IB History The Impact of Japanese Nationalism and Militarism on Foreign Policy Questionbank

Source I

Statement by the Japanese delegation to the League of Nations, Geneva, 24 February 1933, announcing Japan's withdrawal from the League.

The Japanese Government has been compelled to conclude that Japan and the other members of the League entertain different views on the manner in which peace can be maintained in the Far East. The Japanese Government believes that the maintenance of peace in East Asia is primarily the responsibility of the nations of East Asia, and that the conditions of the region cannot be properly understood or managed by distant European powers. Japan has acted in Manchuria not out of aggression but out of necessity: to protect the lives and property of its nationals and to preserve order in a region where the Chinese Government has proved incapable of maintaining stability. The report adopted by the Assembly fails to recognise these realities. Japan therefore finds it impossible to accept the report and, with deep regret, must withdraw from the League.

Source J

Western editorial cartoon published in an American newspaper, 1933, showing a Japanese military officer in uniform standing over a map of East Asia, holding a sword in one hand and a banner reading "Greater East Asia" in the other. Small figures representing China and Southeast Asian nations cower beneath. A rising sun flag fills the background.

Source K

Fumimaro Konoe, Prime Minister of Japan, statement announcing the "New Order in East Asia," 3 November 1938.

What Japan seeks is the establishment of a new order which will ensure the permanent stability of East Asia. This is the aim not only of the present hostilities in China but of Japan's entire foreign policy. The new order means a tripartite relationship of mutual aid and co-ordination between Japan, Manchukuo and China. Japan does not seek territorial aggrandisement. She seeks the overthrow of the old order based on Anglo-American exploitation of the peoples of East Asia and its replacement with a new order founded on co-prosperity and mutual respect. Japan is prepared to work with any Chinese government that shares this vision and abandons the policies of dependence on foreign powers.

Source L

Historian Rana Mitter, Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937-1945, published 2013.

Japanese foreign policy in the 1930s was shaped by a potent combination of militarism, economic anxiety, and racial ideology. The military, and particularly the Kwantung Army, operated with increasing independence from civilian government, pursuing expansionist policies in Manchuria and China that the politicians in Tokyo could neither authorise nor prevent. The language of "co-prosperity" and "new order" masked a programme of imperial conquest driven by the belief that Japan had a divinely ordained mission to lead Asia. The economic dimension was equally important: Japan lacked the raw materials (oil, rubber, iron) necessary to sustain its industrial economy and saw control of China and Southeast Asia as the solution. The tragedy was that Japanese nationalism, which had begun as a defensive response to Western imperialism in the nineteenth century, had by the 1930s become an instrument of imperial aggression indistinguishable from the Western colonialism it claimed to oppose.

Source I

Sadao Araki, Japanese Minister of War, speech to the Imperial Diet, February 1934.

Japan's mission in East Asia is clear. We are the stabilising force in a region threatened by communist subversion from the north and Western exploitation from the south. The army is the backbone of the nation. Without a strong military, Japan cannot fulfil its destiny. The politicians talk of economy and diplomacy, but it is the soldier who builds the empire. The resources of Manchuria are essential to Japan's survival as a great power. Without iron, coal and food from the continent, Japan will be strangled by its dependence on hostile foreign markets. The nation must be mobilised, its people united, its youth prepared. Japan's future lies not in the committee rooms of Geneva but on the plains of Asia.

Source J

Western editorial cartoon published in a British newspaper, 1936, showing a Japanese military figure pushing aside a civilian politician in a suit. The military figure holds a scroll reading "National Defence" while the civilian holds a torn document reading "Democracy." In the background, factory smokestacks and warships are visible.

Source K

Yosuke Matsuoka, Japanese Foreign Minister, radio broadcast justifying the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy, 27 September 1940.

The Tripartite Pact is not an act of aggression. It is a defensive alliance designed to prevent the spread of the present European conflict to East Asia. Japan, Germany and Italy share a common vision: a new world order in which the nations of each region manage their own affairs free from the interference of outside powers. The Pact is directed against no specific nation. But Japan wishes to make clear that any nation which attempts to obstruct the establishment of the New Order in East Asia or in Europe will find the three signatory powers united in their response. Japan seeks peace, but it will not be denied its rightful place among the great powers of the world.