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Your claim that Japan was not expansionist simply shows a lack of familiarity with Japanese history and archaeology. There used to be Ainu populations even on H
by Mediterraneo10 6y ago
Your claim that Japan was not expansionist simply shows a lack of familiarity with Japanese history and archaeology. There used to be Ainu populations even on Honshu, but the early Japanese (who had to a large degree come over from Korea and begun settling the Japanese isles in spite of an indigenous population there) kept pushing them further and further north until they were all gone; only on Hokkaido could the Ainu survive.
- bsanr2 6y agoComparing the Yamato expansion across Honshu to the European expansion across the Western and Southern Hemispheres is a difference of degree so great as to breach into a difference of quality. I'm sure the Ainu weren't particularly happy about their circumstances, but I figure that China, Korea, the Philippines, and much of Polynesia would beg to differ with the notion that Western influence did not substantially change the expanionist sentiments of "Nippon damashii".