�@                           LET US MOVE BEYOND THE LIMITATIONS
                                  OF THE �gNATION-STATE�h HISTORY

                                                                                  From a National History to a Regional History

                                            -- A New Paradigm for the Resolution of the so-called History Issues --

                                                                                                                                Yutaka Okamoto
                                                                                                                                OIARI Tokyo, Japan

Foreword (Defining the framework of these thorny regional issues)

It seems as if the so-called �gHistory Issues�h have long been being trivialized in Japan. Take the caske of the Nanking Massacre as an example. More often than not, the past discussions seem to have centered around the argument as to which country�fs material and quantitative claims and evidences are more justifiable than those of others. This is destined to drive all participants into a blind alley.

The true nature of the "History Issues"

Since the Koizumi�fs government has been handed over to Shintaro Abe toward the end of 2006, the foreign policy issues over the so-called �gHistory�h and �hYasukuni War Shrine�h problems have been temporarily put on the backburner thanks to Premier Abe�fs visit to China and Korea soon after the inauguration of his new government. But, due to the nature of the beast, it is bound to surface again sooner or later as a hot political issue in East Asia.

In order to cope with this problem, in addition to the newly organized governmental consultation committee between China and Japan, several private and quasi-governmental groups have already undertaken the task of jointly reviewing East Asia�fs history with their Chinese and/or Korean counterparts in recent years. But, in most cases, they have only addressed the period from after the Meiji Restoration of 1868 to the end of World War II, during which Japan embarked upon its own Imperialist expansions in East and Southeast Asias in competition with the major Western Imperialist powers. The intent of these studies was to critically reexamine the tragic nature and the damaging consequences wrought upon Japan�fs neighbors, especially Korea and China. At this point in time, however, their collaborative efforts have not yet produced any tangible results toward a conclusive resolution of the problems on hand.

Among these groups, for example, is the �gThree-Nation Joint Committee on History Text Books�h which has just published a trial text book called �gHistory for the Future: Modern History of East Asia�fs Three Nations.�h(the 2nd July 2006 edition, Kobunsha, Tokyo). However, in my opinion, this book falls short of boldly moving beyond the level of making joint examination of the historical events of this period and listing in three �gNational sections�h the facts and interpretations mutually agreed upon in broad terms. As a result, the authors have failed to hammer out a new joint direction for a meaningful move toward the fundamental resolution of the disputed �ghistory problem.�h In this writer�fs opinion, the roots of the �gHistory Issues�h of East Asia go far back into this region�fs remote past, and a mere joint reflection of the events that took place in the recent Imperialist Era is destined to fall far too short of producing a meaningful result.

East Asia�fs history harkens all the way back to the ancient times during which the early Chinese Empires and tribal kingdoms rose and fell in everlasting conflicts along China�fs northern and northeastern frontier regions, involving the tribes which share their ethnic and cultural roots with today's Japanese people. In this sense, the so-called �gHistory Issues�h touch the ethnic and cultural subconscious of the entire Japanese awakening the distant memories of their ethnic past.

Though the Japanese people started as a complex mix of tribes who came from the Himalayan foothills and Southern China to the south and the northeastern regions of China and today�fs Russian Far East to the north, their documented history reflects mostly of their �gSouthern origins�h typically represented by wet rice culture fused with the elite ruling class who migrated to Japan via the Korean peninsula and established the Nara/Kyoto Imperial regime in ancient times.

I must psecially note at thisw point the fact that there are no documentary evidence of the roots of the Samurai society which arose in the eastern Japan as a rival of the Imperial authority of the western Japan. But, since none of the early settlers in the eastern and northern regions, many of whom came to settle in Japan via the Sea of Japan, had their own writing system, little is known what really happened to these people during the latter half of the first millennium, let alone their possible involvement in the assumption of power of prominence across Japan from after the fall of the Heike clan in the early 12th century, the armed guardian of the Kyoto Imperial regime.

Persevering the pressures of the Chinese Empires and the Western Imperial powers

If we are to cope with the �gHistory Problems�h seriously, we, the Japanese, ought to embark upon our own extensive review of the history of East Asian region as a whole, of which Japan is an integral part situated at its northeastern edge as a tributary state of the Sui and Tang Empires during the Asuka/Nara periods . For us Japanese, this is, in the deeper sense of the word, an issue of our national subconscious nurtured in the depths of our distant memories accumulated over the centuries of life of admiration and at once inferiority complex toward the ancient Chinese civilization.

After nearly a millennium and a half since then, Tokugawa Japan experienced another major shock in a hostile contact with the Western Imperial states. And, a band of young reformist Samurais successfully launched a radical institutional reform for modernization and Westernization which came to be called the Meiji Restoration. The cultural and technological gaps between Tokugawa Japan and the West were so much greater than they were between Japan and China in Prince Shotoku�fs time.

Once upon a time, as a peripheral kingdom in the Chinese system of tributary states, Japan began sending its envoy to China during the Asuka Period in the early 7th century. Thence, began Japan's journey toward the establishment of a nation-to-nation relationship with China. It is of interest to note the diplomatic posture of the founders of the �gMizuhono Kuni (Land of Rich Rice Ears)�h of the Asuka and Nara periods who took on the stilted posture as an equal of the rulers of the advanced Chinese civilization. This is eloquently expressed by the message of Prince Shotoku of Asuka Japan sent to Emperor Wen Di, the founder of Sui Empire and the reunifier of China. It began with the famous passage: �gThe emperor of the land of the rising sun hereby sends his message to the emperor of the setting sun. Are you doing well?�h

This was nothing but an expression in reverse of their deep sense of inferiority and at once a competitive desire to establish an equal relationship with China, if possible at all, so that they can claim a superior, if not dominant, position in relation to the neighboring tributary states in Northeast Asia.

However, the same competitive zeal was certainly shared by all other Northern tribal states that rose and fell. And, the lingering question is why Japan alone has proven to be a case in history as a trial state which, evolving from a China�fs tributary state, in the end succeeded in establishing a formidable Buke Shakai (Samurai society), capable of escaping the fate of its continental brothers of succumbing to the all-embracing culture of the Middle Kingdom.

Now let us get on the reverse time machine to come back to the modern Meiji era. Japan�fs awareness of the fatal inferiority to the Imperial West gave birth to a foreign policy slogan of �gCatching up with the West, and move beyond.�h Once again, Japan wanted to be recognized as an equal of the West, instead of China in the ancient time, and thus place itself in a superior position in relation to its Asian neighbors. And, this concept became the established view of the Imperial View of History (�c�‘ŽjŠÏ) and diplomatic posture based once again on the Nara/Kyoto-centric view of the land of the rising sun, anxious this time to join the ranks of the Western Imperialist states as an equal while looking down on the fellow Asian neighbors.

Preceding Meiji Era, there already had been an awakening of cultural nationalism in Edo Japan. Such scholars as Kamo Mabuchi and Motoori Norinaga successfully led a new cultural awakening movement of shifting emphasis to the �gnational literature�h from the past esteem of the �gChinese literature�h which had dominated the intellectual life of the ruling class of the Edo Period, heralding the coming of a new nationalist cultural movement.

Another national slogan of Meiji Japan was �gExit Asia and Enter the West (’EˆŸ“ü‰¢),�h coined by the well-known samurai-turned industrialist Yukichi Fukuzawa. While it reflected the fad among the nobles and the upper class leaders of Meiji Japan, it merely meant to superficially mimic and reproduce the modern Western-style diplomatic life in Tokyo by building the �gRokumeikan,�h an elaborate Western-style building which contained the full range of facilities for social and diplomatic events such as conferences, banquets, dance parties, and many other Western social functions.

