In this July 6, 2021, file photo released by Xinhua News Agency, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech at the CPC and World Political Parties Summit in Beijing. (Li Xueren/Xinhua via AP, File)

       In general, people are interested only in their immediate surroundings. Diplomacy and security are distant affairs, and ordinary people do not think of those issues as their own unless it involves something serious.

       But in fact, the things that happen around us as individuals are happening inside Japanese society, and in the same vein, the events happening within Japanese society are happening within the larger world. Once in a while, dramatic developments reveal that if we lose sight of where Japan stands in the world, people's lives become difficult.

       Take, for example, the Black Ships of 1853, when the visiting fleet of warships from the United States demanded trade with Japan after 250 years of international isolation. Many of the proud samurai were eager to expel the foreign "barbarians," but the Anglo-Satsuma War and the Shimonoseki campaign, in which Choshu clan troops fought against European and American forces, made them realize that this was impossible.

       How did Japan respond in the end? The country opened its borders to the outside world, but sought a way to avoid being dominated. The decentralized shogunate system could not resist Western powers. By building a centralized system under the emperor, actively learning from Western civilization, which had made great progress since the Industrial Revolution, and transforming itself, Japan sought to become as strong as the Western powers. In addition to building a wealthy nation and a strong military, it also enacted a Constitution and opened a parliament. These were modernization reforms that included political reforms. The victories in the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars showed that those Japanese efforts were quite successful.

       No less than the Black Ships, an international event that changed the course of Japanese history was its defeat in World War II in 1945. It signaled the collapse of a policy that had been in place since the Manchurian Incident of 1931 -- that is, the policy of the military to reinforce domestic control by expelling party politics and expanding foreign wars in various directions. The term "ABCD encirclement" of Japan by the Americans, British, Chinese, and the Dutch was popular in Japan before the attack on Pearl Harbor, but there was no way that Japan, which was only a medium-sized country, could survive with all the major countries in the world as its enemies. Japan, which had lost sight of its place in the world, had no alternative but to perish.

       Where should Japan head after its defeat in the war? The only possible option was to seek "the light of reconstruction" as Emperor Showa told his top aides in deciding to accept the Potsdam Declaration and surrender. The hope was for a peaceful rebirth of a Japan that had taken up the sword and perished. This would be successful because it was consistent with the occupation policy of the United States, which was at the center of the victors -- pacify, democratize, and then economically revive Japan.

       Let's take a closer look at Emperor Showa's vision of reconstruction. At the start of the New Year after the defeat, the Japanese government released the Imperial rescript called the Emperor's Humanity Declaration. In the process of drafting this document, the Emperor asked for it to be drawn from the "Oath in Five Articles" made in 1868 by Emperor Meiji. In line with the oath's pledge to "seek wisdom from the world" as Japan aimed at building a modern state, he hoped for Japan's postwar revival through voluntary reform.

       On the day before the first anniversary of the end of the war, the Emperor called together three former prime ministers, then Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, and others for a meeting. According to the record of Emperor Showa compiled by the Imperial Household Agency, the Emperor opened the meeting by "citing the example of how Japan's defeat in 663 at the Battle of Hakusukinoe had led to reforms and a turning point in the development of Japanese culture, and inquired about the path Japan should take in the future."

       By citing this past example of Japan rebuilding itself from the depth of grief and entering an era of great progress, he called for the political leaders to draw on the past to create the future.

       The defeat at the Battle of Hakusukinoe was a formative experience for Japan. In response to a request from Paekche, a friendly country at that time, for support in the revival of their country, Emperor Saimyo and Prince Naka-no-Oe dispatched a large army of 27,000 to the Korean Peninsula.

       However, they were destroyed in two days by the combined forces of the Tang dynasty of China and the kingdom of Silla on the peninsula. Nihon Shoki (the Chronicles of Japan), the oldest official history book in the county, states that the reason for the defeat was that the Japanese forces did not even know the local climate. The invading army relied on its large number of troops, and without knowing the local geography, weather, culture, and political situation, it was defeated badly.

       Prince Naka-no-Oe, who later became Emperor Tenji, learned a bitter lesson and developed a strategy for Japan's national defense. First of all, anticipating a revenge attack by the combined forces of Tang and Silla, he built a defense line of fortresses and other fortifications from Tsushima and Kitakyushu in western Japan through the Seto Inland Sea to the Yamato region where the then capital was located, and connected them with a network of smoke signal communications. In particular, to protect Dazaifu, the base of operations in Kitakyushu, they built fortresses in front and behind and more on the plains around the base. He even moved the then capital of Asuka by some 60 kilometers to the north to Omi for defense purposes.

       Secondly, Emperor Tenji refrained from involvement in the Asian continent, and turned down Tang's request for participation in a new war eight years later. Taking advantage of the barrier of the sea, he maintained a relationship with China that was neither offensive nor defensive, and focused solely on trade and exchange.

       Thirdly, the Yamato dynasty, following its defeat by Tang, became aware of the Chinese empire's high civilization, and learned eagerly from the former foe. In 710, the Yamato dynasty built Heijokyo, the new capital with a Tang-style legal system, and arranged for the visit to Japan of the Chinese Buddhist monk Jianzhen. These developments were what Emperor Showa called "a turning point in the development of Japanese culture."

       Learning from its defeat in the 7th century war, the country has found a way to be "Japan in the world." The basic policy of refraining from unintentional foreign wars, however, was again violated by subsequent ambitious regimes. These were Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invasion of Korea in the 1590s and the military advance after the Manchurian Incident of 1931. In both cases, Japanese forces relied on a certain level of military superiority and went in without fully understanding the local situation, resulting in bankruptcy. It is the same as the Battle of Hakusukinoe. The lessons of history have faded over time, and the same failure has been repeated.

       Today, the need to redefine Japan in relation to the world has never been greater. The post-war Japanese made it an absolute condition for peace that they would not wage war themselves, but that is not the issue today. What we face today is neighboring countries' military buildup and their will to expand their areas of control. For the sake of peace, we need a way to prevent them from doing so. How can we build a relationship that is not offensive or defensive? We are in the midst of a turbulent time when we should think about this in light of history since Hakusukinoe.

       (By Makoto Iokibe, Chairman of Asian Affairs Research Council)

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