Transcending Japan’s National Predicament: Kenichiro Hirano’s International Cultural Theory and His Perspectives on Manchuria and East Asia

Kenichiro Hirano is an international relation scholar in Japan. He specializes in international cultural theory and develops the concept of “acculturation” to study Manchuria and East Asian Community. He witnessed World War Ⅱ and joined in the campaign against Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan (U.S.—Japan Security Treaty), from which his perspectives on China and East Asia were derived.

This thesis records what Hirano perceived to be Japan’s national predicament and how he prescribed ways to transcend it. Japan’s national predicament arises from the “abnormal state”, which is characterized by American occupation, and this national predicament shapes Kenichiro Hirano’s two predicaments. The first predicament indicates the debate over selecting a proper label for World War Ⅱ among “The Fifteen—Year War”, “The East Asian War” and “The Pacific War”. The second regards the social cleavages caused by U.S.—Japan Security Treaty.

The focus of this thesis is to explain how Hirano tackles Japan’s national predicament and his two predicaments. Specifically, in his perspectives, Manchuria is conceived as a reflection that Japan is under America’s control, and Japan’s ambition to become a leader of East Asia is viewed as American hegemony. Therefore, in order to transcend Japan’s national predicament as an “abnormal state”, he rescues and reconstructs Japan’s discourses on Manchuria and East Asia from the plague of War and Nationalism by contriving an international cultural theory.