Seeking a scope goat in Asia for emotional balance

In the meantime, Meiji Japan also took on a stiff and oppressive diplomatic posture against its Asian neighbors, especially Korea and China, by means of which it sought to achieve an emotional balance positioning itself as a middle-level power between the advanced West and the backward East Asia. This was nothing but a modern revival of Price Shotoku�fs diplomacy model, if only greatly expanded in scope as it was evident in the case of the unfair 21-Article Agreement Japan tried to impose upon China.

Japan�fs inferiority complex which continued to run within the nations�f subconscious as an underflow deep beneath the ground surfaced once again in the post-World War II Japan in the form of the above-mentioned �ghistory text book dispute.�h In the postwar Japan, the history text books used in the public schools have remained in a constant dispute between the progressive political and intellectual forces backed by Nikkyoso, the Japan National Federation of Teachers Unions, on the one side, and the conservative political leadership mainly within the Liberal Democratic Party and the conservative wings of the national bureaucracy led by the Ministry of Education on the other.

During the years of the so-called 1955 political regime, however, these contending forces struck a convenient compromise by not teaching in public schools the most sensitive period of their history, i.e., the post-Meiji modern period, so as to avoid open political disputes and resultant administrative deadlocks. Practically speaking, this resulted in a situation where generations of the postwar Japanese youths have been seldom taught the modern-era history of their own country at school. Teachers didn�ft have to cope with the delicate political and ideological issues in class rooms, while the Ministry of Education did not have to face embarrassing public disputes.

Then, the collapse of the Soviet Union during the 1980s resulted in a serious disgrace for the historians of the Marxist persuasion in Japan. The advocates of the idea that Japan had indeed became a �gmember of the Western nations�h sharing the same values and institutions came to hold the sway in Japan as the United States became the only super power of the world, while it also energized a new group of conservative nationalists in Japan, encouraged by the rightwing members of the Liberal-Democratic Party, who embraced the neo-conservative foreign policy of the Bush Administration of �gglobally spreading the gospel of American democracy�h even by force if necessary.

Thus, the foreign policy posture of the Japanese government in recent years reminds us in many ways of the chain of events in Japan during the early 1930s, arousing the concern of its neighbors as evidenced by the on-going polemic over the history text books and the Yasukuni shrine mentioned above. However, the Japanese version of neo-conservatism seems to have its own historical imprint of Meiji Japan. Instead of �gExit Asia, Enter the West,�h the conservative elements in today�fs Japan seem inclined to endorse the combination of the American democracy and the idea of �gHakko Ichiu, meaning All Corners of the World under One Roof ( of the Imperial Japanese authority),�h a concept widely shared in Japan during World War II.

The integration of the Japanese armed forces into the reorganization plan of the U.S. overseas military presence is progressing as planned. But, Japan at the beginning of the 21st century is no longer a 6th-century Japan of Prince Shotoku's era, nor is it a Japan of the prewar decades. It is the 2nd largest economic power in the world after the U.S. with all the technological and scientific excellence. Is Japan as such, then, even if the armed conflict in the Middle East should come under control, going to remain active as the sole sales agent of the American democracy a la Neo-conservative mode?

The most important qualification for a good sales agent, however, is to have the full understanding of the product and have a strong sense of personal commitment to it, which in this case, is the American democracy built upon the values centering on and around the so-called �grugged�h individualism. He must also, ideally speaking, be its persuasive practitioner in the positive sense of the word. Thus, what must be questioned today is whether Japan is really qualified for this job and accepted by the fellow Asians as the preacher of freedom, democracy and equal rights in East Asia.

I recommend that we go back to the Prince Shotoku�fs Japan in the 7th century, and compare Prince Shotoku who prided himself on being an �gEmperor of the land of the rising sun�h whereas there are so many other lands where the sun rises earlier than in Japan. I for one see a close parallel between Prince Shotoku and so many Japanese conservative political leaders of today. What they seem to share in common is a deep sense of emotional complex arising from the hidden sense of inferiority, toward the Tang Dynasty for the former and the United States for the latter.

It may well be that we should not be surprised by this because Japan prides itself with a cultural continuity approaching almost two millennia. However, just as �gthe water of the River Sumida in Tokyo flows into the water that runs out of the River Themes,�h the social and cultural life of mankind has always been interconnected as well. The ancestors of the peoples of East Asia including Japan have shared the land space and the history of this region of the Eurasian Continent for thousands of years.

But, I am afraid most of us in Japan today still remain mentally, if not geographically, isolated from the continental part of East Asia. To make it worse, this is a self-imposed state of psychological isolation which we alone, and no body else, can tear down.

In so far as the standard history of Japan is concerned, i.e., from the coming of the wet-rice culture from the region south of the River Chang Jiang and the rise of the Yamato Dynasty of Asuka-Nara period to the Heian era of urban aristocracy in Kyoto, there is a huge mountain of historical documents and records of studies undertaken throughout centuries up to the present day, constituting what is widely accepted as the mainstream view of the history of Japan often referred to as the "Imperial View."

The unfortunate turn of event in history, however, was that the studies of the Northeastern Asia, including access to scientific data, particularly in the coastal regions of the Russian Far East, had been extremely difficult to say the least, due to the domination first by the Czarist Russia and then by the Soviet Union ever since the beginning of the 20th century all the way up to the end of the Cold War.

Due to this unfortunate situation, there has been a serious lack of historical studies relative to the ancient tribal cultures and their development in Northeast Asia and their subsequent southward movement by sea toward the central and northern areas of the Japanese archipelago. The resulting imbalance build into the modern Japanese view of its own history has never been fully rectified due mainly to the continuous lack of available evidences in the form of documented records and their scientific analyses.

The so-called �gImperial View of (Japanese) History,�h which describes Japan centering around the growth and development of the rule by the Imperial regime of the Nara/Kyoto region of the western Japan. Here, more often than not, the royalty toward the Imperial authority is used as the primary yardstick with which to measure the relative values and importance of historical events.

Where to reposition Japan in the 21st century Asia

This historical view has often been criticized as overly nationalistic by Japan�fs neighbors. Thus, while it is in a sense an inevitable result of this imbalance of available historical data and not necessarily of the influence of the extreme rightwing political ideology, it still matters when the �gImperial View of History�h is viewed by Japan�fs neighbors as an ideological instrument with which Japan is one day going to re-embark upon an overseas power projection in Asia, let alone the resolution of the shared view of East Asia�fs past history.

In this paper, therefore, I have undertaken the task of examining the primary hypothesis of my thesis, developed in the past several years, that "the migration of the people and their cultures of the Northeast Asia directly by sea into the eastern and northern regions of the Japanese archipelago, and the subsequent endogenous development of a unique dry field farming culture integrated with horse ranching gave rise to the roots of a martial culture peculiar to the eastern Japan." This migration routes and the subsequent developments have seldom been studied due to the fact that the carriers of the northern culture, mostly of the Tungusic tribal origins, did not have their own writing system, thence leaving no documentary records of their migration and subsequent local settlement and growth.

This paper is merely intended to be a proposal for a serious joint historical research project among the nations of East Asia with a special emphasis on the integrationb of Northeast Asia as a sub-region of East Asia.

During my stay of a quarter of a century in the United States, I have made my own study of Japan comparing it with thaat of the United States with an emphasis on the fate of the North American Indians. And as a result, I made up my mind to go back to Japan to spend the rest of my life to fill this obvious information gap in the Japanese history. I returned to Tokyo in 1982 with this aim in mind even though I was fully aware of the likely consequence of being rejected by the orthodoxy of the Japanese history academia, and also that my personal capability may well fall short of producing an objectively convincing result.

As to my personal experience and activities since my return to Japan, please refer to the following sites:

1) HP of Okamoto International Affairs Research Institute

http://www.sbpark.com/

2) �gPARAP site�h dedicated to the cultural, economic exchange and research activities in East Asia

http://www.myoutlooktoday.com/index.php

Chapter One

The Characteristics of the Northern Tribal Kingdoms and the Middle Kingdoms

It is often said by the Japanese historians that Japan was able to fend off the excessive influence and often damaging impact of the ancient Chinese kingdoms because of the fact that it was an insular state separated by sea from the continental Asia.

