The Three Power/Tripartite Pact (1940); the Outbreak of War; Pearl Harbor (1941) - Events and Responses Notes

The Anti-Comintern Pact: Japan, Germany, and the Drive to Isolate the USSR

1. We have seen that the army in Japan was a key actor in its expansion. While they were fighting the Second Sino Japanese war, there were plans to expand further.
   1. With that aim in mind, in 1936 Japan and Germany had signed the Anti Comintern Pact.
   2. In 1937, Italy would join the same pact.
   3. The Anti Comintern Pact was an agreement against the USSR.
      1. It stated that the signatories would conduct mutual consultation on measures against Communist “subversion” and commit not to sign agreements with the USSR.
2. The main aim was geopolitical: Germany and Japan wanted to isolate the USSR.
   1. Germany because Hitler´s plans of expansion needed to avoid the possibility of a two front war.
   2. Japan because they wanted to cement their control over Manchuria, which bordered the Soviets.
3. In August 1939, Hitler and Stalin signed the Nazi Soviet Pact (also called the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact).
   1. Japan felt betrayed by Germany, and withdrew from the Anti Comintern pact.
   2. Japanese foreign policy seemed to become more independent, and they declared that they would create a Great East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, pooling together Asian nations to rid them from “Western influence”.
   3. With this in mind, Japan entered French Indochina (modern-day Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia) in June 1940.
   4. France had been the colonial power that controlled Indochina, but after France fell under Nazi rule, Japan pressured the Vichy Regime to allow Japanese troops into northern French Indochina.

Tripartite Pact

1. In September of 1940, Japan will expand into Indochina and start building bases. In parallel, they signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy.
2. The Tripartite Pact of September 1940 established the the signatories would assist one another with military and economic means if one party was attacked by a country not involved in the European War or in the Sino Japanese conflict.
3. It also established the recognition of spheres of influence in Europe (Germany and Italy) and East Asia (Japan) and Germany renounced its claim to the former colonies it had owned in the Pacific prior to the First World War, which Japan had subsequently acquired.