Japanese Expansionism

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• The Japanese government did not have control over the military, which undermined liberal democracy in Japan.
• The Kwantung Army acting on their own, assassinated the Manchurian warlord on June 4, 1928 to provide an excuse to invade Manchuria.
• Financial scandals and election law violations eroded public support for political parties.
• Hamaguchi Yuko became prime minister in 1930, but was shot by a right-wing radical and was forced to resign in April 1931.
• Conservative groups and the army questioned Japan's approach to international relations.
• Japan was criticized by the League of Nations over the occupation of Manchuria. In protest, Japan withdrew from the League of Nations.
• Japan's Prime Minister Tanaka was instructed by the emperor to enforce discipline in the army. However, interference by the Kwantung Army in government policy, the General Staff were unwilling to punish the perpetrators as they claimed it would weaken the army.

• Japan suffered from economic depression during 1930 to 1932.
• A cause of this was the Minsei Party government adopted a deflationary policy to eliminate weak banks and firms.
• Another cause the crash of the US stock market in 1929.
• The Great Depression cast doubts on the trustworthiness of Japan's parliamentary government.
• Japanese companies increased production even during the depression because prices were falling, which caused deflation in Japan.
• Because Japan was dependent on world trade, its exports decreased greatly.
• The worst hit industry was the silk industry.
• Manchuria's wealth in resources caused Japan to desire it even more at this point.
• It could provide resources for markets and living space for the growing Japanese population.
• Unemployment and industrial unrest developed.
• The economic issues created a large divide between the cities and rural areas because rural areas suffered from impoverishment and famine.
• Cartelization and rationalization were promoted under government guidance.
• With the depression, political and intellectual thinking shifted from economic freedom to economic control due to Marxism, the success of the USSR, the Showa depression, deflation, and disappointment with political parties.

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Political Developments within China

Causes of Expansion

Nationalism

Militarism

• Great pride in one's country
• National unity and patriotism were promoted in Japan.
• The Japanese people believed it was Japan's destiny to become the leader of Asia.
• This encourage Japan's expansionist foreign policy.
• The feeling of nationalism throughout the country increased due to Japan successes in battles against China and Russia.
• Because of the strong feeling of nationalism throughout Japan, industrial production increased as Japan sough to be less reliant on imports of steel and iron.
• "It is Japan's mission to be supreme in Asia, the South Seas, and eventually the four corners of the world." -General Sadao Araki
• At a young age, students in Japan were taught that the emperor was of divine ancestry.
• They were also taught that self sacrifice for one's country was the greatest honor.
• By the 1930s, most Japanese saw Japan's position in Asia as essential for economic and strategic reasons.

Political Instability

Domestic Issues:

• the aggressive preparation for war
• determination to transform Japan into a Western-style power. Japan believed it was its destiny to become the leader of Asia.
• Japan adopted a foreign policy based on nationalism and militarism (expansionist foreign policy)
• An expansionist foreign policy is the policy of a country to increase in land and in power.
• This positioned Japan to become a world power with an empire.
• Led to intervention in China and a weakening relationship with the West.
• Japanese military leaders believed that extending Japan's control to other countries like Korea was necessary in securing Japan in East Asia.
• War in Asia was inevitable because of Japan's desire to dominate Asia.

• Due to public outrage over the actions of foreigners in China, Chinese nationalism grew.
• Jiang Jieshi, who led the Nationalist Part in China, the Guomindang (GMD), started a campaign of national unification.
• The campaign included anti-foreigner rhetoric and demands to end unfair treaties that the major powers, including Japan, had forced China to sign.
• By 1921, the Communist Party had been set up in China.
• Rivalry between the Communist Party and the GMD caused instability in China.

Political & Economic

Political

Political Instability in China

Economical

Militarism and Nationalism

Impact

• Political instability in China was key in encouraging imperial competition on its mainland and preventing Japanese expansion into Manchuria and Korea.
• The changing situation in China impacted the actions of the Japanese government and military.
• The army could have ignored the government with impunity which resulted in liberal democracy in Japan.
• Hamaguchi Yuko became prime minister by winning the sound majority from the public on his manifest of good relations with China.

-their impact on foreign policy-

Between 1931 and 1941, Japan's foreign policy was defined by the growth of nationalism and the increasing power of the military.

The Three Power/Tripartite Pact

• On September 27, 1940, Germany, Italy, and Japan became allies through the Tripartite Pact signed in Berlin.
• Through the pact, the three countries agreed to provide assistance should one suffer from attack by a country not already involved in the war (mutual defense).
• The purpose of the pact was the force the US to think again about being on the side of the Allies.
• Government of Japan, Germany, and Italy agreed that they should give every nation the land they were entitled to and cooperate with one another
• Also through the pact, Japan recognized Germany and Italy as leaders of a "new order" for Europe.
• Germany and Italy recognized Japan as the leader of East Asia.
• The pact was signed by representatives Fuhrer Adolf Hitler of Germany, Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano of Italy, and Ambassador to Germany Saburo Kurusu of Japan.

