COMPLETION REPORTTranslating War and Asianism: A Translation Project Towards a Better Understanding of Wartime
Japanese Intellectuals Dispatched to the Philippines During the Second World War
Dr. Gonzalo II Abreu Campoamor
Director/Assistant Professor
Research Dissemination and Utilization Office,
University of the Philippines
Wartime Japanese intellectuals like Miki Kiyoshi, as well as prominent writers like Kon Hidemi, played a hugepart not only in the formation of Japanese wartime propaganda, but more so, in the understanding of what it meant for a countryto join the war and for a people to be Asian. In the same reason as commercial advertisers were commissioned by the Japanese
government to perform the various legworks of propaganda production, intellectuals and writers were mobilized to fill-up what
would have been an intellectual void if not for their presence. Intellectuals, graduates and professors of prestigious universities
home and abroad, as well as accomplished writers popular among their countrymen, maintained the respectable role oftraditional thinkers in the Japanese society and at the same time became the intellectual life-line of a society that was only
starting to understand, resist, and accommodate the various streams of thought within the country and those originating
overseas. Their works were to be utilized by the imperial army as ideological foundation of the war. Some were also to be
mobilized actively in pre-Pacific War think tank organizations, and during the war, as members of a number of militarypropaganda units dispatched to occupied territories, tasked with providing a reportage of the war and at the same time, sustain its
ideological basis. Japan’s eventual loss also meant that these wartime reportage and philosophical writings about the war willmore likely be less translated into another language and much less studied by potential historians and other social scientists
outside Japan. Composed on more than 45,000 words, my translations and translation notes of 15 of Miki Kiyoshi’s essays on
the war and reportage on the Philippines, a number of letters written by him, and an essay by Kon Hidemi on Miki can beconsidered as symbolic resurfacing and hopefully prelusion of other translations and fresh new studies on notable Japanese
thinkers and writers of the early 20th century (notably those who were dispatched to the country like Rōyama Masamichi, Kon
Hidemi, Hino Ashihei, Ishizaka Yōjirō, Ozaki Shirō, Shibata Kenjirō, Ueda Hiroshi, Sawamura Tsutomu) who helped define
the wartime Philippines and the postwar Japan, Asia, and Asianity.
Attributing mainly to the “old-style” system of writing (that existed before the major reforms in Japan’s educational
system and before the simplification of the ‘seiji’ traditional Chinese characters through the ‘shinjitai’ new character forms),
translation of these wartime texts proved to be very difficult. Also, although a portion of one of Miki Kiyoshi’s essays wastranslated into Tagalog in 1942, this prior translation is inconsistent with Miki’s ideas and therefore was not used in mytranslation work. The rest of my translated materials have no other existing translations in both English and Tagalog. Despite thechallenges, I am happy to report that the pioneering work was successfully accomplished with the help of the Sumitomo
Foundation.

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Publication of the Results of Research Project:
Verbal Presentation (Date, Venue, Name of Conference, Title of Presentation, Presenter, etc.)
1. Gonzalo Campoamor II, “Pan-Asianism and Miki Kiyoshi’s Idea of Oriental Nothingness,” a presentation at theOccupation and Liberation: An International Conference on the Pacific War in the Philippines, 4 September 2015,
GT-Toyota Asian Cultural Center, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City

2. Gonzalo Campoamor II, “Miki Kiyoshi’s Idea of the Filipino Oriental,” a presentation at the research
conference Developing International Research and Education Program on the Asia-Pacific War History:
Comparison and Synthesis, 26 March 2016, Graduate School of Social Sciences, Hitotsubashi University,Tokyo
Thesis (Name of Journal and its Date, Title and Author of Thesis, etc.)
A product essay of the translation project was already submitted to and accepted by the editors of the AsianStudies Journal. Tentative title of the essay is “Miki Kiyoshi’s idea of the Asian and Filipino Oriental.”
Book (Publisher and Date of the Book, Title and Author of the Book, etc.)
It is possible to have the whole translation of essays be published as a book.

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