NOTES: Countdown to the War in Asia 1931-1941

Task 1 - Japan 1918-1930 

1. What was Japan position in 1918? 

China's steady disintegration during the 19th century caused alarm in Japan. There was a real possibility that the western powers, particularly Russia, might try to take advantage of China's plight by gaining political as well as economic control over East Asia. At the same time, however, Chinas decline also provided Japan with the opportunity to extend its own influence in the area. As a relatively small country with a rapidly expanding population, Japan could see a major advantages in gaining more territory. It was this mixture of fear and ambition that led Japan into wars with China (1894-1895) and Russia (1904-1905). The same motives had inspired Japans conquest of Maiwan (1894). South Manchuria (1905) and Korea (1910).

Japanese expansion in East Asia was of grave concern to the Western powers, which were keen to protect and extend their own trading activities in the region. The USA in particular saw Japan as a threat to its 'open door' policy of trading activities in China. Any further ambitions Japan might have had in the region were therefore kept in check by the west. This situation was fundamentally changed by the First World War, which provided Japan with unique opportunity to expand its power and influence in the far east. 

2. What Was Agreed at the Washington Naval Conference 1921-1922? 

Japan emerged from the First World War in a very strong position. It was now a wealthy nation with an efficient, modern industrial sector, a powerful navy and increased influence over China. The USA was deeply concerned by the rapid growth in the Japanese navy and, for a time, a naval arms race between the two countries seemed likely. To address concern, the Washington Naval Conference took place in 1921-1922. This led to a series of agreements:

• The Japanese navy would be limited to three-fifths the size of the US and British fleets.
• A four Power Treaty was signed by Britain, the USA, France and Japan, by which each country agreed to respect the others rights in the pacific and far east. This treaty formally ended the 1902 alliance between Britain and Japan. Britain had become increasingly embarrassed by this friendship, especially since the reason for it (naval rivalry with Germany) no longer existed. 
• A Nine Power Treaty guaranteed protection for China against invasion and agreed to uphold the 'open-door' policy. This agreement was made between Britain, the USA, France and Japan and some smaller countries that had interests in the far east, including the Netherlands. 

Before the Washington Conference, Japan has followed a policy of expansionism in the far east. Historians disagree about the reasons why Japan was prepared to abandon this policy and accept the international agreements reached in Washington. Some claimed that, confronted by the combined power of Britain and the USA, the Japanese realised that they had little choice but to reach an agreement. In particular, there were simply no way Japan could win  a naval arms race against the USA. However, the opposing view is that rather than being forced into it, Japan reached agreement because it genuinely wanted to. Many Japanese politicians, such as Kijuro Shidehara, realised that such multinational co-operation would not only guarantee Japans security but also enable it to continue its economic expansion in China. 

Japan seemed to be changing in other ways, too. It began to adopt a more democratic system of government and, in 1925, all adult males were given the right to vote. New politicians parties, more concerned with domestic reform than pursuing a militaristic foreign policy, were beginning to emerge. However, just as in Italy, Germany and Spain, problems began to emerge during the 1920s and early 1930s - problems that democratically elected governments seemed incapable of overcoming. 

3. Why was the Democracy in Japan short lived? 

As dispute raged both between and within politics parties, military leaders grew increasingly powerful. Secret military groups were organised, such as the Sakurakai (Cherry Blossom Society), established in 1930. Their aim was to end party politics and restore the emperor as the end of state in a military dictatorship. Concerned that politicians were diving rather than uniting their country, many people in Japan grey increasingly supportive of the aims of such groups. By the early 1930s, Japans flirtation with democracy was coming to an end for a variety of reasons:

• The constitution that created an elected diet that only had been adopted in 1889, prior to which the emperor had supreme power in Japan. The idea of democracy was thus still relatively new to the Japanese people. Moreover, the emperor had the authority to dissolve the Diet at any time.
• The Japanese peoples respect in parliamentary democracy declined very quickly when it became evident that many politicians were corrupt and open to bribery. 
• The agreements that Japan signed as a result of the Washington Naval Conference were not popular. Most Japanese citizens were strongly nationalistic and held anti-western views that did not fit well with their governments willingness to co-operate with the USA and the major European nations. 
• Army and navy leaders felt that the Japanese government was being too 'soft' on China, and that Chinas weakness should be exploited to allow for Japanese expansion.
• The economic boom Japan experienced as a result of the first World War had ended in 1921. By this time, European industry had revived and was beginning to recover lost markets. Unemployment began to rise in the industrial cities of Japan. At the same time, farmers were hit by falling prices. Attempts by industrial workers and farmers to form political organisations were systematically suppressed by the government. 
• Japan was particularly badly hit by the world economic crisis that followed the Wall Street Crash. Japanese exports dropped alarmingly, leading to further unemployment As poverty spread across much of their country, most Japanese people blamed the government for their misfortunes. 

