Based on Masayuki Takayama’s Weekly Shincho column “Corona Diplomacy,” this article traces the development of steelmaking in Europe and Japan, including Kamaishi, the Yawata Steel Works, Hashima Island, and Miike Port.
It examines how Japan built a modern steel industry largely through its own efforts and considers South Korea’s objections to Japan’s UNESCO-listed industrial heritage and the political use of historical disputes in diplomacy.

July 13, 2020
When one studies the history of steelmaking, it is difficult not to envy Europe, where many countries competed with one another and collectively advanced industrial technology.
One of the foundations of modern iron production was the charcoal blast furnace developed in Sweden and subsequently introduced into other European countries.
However, the product of these early furnaces was pig iron containing a large amount of carbon.
Blacksmiths therefore had to hammer the iron repeatedly to remove carbon and make it suitable for tools and weapons.
The following discussion is based on Masayuki Takayama’s serialized column “Corona Diplomacy,” published in the July 9, 2020 edition of Weekly Shincho.
The columns written by Masayuki Takayama and Yoshiko Sakurai regularly bring each issue of Weekly Shincho to a powerful conclusion.
It would be no exaggeration to say that I purchase the magazine each week in order to read the work of these two writers.
This column once again demonstrates why I regard Takayama as a unique figure in postwar Japanese journalism.

European Nations Competed to Develop Steelmaking

The history of steelmaking shows how European countries learned from and competed with one another.
Charcoal blast furnaces developed in Sweden spread throughout Europe.
The iron they produced, however, contained too much carbon.
The central challenge in the development of steelmaking was therefore how to reduce the amount of carbon in iron to an appropriate level.
In Britain, coal came to be used because it could generate higher temperatures than charcoal.
During the eighteenth century, Abraham Darby and others developed the use of coke in iron production, opening the way to greater output.
Iron bridges were built in increasing numbers.
However, the strength of early iron remained inadequate, and bridge failures occurred.
European engineers continued to search for a method of producing large quantities of stronger steel with a lower carbon content.
Henry Cort of Britain developed the puddling process, in which molten pig iron was stirred inside a furnace to promote decarburization.
The German engineer Siemens and the French engineer Martin developed a regenerative open-hearth process using high-temperature gas.
Henry Bessemer of Britain invented a converter that blew air through molten pig iron, burning away excess carbon and transforming the material into steel.
Other countries copied, modified, and improved these technologies.
It also became clear that anthracite coal could be used to produce coke with fewer impurities.
Takayama argues that European interest in coal and other mineral resources was among the factors behind the extension of colonial influence over regions such as China, Vietnam, and India.
European nations competed intensely in steelmaking during the middle of the nineteenth century.
In Japan, this corresponded to the final years of the Tokugawa shogunate and the beginning of the Meiji Restoration.

Japan Had No Neighbor with Which to Compete Technologically

Japan had neighboring regions on the Chinese mainland and the Korean Peninsula.
However, the British traveler Isabella Bird recorded not societies engaged in competition over modern steelmaking, but serious deficiencies in sanitation, infrastructure, and social organization.
Japan did not enjoy the kind of environment found in Europe, where neighboring countries exchanged, imitated, and improved industrial technologies.
Japan therefore had to open the path to modern steelmaking largely through its own efforts.
The principal source of Western scientific knowledge was the limited amount of information entering Japan through the Dutch trading post at Dejima in Nagasaki.
A Dutch work concerning the casting of cannon became an important technical reference.
Nariakira Shimazu of the Satsuma Domain and Takato Oshima of the Nanbu Domain attempted to construct charcoal blast furnaces.
The Tokugawa shogunate and the Mito, Choshu, and Saga domains built reverberatory furnaces.
Many of these experiments, conducted across the transition from the late Tokugawa period to the Meiji era, ended in failure.
The Nirayama reverberatory furnace built by the shogunate could cast bronze cannon, but it did not immediately lead to the modern production of steel.
The Kamaishi furnace associated with Takato Oshima achieved greater success, partly because good iron ore was available locally.
The Meiji government later included Oshima in the Iwakura Mission so that he could inspect European steelmaking.
Japan’s early modern leaders were not merely attempting to copy European technology.
They sought to adapt it to Japanese conditions and transform it into a technology Japan could operate independently.