Admittedly, on the continental side were such ancient tribal kingdoms as Puyo, Goguryeo, Baekje, Silla and Balhae which rose and fell in relatively short successions in the northeastern provinces of Today's China (mainly Manchuria) and the Korean peninsula during the several centuries before and after the Christian era.

They were fundamentally Tungusic speakers who originally lived as hunters in the forests of the maritime region of Today's Russian Far East and came out to the flat plains of Manchuria for better life as dry field grain farmers. There were others, also northern tribes of diverse ethnic backgrounds, who crossed the Great Wall and invaded the northern region of China to establish short-lived "barbarian" empires such as Northern Wei of Xianbei,  Liao of Qidan, and Jinn of Jurchen (check the attached maps).

These northern tribal kingdoms often had to accept a dual system of government, one for their own ethnic population and another for the Han Chinese who came under their rule. Such a dual system inevitably led to the Civilization of the tribal kingdoms�Eruling aristocracies given the irresistible allure of the superior civilization of the Middle Kingdom. This resulted in the ostracization of the tribal leadership and population and the ensuing disintegration of their own ethnic identity. While the northern tribal kingdoms did make a significant contribution in enriching the diversity of the Chinese culture, there is no denying the fact that all of them eventually fell apart and melted into the Chinese society.

There have been those northern tribes who managed to build their own Chinese dynasties such as Yuan Empire by the Mongols and Qing Empire by the Manchus. The former, which once had the strength of sending formidable invasion troops to Japan, lasted less than 100 years from 279 to 368 AD, while the latter, the longest lasting Manchu dynasty sustained itself for nearly 300 years until it was replaced by the Republic of China in 1912.

Chapter Two

The Arrival and Spread of the Northern Tribal Cultures on the Shores of the Eastern Provinces of Ancient Japan

Japan, contrary to the continental experience, has managed to survive through all these centuries upholding the cultural heritage of the Samurai society which was born in Japan in the process of fusion between the northern tribal culture and the southern wet-rice farming culture. To explain the reason for this uninterrupted continuity, often used is Japan's geographical advantage of insularity separated by sea from the continent. We must now question if this is, while valid in itself, a sufficient explanation for the exceptional self-sustainability of Japan's Imperial governance system in the history of Northeast Asia.

Let us now turn to the episode of the great Mongol invasions during the late 13th century to examine the validity of this insularity hypothesis. In 1274, the Great Yuan sent an invasion army of 40,000, and then in 1281, a large fleet consisting in some 4000 vessels with 140,000 troops, a part of which coming from the Southern China and another part from the Korean Peninsula.

Japan, a small island kingdom, miraculously managed to repel the invasion armies on both occasions to the dismay of the Yuan emperor. But, when one looks into this unusual historical episode, it reveals a much more important clue to understand the true reason for defender's success other than the miraculous destruction of the invading Mongol fleet by the "Divine Wind (Kamikaze!!)," or tropical typhoons. 

For, the Divine Wind would not have made any difference at all if the majority of the invading troops had successfully built a secure shore-based invasion camp with access to local communities in northern Kyushu Island, especially given the size of the force.  But, the truth was that the counter attacks by the defending Samurai troops gathered from all over Japan under the central command of the Kamakura Bakufu was so intense that the Mongol invaders opted to retreat back to the safety of the fleet anchored offshore after each sunset fearful of night attacks. And, this is the very reason why the Divine Wind was able to wreck not only the Mongol fleet but also decimate all of the invasion troops.

Suppose there were no organized defense plan participated by the elite Samurai legions from the powerful regional domains across the country keeping the Mongol invaders off the shores of Japan, we would almost certainly have had a totally different outcome. For, the aristocratic Imperial Court in Kyoto could do little more than organizing grand religious supplication rites praying for the Gods' help.  And, the end result would have been, once the invasion troops were firmly established on the ground,  the Mongols would have swept across much of western Japan in no time, and toppled the Imperial rulers in Kyoto.

Japan, then as a result, would have gone down the history as just another episode of the demise of a northern tribal kingdom. In this sense, the real "Divine Wind" was not the typhoon itself, but the existence of the robust martial culture of the samurai society under the authority of the Kamakura Bakufu government.

At this point, let me briefly discuss the main working hypothesis presented in this paper.  This hypothesis is built on the assumption that the principal ethno-cultural roots of the Samurai society that arose in the eastern provinces of Japan during the 10th and 11th centuries are indeed the continental Tungusic tribes who brought the dry field farming culture accompanying horse ranching to eastern Japan during the first several centuries of the Christian era. And, as such, the culture of the Samurai society of eastern Japan was  a separate and independent political and cultural entity different from the mainstream culture built around the Yamato Imperial Court of western Japan, whose roots are also northern and can be traced back to the continent via the Korean Peninsula.

The ancestors of the Samurai class of eastern Japan, however, migrated from the Asian continent riding on the Malin cold current washing the shores of the Maritime Province of today's Russian Far East and the eastern shorelines of the Korean Peninsula, and then switching onto the Tsushima warm current, which took them, even by drifting, somewhere along the shores of the northern half of the Japanese Mainland. Incidentally, these are the people whose descendants came to be called "Emishi (=northeastern barbarians)," the rebellious northern tribes to be conquered and pacified by the Kyoto Court.

Their descendents, however, became well entrenched in the eastern regions of Japan built on an extensive dry field farming economy, raising horses for farm use, transportation and armed self-defense. But the fact remains that there is an extreme paucity of documented evidence, due to the nature of the Altaic languages totally lacking its own writing system, of their continental origin, seafaring migration, settlement and the subsequent endogenous development in Japan. Consequently, no serious history students have devoted their time in this area of research, effectively keeping this subject in the academic black box.

On the other hand, it is also true that there are a number of indirect evidences strongly pointing to the validity of this working hypothesis both on the continental and the archipelago sides. More or less the same thing can be said of the obscure origin and the early history of the development of the Samurai society and its unique culture in Japan. For, it was not until they came in direct contact, often through well-known military confrontations, with the literate culture of the Kyoto Imperial Court that they began writing about themselves.

I, as a young university student during the 1950s, became fascinated upon learning about the romantic, even if archaeological, account of the long-distance migration of the proto-Asian tribes to the New Continent by walking across the Bering Sea land bridge.

Subsequently, I myself moved to North America in 1959 and spent more than quarter of a century conducting my own personal research of the history of the North American Indians and Eskimos while holding a variety of jobs to support my family life.

Upon return to Japan in 1983, I began back-tracing their ancient eastward migration route by visiting the Russian Far East, mainly the Khavarovsk  and the Maritime provinces, getting acquainted with the so-called "Native communities" in the forest areas where the coniferous northern Taiga forest meets with the deciduous Mongolian oak belt. This study is still going on to the present day.

The above working hypothesis which I call "Liman current migration hypothesis," was the result of my many years of lonely study, which finally culminated in the examination of the continental roots of the Samurai culture of the eastern Japan.

It is my hope that I will be able to spend the remaining years of my life for this study so that I can discharge my humble responsibility to document as much as possible the ancient history and the subsequent fortunes and misfortunes of the Altaic speakers who migrated from the northeastern region of the Eurasian Continent, some to Japan and others to the New Continent around the rims of the Pacific Ocean.

Now, therefore, we turn to these indirect, but persuasive evidences on both sides of the Sea of Japan, or Dong Hae (East Sea).

[I] Supporting Evidences: Continental Side

1) The Liman Cold Current and the Tsushima Warm Current

The Liman current runs counterclockwise (see the attached chart) , consisting of the Maritime Province cold current and the North Korean cold current, running along the eastern shore of the peninsula to join the Tsushima warm current along the shore of Japan's Main Land from Noto peninsula northward in the Sea of Japan.

