Japanese Advance Into the Pacific Ocean: The Albatross and the Great Bird Rush

ISBN-13: 9789811353307 / Angielski / Miękka / 2019 / 151 str.

Akitoshi Hiraoka

Spis treści

Introduction – Catalyst and Approach

1 The Albatross and the Territorial Expansion of the Japanese Empire

1.1  In Pursuit of the Albatross: Purpose of Advance into the South Sea

1.2  Transition from Marcus Island to Minami-Torishima (South Bird Island) 

1.3  The Albatross and the Senkaku Islands                        

1.4  Discovery and Colonization of Phantom Island

2 From the Decrease of Bird Resources to the Advance into Uninhabited Islands

2.1  Export Expansion of Plumage and Mounted Birds

2.2  Vicissitudes of Continuous Lease Difficulties of Torishima (Bird Island) and Sales of Government Property

2.3  Large Eruption of Torishima and Han-emon Tamaoki

2.4  From the Albatross Decrease to Search for New Islands

2.5  Han-emon Tamaoki's Advance into Minami-Daito Island: From the Albatross to Sugarcane

3 The "Bird Rush" and Japanese Advance into the Pacific Ocean

3.1  The "Guano Rush" and "Bird Rush": U.S. and Japan Advance into the Pacific Ocean

3.2  Lease of the Midway Islands and the Sovereignty Issue

3.3  Bird-Poaching Incident in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands ca. 1904

3.4  The "Bird Rush": Bird Poaching Structure and Tragedy

4 From Advance into Islands in the South Sea to Invasion: From the Albatross to Guano/Phosphate Ore Mining.

4.1  Japanese Advance into Uninhabited Islands North of the Islands of Taiwan

4.2  Territorial Delimitation of Rasa Island and the Phosphate Ore Mining Industry

4.3  Japanese Advance in Pratas Island and the Nishizawa Island Incident

4.4  Military Advance into Angaur Island, Palau, and the Race to Obtain Phosphate Ore

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Conclusion

O autorze

Akitoshi Hiraoka is professor emeritus of Shimonoseki City University, Japan. He has been interested in the people and life on Japanese islands and those once controlled by Japan for many years. He has conducted research on these subjects that is presented in the many books he has published. In 2004, he established a study group engaged in research of “remote island regions”. As the organizer of the group, he has carried out extensive research into human geography. Professor Hiraoka has been a member of the Association of Japanese Geographers, the Human Geographical Society of Japan, the Association of Historical Geographers in Japan, and the Japan Association on Geographical Space for many years.

Blurb

This book asserts that the albatross was the reason for the advance of the Japanese into the isolated islands in the Pacific after the abolition of the Japanese “closed-door” policy that had been in effect from the seventeenth century to the latter part of the nineteenth century. The birds’ plumage was of high quality and sold at quite a good price in Europe. The Japanese realized the advantage of this global trade, and their desire to capture albatross motivated them to advance into the Pacific. The exploration of the uninhabited islands had become a fast-moving trend, defined by the author as the  “Bird Rush”. As a consequence, the advance into the Pacific by the Japanese resulted in the expansion of Japanese territory. The author has interpreted this Japanese movement into the Pacific by making use of the framework of three distinct shifts: in the aim of their actions from birds to guano / phosphate ore, in the agents of action from individual speculators to commercial capital and then to monopolistic capital, and from the sea near Japan to the wider Pacific. This concept can be termed “a view of history centered on the albatross”.