WHITE DISCRIMINATION AGAINST JAPAN: BRITAIN, THE DOMINIONS AND THE UNITED STATES, 1908–1928

During the first half of the twentieth century, Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders were as “racist” towards Japan as were Californians. “White Australia” and “White Canada” evoked as much protest from Japan and were condemned by General Tojo as provocative. These sparsely populated Pacific Rim settler societies continually required their Atlantic Rim rulers to allow them to exclude Japanese and sometimes to permit discrimination against Japanese citizens within. However their London and Washington rulers were wont to preach fair play in a fair field and deprecated the settler societies’ mounting fear of a Japanese “invasion,” either peaceful or armed. Each society was torn between the dilemma of wishing to assert its “racist” identity while recognizing that its power was inadequate, and that it depended for security on the great white fleets of the UK and the USA. Thus there were centripetal and centrifugal elements in the political systems. Ultimately, the British Dominions were obliged by their lack of defence capability to defer to London. Yet occasional upsurges of sentiment and incidents compromised Anglo-Japanese relations. Thus, in 1926, Canadian demands for exclusion were so peremptory that the important Kokumin newspaper said that Gaimusho (Japanese Foreign Office) was apprehensive of a period of “grave consequences,” where diplomatic relations would be very strained. The Dominions were the Achille’s heel of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, as important as the USA in maintaining “an invisible colour line” around Japan, which checked its legitimate expansion, and denying that “evasive ambition of the recognition of racial equality.” The paper may serve a useful function in shedding light on a gap in our historical knowledge. The struggle for mastery in the Pacific before 1941 has too often been perceived as centering on the rivalry of the three sea powers

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