Relatively small-sized boats can embark upon this route from the shores of the Maritime Province and the adjacent segment of the northern shorelines of the peninsula, and drift down until  the Ullung and Takeshima (Dok) islands become visible, and then ride on the Tsushima current northward. They cannot help, weather permitting, arriving somewhere on the shore of northern Japan (the Koshi region as it was then called) on or above Noto peninsula.

Much of the peaceful migrations of this sort, undertaken by a variety of tribes of mainly Tungusic origin, are most likely to have taken place between the 3rd century and 6-7 centuries, during which time China's northeastern region, particularly the great plains south of the Hinggan Ling (‘å‹»ˆÀ—ä) mountain ranges, remained in incessant turmoil after the fall of the Later Han (25-220) followed by the Three Kingdoms period (221-265). During the following few centuries this region remained nothing but a battle ground among competing northern tribal kingdoms and their usurpers until it finally gave rise to a "Barbarian" kingdom of Tuoba Wei (‘ñ”²é°) which later consolidated itself into a relatively stable dynasty of Northern Wei (–ké°386-550).

The Tungusic migration to Japan via the Liman current in those centuries in the form of incessant wave of small groups must have been aided by the Wai and Bak (âq�Eæ») tribes who were skilled mariners inhabiting along these shores. The reason why this period deserves a special attention is that the archaeological studies made in Japan provide us with a conclusive mid-6th century evidence that the combination of horse ranching and dry field farming culture of unmistakably northern (steppe) origin was already well developed in the eastern provinces of Japan.

Another collaborative evidence is the documented records of the established sea voyage routes, used not only between the Bo Hai kingdom (698-926) and  Japan but also as Japan's passage route to and from the Tang China (see the attached chart).

The green lines in the map indicate the actually used voyage routes from Japan to Bo Hai, and the red lines those from Bo Hai to Japan. It can be reasonably assumed, therefore, these routes must have been used also by the preceding Wai and Bak (âq�E æ») voyagers who helped the Tsungusic tribes migrating to the eastern Japan.

The Bo Hai missions had this route named as "Japan way" connecting it with such strategic points as Noto peninsula, Kaga, Echizen and Sado, or the entire region once called the "Koshi-no-kuni (‰z‚Ì�‘)" in the eastern regions of Japan. The westary-northern wind from the continent in the late fall and the winter months, and eastary-southern wind of the summer months were also obviously used for diplomatic and trade traffic by the Bo Hai kingdom.

But once again, to our regret, the main body of documented evidence of movement by sea between Japan and the continent in those centuries is limited largely to those between Japan during the Asuka and Nara periods and the Tang Empire on the continental side, and not the movement of the northern tribes..........

The peculiarly sad lack of records of all the other contacts between Japan and the continental tribal kingdoms and warring states is evidenced, for instance, by the ancient Japanese document like "Yoshoki (˜¬�Í‹L)" which touches upon some unheard-of direct contacts including repeated major armed invasions accompanied by descriptions so real that it is hard to refute.

2) The Coming of the Centuries of Extended Cold Climate

The effect of this cold spell lasting for several centuries is recorded in Japan. The northern boundary of wet-rice farming receded in Japan as low in altitude as the present-day Niigata prefecture in those centuries.  If the condition of the coastal areas of northern Japan washed by the Tsushima warm current was this bad, the negative effect on farming in the Maritime Province and the southeastern part of Manchuria washed by the Liman cold current must have been much worse.  This would certainly have prompted the Tungusic tribes of the forest along Amour River, Usuli River and southern Manchuria to move into the warmer south.

3) The Advance of Navigation Technology

It is known today that ocean-going vessels with sails were already in use in the early Christian centuries in this region as proven by the engraved designs on the excavated earthen wares. However, it is not clear whether such vessels were actually used for the migration via the Liman current to Japan. But, the Wai and Bak (âq�E æ») tribes who inhabited the seaside belt along the Maritime Province and North Korea in those days were seasoned seafarers with much more sophisticated navigation knowhow than the Koreans, And are actually known to have often drifted to the shores of northern Japan.

4) The Variety of the Migrating Ethnic Groups

The once powerful Kingdom of Goguryeo, stretching from the northern region of the Korean Peninsula into the southern Manchuira and much of the Maritime Province, was finally defeated in 668 after series of ferocious wars with the Tang armies, giving rise to the successor northern tribal kingdom of Po Hai (ŸÝŠC).

The migrating Tungusic tribes to the eastern provinces of Japan up to the rise of the Po Hai kingdom must have included among them a number of groups of diverse stages of cultural development from those who still remained hunters of the forests with underground dwellings all the way to the relatively advanced groups who raised horses and cultivated grains having learned from the culture of the horse-ridding nomads to the West and thee China's bronze culture.

[II] Supporting Evidences: Japanese Side

1) The Relative Openness of the Wild Eastern Frontier of the Ancient Japan

The extended cold spell mentioned above starting from the 4th century to last for several centuries wrought a devastating impact on the wet-rice farming in northern Japan forcing the front line of rice growing region down to today's Niigata prefecture. Under such circumstances, much of the eastern region became less populated effectively keeping it a sparsely populated frontier land when compared to the rich rice-growing western regions.  But, this condition must have been a blessing for the migrating Tungusic tribes because the climate was still good enough for their type of horse ranching and dry field farming.

2) The Farm Crops of the Exclusively Siberian Origin Raised in Eastern Japan

In the eastern regions of today's Japan, there are grains and other various farm crops, the origin of which can be scientifically traced, not to the route from western Japan via Korean peninsula, but directly to eastern Japan through the northern steppes of Siberia. Among them are such important crops like barley and miscellaneous other grains, green vegetables, and edible roots. This is one of the most persuasive, if indirect, evidence in favor of the working hypothesis of the Liman current migration route. 

3) The Excavated Site of a 6th-Century Farming Community with a Unique Rotation Horse Ranching System

The archaeological site in the Komochimura village in Gunma Prefecture, northwest of Tokyo, uncovered under a thick layer of volcanic ash, a nearly complete farming site of the mid-6th century. It prove beyond any doubt that in this part of eastern Japan, different from the western regions, there already was a well developed dry field farming culture growing a wide range of crops including millets, barnyard grass and buckwheat closely integrated with rotation horse ranching. And, it was from within this culture that the horse-riding worriers emerged as a dominant social class during the 10th century laying the foundation for the emergence of the "Eastern Worriers on Horse Back (ŠÖ“Œ‹R”n•�ŽÒ)" which later became the corner stone and supporting pillar of the martial government of Kamakura Bakufu (Š™‘q–‹•{).

In the case of the Komochimura village site, there was a large field fenced around, with countless horse foot prints, designed to keep horses inside feeding on the leftover stands after harvesting the grains by cutting off the ears by hand. This points to the existence of a well-organized village-wide farming and horse ranching plan rotating horses from one crop season, or one location, to another. The site also uncovered a well designed plan of a farm house above the ground with a livestock shed and a kitchen garden.

It should be noted that all this runs counter to the image of the lifestyle of the Emishi (‰ÚˆÎ ), the northern barbarians, who were hunted down and conquered by the expedition armies dispatched by the Imperial Court during the Nara and early Heian periods. Most of the history text books now in use in Japan still continue to depict the Emishi people as an uncivilized tribal existence. Obviously, there were some dwellers of underground caves and the Ainu people with their own proud hunting and collecting culture who alone probably happened to be the endogenous inhabitants of the archipelago.

4) A 5th-Century Burial Site with Horse Immolation Discovered in Eastern Japan

In addition to this, another excavation in Inadani, a highland valley community in Nagano prefecture, also northwest of Tokyo,  uncovered an elaborate burial site of the mid-5th century with horse immolation similar to those found in the Kingdom of Baekje of Korea. This is now interpreted as an indication that there already existed extensive horse ranching operations in order to meet the demand for horses, and therefore, the possibility of the widely practiced dry field farming across the plains of the eastern regions.

