與《大地之子》共享血日殘輝：論滿洲國餘者之生命政治與倫理

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(1)國立臺灣師範大學英語學系碩. 士. 論. 文. Master’s Thesis Department of English National Taiwan Normal University. 與《大地之子》共享血日殘輝：論滿洲國餘者之生命政治與倫理 A Bloody Sunset Shared with Child of the Continent: On Biopolitics and Ethics of the Manchukuo Remnants. 指導教授：黃. 涵. 榆. Advisor: Dr. Han-yu Huang 研究生：張. 琇. 雯. 中華民國 104 年 1 月 January 12, 2015.

(2) 摘要本文以二戰時被遺忘的受害者—滿洲國的殘餘日本人為研究中心。透過理解生命政治的作用，以期傳達出更積極地護衛不同生命型態的必要性。此有助於我們開拓一種對他者的倫理關懷—並非是建立在國家體制下，而是建立在與他者共在的基礎上。從此出發去重省歷史創傷、戰爭責任以及對餘生的思索。本文分為三章。第一章以滿洲國初期日本青年滿懷憧憬加入開拓團到 1945 年戰敗的難民經驗為背景。主要藉由傅柯與阿甘本對主權和生命/死亡政治的探討來說明主權如何介入及棄置生命。一方面，傅柯對新治理術的觀察可解釋滿洲國的動員何以在不被反抗的情境下吸納所需的勞力。為了維持生產力，人口、疾病和死亡等的掌控實乃刻不容緩。另一方面，阿甘本例外狀態等的討論能帶出政治棄民行為和難民創傷之後的證言倫理思考。第二章接續阿甘本的例外狀態去闡述見證的(不)可能性，證言中必然的空闕之處顯然是政治操作造成且無法彌補的一環。理解結構上的不可能性之後，進而去探討山崎豐子的小說《大地之子》見證的可能。主角松本勝男所體現的難民經驗、國家機器宰制下的多重創傷和恥辱說明歷史的傷口並不會瘉合，但餘者的生命故事正在透過這個傷口期求注視。在滿洲國餘者逐年凋零的世代，閱讀化為使我們遇見他者的岸礁。第三章討論對他者的責任，亦即一種發自內心去對現有體制劃分的懸置。小說中，松本的救贖經驗顯示：倫理關懷不應該是形成特定群體的生命政治目標，而是建立在人與人之間敞開、互通的網絡上。最後，從當代主導記憶深遠的媒體反思滿洲國餘者成為被遺忘的受害者的原因及相關倫理問題。. 關鍵詞：生命政治、他者、記憶、倫理、滿洲國、餘生、證言. i.

(3) Abstract My thesis takes the forgotten victims of World War II—namely, the abandoned Japanese in Manchuria—as the research objects. I aim to expound the influences of biopolitics over individuals’ lives, and to convey the indispensability for defending different forms of lives. Knowing the biopolitical mechanisms enables us to cultivate an ethical concern for the Other, which is not passively controlled by the government, but is based on the active sense of coexistence. Starting from this human concern, I discuss the historical traumas, war responsibility and life of remnants. The thesis consists of three chapters. The first chapter sets the context of Manchukuo remnants from their eagerness to join the farm settlement to their desperate refugee experiences in 1945. By practicing Foucault’s and Agamben’s concept on the sovereign and bio-/thanatopolitics, I discuss how the sovereign power intervenes and abandons life. On the one hand, Foucault’s observation on the new art of governmentality over population casts light on how the Manchurian mobilization subsumes the required laborers without facing their resistance. To maintain the circulation of production, the control of population, disease and death becomes imperative. On the other hand, Agamben’s discussion on the state of exception provides a field for considering the ethics of testimony after the political abandonment and the traumatic refugee experiences. In Chapter Two, continuing Agambenian state of exception, I discuss the (im)possibilites of witness. The necessary lacuna inside the testimony, apparently caused by the political manipulation, dooms to be irreparable. After knowing the structural impossibilities, I discuss possibilities of witnessing through Toyoko Yamasaki’s Child of the Continent. The protagonist Katsuo Matsumoto’s refugee experiences, traumas and shame reveal irremediability of historical wounds, from which life of remnants summons people’s attentions. In an age when Manchukuo remnants wither like winter flowers, reading becomes a shore where we are exposed ii.

(4) to the Other. In Chapter Three, I discuss the duty toward the Other, which implies a suspension of juridical-political judgment. In the novel, Matsumoto’s salvation conveys that ethical consideration should not serve biopolitical objectives of constituting specific groups; rather, it connects to the open, communicative networks among humans. Finally, I ponder on the reasons for Manchukuo remnants’ becoming forgotten victims and consequent ethical problems in media, which plays a pivotal role in transmitting memory.. Keywords: biopolitics, ethics, Manchukuo, memory, Other, remnants, testimony. iii.

(5) Acknowledgement First and foremost, I owe my deepest gratitude to my adviser, Professor Han-yu Huang. Without his expertise, encouragement and guidance, this thesis would not come to the surface. “Welcome to the board!” Thanks for his introduction to the Memory and Testimony Study Group, I learn a lot from the superb group members, and find the direction for my project. My appreciation also goes to Professor Yu-chuan Shao and Pei-ju Wu for providing invaluable advices to me. The academic activities and inspiring lectures help me proceed; it is my honor to acquire knowledge and experience life in NTNU. For me, this thesis means more than a degree requirement, but a journey through which I discover the potentiality of myself. I am also deeply indebted to my family and my loved one for all their support. The thesis writing requires a great deal of concentration, and I am grateful to all who bestow me power to keep going. I owe my gratitude to Stephen Chuang, a promising young scholar who provides me with useful suggestions. Of all the classmates, I would like to give special thanks to Charmin Cheng and Ingrid Liao, whose kindness and consideration would never be forgotten. And I want to thank Angel Hsieh, Annie Shao, Gary Chen, Kristy Fan, Susan Su, Vivian Lee, White Bai for accompanying me on this journey. I am thankful to my friends Monica Wu, Ivy Wang, May Tsai, Pi Ciou, Sophia Wu, Mary Lo and the members of Guava Club for giving me hopes and cheers of encouragement. I also thank Hana for her everyday companionship by my window. Too numerous individuals to list, and I sincerely deliver my gratefulness with love. Lastly, my appreciation goes to Professor Fong-shan Tsai. His memory lives on.. iv.

(6) Table of Contents Introduction. 1. Literature Review. 2. Methodology. 9. Outline of Chapters. 15. Expected Findings. 19. Chapter 1. “The Migration Machine”: The Exercise of Biopolitics in. 22. the Manchukuo Project I. The New Art of Governmentality: An Inescapable Cat-and-Mouse Game. 23. II. The Calculation of Population. 27. III. The Regulation of Public Health. 31. IV. State of Exception: The “Abandoned” Manchukuo Remnants of Life. 35. Chapter 2. 42. Reinterpretation of Child of the Continent: Witness and Inerasable Traces. I. Witness: Facing the “Necessary Lacuna”. 42. II. Literary Text as a Testimonial Breakthrough. 46. III. The Biopolitical Trajectories and Shame. 53. IV. The Unresting Wounds: Memory and Trauma. 58. Chapter 3. 63. Life and Community: The Duty toward the Other. I. “We Share, therefore We Are”: Community without Unity. 63. II. Communicability: Oblivion as the Second Killing. 74. III. Memory Retrieval and Public Representation. 79. v.

(7) Conclusion. 85. Works Cited. 89. Charts. 93. vi.

