1930年代の在日フィリピン人留学生と国際関係--日本帝国によるソフト・パワー政策の一断面

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to look into the relationship between international politics and Filipino students who studied in Japan during the 1930s. At that time, the Philippines was in the middle of a conflict between two empires: Japan and the United States. In this context, Japan tried to use Filipino students as a means to improve its soft power in the Philippines. In the first half of the decade, about 30 Filipinos were living mainly in Tokyo, with the majority of them studying at medical schools, in particular The Jikei University School of Medicine, Tokyo, which offered classes in English. But not all Japanese people welcomed Filipinos with many heavily prejudiced against them. In the mid-30s Japan set up new institutions to attract more international students but the number of Filipino students decreased gradually in the late 1930s because the fear of Japanese imperialism had spread in the Philippines. This paper contextualizes these historical developments to show the deep connections between foreign students and the international politics of imperialism adopted by Japan in its attempts to obtain hegemony before the Pacific War.