Task 2 - The Manchurian Crisis 

Arguably, the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in 1931 was a continuations of policies followed by Japanese governments since the defeat of Russia in 1905 when Japan had been awarded the lease of the South Manchurian Railway and the right to protect it with some 15,000 troops. In the late 1920s these concessions were threatened by the turmoil caused by the Chinese Civil War, which broke outing 1927 and was fought between the Nationalists and Communists.

1. Why did the Japanese occupy Manchuria?

The failure of the Japanese government to deal with the impact of the Depression on the economy convinced the Japanese officer corps that it would have to act decisively and occupy the whole of Manchuria. This would then enable Japan to control the regions valuable coal and iron resourced at a time when economic nationalism was already making it difficult for it to purchase these vital raw materials elsewhere. Consequently, Japanese officers in Manchuria decided to devise an incident which would provide the pretext for intervention. On September 18th 1931 a bomb exploded on the railway line just outside Mukden where both Chinese and Japanese troops were stationed. This was immediately blamed on the Chinese and provided the Japanese forces with the desired excuse to occupy not only Mukden but the whole of southern Manchuria. 

2. What was the league of nations initial response to the occupation on Manchuria's by Japan?

China immediately appealed to the League of Nations, but the council responded cautiously. It first asked Japan to withdraw its troops back into the railway zone and, when this was ignored, sent to commission of inquiry under the chairmanship of Lord Lytton. The Japanese were able to co,plate the occupation of Manchuria and turned it into a satellite state if Manchukuo while the Lytton commission was conducting a leisurely fact-finding operations in the spring of 1932. 

3. Why were both Britain and the USA not ready to use force for the Manchuria crisis?

It is easy to critic the League for not acting more decisively, but without the commitment of the Great Powers it was not in the position to take effective action. Neither of the two most important naval powers, Britain and the USA, was ready to use force against Japan. From the Japanese point of view, the timing of the Mukden incident could not have been better. On September 15th a minor mutiny at the naval base at Invergorden, which was caused by a cut in the sailors wages, threatened temporarily to paralyse the royal navy; and five days later Britain was forced off the gold standard. The USA, shell-shocked by the depression, was unwilling to do more than denounce Japanese aggression. President Hoover, for instance, argued that economic sanctions would be like 'sticking pins in tigers' and would run the risk of leading to war.

It is sometimes argued that the British government and powerful financial interests in the city of London secretly supported Japan. It is true that Britain did have some sympathy with Japanese actions in Manchuria. Like Japan it had commercial interests in China, which it felt were threatened by the chaos and civil war there. Britain also appreciated Japans potential role in providing  a barrie against the spread of Bolshevism from the USSR into northern China. Nevertheless, the real reasons why Britain was not ready to urge more decisive action against Japan was that neither the government nor the people desired to fight a war on an issue that was not central to British interests.

4. What were the recommendations of the Lytton report?
In September 1932 the League received the Lytton Commissions report. It conceded that the treaty rights, that Japan had enjoyed in Manchuria since 1905, had made Sino-Japanese friction unavoidable, it nevertheless observed that 'without a declaration of war a large area of what was indisputably Chinese territory had been forcibly seized and occupied by the armed forces of Japan and has in consequence of this operation been separated from and declared independent from the rest of China'. It proposed that Japanese troops should withdraw back into the railway zone, then both China and Japan should negotiate a treaty guaranteeing Japan's right in Manchuria and a non-aggression pact and a trade agreement.
The report was mistakenly based on the assumption that Japan had no territorial designs in China and were ready to compromise over Manchuria. It was adopted unanimously, with the exception of Japan, by the League Assembly on 24 February 1933. Japan withdrew from the League in protest. It was clear that only armed intervention by the Great Powers would be able to force Japan out of Manchuria, and that option was not politically realistic in 1933.

5. What were the consequences of the Japanese occupation of Manchuria?
The Japanese occupation of Manchuria changed the balance of power in the Pacific. Japan had broken free from the restraints that had been put on it at the Washington Conference in 1922 by Britain and the USA and had guaranteed it access to valuable coal and iron ore resources. Above all, Japan was now in a favourable strategic position to plan a large-scale military invasion of China. The Manchuria incident is often seen as the first link in the chain of events that led to WW2.

Task 3 - Continued expansion and the Sino-Japanese War

1.  What were the implications of military dictatorship in Japan? 
In July 1937, the growing tension between China and Japan reached a climax when an incident at the Marco Polo Bridge near Peking led to a full-scale Japanese invasion of China.
Under the Boxer Protocol of 1901, Japan and other countries had been allowed to station troops near Peking to guard important railway lines and other communications systems. On 7 July 1937, a Japanese training exercise was mistaken for genuine military action by Chinese troops and the Chinese fired on the Japanese. China immediately issued an apology but Japan declared war. The Sino-Japanese War lasted until 1945. Renewed unity between Chiang's KMT and Mao's CCP, assisted by military aid from the USSR, provided much sterner resistance than the Japanese expected.