(8) Introduction Toyoko Yamasaki (1924-2013) is a Japanese best-selling novelist. Her novel Daichi no ko (Child of the Continent) (1994)1 can be regarded as a portrait of forgotten Japanese victims during the WWII. These forgotten victims, originally the impoverished countryside peasants, are persuaded and mobilized by the Japanese government to participate in the state policy of migration in face of the foundation of Manchukuo in 1932. The official military (the Kwantung Army) arms these economic migrants and pictures a utopia-like blueprint through media and political propaganda. However, when the war situation turns against Japan near 1945, the Kwantung Army abandons its people without even notifying them the foregone defeat of Imperial Japan. Consequently, these Japanese economic migrants become political refugees. The beautiful dreams turn into nightmares when they are vulnerably exposed to the Soviet invasion. According to Soka Gakkai (a foundation based on the Buddhism, and is recognized for its peace activism)’s account in Sokoku harukanari (Far from My Homeland), since boys elder than fifteen are conscripted to join the Pacific War, “along the border with Russia, only veterans, women and children were left” (347-49). When the Soviet soldiers enter Manchuria, they commence brutal massacre of defenseless Japanese civilians. The horrible days are beyond imagination. One of the survivors, Sumiko Takayama, in her autobiography “Dear, Let’s Go to Meet Mr. Budda!,” describes the farm settlement in Manchuria as the prelude of hell. The book title, sadly, serves as the last words with which Takayama pacifies her two children before killing them. According to Takayama’s testimony, when the Kwantung Army abandons them, the 1 The novel, originally written in Japanese, is translated into Chinese in 2013. Although having no English version, Child of the Continent is commonly recognized as the most authoritative literature on the subject of Manchukuo remnants with other translations such as “Child of the Vast Land.” I adopt Lori Watt’s translation “Child of the Continent.” She is the associate professor of department of history in Washington University. -1-.

(9) mass suicide, escape, attacks (from Eighth Route Army, National Revolutionary Army and Red Army) become inseparable parts of life. During her escape, Takayama also witnesses the ruined “Sado farm settlement” (where Yamasaki locates the Manchukuo refugees in her novel) with the macabre scene of “corpses piled almost reaching the sky” (110). Based on this context of Manchuria in the 1940s, the main character Katsuo Matsumoto (seven-year-old) and his sister Katsuo Atsuko (five-year-old) luckily survive, and are adopted respectively by the local Chinese families. However, the difficult time of the Manchukuo remnants prolongs to the Cultural Revolution. The traumatic experiences of being abandoned by the Kwantung Army, of being shamed during the Cultural Revolution as well as the everlasting sense of guilt and fear leave an indelible impression on their lives Yamasaki’s novel has inspired me with some questions and thoughts. Indeed, the study of Manchukuo, as a rule, focuses on the oppressed victims—the Chinese farmers exploited under the Japanese regime, the victims of Nanking Massacre, and the subjects of the Unit 731 (the chemical warfare based on the human experiment by Imperial Japan during World War II). But are the Japanese completely the advantaged ones? What can fall on the Japanese migrants mobilized to live in Manchukuo? While the atomic bombing of Hiroshima shapes our primary impression of the Japanese victims after World War II, the plight of the homeless abandoned Japanese in Manchukuo seems to face oblivion from the great history. Who causes the collective oblivion, and who should take the war responsibility for the tragedy of these forgotten Manchukuo remnants? These questions appear in my mind when I delve into this “fragment” of history.. Literature Review Over these years, the attention to the Manchukuo remnants has witnessed an -2-.

(10) increased growth, but at the same time, the octogenarian survivors have withered like autumn leaves. The subsequent publication of the related researches and the testimonies seem to confirm the burning need of historical witness in this era. In her book Abandoned Japanese in Postwar Manchuria: The Lives of War Orphans and Wives in Two Countries, Yee-shan Chan provides vivid sketches of Manchukuo remnants’ difficulties and strategies for living. The term “abandoned Japanese,” on the one side, relates to the fact that the Kwantung Army withdraws without notifying settlers. What’s worse, the Kwantung Army cuts off the transportation infrastructures to avoid the capture by Soviet soldiers, but the act also obstructs the refugees’ way out, exposing them to Soviet massacres. On the other side, the term “abandoned Japanese” points out the fact of calling for mass suicide, and this disappoints some settlers with a comparative sense of being unworthy and “disposable.” In addition, “abandoned Japanese” in Chan’s book implies two meanings. From the survivors’ side, the feelings of being abandoned have a lot to do with the changeful postwar situation, which makes the homeland unreachable for them. From the historical absentees’ side, particularly the killed children by their parents, the act of abandonment should have remained forever an irredeemable lacuna in the history. Since the 1990s, the abandoned Japanese in Manchuria have played a pivotal role in the Northeastern China affairs. From Chan’s perspective, the abandoned Manchukuo-Japanese remnants are important keys to the future relation between China and Japan. Also, the Manchukuo remnants have changed the structures of families in postwar society by presenting a blend of local Chinese and urban Japanese. Through her fieldwork, Chan describes the Manchukuo remnants’ life strategies in details. For example, on facing the Soviet invasion, those who do not follow the national call for suicide manage to survive by becoming the members of the local Chinese peasant families. The strategies for the integration include marriage, adoption, -3-.

(11) and becoming domestic servants. By discussing how Manchukuo remnants endeavor to survive, adapt themselves to the new environment, and cultivate the sense of living connection in the postwar society, Chan enlightens readers with a dynamic life of Manchukuo remnants. Importantly, Chan’s research reveals that we should not regard the Manchukuo remnants as merely passive beings suffering from loss of war; instead, they actively manage to maximize their opportunities and better the living condition for the next generation. Consequently, what Chan notices is not only the memories of sufferings in postwar society, but also the survival strategies exercised by these remnants. To interview the survivors about their survival strategies, sorrows, motives, and grudges, Chan engages with their life for a long time. The basic unit of Chan’s research is family, and the case of the Morita family corresponds to the plot of Yamasaki’s Child of the Continent. The similarities include the seven-year-old boy and his five-year-old sister, whose father is drafted by the Kwantung Army and whose mother died in the midst of the Soviet invasion. Furthermore, Morita, like the protagonist Matsumoto, undergoes the human-trade, and then is adopted by the local Chinese family. Morita’s childhood experiences include being forced to speak Chinese, bullied and called “horrible Japanese Ghost” by schoolmates, all of which are included in Yamasaki’s Child of the Continent as well. Hence, the Morita family’s case, to a certain extent, serves as the counterpart for Yamasaki’s writing. Different from Chan’s fieldwork which takes family as the basic unit, Lori Watt’s When Empire Comes Home: Repatriation and Reintegration in Postwar Japan contains individuals’ witnesses. For example, Watt records the testimony from Tsukada Asae, who is a schoolteacher and one of the survivors of the settler groups. Asae narrates how the Japanese troops selfishly retreat by destroying transportation infrastructures, how the Soviet military attacks the settler groups, how she attempts to -4-.

