｢夏虫の氷」と「杞憂」 : 19世紀前半日本の対外問題
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概要
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What shall we do when we become aware of a grave future crisis? We are not sure whether it may come or not. Even when we perceive that it is sure to come, like a big earth-quake in Tokyo area or a collision with an asteroid, we are uncertain that it will happen during our lives. This was the situation that Japanese intellectuals and government officials faced in the early 19th century. Some of them, such as Prime Minister Sadanobu Matsudaira and Mito scholar Yukoku Fujita, predicted the possibility of a Russian invasion in the future and urged the Japanese to prepare for it. Fujita argued that Western countries had established plans to conquer the whole world, while the Japanese kept neglecting them and laughed at those who warned against the future crisis. Although Sadanobu Matsudaira made efforts to rebuild foreign policy and defense forces, he was ousted from the cabinet by the politicians who thought his anxiety for the future crisis was groundless and harmful. In addition, a small scale confrontation with Russia in Yezo region offered the empirical basis for the argument that the countries on the back of the globe would never send major force to conquer Japan. Thus, the Japanese government promulgated the order that local governments should reject all Western ships by force from their coasts in 1825. However, it was only 14 years after this promulgation that Britain sent big military to Ching China and forced unequal treaties to her. This revealed that the anticipation that had been thought as a mere fantasy surpassed what was considered at the time a rational prediction that was based on the geographical knowledge and historical experiences. This fact shows that human ability to forecast is very limited before a big structural change.
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