While there is no conclusive evidence that the Tungusic migrants did bring horses with them on their journeys to Japan, those who came to settle in these regions with the knowhow of dry field farming must have found and quickly obtained horses in Japan. There is a collaborating episode in North America, where the native Indians with no knowledge of horses stole them from the invading Spanish and quickly became  formidable horse-riding worriers.

5) The Non-Ainu, and possibly Branches of the Tungusic Language Used in Eastern Japan

Nihon Shoki, 7th century classical Japanese history books, contains a number of accounts of the northern expeditions dispatched by the Nara Imperial Court to the eastern and northern provinces. It says in part: �gIn March, 659,........offered an elaborate dinner entertainment to the Emishi leaders of Mutsu and Koshi provinces.�E And further adds: "During the same period,........entertained the Emishi leaders of Mutsu and Koshi provinces on the Kahara (river brook) to the east........During this month, Commander Abe was dispatched with an expedition fleet of 180 vessels to attack the rebellious Emishi. After the battle, Commander Abe gathered 241 Emishi with 31 captives from Agita (Akita) and Nushiro (Noshiro),  112 Emishi and 4 captives from Tsugaru, and 20 Emish from Ifurisahe to a grand banquet and presented them with a mountain of gifts.�E

included were a boat and five-colored silk tapestry offered to the local god........and finally arrived at Shishiriko, whereupon two Emishi leaders from Tohiu, Ikashima and Uhano,  stepped forward and said: "He recommend that Shiriheshi should be used for your command headquarters." Accepting the advice of Ikashima and others, before going back to Nara,  a provincial office was opened in Shiririheshi, and the Emishi leaders were appointed to the offices of the 2nd grade local representatives and 1st grade provincial representatives and the chief regional representative of both Mutsu and Koshi regions. Thus, Commander Abe Hirafu returned home from the northland expedition against the Emishi in the land of Mishihase with 49 captives as offering to the Nara Imperial Court.�E

Even though the English translation above is only preliminary pending further examination,  the significant fact is that the set of words marked in red ink are in no way Ainu words.  On the contrary, the phonetic characteristics strongly suggest that these are the words of  a Tungusic tribal dialect. Quite interestingly, these words come very close to the known Tungusic words which appear in the Manyoshu (Anthology of ten thousand poems published in 759) such as "Sanatsura" in a poem: Though I give tender care to the millet I saw on the hill of Sanatsura, I wouldn't chase the young horses coming to feed on the crop (Volue 14, #3451), and the word "Arinare" used by the famous lady poet Izumi Shikibu (974-?) in a short love poem referring to Aplok Kang (Š›—Î�]) river.  All these are the telltale signs pointing to their kinship between the dialect used by the Tungusic tribes who migrated to Japan and those of the old Tungusic and Altaic people of the continent.

The very fact that the references made to them in the Nhonshoki and Kojiki texts used the word "Mishihse (�l�T)," and not Ezo (Ainu) or Mojin (hairly barbarians), point to the awareness to some degree on the part of the Nara Imperial Court that these Emishi, a tough enemy to defeat, were different from the Ainu people.

6) The Rise of Horse-Riding Samurai Worriers and Buke(=Samurai) Society

Both Nihonshoki (“ú –{�‘‹I) and Shokunihonngi (‘±“ú–{‹I) contain a number of references to the Emishi rebellions and pacification expeditions between 645 and the early part of the Heian period (794-1185). These records clearly indicate the real objective of these Imperial Expedition Army Commanders shifted from armed conquest to political pacification starting as early as during the Nara period.

There even exists a surprising record, if exaggerated, that the Emishi of Dewa (�o‰H) and Watarishima (“n“ˆ) sent one thousand horses to Kyoto as their gift to the Imperial Court. This policy shift from conquest to appeasement began during the Nara period as the fact became growlingly more obvious that there were Emishi groups who developed a culture of their own with a formidable self-defense capability. In these cases, therefore, harmony, allegiance and assimilation seemed to be a much better policy option.

In fact, during the 8th and the 9th centuries, the Court records describe the stiff resistance of the Emishi cavalry: "...... In order to win the battle over these Emishi, we must equip ourselves not with the conventional bows and arrows, but the more powerful mechanical bows capable of rapid shooting. They are born horse-riding worriers, and we can not kill one Emishi even with ten government soldiers (Court document of 837)." One thing that stands out above all others here is the government's recognition that these Emishi were completely different from those who were fundamentally hunting and fishing people.

These records also reveal another important fact that the government garrison troops stationed in the remote northeastern outposts were so anxious to obtain horses from the Emishi that they traded with them offering in exchange iron farming tools made by melting their weapons of war like armor and swords. During the 9th and the 10th centuries, there are documents containing sporadic Kyoto Imperial orders banning this trade practice fearful of weakening the garrison's defense capability.

This is an eloquent, if indirect, proof that there already existed in those days a well developed and extensive dry field farming and horse ranching practices in the eastern provinces.

During this period in the eastern provinces, along with the progress of pacification of the Emishi by the Yamato Court,  many "Emishi" groups began building their own culture and social order of the northern tribal origin adopted to the local environment by incorporating the wet-rice culture into their dry-farming agriculture. This endogenous development gave rise to the political, economic and social foundation of what later became known as the society of the "Horse-Riding Eastern Worriers," ultimately to become the core element of the unique Buke society of eastern Japan as a self-sustaining political and military entity totally independent of the Imperial Court.

As a result of these structural changes, Northeast Asia witnessed Japan's sudden rise to the position of a formidable regional military power during the 11th and the 12th centuries. The above mentioned policy shift of the Imperial Court from conquest to appeasement with an aim to use the Emishi of the northern origin as an adjunct to the government garrison troops by calling them the "Fushu" (˜ØŽú)  did contribute to hasten this process.

The Abe family's rebellion in 1051 and that of the Kiyohara family in 1083 were the last landmark battles signaling the end of Kyoto's northern military expeditions. And, reflecting this, references to the "Emishi" suddenly disappeared from the Imperial Court's historical documents, leaving the endogenous Ainu people in the extreme northern end of the mainland and the Hokkaido Island, who from thereupon came to be called "Ezo" instead of Emishi.

Chapter Three

The Summary Review of the Northern Tribes�ECultural Influence on Japan and Northeast Asia�fs Modern History

[1] The causes of the rise and fall of the northern tribal kingdoms in ancient times

An important tool of analysis of the causes will be to closely examine the process of the Chinese-style �garistocratization,�h or more simply �gsinicization,�h of the rulers of the northern tribal kingdoms. In many cases, they had to adopt a dual ruling system, one for their own tribal groupings and another for the Han Chinese who had been brought under their rule.

As a result, the sinicization of the tribal kingdoms and the Chinese-style aristocratization of the kingdom ruling class inevitably became a dominant trend  in the history of Northeast Asia while the ostracized tribal leaders became progressively impoverished and rebellious quickening the ultimate fate of the regime�fs collapse.

In the case of Japan, the process was more or less the same in so far as the sinicization of the Asuka-Nara Courts as a result of a wholesale adoption of the Tang culture and government system. However, Japan opted not to adopt the classical government service examination system of China, and instead, maintained its traditional northern tribal governing system dominated by the ruling clans with emphasis on blood lineage. Even the Tang system of farmland allotment, once adopted and tried, did not last long in part due to the exceedingly high intensity of the wet-rice farming the Japanese climactic conditions required.

In its stead, there arose a manorial system owned by the ruling court aristocracy and the religious institutions. And, their absentee ownership required them to hire and assign armed guardians and tax collectors to the manors, eventually permitting the usurpation by these resident managers giving rise to a new class of armed Samurai peculiar to the western regions of Japan..