(12) commit suicide, and how late they come to realize the defeat of Japan. The memories of the Manchukuo remnants engender complex feelings of guilt and responsibility in the postwar Japanese society. However, despite the feelings of guilt, it is still difficult for the postwar Japanese society to embrace the Manchukuo returnees. Under less than triumphal circumstances, the returnees are usually considered as the “others.” From Watt’s delineation, the predicament of refugees comes not merely from the abandonment in China, but also from the ambiguous self-identity of being inside and outside Japan. In other words, the postwar Manchuria poses the crisis of self-identification when the Manchukuo remnants become “stateless people,” who have lost the identity and ticket to come home. Apart from explaining the crisis which falls on the Manchukuo remnants after the failure of the imperial project, Watt provides a more comprehensive study on the activity of migration by analyzing the population transfer after the World War II in Asia. This wave of population transfer includes the act of repatriation of the Japanese from colonies throughout Asia, as well as the act of deportation of colonial subjects from Japan to their motherlands. Watt focuses more on the act of repatriation, since the demobilization of Japanese soldiers have done an effective demolition job on the Japanese colonial projects. More importantly, Watt supposes that the population transfer following the end of World War II has exerted a profound impact on the migration in the twentieth century. The people repatriated from Manchuria, according to Watt, are particularly important. Although many repatriates come from Taiwan, Korea and elsewhere, the prevalent, enduring images of the repatriates are actually the Manchukuo remnants after the war. For example, at the cover of the book, Watt presents a 1945 repatriate relief poster drawn by the artist Yamana Ayyao. The image portrays a Manchukuo refugee mother, looking depressed and ragged, with a child in tow as well as a -5-.

(13) rucksack on her back. Besides the poster’s representation, Watt introduces a wide assortment of representations which surround the issue of Manchukuo remnants. Watt exemplifies the representations of Manchukuo remnants in cultural works such as literature, songs and films. In the part of literature, Watt takes Murakami Haruki’s novel Nejimakidori kuronikuru (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle) and Yamasaki’s Child of the Continent as examples of the earlier fictional incarnations of Japanese left in China. Both Chan’s and Watt’s books refer to Louise Young’s Japan’s Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism. Young combs out the Manchukuo mobilization from a more complete historical retrospection. His illumination explains with minute and reasonable details why millions of Japanese (including intelligentsia and peasant households) can be mobilized without facing obstacles. The implementation of the Manchukuo migration policy relies largely on individuals’ desires. Young notes that the movement of migration is doubly propelled by the intelligentsia’s desire to develop modern urbanity as well as by the farmers’ desire to get more lands. Young particularly depicts the intelligentsia such as the socialists’ will to participate in the state policy. Since Japanese socialists are frustrated at their attempts to practice the social dreams in domestic Japan, they turn to project their utopian vision of modernity and renovation onto Manchukuo, which is considered as “city of the future,” a symbol of cosmopolitan urbanity. The urban construction in Manchukuo claims to break the new dawn of the Sino-Japanese relations, whereas Young indicates the series of urban construction plans and social reformation contributed purely to the imperial project of Japan. The series of construction of public amenities such as parks, hospitals and sports facilities, according to Young, are designed to fit the strategic policy goals. However, most Japanese migrants do not reap the benefits of the Manchukuo -6-.

(14) project. Young reverses the stereotypical image of Japanese from absolutely interest-vested oppressors to considerable victims. In contrast to the condition of those with special social status such as company managers, military officers and bureaucrats, the condition of the Japanese settlers remains dismal. Young points out the fact that many Japanese farmers own no land after working at Manchuria for a long period, and to make things worse, they have to compete in the agricultural market with the Chinese laborers, who live more cheaply due to low wages and living standards and are more experienced in the climate of Manchurian cultivation. From Young’s perspective, the marginalized, powerless Manchurian settlers become definitely victims of the empire, who live under the sugar coating of political propaganda without knowing hidden dangers. For instance, Young depicts the curious paradox that while the Japanese in Manchuria are frantically finding ways to learn local cultivation practices from Chinese farmers, the propaganda in domestic Japan instructs Japanese farmers of the urgent need to move to the “new paradise” and to teach superior Japanese farming methods to the local people. The state apparatuses omit the gap between the ideal and real situation in order to manipulate the population. For Young, aside from local Chinese, the exploited subjects consist of a significant percentage of Manchukuo-Japanese. In a broad sense, when the emigration machine exerts pressures on the village to induce its farmers to remove from Japan, it renders these excluded Japanese remnants of the empire. The three books mentioned above deepen our understanding about the aftermath of Manchukuo remnants. They provide great details for how the political climate transforms people into refugees, and how the individuals have once felt, thought, and struggled. What’s more, the three books convey the war responsibility that Japan should face, not only for the neighbor countries, but also for its people. Although the work of commemoration has reached the national stage with the establishment of -7-.

(15) peace museums, the traumas remain in Manchukuo remnants’ minds, and the movements for compensation frequently face boycott and postponement. For sure, the political power still manipulates the activities of a people. To explain the intervention of politics, Young brings forth the concept of “migration machine” which assembles millions of Japanese to move. Young discusses the migration machine in the context of push and pull factors, and concludes that the government has well-established an elaborate system of both pull in Manchuria as well as push in Japan. Nevertheless, Young only solves half of her question of how the state apparatuses induce Japanese farmers to pack their bags and to remove themselves to Manchukuo. Despite showing a verity of organizations which contribute to the Manchurian mobilization, Young seems to overlook the power relations interwoven between administrations and individuals. To clarify the power structure behind the migration, I will use the theories of biopolitics to expound the machinery which propels the mass migration. The three books shed light on the forgotten victims, but discuss little about the causation of forgetting. Why do Manchukuo remnants become a neglected chapter among the innumerable epic tragedies of World War II? Why do their sufferings and losses remain trapped outside the national story? The reasons for the oblivion of Manchukuo remnants vary according to different nationalities. By paying attention to the mediated memory in Taiwan, Japan and China, I discuss the possible reasons for the absence of Manchukuo remnants from history text books. In addition, in spite of the fact that Chan takes Yamasaki’s Child of the Continent as the most representative example for the story of Japanese left behind in China, her interpretation of the final scene as Matsumoto’s “heroic decision to stay in China” probably narrows down Yamasaki’s implication in book title. Matsumoto’s decision to live as child of the continent, rather than of Chinese or Japanese, suggests a reconstruction of life meaning beyond political relations. Above all, I aim to deepen the discussion on the -8-.

(16) power structures and art of memory which the afore-mentioned three books have touched upon but not elaborated. The relation between politics and memory offers a possible direction to mourn the historical violence and a reflection on the contemporary lawsuit against the Japanese government by Manchukuo remnants.. Methodology My attempted thesis will draw on the theories of biopolitics to illuminate how the political power exercises on human life. Michel Foucault’s lectures elaborate the exercise of biopower as the new art of governmentality. According to Foucault’s idea in Security, Territory, Population, power is not generated from a particular source; instead, power should be found in terms of mechanisms and procedures, which cohere and steady the power structure through the relations of production. Thus, it works like a pyramid structure on the surface (with the Emperor of Japan serves as a sovereign ruler), but there are sure to be other relations that make possible the power over population. Foucault illustrates the complex relations with a triangle consisting of sovereignty, discipline, and governmental management, in which apparatuses of security serve as essential mechanism over population. Obviously, Foucault has differentiated the discipline from the governmental management, which exercises apparatuses of security as the primary technical instrument. Foucault’s observation on biopower points out the change of the power structure. Different from the disciplinary techniques such as juridical and surveillance mechanisms, contemporary mechanisms of power deeply connect with technologies of security. We are quite familiar with the components of disciplinary mechanisms since they are usually laid down in the system of legal codes with clear binary oppositions between the permitted and the prohibited, between normal and abnormal. Those who violate the laws or break the social contract become foreigners in their -9-.

