Japanese expansion in East Asia - Events and Responses Questionbank

Source A

An extract from a memoir, written in 1931, by Ubukata Toshiro, a journalist-novelist, who was a teenager at the start of the Sino-Japanese War.

... Everybody agreed that it would be very difficult to capture Pyongyang, since the city held huge British cannons. However, in August, the Japanese army overpowered Pyongyang with so little effort that it almost was disappointing - and the Japanese people were enraptured. My home town had no telephone system back then. News of victories came to the police before the newspaper received it, thanks to a telegraph line between the post office and police station. All news was put upon the message board in front of the police station, and we children ran to check it several times a day. The excitement of the Japanese people was beyond imagination. After all, C hina was thirty times as big as Japan, and its population was over 200 million, compared t o o u r 30 million. It had such a competent leader in Li Hongzhang ... and this was our first war with a foreign country, a country supported moreover by the British. Everyone - adults, children, the aged, the women - talked about war and nothing else, day and night ... no one ever had been as happy as when we learned of the fall of Pyongyang ...

Source B

A Japanese artist depicts Chinese officials surrendering to naval officers in 1895

Source C

An extract from Japanese government official Hayashi, written in June 1895 following the Triple Intervention.

We must continue to study and make use of Western methods ... If new warships are considered necessary we must, at any cost, build them; if the organisation of our army is inadequate we must start rectifying it from now; if need be, our entire military system must be changed. At present Japan must keep calm and sit tight, so as to lull suspicions nurtured against her; during this time the foundations of her national power must be consolidated; and we must watch and wait for the opportunity in the Orient that will surely come one day. When this day arrives Japan will decide her own fate; and she will be able not only to put into their place the powers who seek to meddle in her affairs; she will even be able, should this be necessary, to meddle in their affairs.

Source D

John Hunter B oyle. Modern Japan: The American Nexus ( 1993 ).

Speaking for many of his countrymen, journalist Tokutomi wrote that the Triple Intervention was to transform him psychologically and dominate the rest of this life . "Say what you will, it had happened because we weren't strong enough. What it came down to was that sincerity and justice didn't amount to a thing if you weren't strong enough." Japan had learned to emulate the West. It had played by the rules. From the standpoint of the victim, they were not particularly fair rules, but they were the established rules of imperialism. Now, in Japan's moment of victory, it found that it was reviled by yellow-peril sloganeering and denied equal membership in the imperialist club. Japanese, even those who had been most enthusiastic about Western models, became convinced, as Marius Jensen writes, that international law and institutional modernization alone would never bring full respect and equality from the West.

Source A

A graph showing Japanese exports 1926-38

Source B

Prime Minister Wakatsuki's appeal to the secretary of the respected Prince Saionji

Kinmochi in 1931. I am not being kept informed by either the Foreign Ministry or the Army Ministry ... I have just warned them through Chief of Cabinet Secretary Kawasaki ... The Chinese forces in Manchuria and Mongolia number more than two hundred thousand [sic] while We have only ten thousand. I asked the army minister, "What are you going to do if, by chance, your challenge causes something you haven't anticipated - something that given you are so outnumbered you can't stop?" The army minister told me, "We'll send in troops from Korea ... indeed, they may have already gone in." I rebuked him: "How can you allow dispatch of soldiers from Korea without Government authorization? " He said, "Well, the fact is that during the Tanaka cabinet (1927-29) troops were dispatched without imperial sanction." I gathered he had not foreseen any problem at all ... under these circumstances I am quite powerless to restrain the military. How can his majesty's military act without his sanction? What can I do? Maybe I should not be talking to you like this, but can you do anything? ... I am in serious trouble .

Cited in Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, page 236, by Herbert P.Bix

Source C

Saburo Ienaga, a Japanese historian, in an academic book The Pacific War (Taiheiyo Senso) 1 931-45, page 129 ( 1968).

The Imperial Army's march into Manchuria was presented as an act of self-defence to guard "Japan's lifeline", which had been acquired at great cost in blood and treasure in the Sino -Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars. Next, North China and Inner Mongolia had to be controlled to guard Manchuria. Protecting These areas required further advances into the heartland of China. This pattern of over-expanding military operations confirmed a truism about international conflict: once a war escalates uncontrollably in the quest for elusive victory.