2. What impact did the Sino-Japanese War have on Britain, France and the USA? 
Britain and the US were concerned about Japanese aggression and both considered imposing economic sanctions on Japan. However with Britain heavily involved in fighting its own war against Nazi Germany, and the USA pursuing its isolationist policy, there was no prospect of China receiving any direct any direct help from the West. Japan's military leaders why divided on what action to take. Most of them believed that the outbreak of WW2 in Europe offered an opportunity similar to that which Japan had successfully exploited between 1914 and 1918. They argued that Japan should continue its aggressive policy and seize Dutch, British and French possessions in the far east. Success against Indochina, Thailand, Burma, Malaya and the Dutch East Indies would provide Japan with a new source of tin, oil and rubber. However others argued a more cautious approach, as they were concerned about a possible attack by the USSR, and therefore felt that it was more important to safeguard against this than to embark on further military engagements. This dilemma ended in June 1941 when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, ending the threat of Russia on Japan, and a new PM, General Hideki Tojo, was appointed.

3. What did Japan gain from the Anti-Comintern Pact?
While the Far Eastern war increased the pressure on Britain and France, it did not automatically follow that Japan, Italy and Germany would find it easy to form a common front against the democracies. In December 1936, Germany and Japan had signed the Anti-Comintern Pact. Its value for Japan was that it could be seen as a counter-thrust to increasing Soviet penetration of Mongolia and to the activities of the Comintern in China. Tokyo could signal to Moscow that it was no longer isolated.
A year later Italy joined the Pact. Again, the advantage for Japan was that it was associated with the Axis powers in a vague and symbolic pact that was primarily anti-communist, but which potentially could also be directed against the Western Powers as well.

Task 4 - The Road to Pearl Harbor 1940-41

1. Why did US-Japanese relations deteriorate in 1940-41? 
With Germany having established a self-sufficient siege economy in Europe, it became even more important for the US to stop Japan from doing the same in Asia. Washington responded to each fresh extension of Japanese power by building up its naval forces in the Pacific and restricting the exports of potential war materials to Japan, which in turn intensified the Japanese drive for economic self-sufficiency.
There were ambiguous signals coming out of Tokyo to encourage the US State Department sometimes to believe that if sufficient economic were applied, Japan would be forced to pull out of China and the influence of the army would be discredited on its government.
In June 1940 Hitler's victories strengthened the hand of the hawks in Tokyo who advocated the occupation of the European colonies in South-east Asia. A relatively moderate government, which wished to avoid confrontation with the US, was replaced by a more anti-western regime under Fumimaro Konoe, which aimed to create a Japanese-dominated Asia. Washington responded by suspending exports of aviation fuel and lubrication oil. Japan tried to negotiate a Four-Power pact with the Axis states and the USSR. They succeeded with Germany and Italy in September and they signed a 5 year treaty of neutrality with Stalin the following Spring. But the German invasion of Russia in June 1941 terminated any prospect of a grand four-power alliance against Britain and the US. Thus the US and Japan remained on a collision course.

2. Why did the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor in December 1941? 
With the denial of US oil imports Japan had to either reach a diplomatic settlement with the US or continue seizing raw materials from Southeast Asia, including oil from the Dutch East Indies. They chose to do both by pursuing diplomatic negotiations with the US whilst simultaneously preparing his armed forces for war.
On November 26 1941 Roosevelt demanded that Japan cease its military build up in the Pacific, causing Tojo to break off diplomatic relations with the USA. By then, a fleet of Japanese ships were 3 weeks into their journey towards the US naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Aboard were 6 aircraft carriers with 453 Japanese fighter planes armed with bombs and torpedoes, protected by 2 battleships, 2 cruisers and 50 other vessels. Their aim was to destroy the US Pacific fleet. On Sunday 7 December 1941, Japanese ships arrived undetected by US patrol or radar, and sent in their first wave of 183 aircraft. By 1.30 p.m, the US had lost 2402 men and 8 ships were seriously damaged.
This event ended the US obsession with isolationism as it could no longer claim that events in the wider world did not effect it. WW2 was clearly no longer a European affair. Roosevelt had long argued for US involvement in the Second World War, which at the time had been extremely unpopular, but now the American public called for revenge.
With Japan as an ally Hitler believed Germany would be invincible and consequently declared war on the USA.
In the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, Japan's success had been secured by the destruction of the Russian fleet in Port Arthur. They believed that Pearl Harbor would similarly weaken the US by undermining their ability to fight a naval war in the Pacific. However it failed in its key objective as a number of US ships, including 3 aircraft carriers, were at sea at the time of the attack and escaped undamaged. They Japanese also failed to destroy large supplies of oil which would prove vital in supplying the US war effort. Japan's attempt to increase its power and influence in the Far East eventually brought destruction upon itself as they had made an enemy with one of the most powerful countries on earth.