(17) countries. Hence, we can find that the disciplinary mechanisms possess the power of excluding (like the lepers in the Middle Ages) and of punishing, both of which symbolize the sovereign power of death. The web of disciplinary mechanisms allows nothing to escape. Nevertheless, biopolitical power governs without a visible weapon for killing. To highlight the difference of governmental management from the disciplinary mechanisms, we may outline the apparatuses of security by referring to Foucault’s viewpoints in Security, Territory, Population. First, while in the disciplinary mechanisms we have clear subordinate relationship, Foucault points out that the mechanisms of security do not function on the relationship of the sovereign-subjects, but induce people to fulfill the policies under the forces of their own desires. To a certain extent, the new art of governmentality blurs the boundary between the governor and the governed, and makes the process of population seemingly “natural and inevitable.” Second, Foucault supposes that biopolitical power can render the most unfavorable condition into the more favorable one. Inspired by Foucault’s concept of biopolitical governmentality, I regard the phenomenon of migration as the performance of techniques over population. That is, the apparatuses of security have organized a milieu within which the Manchukuo settlers have become the subject of desires and aspirations, yet at the same time, the object of government manipulation. In Foucault’s The History of Sexuality, biopower is characterized with its power over life (making live) and the right of death (letting die). But in Agamben’s Remnants of Auschwitz, the function of the camps in the system of Nazi biopolitics implies a sort of thanatopolitics. From Agamben’s perspective, Foucault’s discussion of biopwer to “make live” becomes problematic when thinking about the Nazi state, which represents the sovereign power to “make die” in modern age. Nevertheless, in the thesis, I do not view Foucault’s mechanisms of regulation and Agamben’s - 10 -.

(18) sovereign power conflict each other. In Remnants of Auschwitz, Agamben’s comments on Foucault’s failure to explain the sovereign power exercised in the camps probably have overlooked the fact that Foucault, in his Security, Territory, Population, has brought forth the complex power relations through a triangular illustration, with the sovereignty existing equally important together with discipline, and governmental management. While Foucault pays attention to the governmentality which maintains population, public health and circulation throughout all domains of our “normal” life, Agamben focuses more on the juridical categories, particularly the “extreme situation” or “state of exception.” Hence, Foucault’s and Agamben’s discussions on the power over human beings, serve as the two sides of the scales. To explore the ethical implications of witness, I adopt Agamben’s concept of Muselmann, threshold and testimony in his Remnants of Auschwitz. The Muselmann who marches, labors in silence is usually inscribed in testimonies as a lacuna. Also, the production of Muselmann signifies the Holocaust horror, which creates an extreme condition where one cannot bear witness to oneself. Such extremity marks the unique quality and extent of Holocaust, and at the same time, blows off any possibilities to witness from either inside or outside. Nevertheless, Agamben considers that it is the impossibility to bear witness that makes the testimonial effort an endless necessity. In my thesis, it is noteworthy that Agamben’s “impossibility to bear witness” should not be literally understood as a sort of fruitless task. On the contrary, Agamben’s concept of impossibility affirms the continuity of testimonial effort. In addition, from his discussion of Muselmann in the camp, Agamben directs us to reconsider the “threshold” between the human and the inhuman. The very threshold signifies an ambiguous intersection between laws and politics, and provokes ethical concerns by beckoning us to rethink what determines and judges the value of human - 11 -.

(19) life. Although Agamben discusses the threshold in relation to the Muselmann in Nazi camp, I apply the concept of threshold to the Manchukuo remnants whose human rights are deprived. The “remnants” in my thesis, however, contain a wider range of meaning. Besides the Muselmann-like figures, the marginalized characters in the novel embody the results of biopolitics as well. They live in the inhuman condition when the rights of becoming a “human” such as citizenship have been disfranchised. The “state of exception” appears to be depressing, but Agamben hints that the threshold in the state of exception surfaces a new beginning to comb out the ethical questions. Still, Agamben does not make his implication of ethical responsibility explicit. From this, my thesis elaborates the ethical responsibility by demonstrating another relationship different from the political or juridical categories of responsibility: the duty toward the Other. The horror of Holocaust lies in the fact that the camp eliminates every possibility of the Other to come to witness, save or listen. But in the case of Manchukuo remnants, I affirm the possibility of being with the Other. Both the novel and the testimonies discussed in my thesis reveal the state of exception as an “open threshold” that exposes the remnants to more life possibilities. Thus, in my thesis, Agamben’s idea of state of exception provides a ground to communicate with the opaque Other. In this way, I do not regard the Agambenian “state of exception” in an absolutely negative sense. The collapse of the given political demarcations elicits a zero ground for us to rethink human relations and ethics. When we are willing to expose ourselves to the Other (by listening or reading, for example), and that put the desperate past under great consideration, we are steering the course towards “the open,” in a way we are an “other” opening to the Other. Since “no man is an island,” human relations cannot be reduced to the sovereignty of a man. To put the discussion into a more practical direction, I propose an active contribution of life to the idea of “community,” which lays its foundation - 12 -.

(20) more on the relations with the Other, rather than the relations programmed and structured by politics. I associate Agamben’s concept of the “open threshold” with Nancy’s “ex-position,” sharing (partage) and clinamen. Influenced by Nancy’s idea of “ecstasy” (extase or ek-stasis) which indicates the impossibility of an individual totality, Agamben’s open threshold implies a “zone of indistinction” which marks an intimacy between the human and the inhuman. “The community without identity” as conceptualized by Agamben and Nancy in their own terms challenges the biopolitical rubics of nationality construction, but also strengthens relations of “being with the Other,” which highlight a community mainly based on the sharing of the singularity with the Other within the everyday coexistence, rather than on the biopolitical determination of identity or essence. The major argument of this thesis would be based on three presuppositions. First, I suppose that Yamasaki’s literary text can contribute to witness. The literary text in my thesis is not the typical “testimonial literature” such as written autobiographical narratives, which present evidence or first person account of violence, war, and human rights abuses. Instead, as a novel, Child of the Continent tries our thinking with following questions: How can a novel contribute to the Manchukuo studies? What does writing mean for Yamasaki (who lives through the wartime but has no direct experience of Manchukuo tragedy)? In my thesis, I differentiate literature from testimony. By comparing the function of literature with testimony, I do not regard Yamasaki’s writing as a reflection on the testimonies she has interviewed, but as a life writing which intimately combines with her memories, interviews, and personal insights. Through the literary techniques and the involvement of readers, Child of the Continent elicits a different window to “see” the historical violence, and provides contemporary readers a fictitious “link” to the past. Second, I contend that the sense of being together, compared to the construction - 13 -.

(21) of nationality, is more important to us. Our self-identification usually associates deeply with the community where we belong; however, I argue that only when we learn to suspend the categorization can we truly embrace life. To specify my argument, I need temporarily define community into two types: the “biopolitical community” and the “community without identity or belonging,” which will be elaborated with Nancy’s and Agamben’s notions. The biopolitical community represents great intervention and demarcation from political power; in the novel, both the state of Manchukuo and CPC (Communist Party of China) serve as rubrics of biopolitical community, which are structured by selection and segregation. The suggestive community, on the contrary, undoes the absoluteness of totality and embraces the “self” in the “other.” Based on this assumption that the fundamental sense of being with the Other outweighs the biopolitical construction of “what should I become,” I reinterpret Matsumoto’s self-identification as neither Japanese nor Chinese, but as the child of the continent which he thinks he is being with. Third, my thesis proposes that the traumas caused by the state apparatuses can be multiple, and the historical wounds cannot be healed. Remnants in the novel convey that traumas involve multi-layered political or psychological elements. This implies that the mourning processes for historical violence still have a long way to go for the Japanese, and the owing compensation and formal apology serve as the necessary but not the last step for the war responsibility. Above all, we cannot excuse the historical duty despite that we live in the postwar period. The Japanese government must face the duty toward the tragedy of Manchukuo remnants, and the young generation must, too. The circulated literature, digitalized archives, the globalization all express the indispensability of sharing and communicating with the Other. Even though the survivors someday may all fade away, the demand of justice, the network of memory, the process of mourning, the concern of different forms of lives will never stop, since - 14 -.

