In this remarkable essay, Masayuki Takayama traces Britain’s historical role in supporting Japan, from the Phaeton Incident and Britain’s intervention against Russian encroachment on Tsushima to the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, the Battle of Tsushima, the postwar revival of Japan’s automobile industry, and the introduction of nuclear power. It is a powerful reflection on Anglo-Japanese trust, the assistance Britain repeatedly extended to Japan, and the debt of gratitude that Japan has yet fully to repay.

December 29, 2018
Masayuki Takayama’s column in the New Year special issue of Shukan Shincho once again proves that he is a journalist without equal in the postwar world.
Its readers must have experienced both hearty laughter and profound admiration as they read it.
Yet every person of true discernment will also recognize the gravity of this essay and will never forget it.
They will be grateful that a man such as Masayuki Takayama existed in Japan.
The following is from Takayama’s essay, “In Gratitude for the Anglo-Japanese Alliance.”
In Gratitude for the Anglo-Japanese Alliance
The first encounter between Japan and Britain came in the early nineteenth century, when HMS Phaeton forced its way into Nagasaki Harbor.
The Japanese were astonished that such a violent country could exist.
To determine how they should deal with it, they first compiled an English–Japanese dictionary entitled Angeria Gorin Taisei.
It later proved extremely useful when Americans, who spoke the same language and were even more aggressive, arrived in Japan.
That may be an example of Britain serving as a negative teacher.
Yet Britain also did genuinely good things for Japan.
At the end of the Edo period, the Russian warship Posadnik came to Tsushima, ravaged local villages, and demanded the lease of a harbor and the provision of women.
Had the shogunate mishandled the situation, Russia might well have occupied Tsushima.
In fact, in 1875, Russian ships arrived in Sakhalin and applied much the same form of intimidation.
Japan could not resist Russia by itself, and Russia took Sakhalin.
When Tsushima appeared to be on the verge of suffering the same fate, British Minister Rutherford Alcock dispatched two warships and drove the Russian vessel away.
It was an outcome for which Japan could never be sufficiently grateful.
When Japan later confronted Russia again across the Korean Peninsula, Britain entered into a military alliance with Japan.
Japan therefore needed to fight only Russia.
If Germany or France, both hostile to Japan, intervened on Russia’s side, Britain had promised to enter the war immediately and defeat them.
No one wished to fight the world’s strongest power.
Before entering the Sea of Japan, the Baltic Fleet had expected to rest at Cam Ranh Bay in French Indochina.
The French government, however, feared the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and refused to admit the fleet.
Its officers and sailors were forced to confront Japan’s Combined Fleet off Tsushima without recovering from the exhaustion of their long voyage halfway around the world.
Perhaps twenty percent of Japan’s great victory, in which the Russian fleet was annihilated, was owed to Britain.
The Anglo-Japanese Alliance was eventually destroyed by American cunning and the foolishness of Kijuro Shidehara.
That was also one of the factors that led to the subsequent war and Japan’s defeat.
After the war, Japan was tossed about by American domination.
Even then, Britain continued to treat Japan in an ordinary and decent manner.
The United States thoroughly destroyed Japan’s aircraft industry to ensure that Japan could never again challenge a white power.
The operation and manufacture of aircraft were prohibited, as were university courses in aerodynamics.
The automobile industry received the same treatment.
Manufacturing and research were prohibited, and the local production operations maintained before the war by Ford and General Motors were also terminated.
Heavy industry, too, was supposed to be dismantled completely.
Then North and South Korea began a war at an extraordinarily convenient moment.
As a rear base for the United States military, Japan was able to preserve its industrial capacity.
At that time, Britain became the savior of the Japanese automobile industry.
Austin concluded a knockdown-production agreement with Nissan, and Hillman did the same with Isuzu, enabling Japan to fill the postwar industrial void.
The previous war began when the United States cut off Japan’s oil supply.
Japan’s postwar energy situation had not improved in any meaningful way.
The Japanese government considered introducing nuclear power, but the United States firmly opposed it.
The Americans feared that, if Japan acquired nuclear capability, it might one day avenge Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
At that moment, Britain once again extended a helping hand.
Japan acquired and operated a British-designed graphite-moderated reactor.
It could be fueled with inexpensive natural uranium.
This alarmed the United States.
A graphite-moderated reactor could produce plutonium suitable for an atomic bomb.
Japan could therefore acquire nuclear weapons almost immediately.
The United States hurriedly changed its policy.
In exchange for Japan abandoning the graphite-moderated reactor, it offered Japan light-water reactors.
Such reactors would not produce plutonium suitable for nuclear weapons.
Japan was thereby able to establish a degree of energy self-sufficiency.
It also acquired expertise in nuclear power, and eventually Hitachi reached the point of exporting light-water reactors to Britain as a repayment of Japan’s debt.
Britain, struggling with its departure from the European Union, would have benefited greatly.
Hitachi, however, said that it lacked sufficient investment capital and might be forced to abandon the project.
The Japanese government, perhaps fearing harassment from the anti-nuclear Asahi Shimbun, hesitated to provide assistance.
Japan once poured the equivalent of twenty percent of its national budget into Korea for thirty-six years.
Why not direct even one thirty-sixth of that amount toward Britain?
Japan would thereby repay at least a fraction of the debt of gratitude recorded in history.
Unlike the money spent on Korea, it would surely produce something of value.

As I reread this magnificent essay by Masayuki Takayama, I found myself unable to hold back tears several times.
A man such as he is what one calls a true patriot and statesman.
People represented by Kenzaburo Oe and Haruki Murakami are what one calls traitors to their country, or enemies of the nation.
They rank among the most deplorable Japanese people in the entire history of Japan.
Boasting of his association with Shuichi Kato, Kenzaburo Oe once declared proudly, during a conversation with the foolish Hisashi Inoue, that Kato believed there had been only two geniuses in Japanese history: Kukai and Sugawara no Michizane.
Yet no people would have been more deeply despised by Kukai and Sugawara no Michizane than Oe and Murakami.
The decisive moment for the Japanese people to recognize that truth arrived four years ago, in August.