Sonnō jōi

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Sonnō jōi (尊皇攘夷 or 尊王攘夷) is a Japanese political philosophy and a social movement derived from Neo-Confucianism; it became a political slogan in 1850s-60s. It has the meaning "Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians".

The origin of the philosophy can be seen in Takenouchi Shikibu's theory of absolute loyalty to the Emperor (尊皇論 sonnōron), with the implication that less loyalty should be given to the ruling Tokugawa Shogunate. Expelling the barbarians, on the other hand, was a reaction to the Treaty of Kanagawa, which opened Japan to foreign trade in 1853. Under military threat from Commodore Matthew Perry's so-called "black ships", the treaty had been signed under duress and was vehemently opposed in samurai quarters.

The philosophy was adopted as a battle cry of the rebellious provinces of Choshu and Satsuma. The Imperial court in Kyoto unsurprisingly sympathized with the movement and in fact rather ineffectually ordered the Shogunate to sonnō jōi in 1863. Masterless samurai (ronin) rallied to the cause, assassinating Shogunate officials and Westerners, culminating most famously in the murder of the British trader Charles Richardson.

But this turned out to be the zenith of the sonnō jōi movement, since the Western powers responded by demanding heavy reparations and then bombarding the Satsuma capital Kagoshima when these were not forthcoming. While this incident clearly showed that Japan was no match for Western military might, it also served to further weaken the shogunate, permitting the rebel provinces to ally and overthrow it in the Meiji Restoration.

It is worth noting that the slogan itself was never actually government or even rebel policy; for all its rhetoric, Satsuma in particular was a large trading partner who purchased guns, artillery, ships and other technology from the West.

After the symbolic restoration of the Meiji Emperor, the slogan was quietly dropped and replaced with another: fukoku kyōhei (富国強兵), or "rich country, strong military", the rallying call of Japan's wildly successful Meiji Era and the seed of its actions during World War II.

The slogan Sonnō jōi (尊王攘夷 zunwáng rǎngyí) had its origins in China with Lord Huan of Qi, the ruler of the state of Qi in the Spring and Autumn Period. During that time, the Zhou Court lost control to the feudal states and foreign invasion was frequent. Lord Huan of Qi first used the slogan to make rulers of other feudal states respect the Zhou court, although in effect Lord Huan of Qi used it to seize hegemony over other feudal rulers, brushing aside the supremacy of the Zhou court. When this slogan was revived in Japan, it regained its original meaning, that supremacy should be in the hands of the emperor, not the shogun.

Sonnō jōi

See also