Canada and Japan in the Twentieth Century

Lawrence T. Woods is an assistant professor of political science at
Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, Quebec.

The editors’ characterization of the relationship between Canada and
Japan aptly describes the presentations within this excellent volume:
“always pragmatic, sometimes uncomfortable, generally cordial but
occasionally hostile.” References to complementarity and co-operation
abound, alongside the themes of ambivalence and asymmetry.

The sobering histories of Japanese immigration and Canadian
policy-making are timely, given the ongoing immigration debate.
Retrospectives on Canadian missionaries and E.H. Norman have a similar
eye-opening effect. The latter, incorporating recent scholarship,
confirms Norman’s contributions as an interlocutor. Biographical
essays on John W. Dafoe, a journalist active in the Institute of Pacific
Relations, and Sir Herbert W. Marler, head of the first Canadian
legation in Japan, highlight the volume’s diplomatic focus. Later, a
study of Canada’s Pacific diplomacy in the 1930s sets the stage for a
discussion of the postwar record that finds scope for greater
collaboration on universal values in the 1990s. In between, another of
the darker and recently debated periods in the relationship, the capture
of Canadian soldiers by the Japanese during the fall of Hong Kong in
December 1941, is examined.

The authors of two detailed reviews of contemporary economic ties that
extend the work of Langdon, Pringsheim, Dobson, Hay, and English assert
that Canada must now increase its links with Japan and move beyond trade
dependence on the United States. This argument troubles John Saywell,
who cautions that Canadian rhetoric about expanding the already
asymmetrical economic relationship with Japan “is little more than a
continuation of our traditional policy of trading away our comparative
advantage.” The problems and prospects outlined in the concluding
surveys of Japanese studies in Canada and Canadian studies in Japan
will, one hopes, be addressed in ways that will enhance mutual
understanding and benefit.

Canada and Japan in the Twentieth Century, which complements and is
complemented by Reluctant Adversaries: Canada and the People’s
Republic of China 1949-1970 (University of Toronto Press, 1991), is a
must for graduate students and scholars of Pacific affairs and of
Canadian foreign policy, who will appreciate the introduction to each
entry, the biographical sketch of each author, and the extensive
documentation.