Among the Shugo (Žç Œì) and Jito (’n “ª), the manor guardians and tax collectors,  the most powerful Taira clan (•½‰Æˆê–å) eventually replace the highly privileged position of the Fujiwara clan and began swaying a dominant influence in the Kyoto Court political life. However, once again, the Samurai culture typified by the Taira clan whose influence grew inside the Kyoto Court was destined from the beginning to fall pray to aristocratization, somewhat similar to the fate of the northern tribal kings of the continent. The pomps and glories of the Taira Clan, which was touted as an �gera of a perpetual full moon,�h in the end followed the fate of collapse like its continental counterparts.

[2] The northern tribes�Eheritage in the Samurai society of the medieval Japan

In comparison with the Taira Clan�fs fate,  the situation in eastern Japan was fundamentally different.  They were made up by the armed local family groups who are descendants of the Tungusic settlers from the continent and those others who had hailed from western Japan as settlers but eventually integrated themselves into the evolving regional social culture unique to eastern Japan. 

As mentioned before, these groupings and the Imperial Court rulers in Kyoto did share the same continental roots and cultural heritage,  the emergent Samurai society of eastern Japan was distinctively different from their counterparts in western Japan, as was typically represented by the Taira Clan.

Instead of assimilation with the Imperial Court through �garistocratization,�h the eastern Samurai groups fostered their own northern dry field farming and horse ranching culture, and managed to fuse it with the much more productive wet-rice culture from the south into their own system. This greatly expanded their sustainable economic base while they steadfastly upheld their martial tradition building formidable military forces.

For now, let us tentatively call this martial culture of eastern Japan an �gIe�h (family household) culture.  The �gIe�h culture is vastly different from the aristocratic lifestyle of the Imperial Court of Nara and Kyoto copied after the Tang China. It was a uniquely Japanese product in that it was born out of the total integration of  the southern wet-rice culture into the northern tribal culture of dry field farming with horse ranching accomplished over the centuries.

The most important aspect of the “Ie�Eculture was that the entire members of the family were organized into a coordinated system both for farm production to manage the “land on which the family�fs livelihood totally depends (ˆê�ŠŒœ–½‚Ì’n).�Eon the one hand, and at once for constant readiness for military operations. In other words, the “Ie�Eorganization of the Samurai family in eastern Japan was in direct charge of both the production system and the military organization quite unlike their western counterparts.

The most�Esalient characteristic of the early “Ie�Efamily organization was that there was no institutionalized class distinction between the farmers and the Samurai ruling class unlike all other wet-rice growing kingdoms of Asia. In other words, what happened to the Taira clan in western Japan was not about to repeat itself in the eastern frontier land. To the contrary, the integrity of the vertical integration of the Ie organization was such that the peasants at the bottom of the social pyramid did have the chance to prove themselves and rise above to join the lower echelons of the Samurai class.

Here, we must note the fact that the Japanese archipelago stretching out some 7000 kilometers north to south along the eastern edge of the Eurasian continent with the dominant warm sea current running along on both the Pacific and the Japan Sea sides made it possible to adopt wet-rice farming, if with much greater human attention and care, up to the highest northern altitude in the world.

This unusual climactic condition made it possible for the northern tribal culture to come in direct contact with the wet-rice culture from the regions south of the River Chang Jiang of the central China. Consequently, out of the interactive process of this contact arose a new compound culture in eastern Japan, which provided the Samurai class a new stable and sustainable economic base to giving a new life to their northern tribal heritage.

In addition, the Tungusic migrants who came directly from the continent did have, if any, little influence of China�fs Confucian and Buddhist cultures, allowing them to keep their own shamanistic religious tradition intact. Their unique encounter with a different shamanic culture that accompanied the wet-rice farming produced an unusual compound variety of Shamanism peculiar to Japan and came to be known as �gancient Shinto�h of ancestor warship handed down by the Samurai society into the present-day Japan.

Primarily, the �gIe�h culture�fs religious aspect is a simple system of ancestor warship where the family ancestor is often worshiped as the god of the family. Thus, the overriding need to keep a given �gIe�h family lineage uninterrupted tilling the inherited farm land and expanding it became a matter of utmost importance superseding kinship ties. In fact, what became a common practice is for an �gIe�h family to �gadopt�h a capable individual instead of an unworthy son of the family to ensure the continuity of �gIe�h family existence.

Thus, the Samurai culture of eastern Japan became an independent cultural entity free from the kinship culture of the structured mythology of the Imperial Court of the Nara and Heian eras. They were also free from the influences of the Buddhist and Confucian traditions of the Chinese civilization. They only subscribed to their own shamanic belief in the oneness of their ancestors with the god.

Having repelled the Mongolian invasions, the Kamakura regime and its successors extended its sway over much of the country, and began exploring the wisdom and an actual scheme of coexistence with the Kyoto-centered Imperial aristocracy through trials and errors over the ensuing centuries.  Their effort finally came to a fruition upon the establishment of the Tokugawa Bakufu in Edo, the present-day location of Tokyo, Japan.

In comparison with Tokugawa Japan, its continental counterparts such as Northern Wei of Xianbei,  Liao of Qidan, and Jinn of Jurchen managed to govern large empires, but they lacked a sustainable economic base and a viable system of government. All of them, therefore, as if so many shooting stars in the darkness of the sky, disappeared from the history of the East Eurasian continent.

[3] The northern tribes�Eheritage in Japan�fs post-Meiji foreign policy and the distinct characteristics of its Westernization

The modern diplomatic history of Japan began with the contact with the unfamiliar cultures of the Western powers. The Samurai Japan�fs diplomatic posture was to adopt whatever parts of the Western civilization which made sense in pragmatic sense from the Japanese standpoint. Thus, Meiji Japan was more than willing to �gWesternize�h itself on the surface, functionally and materially so as to make Japan look like an equal to the Western powers as quickly as possible by hiring a large number of foreign advisors and consulting administrators form the West, but without incorporating the cultural and religious  underpinning and the supporting pillars of the Western civilization.

This harkens back to the times of the northern tribes�Econquest and empire building experience by the nomads such as Xiongnu (™±“z), Northern Wei of Xianbei,  Liao of Qidan, and Jinn of Jurchen, all of which did not hesitate to use foreign advisors and administrators for governing their empires. Meiji Japan�fs  policy of �gExit Asia and enter the West (’EˆŸ“ü‰¢)�h was just another, if modern, example of this northern tribes�f behavioral pattern.  In short, one thing both Japan and those northern empires shared in common was that they did not care much about the values underpinning the civilizations of their superior neighbors when borrowing their institutions and technologies. They accepted them forthright as a new and desirable phase of cultural and technological diversity, a process that might be called �gcultural relativization.�h

The most salient characteristic of the northern tribes�Ecultural heritage found in modern Japan was, and still is, to take whatever makes sense by its own pragmatic yardstick from other civilizations whenever possible, but in the meantime relativizing the underpinning values. This shamanic pragmatism is indeed the most obvious common trait of all of the northern tribal cultures, prominently including those of the horse-riding nomads.

 While Japan, which opted to keep the northern tribal cultural heritage intact even after the Meiji period, continued to be a constitutional monarchy built upon the northern tribal tradition of the Emperor�fs being a living human being as well as the god on earth,�E the young Meiji reformists, mostly from the lower echelons of the Samurai class, steadfastly maintained the pragmatic attitude  ready to move on with the Westernization of Japan by wearing Western suits and leaving their Samurai swords behind.

The experience of the relativization of  the values of the imported cultures and institutions, dates back to the wholesale imitation of the Tang culture during the Nara period, and continued on with the incorporation of the Dutch learnings (—–Šw) selectively in the field of natural science, during the Tokugawa period, and on down to the Meiji Japan�fs all-out Westernization, and finally to the adoption of the American political and cultural institutions after World War II. Throughout the process, the key word remained to be the �gvalue relativization.�h

Behind the facade of all these seemingly revolutionary changes, however, there are once again some emergent forces in today�fs Japan demanding the revival of the traditional values of Japan and the nurturing of �gpatriotism to the state.�EThis trend clearly surfaced surrounding the issues of the Yasukuni war shrine and the history review in the last few years.

