Prescience of a Commie Journalist : Jack London on Japan

January 11, 2009 in Codex, Japan
Tags: Americanism, Biological warfare, China, Commie, Ethno-differentialism, Ethnocentrism, Jack London, Japan, Koizumi Yakumo, Korea, Lafcadio Hearn, Marxism, Marxism-Deleonism, Russo-Japanese War, Socialist Labor Party, The Iron Heel, The Yellow Peril, Ultra-modern War, Unionism, Westem-centrism

London in Korea

Jack London

Jack London* is regarded as one of America’s most popular writers for his novels and short stories. Less known today is the fact that he was also a first-rate observer of East Asian politics, societies, and peoples. Working as a journalist for several newspapers and magazines, he filed numerous articles and essays covering the Russo-Japanese war and even foresaw the rise of Japan and China as world powers.

(* member of the Socialist Labor Party of America under the leadership of marxist sectarian Daniel De Leon)

Jack London on Japan’s Rise

London admired the Japanese not only for their unique ability to modernize so quickly, but also for what he forecasted as their potential to awaken Asia from its sleep and to lead it to its renaissance vis-à-vis the West. But it was China, once awakened by the Japanese, which he predicted would thrust small Japan aside and itself rise as the world’s preeminent superpower by 1976.

Jack London on Westem-centrism

Americans, London notes, were infatuated and often surprised by Japan because of their total ignorance of Japanese history and civilization. They had created an image of the Japanese based on their own culture and then expected Japanese to behave in a manner predictable to Americans. The reality, however, was that “we know nothing (and less than nothing in so far as we think we know something) of the Japanese. It is a weakness of man to believe that all the rest of mankind is moulded in his own image, and it is a weakness of the white race to believe that tje Japanese think as we think, are moved to action as we are moved and have points of view similar to our own”.

Jack London on the collective nature of Japanese.

Londond commented frequently on the collective nature of Japanese culture. While he admired and respected many individual Japanese, especially certain Japanese generals who showed great courage and fighting skill, he was amazed at the Japanese ability to coalesce and at the high degree of patriotism he found.

Jack London Visions of Future

London predicted that the Chinese Revolution and future ascendancy would be triggered by a Japanese invasion of China. Looking to the future in 1905, London conjectured that Japan would never be satisfied with control over Korea.

London’s predictions for the future of East Asia are found in this 1906 short story, “The Unparalleled Invasion“. London presents an Orwellian drama where he tells of the rise of China in 1976 as a threat to world peace and how the Western powers combated this threat through the use of biological warfare.

->Jack London Reporting from Tokyo and Manchuria: The Forgotten Role of an Influential Observer of Early Modern Asia (PDF), Daniel A. Métraux, Asia Pacific Perspectives, Volume VIII, Number 1, June 2008