Hostname: page-component-7b9c58cd5d-f9bf7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-15T01:30:57.469Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Lessons from the Great Kantō Earthquake

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

This article shows how security forces in Japan in the early 1960s used studies of the violence and unrest that followed the Great Kantō Earthquake as templates for speculation about the challenges they would face in the aftermath of Tokyo's next disastrous earthquake. Both studies reiterated the ambiguities associated with earlier state-sanctioned descriptions of the circumstances surrounding the massacres of Koreans and others in 1923, while maintaining that the Imperial Japanese Army and the police had done all they could to prevent that violence. The Self-Defense Agency and police analysts responsible for the two new studies concluded that if the capital district were to suffer another earthquake disaster like the one in 1923, then it was quite likely that the spread of misinformation – among other factors – would once again lead to outbreaks of vigilante violence and political instability, leaving the police and the SDF with no choice but to respond as their counterparts had forty years earlier.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2023

References

Hasegawa, K. (2020) The Massacre of Koreans in Yokohama in the Aftermath of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. Monumenta Nipponica, 75, 91122.Google Scholar
Kang Tŏk-sang and Pyŏng-dong, Kŭm (Eds.) (1963) Kantō daishinsai to Chōsenjin Misuzu Shobō, Tokyo.Google Scholar
Kapur, N. (2018) Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kazama, N. (2002) Saigai taisaku kihonhō no seitei: bōsai seisaku netowaku no keisei. Kinki daigaku hōgaku, 50, 182.Google Scholar
keibibu, Keishichō, sōkanbu, Rikujō jieitai tōbu hōmen. (1962) Daishinsai taisaku kenkyū shiryō. Keishichō keibibu, Tokyo.Google Scholar
Magnier, M. (2000) Tokyo Governor Assails Critics, Says Remarks Were Misunderstood. Los Angeles Times, April 13, https://www.proquest.com/docview/421511257?accountid=9758.Google Scholar
Mizuide, K. (2019) ‘Saigo’ no kiokushi: Medeiya ni miru Kantō daishinsai - Isewan taifū. Jinbunshoin, Tokyo.Google Scholar
Murakami, T. (2013) Jieitai no saigai haken no shiteki tenkai. Kokusai anzen hoshō, 41, 1530.Google Scholar
Ōya, S. (1977) Shinsai ni tsuyoi toshi zukuri no mondaiten to kadai. Hōritsu jihō, 49, 204211.Google Scholar
Rikujō bakuryobu dai 3-bu. (1960) Kantō Daishinsai kara eta kyōkun: Kantō Daishinsai ni okeru gun, kan, min no kōdō to kore ga kansatsu. Rikujō Bakuryō Kanbu Dai 3-bu, Tokyo.Google Scholar
Sims, C. (2000) Tokyo Chief Starts New Furor, on Immigrants.” New York Times, April 11, https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/tokyo-chief-starts-new-furor-on-immigrants/docview/91695644/se-2.Google Scholar
Skabelund, A. (2022) Inglorious, Illegal Bastards: Japan's Self-Defense Force during the Cold War. Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, K. (2023) Introduction, Japanfocus special issue on the 100th anniversary of the Great Kantō Earthquake.Google Scholar
Tokyo Shōbōchō. (1961) Tokyo-to no daishinkasai higai no kentō: taisaku ni taisuru shiryō (dai ippō). Tokyo Shōbōchō, Tokyo.Google Scholar
Tolbert, K. (2000) Old Words Can Still Wound in Japan; Governor's Use of WWII Reference to Foreigners Stirs Furor.” The Washington Post, April 13, https://www.proquest.com/docview/408610587?accountid=9758.Google Scholar
Mitsusada, Yoshikawa. (1949) Kantō Daishinsai no chian kaiko. Hōmufu Tokubetsu Shinsakyoku, Tokyo.Google Scholar