<Articles>The Export Movement by Salt Producers in the Seto Inland Sea Region and Pan-Asianism in the Meiji Era: Regions as the Hinterlands of Thought Formation (Special Issue : Civilization)

DOI HANDLE Web Site Open Access

Bibliographic Information

Other Title
  • <論説>明治期瀬戸内塩業者の直輸出運動とアジア : 思想の後背地としての地域 (特集 : 文明)
  • 明治期瀬戸内塩業者の直輸出運動とアジア : 思想の後背地としての地域
  • メイジキ セトウチエンギョウシャ ノ チョクユシュツ ウンドウ ト アジア : シソウ ノ コウハイチ ト シテ ノ チイキ

Search this article

Abstract

This paper examines the social and economic background of the spread of the view of civilization within Japanese society in the latter half of the 19th century by situating the significance of the trends in the movement of Inland Sea salt producers giving consideration to the relationship with groups that advocated Pan-Asianism. First, by considering this process of the development of the movement in terms of the routes of Asian information, the following rough sketch is possible. In short, Inland Sea salt producers in the latter half of the 1870s made contacts with Kido Takayoshi and Õkubo Toshimichi through Mitajiri Hama that had possessed political capital since the Meiji Restoration, and responding to the Meiji government's policy of promoting industry begun at this time, they planned to implement salt exports to China. In this process, they attempted to survey the market using natives of the Inland Sea region as intermediaries. However, on the other hand, because they lacked special capabilities including language skills, the amount of information accumulated was minimal. In the 1880s when interest in Asia was rising throughout Japan given the background of increasing commercial activity with China and Korea, the Inland Sea salt producers both to obtain the foreign market information issued by government offices and attempted to foster a capacity to survey the market by participating in the Asian information network of government offices and entrepreneurs who formed the core of the Kōakai and Ajia Kyōkai. Salt export to the Korean market and the coastal provinces of Russia, which newly occupied their field of vision in this period, was spurred on by such information. Furthermore, the movement basically adhered to the policy of industrial promotion, but at the end of the 1880s when imports to Korea were thriving, table salt producing area planned to control direct exports and the local sales network exceeding the government's intention. By the 1890s, in response to the expansion of the demand for Asian information by entrepreneurs and producers, the Tōhō Kyōkai, Nisshin Boeki Kenkyūsho, and the Tōa Dōbunkai established market surveys based on specialist knowledge. The Inland Sea producers obtained information via these groups, but when the they tried to renew the move to export to China on the using the opportunity of the Sino-Japanese war, they devised a plan to approach Konoe Atsumaro, the president of the House of Peers, and use the political power of the Imperial Diet in seeking benefits for the salt producers who straddled prefectural boundaries. It was thought that Konoe as the leader of the foreign-policy hard-liners would function to represent their public opinion from a route removed from that of the political parties. Next, as regards the relationship between Pan-Asian consciousness and the view of civilization, the movement for direct export by the Inland Sea producers who planned to enter Asia for regional promotion, incurred economic damage on their trading partners beyond their field of vision. In the mid 1890s they adopted a view of civilization, which had been formed by those associated with the Tōhō Kyōkai, that saw the Orient and Asia as the center. Having implemented their policy of exports to China, the view of civilization that was linked to a Pan-Asianist conception of an East Asian order heightened the sense of cordiality with the movement in this period that required the support and provisioning by the national citizenry. Although the nationalist movement of the late 1880s and 1890s fomented multicultural ways of thinking that departed from the Western view of civilization, in the actual place where this commerce was implemented with "Asia, " the view of civilization that was engendered therein was not capable of developing the power of imagination in regard to "Asia."

Journal

  • 史林

    史林 102 (1), 113-151, 2019-01-31

    THE SHIGAKU KENKYUKAI (The Society of Historical Research), Kyoto University

Keywords

Details 詳細情報について

Report a problem

Back to top