J.Biden, the NEW Roosevelt?

By Erik de St-Preux

The rise of imperialistic totalitarianisms in Japan and China leading to world confrontations

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Dec 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9781716297656

Book preview

Roosevelt"?

INTRODUCTION

On August 18, 1661, Princess Catherine of Braganza, daughter of King John IV of Portugal, married Charles II of England.  At this time, Portugal had just regained its independence from Spain and needed to develop alliances to maintain its independence.  England had just put an end to the revolution and the Cromwellian dictatorship allowing the restoration of the monarchy of the Stuarts and James II had just been crowned King of England and Scotland, twelve years after the execution of his father Charles I.

The two countries, opposed to Dutch claims, signed a treaty of alliance which strengthened the treaty of 1373, the oldest treaty still active. It was to be materialized by the marriage of the two royal houses.

Portugal, present in Asia since the end of the 15th century, even before the discovery of the Americas, had long learned to appreciate the tea from Asia which Princess Catherine of Braganza liked very much. The English court soon discovered its importance and all of England with it.

The development of tea imports from China resulted in a gigantic trade deficit that the British were only able to cover through the opium trade.  This amoral trade destabilized China and led to its dismemberment by Western powers entering the industrial era.  Japan in turn was drawn into this race between Western powers eager to trade to their advantage.

Two sleeping empires were awakened by the noise of boots. In Asian culture where face must not be lost, these empires suffered repeated humiliations. Japan first, very quickly, rose to the challenge. China, hampered by a more complex political situation, followed a similar path but at a much slower pace.

These two humiliated countries began to recover by adopting the thought patterns of the imperialist powers but this was at the cost of abandoning many cultural values and cultural foundations of Asian societies.

But joining in the big leagues was not so easy for then they must elbow at the cost of great efforts for their populations. Submitted to many sacrifices, these populations grumbled, and became more and more reluctant.

Facing a growing disapproval, the most determined of their political leaders then called for adherence, not to the difficult path of progressive values as Gandhi or Nelson Mandela will later do, but rather by building a desire for revenge and power.

Arising throughout this historical development was the ESSENTIAL question of the legitimacy of the forces in power.

In Japan, political forces strengthened the principle of legitimacy while in China, they let it evolve in an attempt to adapt it, in the service of new leaders. Whatever the choice of the evolution of the concept of legitimacy, it conditions the political evolution.

The misuse of the principle of legitimacy in the service of the forces in power then becomes a straitjacket imposed on political leaders. Therefore, it makes predictable their future actions which can only evolve towards an increasingly excessive totalitarianism, leading them to their downfall.

Intellectually, philosophically and spiritually retrograde populist values allow the gradual emergence of totalitarian regimes, the brakes of progressive thought having been lifted.

This political totalitarianism impoverishing political thought, comes into fundamental contradiction with the good of the populations to serve only a reduced objective, a desire for power supported by the desire for revenge.

But their failure to achieve an era of harmony between spiritual and cultural well-being, and material prosperity, leads them to the lies and deception institutionalized by state propaganda.

The effectiveness of deception is limited and this forces powers to succumb to their last resort, shifting the blame for failure onto outsiders, foreigners, and especially the powerful.

Therefore, building economic and military power becomes the main goal, supported by propaganda that appeals to the worst springs of human thought, while preventing dissenting voices from being heard.

This power is used first towards weaker neighbors, then towards stronger ones, thus reinforcing these policies, including the sense of their own power.  However, weakened by the absence of contradiction capable of enriching reflection, totalitarian regimes overestimate their power while minimizing that of other powers.

They recklessly attack the dominant power.  An extreme example of this for Japan occurred on December 7th, 1941 when the world entered a planetary conflagration at Pearl Harbor.  For China it was eighty years later with Covid 19, which President D. Trump declared on May 6th, 2020, to be worse than Pearl Harbor!

The ineluctable bankruptcy of the Chinese political system in managing the Covid 19 crisis, after starting a trade war with the United States, forced this regime to overbid the totalitarian outbidding which can only lead to a planetary conflagration, first economically, and potentially militarily if time is allowed.

In 1940-1941, President F.D. Roosevelt took up the Japanese challenge, which finally allowed the advent of democracy in Japan.

In 2020-2021, will J.Biden, the new president of the United States, take up the Chinese challenge as President D. Trump had partially started to do?

So, the fate of the world as an emerging vassal of China is therefore increasingly dependent on the United States of America’s reaction, as well as it is for the hoped-for advent of democracy in China

A) Japan

On July 8th, 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry and his four black vessels, steamers using coal and spewing smoke, dropped anchor in the port of Uraga, near Edo, present day Tokyo. This show of force made a strong impression on the population and on the Japanese authorities who came to realize their technological and military inferiority.

The main object of the mission entrusted to him by the 13th American president, Millard Fillmore, was clear. He was to begin diplomatic relations and the opening of Japanese ports to trade with the United States, thus becoming the first Western power to benefit from such a favor by Japan.