(22) we share lives…. Outline of Chapters The thesis would be divided into three chapters. The first chapter discusses how the natural life is politicized and exposed to sovereign violence. Exploring the timeline from Japan’s establishment of Manchukuo in 1932 to its defeat in 1945, I discuss how the sovereign power intervenes and abandons the Japanese in Manchuria. While Louise Young considers the “migration machine” which propels the movement of Manchurian migration from the view of pull and push factors, I consider the population transfer with Foucault’s observation of the new technique of governmentality. Foucault’s idea of biopolitics helps to clarify the power structure under the regime of Manchukuo. Falling into the cat-and-mouse-game, the surplus, over-populated Japanese are strategically removed to Manchuria yet still well-managed by the strict discipline and additional laws. To illustrate the exercise of biopower, I mainly focus on the techniques of population and health check. As for the management of population, the ambiguity of freedom within governmentality becomes an effective element in biopolitics. The act of pursuing desires, for instance, marks the individual autonomy as well as the governability. In the field of governmentality, the endless desire means endless labor. Thus, for the Japanese government, desire (for money, lands or values such as honor, etc) guarantees the sustenance of production in Manchukuo. The other potential element helping to exercise biopower on population is the visual media. I take the poster as an example to explain how the government propagandizes a better way of life to pursue and, at the same time, successfully deploys the needed human resources along the border with the political enemy, the Soviet Union. The Manchurian settlers thus become biopolitical carriers to fulfill the sovereign decision. As for the regulation - 15 -.

(23) of public health, I analyze the “Healthy Manchuria Policy.”2 With strong enthusiasm for preventing disease and weakness, the policy practices strategic programs of immunization, which guarantees the circulation of people. The gymnastic festivals, related facilities and public health advocacies not only ensure an endless supply of labor, but also imply a political objective to render people governable. The governmentality of Manchukuo demonstrates the power over life by making live, with a good function of apparatuses of security. But the extreme situations in the wake of Japan’s surrender remind us the power of making die. The Manchukuo remnants (such as the children deprived the right to live under mass suicide, the POWs taken to the Siberian camps, the “non-men” at the corner of unventilated cabin, the humiliated prisoners under the Cultural Revolution, etc) present the political determination of life worth living. I apply Agamben’s theory of biopolitics to discuss the ambiguous condition of stateless Manchukuo remnants, and comb out the relation between the production of biopolitical body and sovereign power. In Chapter Two, I choose Yamasaki’s Child of the Continent as the text to portray the remnants “abandoned” by the biopolitical power. Although categorized into the genre of novel, Child of the Continent comprises Yamasaki’s effort of “literary witness.” Starting from Agamben’s discussion of witness in Remnants of Auschwitz, I consider the subject of testimony and the (im)possibility of witness. The subject of testimony in Child of the Continent can be several (the survivors she has interviewed, Yamasaki herself, the protagonist Matsumoto) or “none.” Inspired by Agamben’s discussion of witness in Remnants of Auschwitz, I suppose that the subject of testimony has become a lacuna, since the true witness, the primordial subject of 2 The “Healthy Manchurian Policy” is a generic term used to describe a series of health-related activities and systems in Manchuria. In Chapter Seven of his The Visual Media in Manchuria, Kishi uses the term to highlight the “health fever” in Manchukuo. The Sports Federation of Manchukuo following the foundation of the state and the health services mushrooming along the railways exhibit that “health” has become a vital wheel to set administration in motion. - 16 -.

(24) testimony is the one “who had seen the Gorgon.” The fictitious Matsumoto, namely, child of the continent, symbolizes such a lacuna, where the testimony takes place. To bear witness to the inhuman violence, Yamasaki’s writing displays a process which involves both desubjectification and subjectification. In this way, I regard Child of the Continent as a dedication to the historical witness, instead of being merely a fiction. The text not only reflects historical realities, but summons readers to actively engage with the Manchukuo remnants. I make a comparison between literature and testimony. With examples excerpted from the novel, I suggest that the performance of literature enacts the process of witnessing. In addition, the remnants such as political prisoners in the novel generally experience the shame, so I won’t overlook the discussion of shame, which serves the biopolitical power to produce “bare life.” Apart from discussing the experiences of shame, I explore traumas, nightmares and amnesias, from which we can discern that the government has hidden backwards the screen, leaving the remnants alone to bear the moral struggles. While the main characters such as Matsumoto or Atsuko can speak the traumatic experiences, Yamasaki depicts the speechless living dead in her novel. The chapter titled “Daddy”, in particular, portrays the Muselmann-like refugees, the “staggering corpse,” “mummy-men” trapped in the no-man’s land caused by the forces of Kuomintang (KMT) and the Communist Party of China (CPC). The no-man’s land represents the Agambenian “state of exception” and threshold between the human and the inhuman. Through the novel, Yamasaki presents how profoundly the politics manages lives, yet she does not depict life of remnants as totally hopeless or overwhelmed. From the bleeding wounds, remnants deliver a power of life to sustain and continue to convey inhuman tortures and political violence. Literature summons readers to “see” the wounds, not for healing, but for sustaining the wounds. The unresting wounds resist against oblivion of historical violence, and remind people of a “duty toward the - 17 -.

(25) Other” in the process of awareness. In Chapter Three, I discuss the “duty toward the Other” by referring to Yamasaki’s philosophical meditation in the novel. Yamasaki contemplates on two kinds of community: one based on the construction of nationality with the value judgment of honor, moral citizens; the other founded on the relation of being with the Other through sharing and love. From protagonist Matsumoto’s experience of salvation and his final decision, Yamasaki delivers her insight that a true “community” provides a space without walls or compartments to identify itself as a totality. Consequently, she urges the Japanese government to return to the active human consideration instead of practicing more juridical judgment, since those who are inapplicable to the statutes or unable to provide substantial evidence for proving their Japaneseness are excluded from the process of demanding compensation and apology. Above all, the Japanese government and “innocent” generations should reconsider the reasons for remnants’ losing citizenship and lacking of Japanese language. In addition, since contemporary media plays a vital role in witnessing and memory retrieving, we cannot overlook the consequent ethical problems. First of all, I discuss the reasons for the oblivion of Manchukuo remnants from the dimension of media work in China, Japan and Taiwan. While each nation commemorates its collective memory in an epic scale, the memory of Manchukuo tragedy becomes a negligible ditty or even a political taboo that people avoid discussing. Although the phenomenon of cannibalization and the labeling seem to be inevitable, I do not think we can shrug off the duty toward Manchukuo remnants by imputing all failures to the media work. If we do not try to recognize how media shapes our memories and how it keeps disconnecting us from the Other, we may fall into the narcissistic culture of our own nation. Furthermore, oblivion of the historical violence appears dangerous, for this makes a tacit approval of historical violence, without demanding justice and war - 18 -.