How could China be brought to its knees? That was an intractable problem.

Source D

An extract from Kenneth B. Pyle, The Making of Modern Japan, page 189 ( 1996).

The weakness of the government, the diffuseness of decision-making power, the general confusion and uncertainty attending both the domestic and foreign turmoil - all created an opportunity for resolute action by the Kwantung Army. It pushed ahead to conquer all of Manchuria and establish a Japanese puppet state, Manchukuo. Wakatsuki resigned and was replaced by a Seiyukai cabinet headed by Inukai Tsuyoshi. It was the last party government in pre -war Japan.

Source A

A cartoon by David Low. "Dogs of War". Published in the Evening standard, London, UK. 31 october 1941

Source B

Max Hastings. Retribution: The Battle for Japan 1944-45 (2007).

A Japanese assault on the Soviet Union in 1 941-42, taking the Russians in the rear as they struggled to stem Hitler's invasion, might have yielded important rewards for the Axis. Stalin was terrified of such an eventuality.

The July 1941 oil embargo and asset freeze imposed by the U.S. on Japan - Roosevelt's clumsiest diplomatic action in the months before Pearl Harbor - was partly designed to deter Tokyo from joining Hitler's Operation Barbarossa. Japan's bellicose foreign minister, Yosuke Matsuoka, resigned in the same month because his government rejected his urges to attack ... Japan and Germany were like fascist states ... The common German and Japanese commitment to making war for its own sake provides the best reason for rejecting pleas in mitigation of either nation's conduct. The two Axis partners, however, pursued unrelated ambitions. The only obvious manifestation of shared interest was that Japanese planning was rooted in an assumption of German victory. Like Italy in June 1940, Japan in December 1941 decided that the old colonial powers' difficulties in Europe exposed their remote properties ... Japan sought to seize access to vital oil and raw materials, together with space for mass migration from the home islands.

Source C

Kenneth B. Pyle. The Making of Modern Japan. ( 1996).

The dilemma that Japanese diplomacy had struggled with ever since the Manchurian Incident now became even more difficult, for as the China conflict expanded, the nation was less prepared to deal with the Soviet army on the Manchurian border and the American fleet in the Pacific. A succession of border skirmishes with the Red Army revealed the vulnerability of the Kwantung Army; at the same time the U.S. Navy was now embarked on a resolute program of building additional strength in the Pacific. By the spring of 1940 the Japanese navy General Staff had concluded that America's crash program would result in its gaining naval supremacy in the Pacific by 1942, and that Japan must have access to the oil of the Dutch East Indies in order to cope with American power ... In the autumn of 1940 [Matsuoka] signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy, in which the signatories pledged to aid one another if attacked by a power not currently involved in the European war or in the fighting in China. Matsuoka thereby hoped to isolate the United States and dissuade it from conflict with Japan, thus opening the way for Japan to seize the European colonies in Southeast Asia, grasp the resources it needed for self-sufficiency and cut off Chinese supply lines.

Source D

The Japanese Admiral Nagano to the Emperor Hirohito, September 1941

Japan was like a patient suffering from a serious illness ... Should he be left alone without an operation, there was a danger of a gradual decline. An operation, while it might be dangerous, would still offer some hope of saving his life ... the Army General Staff was in favour of putting hope in diplomatic negotiations to the finish, but ... in the case of failure, a decisive operation would have to be performed.

Quoted in Richard Overy. 2009. The Road to War, page 342

Source I

Statement from the Japanese Foreign Ministry, September 1940, announcing the signing of the Tripartite Pact.

The Tripartite Pact is an agreement among three great powers, Germany, Italy, and Japan, to cooperate in establishing a new order that guarantees peace and justice. Japan, faced with encirclement and economic pressure, has taken this step to secure its rightful place in the world. The pact is not aimed at any nation which desires peace but only at those who would threaten the stability of East Asia or Europe. It affirms Japan’s leadership in establishing a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. This alliance strengthens our defensive position and ensures that no hostile power can dominate Asia or Europe. Japan remains committed to peaceful development, but the world must know that aggression against us will be met with unified resistance.

Source J

Extract from U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull’s press statement, September 1940.