Returning in February 1854 with an even larger fleet, Perry obtained on March 31st, 1854, by the signing of the Kanagawa Treaty, the establishment of the first diplomatic relations between Japan and a western nation, and the opening of the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to trade with the United States.

B) China

This very effective gunboat policy had been initiated by the British. In 1842, at the end of the first opium war, they obtained, by the Treaty of Nanjing, access to 5 Chinese ports and the cession of the island of Hong Kong, at the mouth of the Pearl river, seaway to the city of Canton. Until then, Canton had been the only Chinese port open to trade with Westerners.

By the Treaty of Wangxia in 1844, the United States obtained similar privileges with the access to Chinese ports.

A) Japan - The shogunate: a declining power

Since 1603, Japan has been ruled by Shoguns of the Tokugawa family who put an end to the feudal conflicts dividing the great families of the aristocracy during the 15th and 16th centuries.

Having defeated his opponents at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, Tokugawa Ieyasu obtained the title of shogun from the Emperor in 1603. He moved to Edo, present day Tokyo, thereby further marginalizing the imperial court in Kyoto.

Appearing in the 8th century, the title of shogun was granted by the Emperor to the general-in-chief, or constable, of the Emperor’s armies who fought the barbarian tribes of northern Japan, the Emishi.

Since 1185, the Emperor had been reigning, but no longer governing Japan. Shoguns did it by assuming military and civilian powers. The shogun gradually assumed de facto power by governing the territories under his control, on behalf of the Emperor.

Since Emperor Jinmu in 660 BC until the present day, the same dynasty has ruled Japan. The present emperor, Naruhito, who succeeded his father Akihito on May 1st, 2019, is thus the 126th emperor of the dynasty.

The Emperor derives his legitimacy from his divine origins, son of the sun goddess Amaterasu, in the Shinto tradition, of which he is the high priest. This religious function, more than that of a monarch, protects the dynasty from the ironfisted men who, during the history of Japan, would have claims on the power.

The accession to power of such strong men, unable to have legitimacy in the ultimate function of the Emperor, would be obtained by the creation of the shogunate, by which they exercised power in the service of the Emperor.

Dynasties of shoguns would thus succeed one another from 1185 to 1868, without causing damage to the imperial dynasty, of which 126 members have succeeded for 2,680 years. Hence today, it doesn't matter to the Japanese people whether the Emperor is divine or not. HE is Japan!

B) China - The Qing dynasty: a declining power

By conquering the other 6 fighting kingdoms during the third century BC, Qin Shi Huangdi, the king of Qin, gave birth to imperial China, unifying it politically but also in language, currency, units of measurement and political and physical infrastructure.

The disappearance in 210 BC of Qin Shi Huangdi, the first emperor of China, brought to power the Han dynasty founded by Liu Bang, one of his generals who restored order and unity of the empire.

The legitimizing concept of the deification of the Emperor was then forged, a reflection on earth of the Jade Emperor, himself a hitherto lower deity, who then took precedence over the Lord of Heaven, Yuanshi Tianzun, Taoist supreme deity. The Han emperors were no longer just descendants of General Liu Bang, but the earthly representative of the Jade Emperor, who then merged with the Lord of Heaven.

Notwithstanding this deification, emperors of China were not descendants of the goddess of the Sun, as in Japan, or the Jade Emperor. They took power by force and ensured a dynastic continuity.

As a result, Emperors of China were de facto shoguns of the Jade Emperor. While the Japanese imperial dynasty spans centuries through conflicts, natural disasters, and the weakness or incapacity of a number of its emperors, the Chinese imperial dynasties collapsed, and all the more easily whenever they were foreign - Mongolian (Yuan dinasty) & Manchu (Qing dinasty).

Unlike the Europeans, both Asian empires did not open to trade with the outside world.

A) Japan: Conquest and maintenance of imperial order on the archipelago

Occupied for centuries in unifying the Japanese clans, Japanese emperors first and then the shoguns, unlike the British, were not interested in trade or maritime expeditions.

The coming of Jesuits and Dominican priests in the 16th century brought new ideas with the conversion of many but the conquest of the Philippines by the Spaniards, would soon develop their distrust of Europeans. Shoguns reacted with persecutions of Christian missionaries and Christianity, perceived as the vehicle of European influence, as had also regularly been the case in China.

Having unified Japan, the Shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi planned to invade the Ming Empire, starting with the invasion of Korea. In doing so, he would continue unification of Japanese clans by external conquests as well as keeping busy outside of Japan, those military forces that unification had made useless inside.

Dominant on land, Hideyoshi’s admirals were however regularly defeated by the national Korean hero, Admiral Yi Sun-Sin. By cutting Japanese supply lines by sea, he finally forced the withdrawal of Japanese troops from the Korean peninsula, before they could reach China.

This military failure