(26) responsibility of the government. For the remnants, oblivion equals to killing them again. Therefore, I suppose that we develop a self-imposed duty to access the Other who are absent from commonsensical information or political discourse. The postwar generation cannot claim to be “innocent,” the oblivion and silence of remnants reveal our deficient recognition of the duty toward the Other. Without the consideration of the Other, numerous listeners and interviewers tend to present life stories of Manchukuo remnants as sensational events or useful information for the TV programs, and viewers sympathize with victims but just let them go, without further understanding of their context. To avoid the objectifying of Manchukuo remnants, the listeners must decentralize their positions, and become themselves as the addressable Other, so that the speakers can impart stories without reservation. When Yamasaki interviews the survivors, she senses a duty which does not generate from the side of remnants to provide evidence or truth, but from the side of herself to continue the discussion of Manchukuo tragedy. As for readers, the discussion of remnants has shifted from the biopolitical concern towards an ethical consideration of how to live with the Other. Having understood how the biopolitical power constitutes remnants, we realize our possibilities to move beyond the biopolitical domination of life and traditional debate on the enmity between China and Japan.. Expected Findings Over the past decades, the issue of Manchurian migrants has surfaced in the testimonies of Japanese orphans in China and the lawsuits against the Japanese government for compensation.3 Also, the abrupt demolishment of the “Memorial Wall of Dead Japanese Settlers” in 2011 reveals that the Sino-Japan relation is still. 3 See the related news. Yamaguchi, Mari. “For Japan’s War Orphans, the Battle has yet to End.” Los Angeles Times. 4 Dec. 2005. <http://articles.latimes.com/2005/dec/04/news/adfg-warsue4> - 19 -.

(27) sensitive.4 While the survivors fading away one by one, the Japanese, Chinese and Taiwan’s history books deliberately overlook the chapter of Manchukuo tragedy; in Taiwan, for example, the state of Manchukuo is considered illegal, and the circulated historical sources mostly focus on the glorious “revolution” against Japanese regime. Why are the Manchukuo remnants forgotten? Who should take up the war responsibility for historical violence? What kind of strategies can move millions of Japanese to the oversea colonies without facing enormous obstacles? Consequently, my thesis aims to rethink these questions with respect to politics, life and ethics through the case of the Manchukuo remnants. I aim to clarify how the state apparatuses perform the tasks of planning, recruiting, transporting and supplying the new settlement in the case of Manchukuo. By exploring how the invisible hands of politics manipulate life, I ruminate on the (im)possibility to manage the “game” by our hands, instead of being polarized or divided by political domination. My thesis aims at three objectives. The first expected finding is the awareness of the subtle interplay between politics and lives. The biopolitical trajectories found in case of Manchukuo demonstrate the governmental managements throughout all domains of life. Knowing the exercise of biopower means to reach the “threshold” of political determination, so that we would not easily surrender to the strategies of governmentality, but think of how to let the life “stand out” by itself. Also, we realize that we share the duty of continuing historical wounds and avoiding oblivion of injustice and injuries. The second objective is to relocate the Manchukuo remnants by taking off the given labels and hierarchical ideologies. To achieve this objective, the art of memory plays a pivotal role. Media, in particular, has the power to make the memory of 4. See the related news. Nishimura, Daisuke. “Chinese County Criticized for Pro-Japanese Policy.” Asahi Shimbun. 9 Aug. 2011. <http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201108095822> - 20 -.

(28) abandoned Japanese emerge, flow, but also sink. We should see memory in a multidirectional way. That is, we should not see the victims of Japanese in Hiroshima and Manchuria in a competitive or zero-sum way. The third objective is to disclose a process of awareness that the remnants share life with us. Literature provides an interface for us to recognize the invisible yet intimate relations with the Other. Manchukuo remnants do not remain absolute passive or miserable groups of the past; rather, they are potential to tell us how they have once survived and lived. Thus, “our” life stories appear no longer a monologue of ourselves, but an opening symphonic band which constantly resonances with other voices. Through the process of sharing life, we realize our resonance with the Other does not organize new nations or groups; instead, our clinamen with the Other acts as an ongoing process toward the community-to-come.. - 21 -.

(29) Chapter One “The Migration Machine”: The Exercise of Biopolitics in the Manchukuo Project The Manchuria migration marks a great population transfer during the 1930s. Indeed, moving half a million Japanese to Manchuria appears to be a tough task. To figure out the fuel propelling the enormous migration machine, Louise Young cites the power of pull and push to illustrate the motion behind the migration. On the one hand, the financial incentives and working opportunities appeal teenagers to move in Manchuria; on the other hand, the 1927 Shōwa Financial Crisis in domestic Japan pushes poor farmers to work overseas. Young seems to suggest the phenomenon of migration as an inevitable process due to economic factors. Nevertheless, when the “conditions were neither sufficiently bad at home nor sufficiently better in Manchuria” (Young 354), most Japanese would not easily pack their bags and remove themselves to Manchukuo. Thus, Young overlooks other deciding factors for inducing the movement of population, and leaves some key questions unsolved. What kind of mechanism can mobilize the whole village and the families to pack their bags today, and to move away tomorrow? How can the mass migration become possible without facing too much resistance or obstacles at the first stage? Why do the Manchukuo migrants consist mostly of those from the countryside? To solve these questions, we should put the power structure under consideration, which offers battery to the migration machine. In particular, the concept of Pan-Asianism drops a hint to the power structure of that time, and it serves as a popular ideology with double identities of Japan: the one based on “the Japanese belief that the Japanese share common physical traits with their continental neighbors (Koreans and Chinese),” and the other one established on “a regional identity as Asians upon the distinction between Asia and the ‘West’ ” - 22 -.

(30) (Driscoll 21). The former type leads to the Pan-Asianism based on an Asian identity, while the latter type constitutes “a form of self-appointed leadership of the Japanese to save the rest of East Asia as well as themselves” (Driscoll 22). Afraid of falling into the situation of “sick man of East Asia” as China, the Japanese government chooses the latter advice and dedicates to strengthening its “body politic” (kokutai). Starting from the idea of body politic, Driscoll notes the dynamic complexity of power, which conducts people in their desires and lives. This power, namely, the exercise of biopolitics, is well-elaborated in Michel Foucault’s lectures as the new art of governmentality.. I. The New Art of Governmentality: An Inescapable Cat-and-Mouse Game Power, according to Foucault’s argument in Security, Territory, Population, is not generated from a particular source; instead, power should be found in terms of mechanisms and procedures, which cohere and steady the power structure through the relations of production. The popular ideology of Pan-Asianism seems to present a pyramid structure (with the Emperor of Japan serves as a sovereign ruler), but there are sure to be other relations that make the power over population possible. Foucault brings forth a triangle to denote the complex relations: “sovereignty, discipline, and governmental management, which has population as its main target and apparatuses of security as its essential mechanism” (Foucault, Security 107). Obviously, Foucault has differentiated the governmental management from the discipline. The governmental management, with apparatuses of security serving as its essential technical instrument, significantly elicits the discussion of biopolitical power. Different from the disciplinary techniques such as juridical and surveillance mechanisms, contemporary mechanisms of power are deeply associated with technologies of security. We are quite familiar with disciplinary mechanisms since - 23 -.