The agreement signed in Berlin among Germany, Italy, and Japan is clearly a threat to international peace. It demonstrates Japan’s increasing subservience to militarism and aggression. The so-called “new order” in East Asia is nothing more than domination through force and intimidation. The United States cannot accept the legitimacy of a pact whose very purpose is to divide the world into spheres of influence controlled by authoritarian powers. The people of Asia and Europe desire freedom, not subjugation. The United States will continue to oppose attempts to undermine the principle of self-determination. This pact confirms that Japan has abandoned any pretence of peaceful coexistence, instead aligning itself with forces bent on conquest.

Source K

Historian Akira Iriye, writing in The Origins of the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific (1987).

The Tripartite Pact was a diplomatic manoeuvre intended more as a deterrent than as a declaration of war. For Japan, the alliance promised recognition of its dominance in East Asia and access to resources, while for Germany and Italy it extended the threat to the United States. However, the pact was as much symbolic as practical, it did not create effective military coordination. Instead, it deepened U.S. suspicion of Japan and contributed to the escalation of economic sanctions. By aligning openly with Germany and Italy, Japan closed the door to compromise with Washington. While the pact was presented domestically as a triumph of diplomacy, in reality it was a gamble that further isolated Japan and brought it closer to conflict with the United States.

Source L

Political cartoon, 1940, international satirical publication. The cartoon depicts Hitler, Mussolini, and a Japanese figure as three monkeys enacting the proverb “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.” They sit on a pedestal labelled “Totalitarian Axis.”

Source I

Statement by Japanese Prime Minister Tojo Hideki, December 8, 1941, to the Japanese Diet (parliament).

The Empire of Japan has acted in self-defence and out of necessity. For months we sought peaceful settlement with the United States, but our just demands for an end to economic strangulation were ignored. America’s unjust embargo on oil and essential materials threatens the very survival of our nation. We could not stand idle while our people faced ruin. Our actions yesterday were not of aggression, but of preservation. Japan’s aim is to establish a new order of peace and stability in East Asia, ensuring prosperity for all nations of the region. By striking decisively, we have removed the menace that sought to undermine our rightful role in Asia. We call upon our citizens to unite in spirit and sacrifice, confident that our cause is just and that ultimate victory will secure Japan’s destiny.

Source J

Statement by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to Congress, December 8, 1941 (“Day of Infamy” speech).

Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. The attack caused severe damage to American naval and military forces at Pearl Harbor, with many American lives lost. It is obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During that time, the Japanese government deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements of continued peace. The attack demonstrates the duplicity of Japan’s foreign policy. Japan has, therefore, launched an unprovoked and dastardly attack upon our nation. I ask Congress to declare that since the attack, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Empire of Japan.

Source K

Historian Ian Buruma, writing in The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan (1994).

Pearl Harbor was not merely a military strike; it was a gamble born out of desperation. Japan’s leaders believed that crippling the U.S. Pacific Fleet would force America to negotiate a settlement favorable to Japanese dominance in Asia. Yet this miscalculation underestimated both American industrial strength and public resolve. Rather than dividing the United States, the attack unified the nation and gave Roosevelt the political mandate to enter the war fully. Pearl Harbor therefore marked not just the escalation of the Pacific conflict but the transformation of World War II into a truly global war. It symbolized the final collapse of Japan’s diplomacy, where force replaced negotiation and short-term military success led to long-term strategic disaster.

Source L

Propaganda cartoon, 1942 (artist unknown; published in U.S. wartime media).

Source I

Speech by Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Chinese Nationalist government, broadcast to the Chinese people, July 1937.

The Marco Polo Bridge incident is no accident, nor is it an isolated border clash. It is part of Japan’s long-standing plan to invade and subjugate our nation. For years, Japan has sought to impose its will upon China, first through demands, then through territorial seizures, and now through open force. China did not seek war, but at last we are faced with a struggle that cannot be avoided. If we shrink from our duty, we will lose not only territory but our freedom and our very existence as a nation. Every man, woman, and child must be ready to sacrifice for the homeland. Only through unity, regardless of party, province, or class, can we resist this aggression. To resist is to survive; to submit is to perish. If we stand together, we will show the world that the Chinese people cannot be enslaved.