Japan Realized That “Iron Is the Nation”

In 1895, Japan emerged from the Sino-Japanese War having used many weapons manufactured abroad.
The experience demonstrated that steel production was indispensable to national independence and security.
Japan came to understand in practical terms the meaning of the expression, “Iron is the nation.”
The Meiji government therefore began construction of the state-owned Yawata Steel Works.
It purchased blast furnaces, Siemens open-hearth furnaces, Bessemer converters, and other equipment from abroad.
The machinery was assembled under the direction of German engineers.
Yet repeated attempts to begin full production failed.
Simply purchasing the latest foreign equipment and employing foreign specialists was not enough.
The machinery and methods were not necessarily suited to Japanese iron ore, coal, and local conditions.
The government eventually reduced its dependence on the German engineers and entrusted reconstruction of the works to Japanese engineers who had gained experience at Kamaishi, Nirayama, and other sites.
They modified the furnaces.
They reconsidered the selection and preparation of iron ore.
They searched throughout Japan for coal suitable for producing high-quality coke.
Good coal was found at Takashima and Hashima, islands off the coast of Nagasaki.
Hashima, later widely known as Gunkanjima, or Battleship Island, was electrified at an early stage.
Electric motors were used to advance undersea coal mining.
Through the work of Japanese engineers and laborers, Japan finally succeeded in integrated production from pig iron to steel in 1903, the year before the Russo-Japanese War.
This was not merely a success achieved by arranging imported machinery.
It was the result of adapting equipment to Japanese conditions, finding suitable raw materials, overcoming repeated failure, and making the system work through Japanese technical knowledge.

Miike Port and the Technological Achievement of Takuma Dan

In 1908, a lock-equipped port was completed at Miike.
The tidal difference around Miike was approximately five meters.
A lock was necessary to stabilize the water level so that large ships could dock and load coal.
The port was designed by Takuma Dan, an engineer and leading figure in the Mitsui organization.
The Miike lock was completed before the locks of the Panama Canal.
More than a century later, it remains a functioning industrial structure.
The industrial sites at Kamaishi, Yawata, Miike, Takashima, and Hashima are not merely old factories and mines.
They demonstrate how Japan, lacking neighboring countries with which it could compete in modern industry, gathered information, endured repeated failure, and built a modern industrial state through its own efforts.
The achievements and determination of the people who supported the Meiji Industrial Revolution were eventually recognized through inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Museums and information centers were established to explain how Japan accomplished its industrial transformation.

South Korea’s Objections to the World Heritage Listing

South Korea subsequently demanded that Japan include explanations concerning workers from the Korean Peninsula.
Takayama argues that there is a chronological problem in attaching issues involving Korean workers during the later Showa period to heritage sites primarily representing the Meiji Industrial Revolution.
South Korean narratives have claimed that Koreans on Hashima were subjected to brutal conditions and experienced something resembling “hell.”
Takayama acknowledges that people from the Korean Peninsula worked on Hashima during the Showa period.
However, he questions one-sided descriptions presented by South Korea, pointing to wages, housing, and community facilities provided to workers.
The circumstances surrounding recruitment, wartime labor systems, wages, living conditions, and the degree of personal choice should be carefully examined through individual historical records.
Separate from that factual investigation, however, the use of a World Heritage nomination as diplomatic leverage deserves serious scrutiny.
During negotiations over inscription, South Korea indicated that it would support Japan’s application if Japan included an explanation concerning Korean workers.
Japan accepted that condition.
South Korean demands nevertheless continued, and disagreement over wording and exhibitions did not end.
A concession did not resolve the controversy.
Instead, it became the basis for additional demands.
Takayama warns against this pattern of diplomacy.

Historical Questions Must Not Become Instruments of Political Pressure

Historical facts should be established through primary sources and objective examination.
They must not be rewritten in response to the political demands or diplomatic pressure of a particular country.
The Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution show how Japan learned from European technology, overcame repeated failures, and built a modern nation through the work of Japanese engineers and laborers.
That history must not be replaced by a single negative narrative created by later political demands.
It is, of course, necessary to investigate and explain the experiences of everyone who worked during the process of industrialization, including its negative aspects.
Such investigation, however, should be conducted to establish the truth, not simply to condemn Japan.
Japan’s repeated expectation that further concessions to South Korea would settle historical disputes has repeatedly proved mistaken.
The acceptance of one demand often becomes the starting point for another.
Careless concessions therefore leave problems for the future.
Takayama concluded by comparing diplomacy with South Korea to measures against COVID-19 and suggesting that, for the sake of Japan’s psychological well-being, such diplomacy should be reduced by 80 percent.
This was not necessarily a literal proposal to terminate diplomatic relations.
It was a sharp metaphor calling on Japan to stop overreacting, conceding, and allowing itself to be controlled by a government that repeatedly uses historical issues to criticize it.
Japan must respond when factual rebuttal is necessary.
It must reject unreasonable demands.
Above all, Japan must continue to explain to the world, in its own words, the industrial heritage created by the people of the Meiji era and the history of its modernization.