Honda Toshiaki

Japanese political economist and scholar

• Born: 1744
• Birthplace: Echigo Province (now Murakami, Nigata Prefecture), Japan
• Died: 1821 or 1822
• Place of death: Edo (now Tokyo), Japan

Honda advocated policies to modernize and strengthen Japan at a time when foreign encroachment was a national concern. He taught practical skills such as mathematics, mapmaking, and navigation to cadres of elite students who became leaders in the nation’s development. His writings helped set the course for modernization, and he helped establish the idea that Japan was a nation of the world rather than an isolated feudal land.

Early Life

Eighteenth century Japanese intellectuals became increasingly concerned over foreign incursions, as well as over internal corruption and disorder because of the gradually deteriorating capabilities of the Tokugawa shogunate. Neo-Confucian scholars had advocated national reforms under the slogan keisei-saimin (political economy coming to the aid of the people), but their plans were never implemented. A new generation of keiseika (political economists), led by Honda Toshiaki (hohn-dah toh-shee-ah-kee), set out to implement national reforms and strengthen national defense.

At the age of eighteen, Honda had come to Edo to study mathematics and astronomy, but he had learned also about recent developments in Western science and technology as well as European history and geography from reading classical Chinese translations of European books. This knowledge of the West led him to enter the field of Rangaku (Dutch studies), through which Japanese students became specialists in various areas of European science, technology, and general education.

Honda lived at a time when Western ships had attempted to land in Japan during the eighteenth century. Sometimes they were repelled, and sometimes they were allowed to land briefly if they were in distress, but their reception was largely determined by the strength of the local authorities. In areas where there was little or no coastal defense, some landings of foreign crewmen ended in brawls or skirmishes.

Russian explorers and traders were moving southward by land and sea from Sakhalin, and in 1792-1793 a Russian naval vessel visited several northern Japanese ports in an abortive attempt to conclude agreements with the shogunate. Armed Russian landing parties were met by local feudal forces and regional shogunate officials. The negotiations ended in standoffs, however, because the Russians had insufficient strength to enforce their requests, while the local Japanese forces were not strong enough to force the Russians to leave.

Life’s Work

In 1766, not long after he had completed his own basic studies, Honda opened his own school in Edo, where he taught mathematics and astronomy. Using his background in these two disciplines, he also learned and then taught the principles of Western navigation. He then developed his own program for the modernization of Japan. Honda was unlike the political economists in the tradition of Ogyū Sorai, who thought more in terms of coordinating the activities of the various feudal domains so the shogunate could more effectively run the country and who favored increased internal trade among different regions of Japan. Honda, instead, advocated an outward-looking policy and the development of foreign trade.

Though he was opposed to and alarmed by possible foreign encroachments into Japanese territory, Honda did not favor continuing the old policies of trying to lock out all foreigners. He began traveling through the areas in the far north of Japan, where Japanese and Russian interests faced one another, to find out for himself exactly what the situation was. He lobbied for the shogunate to hire specialists on these northern areas, and in 1786 his student Mogami Tokunai (1755-1836) was given a position to explore and map the northern territories using the technical training in navigation and mapmaking that he had received at Honda’s school. In 1798, the shogunate annexed northern territory inhabited by the Ainu, and Mogami went on to become a shogunate expert, advising the shogun and holding administrative positions supervising the northern territories.

Honda was greatly concerned about the Tenmei Famine, which peaked in 1786, and he traveled around northern Honshu to observe the situation. He used the famine problems in the north, combined with the threats of Russian encroachment, to argue for a policy of Japanese expansion from northern Honshu into Hokkaido and the development of trade and commerce in the northern territories. He believed that improvements in the standard of living in that area, as well as in the rest of Japan, combined with advances in navigation and foreign trade, would strengthen Japan enough internally so that it would be in a better position to withstand external pressure from foreign powers as well. In addition to favoring stronger coastal defense, Honda advocated the widespread, nonmilitary use of explosives to open roads and facilitate national public works efforts.

