Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Does history repeat itself?

Immigration Act of 1924
When the U.S. congress passed the Immigration Act of 1924, which in effect singled out the Japanese for no further immigration to the United States, it was one more reminder that Japan had not yet achieved the status that had been its goal since 1868. Secretary of State Huges correctly warned Congress that if the bill was passed, "the Japanese ...unquestionably would regard [it] as fixing a stigma upon them. " In addition, he said it "would largely undo the work of the Washington Conference."nonetheless, the bill was passed both houses of Congress overwhelmingly It undoubtedly fixed the impression among many Japanese leaders that the international system was not going to realize their interest.
The Japanese were less concerned with the welfare of the migrants than they were with the implications for Japanese status and self-esteem. The Japanese , after all , had themselves never been hospitable to immigrants----and still are not. The point was rather how the Western powers and the Western people regarded japan and the Japanese people .In the United States and elsewhere, this point was often overlooked or dismissed. .....
When Congress singled out the Japanese for exclusion, the infringement of Japanese honor was not only angrily denounced by nationalists, it was also deeply wounding and embittering to Japanese statesmen trying to promote bilateral relations. The Industrialist Shibusawas Eiichi called the Immigration Act of 1924 a "scar on the national honor." kaneko Kentaro, a Harvard graduate and friend of the Roosevelt's, resigned as president of the American-Japanese Society, regarding the act as "a great insult to Japanese national honor.'. Nitobe Inazo, a graduate of Johns Hopkins University, who was married to an American woman and who served as undersecretary-general o f the League of Nations, resolved not to visited the United States unless the act was revised.
Rising states present a special challenge to a system. If they are to be satisfied to remain in the system, it is necessary to accommodate their interests. As one writer observed, "The status quo powers must exhibit empathy, fairness.. and a genuine concern not to offend the prestige and national honor of the rising power. This the Anglos-American powers had not done. They failed to reach out to much less to understand , this proud but highly vulnerable and insecure new power. The psychic wound inflicted at the time Japan entered the modern international system was repeatedly reopened by the experiences it had in the international system.
page 163-164 "Japan rising" Kenneth B. Pyle.

There are a lot of difference between this act and the resolution 121, but I think there are similar effects on Japanese. I must say the people who echoed with the hypocritical resolution 121 are not only hypocritical but also armature on Japanese society. Or it might be that they know what they are doing, and they are pleased with the results. China or Russia, or middle east countries, if they want to weaked the Japan's tie with the U.S. the time is now, just right after the resolution is passed.

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