(31) they are usually laid down in the legal system with a clear binary division between the permitted and the prohibited, between normal and abnormal. Those who violate the laws or break the social contract, according to Foucault, become foreigners in their country, “consequently falling under the jurisdiction of the penal laws that punish him, exile him, and in a way kill him” (Foucault, Security 44). Hence, the disciplinary mechanisms possess the power of excluding and of punishing, both of which symbolize the sovereign power of death. Moreover, Foucault indicates that “Discipline allows nothing to escape. Not only does it not allow things to run their course, its principle is that things, the smallest things, must not be abandoned to themselves” (Foucault, Security 45). Thus, the subjects, like the caged birds, cannot live without ignorance of the bars of laws. Nevertheless, unlike disciplinary mechanism which depends on a succession of law, the new mechanism of power is entwined with the apparatuses of security. The technology of security distinguishes itself from the disciplinary mechanism in two aspects. First, while in the disciplinary mechanism we discern a clear subordinate relationship, “the mechanism of security does not function on the axis of the sovereign-subjects relationship, ensuring the total and as it were passive obedience of individuals to their sovereign” (Foucault, Security 65). That is, the mechanism of security fixes people up with active positions without manifest commands or forces. To a certain extent, the new art of governmentality blurs the boundary between the governor and the governed. Second, the technology of security can “bring the most unfavorable in line with the more favorable” (Foucault, Security 63), and we learn from this that the technology of security owns the power to organize certain milieu. Different from the work of disciplinary mechanism which structures the space through a given hierarchy, the technology of security manages to constitute a transformable milieu. Such a flexible framework implies an environment both - 24 -.

(32) artificial and natural, since the government’s political interventions have changed the orbits of things to the point that the “naturalness of the human species” has been covered “within an artificial milieu” (Foucault, Security 22). From this ambiguous milieu, Foucault points out the problems of “naturalness” within the political artifice of a power relation. What is biopower? To clarify the power functioning between life and politics, Foucault traces a change in history from “the old power of death that symbolized sovereign power” to “the administration of bodies and calculated management of life” (Foucault, History 139-40). In contrast to the sovereign power that wields death, biopower fosters and administers life. Foucault points out that political power exercises on the population in almost all aspects of human life, which include birth, illness, death and production. In addition, biopower is characterized with its power over life (making live) and the right of death (letting die), and it organizes a set of relations existing everywhere in our life from a micro-level towards a macro-level. Nowadays, the power to regulate on a large scale is not based on the hegemonic power, but on the biopower. Foucault explicates that different from the hegemonic power which manages to rule on everything by the central government, the biopolitical power demonstrates the new art of governmentality which is “interested in interests” (Foucault, Birth 45) without direct intervention. Under the work of biopolitics, a true governor, according to Foucault’s vivid bee metaphor, does not need a sting or weapon for killing in order to exercise his government. Without direct prohibiting or prescribing, the formula in the work of biopolitics features on “laisser-fair,” a certain “freedom of movement” and the sense of “letting things take their course” (Foucault, Security 41). In this way, the apparatus of security has “stood back sufficiently so that it can grasp the points” (Foucault, Security 46), while the “controls, decisions, and constraints are brought to bear on men themselves” - 25 -.

(33) (Foucault, Security 321). Such a distance allows biopolitical power to regulate on a more exhaustive way for the safety of a state or an organization. However, since the biopolitical structure remains certain distance from the population, it craftily dodges the consequent responsibilities. In Child of the Continent, both the Chinese and Japanese governments maintain a distance from the people. The distance, formulated by the apparatus of security, examines security as the life of the state. The governed people bear constraint to themselves when they accept the values of “health,” “pureness,” “honor” and so forth. That’s why in the novel, some women of the settler groups commit suicide upon learning the Soviet invasion. The virtues of pureness and honor exert great influence on the women and determine their lives. Although keeping a distance from the population of Manchukuo, the Japanese government administrates their lives. Similarly, when Matsumoto is sent to the remote Mongolian labor camp, the strict supervision and political violence do not reduce but intensify. When the Red Guards imply Matsumoto to “labor until his thoughts sweepingly reformed” (vol.1 202), it means that he must bear an endless elongation of the term of penalty. The ambiguous sentence and geographical remoteness do not pose a threat to the regulation. In other words, the new art of governmentality has essentially structured a web, allowing nothing to separate from its administration. In addition, through the characters’ indignant words, Yamasaki insinuates that the new art of governmentality always manages to naturalize its failures. For example, a Chinese local farmer argues that “the great famine last for three years, though partly due to the natural calamity, has a lot to do with the misguidance of people’s commune . . . the great famine is essentially man-made misfortune! Man-made misfortune! ” (vol.1 166). The poverty-stricken, ravenous farmer, charged with the “crime of thieving the state’s property” on account of stealing some vegetable, repeats - 26 -.

(34) the “man-made misfortune” to illustrate the political calculation. Like the Chinese farmers, the Japanese farmers take the phenomenon of migration as a natural, necessary process during the wartime. In fact, the art of governmentality makes good the function of security. While these farmers swarm into Manchukuo for the greater welfare, they contribute to the deployment strategy for the sake of warfare. Yoshio Chaen records the fact that Manchuria becomes the “lifeblood for Japan with the production of provisions, vast lands and raw materials for industry” (Chaen 117). Life, to this point, means more than just living, but an effective element for the constitution and development of the state’s forces. Here, we also discern that by deploying the surplus Japanese for military prevention, biopolitical techniques change the unfavorable condition into a more favorable one. Finally, it is noteworthy that despite the biopolitical techniques, disciplinary mechanisms pervade the novel, including the exclusion of tuberculosis patients, the practice of public torture and execution, the incarceration of the guilty person with obligatory works, the subdivision of troops and the disciplinary of the army, and so on. That is, while biopower operates on the basis of making live, the sovereign power of making die still exists. The emergence of new art of governmentality does not get rid of sovereignty and discipline. “The problem of sovereignty is not eliminated; on the contrary, it is made more acute than ever. As for discipline, this is not eliminated either” (Foucault, Security 107). Sovereignty, discipline, and governmental management cast effects on the population in general and manage the physical and moral existence.. II. The Calculation of Population The regulation of population serves as the core of biopolitics. In Security, Territory, Population, Foucault supposes that the ultimate object of governmentality is population, and that the government administrates health to improve the condition of - 27 -.

(35) population. Population, according to Foucault, presents a productive force (from the aspect of mercantilism), a source of wealth and disciplinary supervision. In this connection, it is worth noting that the imposition of discipline still exists, as Foucault indicates, that population is still “effectively trained, divided up, distributed, and fixed by disciplinary mechanisms” (Foucault, Security 69). Although the disciplinary technique is not a fundamental problem when Foucault discusses the new technology of power over population, it exists well throughout domains of life. If the new technology of power calculates the population, then the “naturalness” of population becomes problematic. At first sight, population transfer appears to us as a kind of natural phenomenon, but Foucault suggests that “the population could be formed, continue, and remained as the privileged correlate of modern mechanisms of power” (Foucault, Security 79); population becomes an object of knowledge as well as a platform for the practice of biopolitical techniques. The migration machine “assumes the task of conducting men in their life and daily existence” (Foucault, Security 200). Biopolitics penetrates every aspect of life, and ensures the production. Yet at the same time, the work of biopolitics naturalizes the population transfer as an inevitable and natural phenomenon. The new technology of power over population perplexes the notions of desire and freedom. Originally, desire appears as a legitimate chimerical effect, and the division between good and evil should not exist. But the new art of governmentality exerts power on individuals’ desires; while population exhibits “the subject of needs and aspirations,” it also becomes “the object of government manipulation” (Foucault, Security 105). Such a paradoxical aspect of population reveals a complexity of “freedom” in power structures. The manipulation of freedom within governmentality also becomes requisite. According to Foucault, “freedom is nothing else but the correlative of the deployment of apparatuses of security” (Foucault, Security 48), and the so-called - 28 -.

