Dr Chris Harding

One famous poet, lovely poet called Yosano Akiko, she writes this poem addressed to her brother who's fighting in the war saying, do not give your life.

And she says this really controversial thing, captures the spirit of a lot of people in Japan, but it's something you absolutely shouldn't say.

which is his majesty, the emperor himself, does not give his life or something to that effect.

Basically saying that he's too scared to do it.

He's not going to put himself in harm's way.

And yet our sons and brothers are doing it.

And so she's absolutely persona non grata in Japan as a result.

But you start to get that sense, actually, that overreach might be possible, that a period, decades of success in Japan might start to become perverted and that maybe Japan's going down that track.

It gets bits and pieces from the old German colonies, yeah.

I think some in Europe thought Japan behaved rather badly in the First World, quite opportunistically.

They didn't really need to get involved.

But yeah, you're right, it gets a little bit.

And so this is probably, I think if you were...

European visiting Japan in say the mid 1920s right go to somewhere like Tokyo You're gonna see somewhere that has wide airy streets trains trams people look wealthy You can eat food from all around the world.

You've got theaters comedy clubs Imperial power.

Yeah, you've got radio gramophone all these sorts of things happening.

And yeah, it's a proper imperial power exporting

the best of its civilization all around Asia.

It's probably at its peak at that point, I think, because not only has it got all that, but after the First World War, that vision of Wilsonian internationalism, a lot of Japan's diplomats really believed in that.

Although at the end of the First World War they wanted to have a racial equality clause put into the covenant for the new League of Nations, they didn't get that.