On the occasion of the anniversary of the start of WW2 in the Pacific, this is as short a commentary on Spielberg's infatuation with the Japanese as I can make.

American and British attitudes towards Japan since its forced opening to the West in the mid-19th century by Commodore Perry have generally been better than that towards most other Asian nations. Japan's receptiveness and adaptation to Western diplomacy, technology and ideas contributed to this favorable perception versus the negative perception towards China, "The Sick Man of Asia." Further, Japan was viewed as an ally of Great Britain and the United States to counter Russian imperialistic adventurism in Asia. Japan's successive victories in the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War at the turn of the century demonstrated her prowess as an Asian nation with a modernized military and were early indicators of her aspirations to empire.

At the ends of the spectrum from Japanophilia to Japanophobia, the pendulum of Western perception swung strongly towards fear and loathing as a result of aggressive Japanese militarism and expansion in China. This reached its climax as the Sino-Japanese War of the 1930s expanded with the direct attacks on the Western colonial powers on December 7-8, 1941. The eventual visits by "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the ultimate expressions of Japanophobia and were well-deserved payback for Japan's actions during WW2. Compared to post-1945 Germany, Japan got off very lightly -- besides a couple nukes, the Far Eastern War Crimes Tribunal were prosecuted less vigorously than those in Germany. The Japanese paid no reparations of any sort, many of the executed war criminals were laid to rest as heroes at the Yasukuni Shrine, and no justice has ever been found for the comfort women outrages, atrocities against the Chinese civilian population, the Rape of Nanking, and the operations of Unit 731 against Allied POWs and Chinese/Asian civilians in Manchuria.

A real worldwide communist threat loomed during the Cold War era that lasted into the 1990s. In many parts of Asia there simmered Maoist revolution, wars of national liberation, and Soviet expansionism. Japan became a necessary base from which the United States could project military deterrence in the region against Mainland China, North Korea, and North Vietnam (The Phillipines also served this purpose). American attitudes towards the Japanese were quite favorable from the 1950's onward as there were other more threatening Asian enemies to demonize.

In the 1980's, the new and modern China of Deng Xiaoping and it's "To Get Rich Is Glorious" four modernizations drive contributed to a persistent American/Western case of Sinophobia as the ideological fanaticism of the Maoist era was replaced by a more pragmatic Chinese communism.

Meanwhile, Spielberg's attitude towards the Japanese is fairly typical of most Americans at the time -- totally charmed by the Japanese who enjoyed their post-world war status with the West. Spielberg's father was also a WW2 U.S. Army Air Force veteran who had served in the CBI (China-Burma-India) theater of operations. Numbers of ordinary Americans, military servicemen and politicians thought little of the Nationalist Chinese regime under Generalissimo "Chancre Cash." (Chiang Kai-Shek) and projected their negative perceptions about the corrupt and incompetent qualities of the ROC/KMT government onto the Chinese people at large (Many years later Americans would hold similar attitudes towards the Republic of Vietnam).

As the hostilities of WW2 faded in the following decades, Westerners were again generally enamored with the Japanese and their post war economic miracle. Business gurus such as Peter Drucker sang the praises of Japanese industriousness and management expertise. But as the Japanese economy reached its apex in the 1980s and its automotive industry achieved dominance in the American and global markets, another swing of the pendulum ensued as Japanese economic success was perceived as a continuation of its world domination objectives. To paraphrase Clausewitz, business is a continuation of war by other means and Japanese world class economic power symbolized the defeat of American industry and business know-how .

Empire of the Sun is a flawed but interesting movie. It is unsatisfactory in various ways and the heavy hand of Spielberg is prominent -- it's obvious Spielberg identifies strongly with Jamie Graham. Ultimately it's a fictionalized and surreal personal story for both the original author and the producer/director. China is merely an exotic location for the drama to take place. The supporting cast of hundreds of PLA and other Chinese civilian extras in the movie were simply there only to portray Imperial Japanese military forces or to stand around as hapless colonial subjects for exploitation by the British Empire; then later to be helpless victims of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere of the Japanese Empire. Jamie Graham/Spielberg can watch the world in chaos with boyish wonderment and think what a great time it is to be young and innocent. Jamie/Spielberg's immaturity and selfishness is extremely evident. He is pre-occupied only with himself. So what if countless others around you (the British adult world and particularly the Chinese people) are actually experiencing greater suffering and dying by the millions. In the end, he is older, sadder (only for himself), and not particularly any wiser -- as he has shifted his hero adulation from the losing Japanese to the ascendant and brash Americans -- a new rising empire that will become the dominant superpower of the immediate post-war world .

The American-Western love/hate relationship with Asia continues. China is the new superpower in the East which both the United States and Japan must reckon with. And in the course of international affairs, it does no good for anyone when because of preconceptions and misperceptions, nations and peoples are either elevated to lofty heights as a result of fetish or demonized to the pits of hell because of fear. But Jamie Graham doesn't know that from his point of reference in the time and place of wartime China as he blindly adores his heroes of the moment.  


Last Edited By: wongsaurus Dec 14 09 5:08 PM. Edited 3 times.