Once again, it is a �gquestion of one�fs heart,�h as the outgoing Japanese Prime Minister puts it,  which reminds us of the awakening northern heritage, or the DNA of the northern tribes�Epride of their own cultural identity of Japan fueled by a deep, and often subconscious sense of  inferiority. In fact, he said he goes to the shrine to �ggive my prayers to those who dedicated their lives to the state and their families.�h In America, any President would have said: �g...those who dedicated their lives to the cause of freedom and democracy.�h We must therefore define what we Japanese mean by �gstate�h and �gfamilies�h at this juncture more than ever before.

[4] Historical characteristics of Japan�fs Imperialism and the invasions in East Asia

Given the international environment of the late 19th century where the Western Imperialist powers were accelerating their acts of encroachment in East Asia, Japan quickly moved to take steps to protect itself from falling into the fate of the Qing China. Japan annexed Korea and moved into Manchuria with an aim to acquiring exclusive rights in northeastern Asia, the historical homeland of the northern tribes, as a competing Imperialist power at the expense of the Western rivals.

After having won the two important wars for its own survival, the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, Japan, with the Korean peninsula fully under its control, moved on to further expand its continental foothold. At this time, Japan was acting as an equal of the Western Imperialist states, but the most significant aspect of the Japanese Imperialism was that it was motivated by the northern tribal ideology and behavioral pattern, and not those of the West to the dismay of the Western observers.

As it is evident in the case of the Li Dynasty Korea, Japan forced the Koreans to accept its own Shinto religion and political culture including the shamanic warship rituals of the State Shinto, and established the puppet Manchu Empire by bringing the abdicated Manchurian Emperor AishinKakuraFugi (ˆ¤�VŠo—…Ÿî‹V=�é“�’é�j back into power. Using this Manchurian regime, Japan, under the sway of the Kanto Army (ŠÖ“ŒŒR), built a firm continental foothold for the invasion of China.

Critically important in all this is the fact that there arose in Japan a new national political movement started ignited by the hotly debated issue in 1935 regarding the political role of the Emperor soon after Japan made the fatal move in Manchuria in what was then called the �gManchurian Incident (–ž�BŽ–•Ï).�h It was called �gClear National Identity (�‘‘Ì–¾’¥)�h movement, and was used to justify Japan�fs subsequent Imperialist expansion by calling it a �gHoly War (�¹�í)�h executed in the name of the Emperor who is a �ghuman being, and at once the God,�h a typically northern tribal ideology which was used to justify Japan�fs invasion of the Eurasian continent as an act of realizing the will of the God to bring the entire world under one roof, and thus, for the Japanese, it superseded the norms of the international law of the Imperialist Era.

The Japanese Imperialist ideology thus defined was more than likely to look like an act of unacceptable violation of the prevailing international norms from the viewpoint of the Western Imperialist states, which championed the slogan of bringing the blessings of the Christian civilization, even if by force, to the peoples of the less civilized, or uncivilized, parts of the world. Obviously, Japan in those days was unaware of the impending �gclash of civilizations�h between East and West surrounding the continental Imperialist expansion of an Asian nation who had successfully �gexited Asia and entered the West.�h

The Japanese army called Kantogun (ŠÖ“ŒŒR=KanTong Army) stationed in Manchuria during the 1930s was indeed a Samurai garrison made up of the foot soldiers recruited from the farm families throughout Japan under the young commanding officers on horse back with Samurai swards on their waists.  This in fact was a modern version of the typical Samurai fighting corps led by a cavalry followed by an army of Ashigaru (‘«Œy=foot soldiers) recruited from the local farming families during the several centuries of the warring Samurai era.

The so-called �gNorthern Strategy�h of the KanTong Army which was then in full charge of the South Manchurian railroads was an unmistakable manifestation of Japan�fs subconscious desire to conquer and build a new empire on the continent.  And, after the tragic 5.15 Incident in which Prime Minister Tsuyoshi Inukai and the peace proponents around him fell to the bullets of the revolting army officers, the KangTong Army, aided by a strong rightwing populist movement in Japan, gained a free hand to move on with its plan of military invasion of China.

[5] Impact of the northern tribes�f ideology on Japan�fs Imperialism

The compound shamanic culture of the �gCountry of Gods (�_‚Ì�‘)�h has produced, because of its unusual degree of tolerance to divergent values, a remarkable life style evolved in Japan, in which people hold wedding ceremonies in Christian churches, plan funerals at Buddhist temples, go pray before ancestry tombs at the annual Festival of the Dead during late summer, and visit Shinto shrines on the first day of the new year. This degree of tolerance, or what appears to be an act of compromising different values into a fuzzy world of relativity, is difficult for most foreigners to understand.

However, this shows beyond reasonable doubt the reality that the northern tribal system of values, or the lack thereof, can coexist with the Western modern culture in the passive sense of the word so long as this value �grelativization�h is ignored. When Japan, during the course of modernization, or Westernization, developed its own version of Imperialism, it opted to make a similar approach by fusing the Western Imperialism with the religio-cultural values of the northern tribe�fs heritage and the State Shinto religion.

What happened again after World War II was no exception. This time around, the ruggedly individualistic American institutions of democracy, individual freedom and human rights were incorporated into the Japanese society as a result of the reforms during the Occupation years. As a result, at the turn of the century today, most Japanese are proud that Japan is the world�fs second largest economy and widely recognized as a democracy subscribing to the values shared in common with the countries of the West. But, is there a clear evidence that this is not a repeat of the modernization by way of �grelativization,�h or the Westernization of the Meiji and Taisho eras?

Isn�ft the northern tribes�f heritage within the Japanese culture, as already mentioned,  of �gralativizing�h almost all imported foreign institutional values still at work in the post-World War II Japan? Wouldn�ft the northern tribes�f DNA alive within us one day awaken again reacting to an external stimulus. There seems to be an increasing number of such stimuli today such as the abduction problem with North Korea, the Takeshima (Dok) Island problem with South Korea, the Senkaku Island natural gas issue with China, and above all the history and Yasukuni war shrine disputes with both of them. Where is the guarantee that the orchestration of all these will not become such a fatal stimulus?

During the Taisho and early Showa years, the left-wing theorists and idealists such as Sanzo Nosaka and Eitaro Noro kept reminding the fellow Japanese that Japan still had regrettable �gvestiges of feudalism�h and was lagging behind the West in its �gmodernization effort�h repudiating the �gimperfect nature of the Meiji Restoration reforms�h because of which Japan remained �ginferior�h to the modern Western nations. 

Such self-inflicting sense of inferiority about their own history on the part of these leftist thinkers was the negative side of the coin of which the other side was the determined drive for change by the nationalist leaders of the Meiji Era such as Yukichi Fukuzawa whose ideology of�gExit Asia and Enter the West�hwas nothing but a reflection of the heritage of the northern tribes who feared and at once admired the Middle Kingdom in ancient times.

Indeed, the Japanese historians since the Meiji Era have always been divided into two contending schools, the nationalists influenced one way or another by the Shinto and northern tribes�Eheritage and insisted upon the peculiarly Japanese view of history often called �gImperial View of History (�c�‘ŽjŠÏ)�hbuilt on the state Shinto mythology of the Imperial Court, and the leftists who blindly followed the Hegelian and Marxist view of evolutionary progress of human society, and lamented the apparent lack of a Western-style individualistic civil society in modern Japan.

But, in today�fs rapidly globalizing world, in which cultural pluralism and diversity of values are widely accepted, the rigidly Hegelian view of history is fast becoming irrelevant.  The history of Japan�fs modernization is the earliest example, and the rise of Korea as a modern nation after World War II followed suit, and finally, the rapidly modernizing China as a �gsocialist market economy.�h There is no better time in history for those who live in East Asia today to get together and collaborate to write a common history of their region identifying the cultural values all of us can share in common.

