly Britain and the United States) would not consider them equals or deal fairly with their population.

Thus many elements of European Fascism were melded into native codes and ideas which existed since ancient times. Yet I consider much of Fascism and the post-war rise of the Third Positionist ideology to function this way: helping us discover that which is innately in ourselves, rather than creating new and ultimately false creeds as liberalism and communism seek.

[ThirdTerm]

Showa Japan was definitely fascist and there was a government-sponsored fascist organisation established by Prime Minister Konoe in 1940. The "Imperial Rule Assistance Association" transformed Imperial Japan into a fully-fledged National Socialist state and it enabled the Konoe government to impose Japanese-style fascism from above. Konoe borrowed many of Hitler's ideas to lead the "New Political Order" movement and Emperor Hirohito was deified through propaganda just as Joseph Goebbels created the Hitler myth. What set Showa Japan apart from Nazi Germany was anti-Semitism and Japan allowed over 6,000 European Jews to settle in Japanese-controlled Shanghai because Japanese fascists did not share anti-Semitic beliefs propagated by the Germans.

The Taisei Yokusankai ("Imperial Rule Assistance Association" or "Imperial Aid Association") was Japan's para-fascist organization created by Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe on October 12, 1940 to promote the goals of his Shintaisei ("New Order") movement. It evolved into a "statist" ruling political party which aimed at removing the sectionalism in the politics and economics in the Empire of Japan to create a totalitarian single-party state, in order to maximize efficiency of Japan’s total war effort in China.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taisei_Yokusankai

The most critical assistance came from unexpected sources: representatives of the Dutch government-in-exile and of Nazi Germany's Axis ally, Japan. Their humanitarian activity in 1940 was the pivotal act of rescue for hundreds of Polish Jewish refugees temporarily residing in Lithuania. The Polish Jewish refugees from Lithuania had heard in Japan that the Free Port of Shanghai was a crowded, unsanitary, and crime-ridden city. Still, they were shocked by the sights and smells that greeted them when they disembarked. In the city's International Settlement, hundreds of thousands of destitute Chinese lived amid a foreign community dominated by a wealthy elite of British and American traders and financiers. The refugees also found an established community of some 4,000 Russian Jews to assist them, and more than 17,000 struggling German and Austrian Jewish refugees who had fled Nazi persecution in 1938 and 1939. Most of Shanghai's German and Austrian Jewish refugees lived in crowded, dilapidated housing. The most economically vulnerable of them lived in barracks funded by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Still, these earlier arrivals were managing to survive and even thrive. Some had opened small shops and cottage industries. Others had set themselves up as builders and landlords, transforming whole segments of Hongkew, an industrial area of the International Settlement that had been heavily damaged during Sino-Japanese fighting in 1932 and 1937.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005589

[Far-Right Sage]

One must also consider the context which is that the pre-war Jewish population of Japan was effectively zero, and most of what was known about these people was colored by European perceptions - The Japanese, I always imagined, believed Jews working as lenders and traders if the commerce could be directed of course as with everything and anything else to serve Japanese national interests, would be beneficial, and this is why they allowed some refugees to settle in occupied Shanghai. What the modern opinion of Japanese nationalist youth factions and post-war fascist and imperial revivalist movements is on the question is something which would have to be answered by someone actively involved with such groups who is fluent in Japanese.

[Rei Murasame]

Japanese 'antisemitism' (if it can even be called that) has always existed since the late 1800s, even before Japanese people ever met a Jew. Judaism and Christianity were seen as being together part of a force in the world that sought to wreck anything else it came into contact with.

However, as far as I'm aware, none of the ideas on how to tackle Judaism from a Japanese perspective, have ever involved pre-emptively targeting the Jews with violence. What Jewish people would likely describe as 'antisemitism', does indeed exist in Japan, just it exists in such a way that observers would find it difficult to understand the precise mechanism of how it works or what it is for.

The Japanese strategy on the issue always seems to involve neutralising or controlling them, barring them from having decisive economic or political power if possible. This is because the Japanese form of 'antisemitism' is based on the belief that 'because of the particular racial and historical characteristics', Jews may exhibit a tendency to hijack systems that they are placed in charge of. Therefore they just avoid letting that happen.

This can also explain why during the war, although Jews were never harmed by the Japanese government under any circumstances, certain types of Jews - such as the 'stateless Jews' - were placed under surveillance because they might be anti-Axis, but were not targeted for any kind of violence. Japan also advised Vichy France to imitate Japan's policy of surveillance to stop allowing those people to walk around in Indochina unwatched.

So basically it was just sensible precautions.

Pollsters take polls from time to time, and find that Japanese people respond on the polls by attributing nice attributes to the Jews, while at the same time expressing levels of fear and aversion that confuse the pollsters. However, the explanation should be obvious. Imagine it like this:

"The Jews are not some kind of subhuman creatures of lower intelligence. No, they are hard working, resourceful, ruthlessly dedicated, and sublimely clever. In fact, the Jewish people are on par with the Japanese people in all of those aspects. But they are not Japanese, and that is precisely why they must be carefully monitored by Japan. To go after them arbitrarily without regard for the law might only martyr them, which might be their victory."

That's of course my way of summarising it, but it's something like that. And that's also why in Japanese-controlled areas, when the Jewish community was doing smuggling and black market activities, Japan made sure to very carefully ban the specific economic actions 'no matter who shall engage in them', so that no one would be able to say that Japan had specifically singled out Jews in any 'irrational' way.

NOTE: If anyone wants me to substantiate anything in this post with sources, I can do it.