War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War

It is difficult to pinpoint the actual turning point of the war in Asia, but by 1944, it was clear that Japan was defeated—and yet the war continued on for another year. The hatred inherent in the nature of warfare found a new destructiveness in the modern era and modern weaponry. World War II was an incredibly destructive war with the death toll in the tens of millions and without any possibility of an accurate body count. From such a merciless war it is difficult to understand how quickly the nations went from enemies to allies. The simplest possible answer to this seeming paradox is that the stereotypes engendered for both sides were absolutely false, and the racist/hateful rhetoric is flexible and easily transferred to another.

The beginnings of the Cold War had much to do with this transformation. Much of the badinage used to denigrate the Japanese was turned against the Soviets. But the Cold War was not the only factor. It was also possible to invert racism to something more benign:

In a time of peace […] the extremely negative wartime images of the Japanese as primitives, children, and madmen summoned forth the victor's more charitable side: as civilized mentor, parent, doctor, therapist—and possessor, without question, of superior power (305).

Even the Japanese came to agree that it was foolhardy for the Japanese to try and defeat the Allied powers, and the demonic Anglo-American enemy of the war showed the other side of its dual nature by exposing its human face and tutelary nature.

Even purity took on a new understanding for the Japanese. Military defeat proved that the Japanese had been wrong about what needed purification. During the war it was believed the enemy needed to be purified, but defeat proved that Japanese society itself needed purification, especially of the military leadership. The emperor, however, was not a part of the military; he was used by them like a pawn. The emperor maintained his position and title after the war, proof of the Anglo-American benevolence but also of the corruption and culpability of the military.

Despite the quick turn-around from enemy to ally after the war, Americans and Japanese never truly trusted one another. The Japanese still viewed the Americans as treacherous (part of the demonic duality), and the Americans felt the same way about the Japanese. By the 1970s, as the Japanese economy was achieving new heights and becoming an international powerhouse, a lot of the racial rhetoric used during the war resurfaced. The Japanese were viewed as treacherous and devious in their trade dealings. At a Democratic Party gathering, the head of a congressional trade delegation to Japan was quoted as saying, "Those little yellow men, you know, Honda" (313). Then, a "Republican presidential aspirant took the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the end of World War Two to clarify 'two fact': 'First, we're still at war with Japan. Second, we're losing'" (314). The Japanese did the same thing. A Japanese official was quoted, in the Wall Street Journal in 1982 as saying that "the Japanese are a people that can manufacture a product of uniformity and superior quality because the Japanese are a race of completely pure blood, not a mongrelized race as in the United States" (315). The racism the existed before and during the Second World War never went away, it just changed shape.