(36) “freedom to choose” guarantees the possibility of movement and the processes of circulation within the strategies of population. Therefore, biopolitical governmentality seems to be seductive in its essence. Nadesan explains that biopower is irresistible to people because “its logics, technologies, and experts offer, or at least purport to offer, tools for societal self-government” (Nadesan 6). In this way, governmentality privileges individuals as the autonomous self-regulating agents since they comply with the norms by themselves. In the context of Child of the Continent, individuals, through self-regulation, ferry themselves to Manchuria, and complete the health check in terms of social virtues. However, at the same time, governmentality disciplines, subordinates and marginalizes the Manchurian migrants to the dangerous border. The application of biopolitics mobilizes population in a smoother way than the disciplinary mechanisms. For example, from the poster representation of Manchukuo, we can discern the biopolitical trajectories. The poster does not conceal the disciplinary technique of baojia system (hokō sedo) and constant police surveillance in Manchukuo.5On watching the imposition of discipline on the poster, the countryside Japanese teenagers should have turned down the invitation to Manchukuo. Nevertheless, most teenagers rush back home immediately, and pack for Manchukuo. In fact, through transfiguration, the poster beautifies the political systems and values of life in Manchukuo. The Japanese teenagers are informed not only of the substantial benefits, but also of the stepping stones for being good citizens. While Manchurian settlers live in the “new paradise” glutted with military disciplines which nominally take charge of their safety, they have become the front line for the safety of state. In Child of the Continent, the characters are held to the virtues they dedicate themselves to. The moral conduct, for example, presents a political manipulation on 5 See picture A on page 92, from Toshihiko Kishi’s The Visual Media in Manchuria’s title page - 29 -.

(37) life with the demarcation of what better life is. In order to achieve an ethic and the behavior of a good citizen, Matsumoto’s original father devotes himself to the value of sacrifice, which is pressed by the public conscience. Similarly, Matsumoto’s best friend Yuan dedicates his behavior to certain perfection in terms of the political virtue such as loyalty, without any doubt of his relation with CPC. Consequently, life and politics intricately mingle together, and the governed people develop certain belief which is codified to regulate their behaviors within a biopolitical community. In addition, with the assistance of visual media, the political propagandas glorify a “better life” to pursue, rather than just live, and it is the combination of life and politics that makes the Manchurian migration possible. According to Hanano’s testimony, adventurous teenagers rush to join the Manchurian migration in order to “stride towards an honorable/righteous life” (Hanano 124-25). The popular songs6 structure the value of life as well. The song “You are Youth Brigade Boys,” for example, plays with refrains that “your heart must be righteous; your wills must full of vitality” (Yamada 26-27) for the purpose of cheering up teenagers to live another value of life. The song gives a hint that those who participate in the policy of Manchurian migration carry out righteous, loyal and glorious deeds. Although teenagers believe that they march for an expected form of life chosen by their own, they have become the chesses entering the biopolitical schemes. Driscoll, thus, ruminates on the question of “freedom”: In a lecture Goto (Gotō Shinpei, the politician as well as the director of the South Manchuria Railway) gave in 1916 outlining his “theory of Japanese. 6 The politicians take part in composing popular songs. Tōmiya Kaneo (1982-1937), a lieutenant colonel in the Kwantong Army, endeavors to motivate the migration. According to Louise Young’s Japans’s Total Empire, Kaneo composes one of the popular songs “Modern Girls, Marry to China,” aiming to promote Japanese girls to work at Manchuria. (385-88) Other songs composed by anonymous people such as “Children of Teams for Land-reclamation” and “Flowers Beckoning Spring” prevail in Japan as well. See the related blog and lyrics. Norio, Nakamura. “Nakamura Norio’s Diary.” 3 May. 2010. < http://kengi-nakamura.txt-nifty.com/diary/2010/05/post-dba8-2.html > - 30 -.

(38) expansion,” life shows up not as physiologically vulnerability, but as biopolitically liberated and defiantly desiring. Here, life was not the tentative subject threatened by the various health predicaments of the 1880s (cholera, malnutrition, etc.) but was excessive, always desiring more than what it already had. (Driscoll 33) The “freedom to pursue the desirable life” provides Japanese teenagers a path to escape the conscription law. But such “freedom” becomes another web of capture. The web threads millions of lives together to complete the policy of configuration in Manchuria, and also to fulfill the calculation of population to release the density in Japan. From Driscoll’s perspective, desire marks an unbounded power of expansion far beyond mere static existence, and ensures the circulation of labor. Also, endless desire guarantees the sustenance of production in Manchukuo. Thus, Manchurian migrants have become biopolitical carriers for the purpose of fulfilling not only individual desires but also sovereign decisions. In other words, the Manchurian migrants flow abroad in a route, which initially appears to be self-determined but has already been programmed. Driscoll echoes with Foucault’s idea on the governmentality of population by confirming that one of the tactics of biopolitics is to direct population flows by allowing people to fare for themselves. The regulation of population lets individuals act upon themselves, but simultaneously includes strategies of control and surveillance which have diffused over every domain of their life.. III. The Regulation of Public Health To maintain the circulation of goods, both the control of population and health become imperative.Here, I discuss another agenda of biopolitics: public health. To discuss the regulation of public health, I take the “Healthy Manchuria Policy” as an - 31 -.

(39) example. The gymnastic festivals, related facilities and public health advocacy not only ensure an endless supply of labor, but also imply an expected life. To comb out the correlation between life and politics, we have to consider the “body natural” as well as “body politic.” Body politic, according to Eugene Thacker, is “a way of thinking about politics as a living, vital order” (Thacker 143) and it (body politic) governs and regulates the body natural, which is open to disease and decay. Such governance aims to regulate the epidemic, pestilence and other “diseases” like war, rebellion, and conflicts. To avoid diseases, physical examination, preventive injection, inspection of hygienic condition become indispensible, and should be practiced regularly. Thacker’s concept on body politic corresponds to Foucault’s comments on the management of public health: while the leprosy in the Middle Ages symbolizes the sovereignty’s power to exclude, the smallpox in the seventeenth century marks the new power based on apparatus of security, which does not forbid, but aims to “let things be” and to “regulate the networks, flows, circulations and to calculate probabilities in an effort to effectively intervene” (Thacker 153). The regulation of health, thus, unifies individuals into a coherent political body, and establishes a “natural” relation of control and subordination among the constitution of body. In this way, health becomes a unit of production to sustain a greater whole. The “Healthy Manchuria Policy,” proposed as the branch of national defense system since the inception of Manchukuo, embodies the endless spiral of life and politics. The policy aims to strengthen the “body of state” (kokutai), and at the same time, makes people regulate their own bodies. Prevention serves as the fundamental constituents in the Healthy Manchuria Policy. The Manchurian settlers pay attention to public health and personal hygiene, and this also ensure the national vitality. The policy contains a wide spectrum, and I divide it into facilities, festivals and laws, from which we can see body has become a hybrid biopolitical formation. - 32 -.

與《大地之子》共享血日殘輝： 論滿洲國餘者之生命政治與倫理

與《大地之子》共享血日殘輝：論滿洲國餘者之生命政治與倫理