[6] Why the Japanese common sense often runs counter to that of the rest of the world

Different from the records of the short-lived northern tribal kingdoms and empires, the northern tribal heritage continues to stay alive in Japan as if riding on a reverse time machine. Strangely, however, most Japanese today claim that Japan has become a �gmember of the West,�h sharing the same values and institutions. But, in the meantime, most Japanese are unaware of the fact the Westerners often call Japan a �gSamurai�h country with its own peculiar Asian cultural past. Every so often, Japan�Eeconomic expansion overseas is reported with an illustration used by the leading foreign magazines of armed Samurai worriers on their drive to the world market carrying a wagon load of cutting-edge electronic products.

There are many other examples like this pointing to the self-awareness gap between Japan and the outside world. For example, when Japanese businessmen go abroad, they are often asked questions such as �gWhat is your religion?�h Most Japanese are ill-prepared and, after an embarrassing silence, come up with a statement like �gI don�ft have a religion,�h or �gI go to the Buddhist temple where there is my ancestral tomb.....so, may be I am a Buddhist,�h or something like that. All of this come to the Westerners as something of a shock, because no one is uncertain about what one�fs religion is in the West, and one without religion is more often taken as an atheist, or a communist at best.

Among the Japanese you may meet in your country, you seldom find someone who dare to proclaim that his religion is Shamanism and give a convincing explanation to the dismayed Westerners who regard it a primitive religion of the past while the Japanese habit of �grelativizing�h the values when accepting outside cultures also remains difficult to understand for most foreigners.

This endogenous shamanic religion called �gShinto (�_“¹)�g in Japan was born of the interaction between the northern tribal culture and the southern wet-rice culture across the archipelago since the beginning of the Christian Era. And, this religion dating back to prehistory has been kept alive over the centuries, and even today, practiced at all levels of the nation�fs life from the �gDaijosai (‘å�¦�Õ)�h at the Imperial level in which the Emperor communicates with his ancestral gods through elaborate rituals, all the way down to the village shrine festivals and prayers across Japan.

In the post-World War II Japan, the conflicting issues arising from the coexistence of this shamanic religio-cultural tradition and the modern norms of the Western civil society came to occupy the central stage of Japan�fs relations with its neighbors. There are two contending schools of thought in the current national debate on the �ghistory text book�h issue. One is what might be called �gDemocracy and Peace Constitution School�h and the other �gNeo-conservative Traditionalism�h tending to hearken back to the good old days of the Imperial Japan. 

The values underpinning the new  �gPeace�h constitution and the democratic institutions introduced in Japan during the Occupation years were once again �grelativized�h in the process of their application and implementation. This was proven by the fact, for an example, that the seemingly serious ideological confrontation between the Liberal Democrats and the Socialists in the National Diet sessions after the major political party realignment of 1955 in fact so often turned out to be nothing but a cleverly staged political show to hide the routinely repeated behind-the-scene deals.

Despite this political farce, the fact remains that the emotional undercurrent of nationalistic patriotism remained alive like riverbed water. And, through the years of the Koizumi LDP government, the confrontational diplomacy has pushed Japan against China and South Korea on the issues of �ghistory�h and �gYasukuni war shrine,�h awakening Japan�fs northern tribes�f DNA, adding fuel to the latent nationalist sentiment. These are the only values which are NOT �grelativized�h in Japan, a Japanese form of fundamentalism perhaps, and that is exactly why it matters.

In spite of this rather critical turn of events, most other countries in the world remain unaware of this, and continue to regard Japan as Asia�fs stronghold of peace and democracy.

Summary and Recommendations

Then, what really is the task we in Japan must address ourselves to at this critical juncture in history? In the opinion of the present writer, it will be to surgically extract the essence of our deep-seated northern tribal sense of inferiority, first displayed by Price Shotoku in the 7th century in his letter to Emperor Wen Di of the Sui Empire:  �gThe Emperor of the land of the rising sun hereby sends his message to the Emperor of the setting sun. Are you doing well?�h

We ought to find the ways and means ourselves with which to overcome it and free ourselves from this spell of inferiority complex. I am certain Japan shares the same problem with Korea, which is the only other heir to the same northern tribal culture and tradition, and it will be in the best interest of Japan to work with Korea in a joint task force to cope with this problem.

Both Japan and Korea of today, robust and stable economies, should not find any justification for suffering from this negative subconscious.  The real problem might be that Japan�fs tendency to �grelativize�h the underlying values of all imported cultures continues to give a sense of apprehension to the neighboring nations that Japan many one day revert to the same old northern tribes�Einstinct again. What should Japan do now, then? It will certainly not be just to add to the ODA programs, nor try to tackle the disputed territorial issues from narrowly nationalistic standpoint.

To the contrary, Japan ought to team with Korea to jointly address the task of reexamining the history of the northern tribes and their tribal kingdoms and empires of Northeast Asia with an aim to rewrite the history of this region dating back into prehistory within the context of East Asia as a whole, particularly in relation to China.

As pointed out before, the Tungusic speakers did not have their own writing system in those days, and therefore, left no organized and documented history behind them outside what the Chinese recorded about their occasional contacts with them. We must, therefore, organize a complex cross-disciplinary study program including linguistics, archaeology, ethnology, and a number of natural science disciplines.

Given all these requirements, Japan ought to take the primary initiative in organizing and funding such joint international project. Japan, as one of the two primary successors of the northern tribal cultural tradition, must take the lion�fs share of the responsibility.

Different from the Pacific shores washed by the Kuroshio (�•’ª) warm current with floating coconuts under the bright sun, the Japan Sea shores�f history of ethnic migration from the continent via the Liman cold current is little known even in Japan. But it will not be until this task will have been accomplished that the vista for the conclusive resolution of the �ghistory�h and �gYasukuni�h problems will come within our sight. Unless this is done, these thorny issues will remain in the black box of history for many years to come.

The northern tribes, who always covetted the rich agricultural wealth and urban material civilization of the Middle Kingdom, have continuously crossed the northern boundaries, the Great Wall included, in naked acts of invasion and conquest. We, the Japanese, as the last and well-to-do descendent of the northern tribes, do possess the historical responsibility to put a conclusive end to this history of the northern tribes�Einvasion of China as well as the modern day inter-tribal frictions with the Koreans, and publicly make a  joint declaration to that effect.

 The historical liabilities the northern tribes have toward China, including Japan�fs most recent continental invasions, starting from the annexation of Korea, and then the setting up of the puppet Manchurian state, and finally the deep invasion into China, cannot be redeemed merely by making �gapologies for what Japan has done since the Meiji era.�h For, deep in the mind of the Japanese will remain the lingering thought �gthen who will take the responsibilities for what the Western Imperialist powers had done in Asia?�h The idea of �gforgetting the past and moving on together for a better future�h will also fall woefully short of achieving this objective.

The most important task today is for Japan to take the initiative in undertaking this project.  This undertaking will result in a new vision of Northeast Asia and East Asia, which will become a shared cultural bond, and the foundation for the economic integration of East Asia. For the Japanese, it will go beyond the scope of the conventional national history of Japan, and promise to produce a new stage for the further integration, fuzzy as it might be, of the diverse cultures of this region.

It will be only then that the three nations of East Asia, i.e., China, Korea and Japan, can reaffirm the common cultural bond and spiritual heritage, and develop a sustainable framework of collaboration. In order to make such effort really worthwhile and productive, however, we must together create a higher moral standard we can share together. The new values and the norms evolving from them will mark the beginning of an entirely new era not only for East Asia, but also for all Asia by productively addressing the yet unresolved historical issue of the Western Imperialism of the last two centuries.

End   (late in the evening, January 5, 2006, Tracy, Calif.