War and compassion: the plight of war orphans in East Asia, 1867-1945 and beyond

Abstract

War and peace are the two incompatible notions. War and compassion are not: war often calls for human compassion to save not only friends but also enemies. As the technology of war has advanced since the nineteenth century, the targets of compassion in the form of philanthropy, social work, and humanitarianism have also expanded to include soldiers, civilians, and children. In this article, I explore the link between war and compassion in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by focusing on the plight of Japanese war orphans in Japan and Chinese war orphans in China. These sixty-seven Chinese war orphans were brought to Japan in 1939 by a member of the Japanese Imperial army stationed in occupied China. The founders of orphanages in Japan argued that war incited their compassion to save the young victims of war. Yet they were also forced to work under the watchful eyes of the State. How did Japan's power structures, which created misery in both Japan and China, change over time? How did the Japanese social structures, which tried to help alleviate misery among children, change? My goal is to relate these questions to each other for further understanding the link between war and compassion between 1867 and 1945 and in the early postwar era.