JAPAN: Eight Directions, One Sky

In the beginning there was a namelessness with the beautiful shape of an egg. It divided, and became heaven and earth. And it divided again and became male and female. These in their turn begat Izanagi and Izanami, who begat the Sun Goddess, who had a great-great-grandson named Jimmu Tenno, who descended to rule the earth.

When Jimmu got lost among the coniform hills of Japan, he conjured up a huge three-legged crow to guide him and his warriors (begat by whom, no one knows) to fruitful places. Jimmu made jars out of Mt. Kagu, filled them with rice wine, placed them in the River Nyu, and when the drunken fish wobbled to the surface, he said good times were coming. A kite of brilliant feathers perched on his bow and dazzled his enemies’ eyes out. Then one day in 660 B.C. he acceded to the world-throne—i.e., Japan’s; and the cloudless blue weather of that day made him utter four cryptic words which now are taken to mean that Japan should expand to the ends of the earth: “Eight directions, one sky!”

From 660 B.C. to 1940 A.D., according to the Japanese credo, the sons of Jimmu Tennō ruled and begat, with the aid of Shoguns, concubines and kinfolks. Down through the years Imperial legends unfolded into a religion and Imperial symbols became as hush-hush as primitive taboos—the divine sword, the jewel, the mirror. The Emperors took the 16-petaled chrysanthemum as a sort of sacred trademark. Modern Japanese are skeptical, sometimes even resentful, of these legends and taboos, but even the best educated observe the outward forms.

Last week was chrysanthemum time in Japan. The islands were almost as lovely as in the cherry-blossom season. The annual chrysanthemum season, coincident with the anniversary of the late Emperor Meiji’s birthday, was celebrated all over Japan with especial excitement: Emperor Hirohito chose it to mark the 2,600th Anniversary of the fair-weather day when Jimmu took on power.

His Imperial Majesty invited foreign diplomats, Government officials and wearers of Imperial decorations into the Imperial Park to contemplate his chrysanthemums, arranged in martial rows and patterns of incredible genus and color, arrayed in booths as mountains, cascades, rivers. In the Palace. Hirohito performed certain religious mysteries, and read aloud a poetic rescript. He climaxed the week by showing himself before the people.

Facing a classic pavilion near the Palace. 52,000 hand-picked Japanese waited. At the scheduled moment a crimson Rolls-Royce, preceded by the Imperial standard (sun flambant d’or, on field gules), crept out from the Palace grounds. The Emperor and Empress were greeted by Premier Prince Fumimaro Konoye. With Imperial humility the Emperor bowed to the crowd. Finally Prince Konoye stepped to a microphone and. waving his arms, led all Japan, gathered from Hokkaido to Honshu at millions of radios, in the Japanese equivalent of three cheers: “Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!” Then the assembled 52,000 bowed toward the pavilion, and the absent millions bowed toward their microphones.

Showa is the name which Hirohito chose to typify his reign: it means Radiant Peace. Last week’s celebration, coming at a time distinctly wanting in peace, gave Japan’s men of influence occasion to consider the Japanese Empire carefully. They knew it as a sum total of many factors: a set of islands where 70,000,000 people live almost literally elbow to elbow; a low standard of living; the third biggest Navy in the world; a ragged but dogged Army (1,125,000 men in the field, 6,000,000trained, partly trained and untrained eligibles to draw upon); an economy of trade which according to all the rules ought to have collapsed long ago; two pushy nations for allies; territories conquered (Korea. Formosa, Manchukuo. part of French Indo-China) and stubbornly resistant (China); and for the future, a policy of expansion, a dream of domination.

The only factor among all these which appeared to be perfect last week was the dream. Thinking as usual in terms of the pleasant future rather than the ugly present, Japan’s leaders pushed on with headstrong measures. One sky still bound the eight directions, but to these men only the southward direction mattered. In the midst of the Anniversary festivities the Cabinet, Army and Navy chiefs, star members of the China Affairs Board, met to discuss: 1) ending the war in China; 2) pressing Japan’s southward expansion.

These counsels were reflected in the field. The Japanese drastically shortened lines and weakened garrisons in China, at the cost of much face and the risk of future distress. In the extreme southwest, they burned and evacuated Nanning. and. fighting off harassing Chinese troops, retired from Yunnan and Kwangsi Provinces to Hainan Island, springboard for projected drives westward to the rest of Indo-China, southward at Dutch islands, eastward at Hong Kong. The Chinese claimed that in the eleven months since the Japanese took Nanning, they had lost 74,000 men by sickness and siege. The Japanese claimed that the penetration of nearby Indo-China made further garrisoning of Nanning useless and expensive.

Late in the week came a clue to the withdrawal. General Raishiro Sumita, chief of the Japanese “military mission” to Indo-China, called on pro-Vichy Governor General Jean Decoux and told him that Japan was gravely concerned over “increasing activity of anti-Japanese elements” in southern Indo-China. ” ‘Free Frenchmen’ . . . Anglo-American agents . . . Jewish financiers have resumed activities prejudicial to the New Order.” The Japanese professed themselves particularly “disturbed” about the south Indo-China port of Saīgon. Saīgon is only 650 sea miles from Singapore.