In this book Professor Nish deals with one of the most important aspects of far eastern politics in the critical period between 1894 and 1907. His object is to demonstrate how Britain and Japan, at first separately and later jointly, reacted to Russian encroachments in China and east Asia; he is concerned also with the policies of the other European powers and of the U.S., to whose hostility towards the Anglo-Japanese alliance after 1905 Britain showed herself increasingly sensitive. First published in 1966, this title is part of the Bloomsbury Academic Collections series.
The Anglo-Japanese Alliance was the first formal agreement of its type reached by a Western 'great' power with a non-Caucasian nation in the modern era. As such, it represented an important milestone diplomatically, strategically and culturally. This book brings together many leading experts who examine the different aspects of the Alliance in its different stages before, during and after the First World War, who explore the reasons for its success and for its end, and who reach a number of interesting and innovative conclusions on the agreement's ultimate importance.
This book by a leading authority on Anglo-Japanese relations reconsiders the circumstances which led to the unlikely alliance of 1902 to 1922 between Britain, the leading world power of the day and Japan, an Asian, non-European nation which had only recently emerged from self-imposed isolation. Based on extensive original research the book goes beyond existing accounts which concentrate on high politics, strategy and simple assertions about the two countries’ similarities as island empires. It brings into the picture cultural factors, particularly the ways in which Japan was portrayed in Britain, and ambivalent British attitudes to race and supposed European superiority which were overcome but remained difficulties. It charts how the relationship developed as events unfolded, including Japan’s wars against China and Russia, and in addition looks at royal diplomacy, where the Japanese Court came eventually to be treated as a respected equal. Overall, the book provides a major reassessment of this important subject.
This book revises the conventional wisdom about the Anglo-Japanese relationship in the late nineteenth century that these two countries were bound by mutual sympathy and common interests, and therefore the common ground which led to the signing of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in 1902, had already existed in the 1880s. Such understandings fail to take account of the fact that the Qing dynasty of China had emerged as the strongest regional power in East Asia by reasserting its influence as the traditional suzerain of the region in the years prior to the First Sino-Japanese War. The British and the Japanese governments clearly recognised that it would become difficult to maintain their interests in East Asia if they antagonised the Qing by challenging its claim of suzerainty over Korea. It was difficult for them to come to closer terms when their priority before 1894-5 was to maintain good relations with China, and when they were also experiencing numerous diplomatic difficulties with each other.
In a fresh study of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, Heere examines how the British imperial system wrestled with Japan's unique status as an Asian power. Empire Ascendant combines the study of diplomacy with issues of cultural representation, race, migration, and inter-imperial relations.
This study, closely researched by Philip Towle over the past thirty years, is principally concerned with the military relations between Britain and Japan during the first half of the twentieth century and the ambivalence, misunderstandings and misconceptions that informed their relationship, described by the author as ‘an epic tragedy’. Following the signing of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in 1902, Japan was held up as a model in Britain and Britain in Japan. But within a generation, the British came to see Japan as the first country to challenge the League of Nations and to begin a new age of imperialism. Conversely, the Japanese armed forces saw Britain as the greatest obstacle to Japanese ambitions in China and elsewhere. In 1936, Lieutenant Commander Tota Ishimaru’s book Japan Must Fight Britain was printed in Britain, its significance ignored at many levels, and five years later the two countries were at war. ‘The feelings stirred up by that conflict,’ notes Towle, ‘still have resonance today.’ From Ally to Enemy brings together a most important body of research that is long overdue in book form and will be widely welcomed by historians and researchers of the period, as well as those seeking more detailed analysis of specific aspects of the pre-war Anglo-Japanese military relationship.
"In this book Professor Nish deals with one of the most important aspects of far eastern politics in the critical period between 1894 and 1907. His object is to demonstrate how Britain and Japan, at first separately and later jointly, reacted to Russian encroachments in China and east Asia; he is concerned also with the policies of the other European powers and of the U.S., to whose hostility towards the Anglo-Japanese alliance after 1905 Britain showed herself increasingly sensitive. First published in 1966, this title is part of the Bloomsbury Academic Collections series."--Bloomsbury Publishing.
Commissioned by the Japan Society as the companion volume to British Envoys in Japan, 1959-1972 (2004), this collection of essays on a century of official Japanese representation in the United Kingdom completes the history of bilateral diplomatic relations up to the mid-1960s, concluding with Ambassador Ohno Katsumi’s highly successful six-year assignment in 1964. In all, twelve authors, half of whom are Japanese , contribute to the work. In addition to the nineteen biographies, there are essays on the history of the Japanese Embassy buildings in London, an overview of Japanese envoys in Britain between 1862 and 1872 by Sir Hugh Cortazzi, as well as aspects of embassy life which illuminate some of the factors impacting on the life-style of residents in London in former times, including an entertaining personal memoir by Ayako Ishizaka of ‘A Diplomat’s Daughter in the 1930s’. By way of appendix, the volume concludes with a short history of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Gaimusho) up to the present day.
This book examines reconciliation between Japan and the UK, exploring the development and current state of Japan-UK relations from the perspectives of economic cooperation and conflict, common concerns in the international system, and public and media perceptions of each country.
