Japanese-Australian Clash over the White Australia Policy, 1894-1919

Abstract

This thesis examines the Japanese-Australian clash over the White Australia Policy during the late 19th and the early 20th centuries. It explores the questions as to why Japan strongly objected to the White Australia Policy and why Australia was uncompromising in its position of excluding Japanese immigrants by placing these issues in a broad historical and international context of the time, particularly the development of collective national identities in Japan and Australia. Japan and Australia developed their national identities almost simultaneously in the late 19th century. In the case of Japan, after embarking on a frenzied modernisation and Westernisation in order to achieve equality with the West, it attempted to establish an identity as a “civilised” nation. Australians, for their part, embraced “British race nationalism” as the core foundation of their nation and developed their identity as a white British nation. However, because of their unique historical circumstances—in Japan’s case, because of its status as the only non-white great power in a European-dominated international society, and in Australia’s, because of its peculiar geo-cultural situation of being a white colonial outpost in the Pacific surrounded by people with different race and culture—they were both insecure about the identities they created for themselves, feeling that their national identities were constantly challenged and threatened by external circumstances. This thesis suggests that both nations’ visions of, and anxieties around, national identity greatly influenced their responses to the issue of Japanese exclusion in Australia and argues that the Japanese-Australian clash over the White Australia Policy can be interpreted as a clash between a country which sought to reaffirm its civilised identity by achieving equality with the West even on immigration issues and a country which was determined to defend its identity as a culturally and racially homogeneous white British nation from the perceived threat posed by the rise of a non-white power in the region. In other words, this thesis analyses the Japanese-Australian confrontation over the White Australia Policy as a means of shedding light on how the Japanese and Australians perceived their identities in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries. In so doing, it aims to contribute to the existing literature on Japanese immigration and the White Australia Policy and offer a more comprehensive analysis of the Japanese-Australian clash over the White Australia Policy.