In 1798, Honda wrote the two-volume Keisei hisaku (confidential strategies for use in political economy), a detailed program for national reform and progress. In this work and others like it that followed, Honda reflected on the practical experience he gained from his travels and studies and came up with a series of recommendations to improve conditions in Japan. In addition to calling for more public works, facilitated by modern explosives, Honda wanted the shogunate to develop a national mining effort—using Western methods—to extract metals, coal, and other resources essential for the development of modern national industry. He felt that the country should develop a modern shipbuilding industry and a merchant marine establishment that could carry on foreign trade on its own, rather than relying on European traders. He also promoted the development of national coastal defense, combined with the exploring of so-far-undeveloped territories that were part of or closely adjacent to Japan, with a view to national expansion and colonization.

Honda also advocated the establishment of a centralized national educational system, with an institution of higher learning to supervise the system and to train capable teachers and technical specialists. He felt that talented people should be educated and given key posts, regardless of class origins. Honda also proposed that Chinese-based cultural institutions should be replaced by modern Japanese ones, ones based on European models. He even suggested that the writing system based on the mastery of thousands of Chinese characters should be scrapped, to be replaced by a simple phonetic writing system that would allow greater numbers of people to master new knowledge and technology more rapidly and efficiently.

Significance

Honda Toshiaki helped develop the concept of the private intellectual as one who promotes national progress and the bettering of society. Until Honda’s time, most Japanese thinkers had relied on the backing and patronage of the shogunate or of individual feudal lords. Honda’s leading predecessor in the realm of political economy, Ogyū Sorai, had become a private scholar late in life only because his former official patrons had lost power and died. Honda worked in the employ of the lord of the Kaga domain only briefly before he resigned.

The idea of a private intellectual who proposed change for the good of the nation as a whole, without attempting to cater to those in power, and yet could win the respect of national leaders, became a model for later modernizers to follow. Virtually all of Honda’s ideas and proposals, apart from language reform, became realities two generations after his death.

Honda’s greatest merit may have been that he foresaw the sorts of difficulties Japan would have after the country was forcibly opened to Western trade by Commodore Perry in 1853. Honda already had developed most of the plans for modernization that would be used to successfully cope with the West, and he did so a generation before Perry. Though many of his recommendations were not followed by the shogunate during his own lifetime, he is respected in Japanese history as the first to have the discernment and courage to warn of future problems for Japan, and he came up with the solutions that actually were used and the solutions that worked in the late Tokugawa and the Meiji eras.

Bibliography

Jansen, Marius. The Making of Modern Japan. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002. A standard text on the subject by a recognized authority on Japanese history.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗, ed. Japan in Transition: From Tokugawa to Meiji. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990. A definitive scholarly work on Japanese modernization.

Keene, Donald. The Japanese Discovery of Europe, 1720-1830. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1969. This special study was the first to acquaint Western readers with Honda’s career and the importance of his role in the modernization of Japan. Includes helpful notes and a bibliography for those who wish to further explore Honda’s life and work.

Kracht, Klaus, ed. Japanese Thought in the Tokugawa Era: A Bibliography of Western-Language Materials. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 2000. An important reference for further independent research on Tokugawa thought, using sources in English and other Western languages.

Najita, Tetsuo, trans. and ed. Readings in Tokugawa Thought. Chicago: Center for East Asian Studies, University of Chicago, 1993. A standard collection of key texts reflecting Tokugawa intellectual life, compiled by a Japanese expert, using original sources.

Nakamura, Takafusa, and Oda Konosuke. The Economic History of Modern Japan, 1600-1900. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. An updated, authoritative work on Japanese economic history, from the perspective of scholars in twenty-first century Japan.

Yoda, Yoshi’ie. Foundations of Japan’s Modernization: A Comparison with China’s Path Towards Modernization. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill Academic, 1995. This study provides useful complementary analyses of Chinese and Japanese modernization.