Miyamoto Takenosuke
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Miyamoto Takenosuke | |
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| Nationality | Japanese |
| Education | Civil engineering |
| Alma mater | University of Tokyo |
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Miyamoto Takenosuke (宮本武之輔; 1892-1941) was a Japanese engineer, theorist, and technocrat. Miyamoto was an ideological leader in the engineers’ movement which sought to improve the status of Japan’s engineering class and implement technocracy within the Japanese empire. Miyamoto also led the management of technology policy in Japan’s Chinese holdings.
Life and Career
Miyamoto graduated from the University of Tokyo with a degree in civil engineering. Upon graduation, Miyamoto worked in river engineering within Japan. In 1918, Miyamoto established an engineering society called the Kōsei-kai which would become the Engineers’ Club in 1920. The society sought to better the status of Japanese engineers and expand their role in governance. Later in his career, Miyamoto entered the political sphere. In 1933, Miyamoto became the secretary of the newly founded Association for Technology and Economics. The reading group was attached to the Engineers’ Club and sought to increase collaboration between engineers and political representatives.
Following the outbreak of intensified fighting between the Japanese and Chinese forces in mid-1937, Japan established the Cabinet Planning Board in October 1937. The board was filled by reform bureaucrats like Miyamoto who led the economic planning of Japan’s territories in China. In December 1938, the organization became the Asia Development Board. Miyamoto was named the “chief engineer.” The organization helped manage and guide the organization of Japan’s Chinese colonies, focusing on flood control, urban planning, hydropower, hygiene, resource extraction, agriculture, and transportation. In 1941, with Japan’s increasingly violent rule of its Chinese territory, Miyamoto concluded that the goal of a Japanese empire ruled by engineers and technology was still far from being realized. He died suddenly in 1941 from overwork.
Theory
Technocracy
Miyamoto was instrumental in increasing the status of Japanese engineers and their role in governing the Japanese empire. At the turn of the century, engineers had little social status within Japanese society. In the 19th century, engineers were of lower class than other public officials given titles such as “technician” instead of “administrative officer.” Miyamoto’s predecessor, a civil engineer named Naoki Rintarō, published a book 1918 protesting engineers lack of social status and political voice. Miyamoto was influenced by Naki’s speeches on the matter as a young, disgruntled engineering student.
Miyamoto envisioned a role for engineers as leaders. As early as 1915, Miyamto wrote in his diary that one had to first be an engineer to be a manager; those responsible for economic planning needed to first have a serious understanding the technology that would be used to carry out the planning. In the Engineers' Club’s 1920 charter, Miyamoto claimed that “technology should be developed in all areas of society” and that engineers should help govern “human life in its entirety.” Thanks to publicity efforts by Miyamoto’s Engineers' Club and other groups like it, the concept of ‘technocracy’ became popular in Japanese media. Their demands for guidance by engineers grew into demands for rule by engineers.In 1937 Miyamoto helped organize the “Conference of the Engineers of Six Ministries” which attempted to amend the Civil Servants Law to break up the monopoly bureaucrats trained in law had in governing the empire.
Pan-Asianism
As a student at the University of Tokyo, Miyamoto was heavily influence by Pan-Asianist ideology. In 1916, he participated in a tour to Manchuria. In 1905, Manchuria came under Japan’s sphere of influence after Japanese victory in the Russo-Japanese War. During the tour, Miyamoto concluded that China was undeveloped as a result of western imperialism and Japan needed to provide “young China” with organization and technology to construct a “paradise of Japanese-Chinese cooperation.”
In his capacity as chief engineer of the Asia Development Board, Miyamoto frequently traveled to Manchuria. His travelogues mentioned positive attributes of the Chinese remarking on their “zest for life,” “quality of national character,” and work ethic. At the same time, Miyamoto described Chinese with primitive characteristics. He believed Japan was responsible for uplifting the Chinese through what he called “comprehensive technology.” Comprehensive technology included projects like flood control which could alter Chinese geography, mode of production, and society. As Japan’s tactics in fighting the Chinese became increasingly hostile, such as blockading Chongqing, Miyamoto warned military officials against alienating the Chinese and lamented “perhaps Japan does not have the ability to embrace another nation.”
Empire
Japan’s expansion into China promised to fulfill Miyamoto’s goals of technocracy, elevating engineers, and Pan-Asianism. Miyamoto viewed Manchuria as a mecca for engineers. Not only did it serve as a testing ground for new theories of implementing “complete technology,” but it was also viewed as a “lifeline” for the engineering movement. It would provide markets for new large-scale civil engineering projects and supply the raw materials needed for construction. Miyamoto’s Engineers' Club pushed for a role in the long-term planning of the territory and a role at the novel project of “cultural creation” in which engineers would play a key role in social management of the empire’s holdings.
In 1932 Miyamoto published Tasks of Continental Construction. The work drew on Nazi theory surrounding technology and empire and outlined three principles for Japan’s rule of its Chinese holdings: “rapid advancement,” “comprehensiveness,” and “local potential.” The concept of Rapid advancement imagined a dynamic Japanese rule that broke up the monopolistic economic blocs that plagued other empires while “local potential” called for Japan to tailor its technocratic rule to the local conditions of China.
References
External links
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