Source J

Editorial in The Times (London), August 1937.

Reports from China confirm that Japanese troops have advanced far into the northern provinces and are now bombarding Shanghai with devastating consequences. Entire districts have been reduced to ruins, and civilian casualties mount daily. International trade in the region is collapsing, and foreign concessions in Shanghai face grave danger. The League of Nations has issued condemnations, but its moral protests have no teeth. The United States has lodged diplomatic protests, yet continues to avoid entanglement, clinging to its traditional isolationism. The Soviet Union has provided some material aid, but no great power has taken decisive steps to halt Japan. China is fighting bravely and with remarkable unity, but she is fighting alone. Unless the major powers act decisively, Japanese aggression will not only destroy Chinese sovereignty but also dismantle the fragile fabric of international order in East Asia. The lesson of Abyssinia repeats itself before our eyes.

Source K

Extract from Rana Mitter, historian, in China’s War with Japan, 1937–1945: The Struggle for Survival (2013).

The outbreak of war in July 1937 was both a continuation of Japan’s imperial ambitions and a dramatic escalation. The Marco Polo Bridge Incident served as the trigger, but the deeper cause lay in Japan’s determination to subdue China in order to secure resources and territory essential for its empire. For China, this was a war of survival. Chiang Kai-shek, recognising the gravity of the moment, forged a fragile but crucial Second United Front with the Communists. Despite longstanding distrust, both sides understood that national unity was essential in the face of invasion. Internationally, however, China stood largely alone. The League of Nations, already discredited by its failures in Abyssinia, offered little beyond statements of concern. Western powers were preoccupied by economic depression and the threat of Hitler in Europe. Only the Soviet Union provided tangible support, sending aircraft, military advisors, and equipment. The war exposed the limits of collective security, entrenched Japanese militarism, and destabilised East Asia, laying foundations for a wider global conflict.

Source L

Political cartoon, 1937, international publication.

Source I

Statement by the Japanese government, December 1931, justifying its actions in Manchuria.

Japan has acted with the sole purpose of securing peace and stability in Manchuria. The government cannot permit the lives and property of Japanese subjects to be threatened by Chinese disorder and lawlessness. The Mukden Incident was not of our making; it was a defensive response to protect the South Manchurian Railway and restore order to a region long plagued by banditry and misrule. Our troops will remain only as long as necessary to guarantee security and to ensure that Manchuria can develop in a stable and peaceful manner, free from the turbulence of Chinese factional politics. Japan’s intentions are not imperialistic but defensive. We seek only to safeguard vital economic interests, protect Japanese citizens, and contribute to lasting peace in the Far East.

Source J

Excerpt from the League of Nations Lytton Commission report, September 1932.

The Commission finds that Japan’s military action in Manchuria cannot be justified as legitimate self-defence. The incident was deliberately provoked and followed by a swift and overwhelming occupation that exceeded the requirements of security. Manchuria is part of China, and no legal justification can be advanced for its separation under Japanese control. While the Commission recognises Japan’s economic interests in Manchuria, it cannot condone the establishment of a puppet state under Japanese domination. The creation of “Manchukuo” has been achieved by force, contrary to international agreements such as the Covenant of the League of Nations, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, and the Nine Power Treaty. The international community cannot accept this as a basis for peace in East Asia.

Source K

Ian Kershaw, historian, writing in Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940–41 (2007).

The League of Nations’ failure to respond effectively to Japanese aggression in Manchuria marked a decisive turning point in interwar international politics. Japan’s invasion was the first clear and direct challenge to the system of collective security established after 1919. The Lytton Report condemned Japan’s actions, but the League lacked both the means and the will to enforce its judgment. Britain and France, distracted by the Great Depression and anxious not to provoke conflict in the Far East, refused to impose sanctions. The United States, though critical of Japan’s expansion, adhered to non-recognition but avoided direct intervention. This failure emboldened other revisionist powers, most notably Hitler and Mussolini, who saw that aggression could succeed without meaningful consequences. In this sense, Manchuria was not only the start of Japan’s empire-building but also the beginning of the collapse of the international order itself.

Source L

Jerry Doyle cartoon, 1932, published in The Philadelphia Record.