Who is responsible for what?
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, being complicit is the act of helping to commit a crime or do wrong in some way. In order to assign complicity to the Japanese people we first have to define what crime(s) was committed by the Japanese Imperial Army.
In this writing, I will focus on the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (I will refer to this as GEACPS for short) as the crime being committed by the Japanese Imperial Expansion. The reading Manchu Girl really gave insight into how culture can be spread much like the boarders of the empire, and the sentiments throughout the text show how regular Japanese citizens could also be complicit of these actions.
In Manchu Girl the story starts with the purchase of a young 14 year old girl to which the wife responds hesitantly, as she had previously had an unpleasant experience with a Manchu maid due to cultural barriers. As the story progresses it becomes more clear that the wife clearly thinks of Manchu People as less “cultured”, and she tries to do anything in her power to “save” the young Manchu girl Li Guiyu. She eventually succeeds as Li Guiyu eventually transitions from being wary of the Japanese from her anti-Japanese education to fully embracing Japanese culture, as evidenced by her rejection of Manchu clothing over a traditional Japanese Kimono. This story serves as an allegory of what was happening in a larger scale, or at least what the Japanese empire desired to achieve through the GEACPS.
While the Japanese Army was busy slaughtering rival armies, it is within the realm of possibilities that this scenario was repeated countless times within areas that were already occupied by the expansion of the Empire, making the citizens who believed were doing a service to other people complicit in the violent expansion of the empire in a less violent way.
Shifting our focus to gender roles, femininity during the 1930’s had a radical change. Women started to be less dependent on men for money or permissions, specifically the father. Women also started movements for independence and suffrage. A possible reaction to this can manifest itself as a form of expanding government power which resembles that of a man insecure of himself. Following the Nanjing Massacre, the government did everything in its power to avoid the truth to see the light. From denying the occurrence of the event, to censoring press and eavesdropping on conversations between citizens, and arresting anyone who could pose a threat to order (including communists, minorities, etc) as seen in Takashi Yoshida’s Mobilizing the Nation, Sanitizing Aggression.
