“Jonah in the Belly of the Whale”: Ramón Muñiz Lavalle Between Two Empires

From the Manchurian War to the Asia-Pacific Global Conflict

Abstract

This article analyzes the intellectual, political, and personal trajectory of the Argentine journalist and diplomat Ramón Muñiz Lavalle (1911–1969) based on his experiences in East Asia between 1931 and 1945, within the context of the rise of Japanese imperialism and the Asia-Pacific War. It reconstructs the journey of a Latin American witness situated between two empires—the Japanese and the American—and highlights the exceptional nature of his South American perspective on Asia. The work focuses on Muñiz Lavalle's major books: Japan Before the World (1933) and The Far East in Revolution (1935); it underscores his effort to de-Westernize the interpretation of Asia and formulate an anti-colonial discourse, while also pointing out the contradictions of this stance. The author demonstrates how Muñiz Lavalle paradoxically reproduces classic colonial rhetoric by justifying Japanese intervention in the name of “order” and “progress.”