The Outbreak of War

• Japan was in the pacific theater of WWII and attacked nearly all of its Asian neighbors.
• Japanese troops invaded the Philippines on December 22, 1941.
• Japanese took prisoners from the Philippines and led them to a cruel Death March which caused another battle at the Lingayen Gulf.
• Japan lost the battle and 300,000 men so another outbreak.

Pearl Harbor (1941)

• In 1941, the Imperial General Headquarters of Japan rejected President Roosevelt's ultimatum regarding the removal of Japanese troops from China and French Indochina.
• In response, Roosevelt announced an oil embargo on Japan.
• Japan took the embargo as a pretext of war, and on December 7, 1941, they bombed Pearl Harbor, the US naval base in Hawaii.
• The Japanese also bombed Pearl Harbor so they could advance on the Dutch Indies and Malay without the Americans interfering.
• In response, the US joined WWII.

Japanese Expansionism (1931 - 1941)

Events

• On July 7, 1937, Japanese and Chinese troops encountered each other near Beijing at Marco Polo Bridge.
• Due to the incident, the Japanese government decided to send more troops into China, which began the Sino-Japanese War of 1937.
• When the war began, the Japanese military completely took over Japanese politics, and the entire country was mobilized for war.
• From 1937 to 1938, Japanese forces occupied large areas of Eastern China.
• However, when a stalemate resulted, Japanese forces were diverted to Southeast Asia - to the pacific theater of WWII.
• The Sino-Japanese War was a war of resistance for China.
• The war included the Japanese rape of Nanking, the capital of Nationalist China.
• Between 20,000 and 80,000 Chinese women were sexually assaulted.
• Between 200,000 and 300,000 people died from the massacre.
• Japan surrendered in 1945, as their troops were spread too thin due to WWII.

Japanese Invasion of Manchuria and Northern China (1931)

The Sino-Japanese War (1937-1941)

• The Manchurian Incident: the Kwantung Army blew up a section of the South Manchurian Railway and blamed it on the Chinese.
• Japanese troops occupied Manchuria without informing the Japanese government, as they felt the invasion was necessary to prepare for a war against the US.
• The Japanese army continued to ignore the government and thus pushed further into Manchuria.
• In 1932, the Japanese puppet state, the state of Manchuria, was established.
• Due to criticism by the League of Nations over Japanese occupation of Manchuria, Japan withdrew from the League of Nations in 1933.
• By the end of 1931, Japan had destroyed the last remaining administrative authority of the Government of the Chinese Republic in South Manchuria.
• Hostilities between Japan and China spread to the Shanghai area in 1932.
• In 1933, Japan extended the boundaries of its puppet state to the province of Jehol in North China.

The League of Nations and the Lytton Report

International Response

• Winston Churchill, prime minister of Great Britain at the time, said, "being saturated and satiated with emotion and sensation, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful" about the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, because it meant that the US would enter the war, thus saving the British troops from the strong German military.
• On December 8, 1941, the United States and Great Britain declared war on Japan following the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Second United Front

US Initiatives

• A fragile alliance between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Nationalist Forces between December 1936 and 1946.
• The alliance created national unity in order to combat Japanese military aggression.
• Joseph Stalin advocated an anti-fascist alliance and persuaded the CCP to negotiate a truce with Jiang Jieshi.
• In December 1936, when Jiang was arrested by Zhang Xueliang, a commander of the Northeastern Army, Jiang was forced to form the Second United Front.
• When not fighting the Japanese, the CCP and GMD still fought.
• The Second United Front was advantageous for the CCP because they were able to win support through their fight against the Japanese.
• The Second United Front ended at the end of WWII in 1945 because unification between the sides ended and a full-scale civil war ensued between the CCP and GMD.

• A strategy of the US to combat Japan in the Pacific was island hopping.
• Island hopping was a strategy where selected islands were secured by Allied forces.
• The secured islands helped move the fight closer to Japan and established forward land bases for supply purposes.
• Battle of the Coral Sea: introduced a new kind of naval warfare using only airplanes and stopped the Japanese expansion southward.
• The Battle of Midway: the most important naval battle of the Pacific campaign. It lasted between June 4 and June 7 1942.
• American carrier planes defeated a Japanese fleet poised to attack Midway island, a key American airfield.
• To end WWII, the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, on August 6, 1945 and three days later dropped a second one on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.
• On September 2, 1945, Japan surrendered.

Tensions Between US & Japan

• Tensions had been building up between the US and Japan over the past decade.
• One reason was Japan's expansion in Manchuria and mainland China.
• The US stopped the shipment of airplanes, parts, machine tools, plane fuel, and oil to Japan in response to Japan's invasion of French Indochina.
• President Roosevelt supported Britain against Nazi Germany, an ally of Japan, through the lend-lease act.
• The Lend Lease Act, passed in March 1941, authorized the president to transfer arms or any other defense materials to support its war interests (Britain and the Soviet Union) without being overextended in battle.
• The US began to rebuild its navy, which meant that it would replace Japan's navy as the most powerful in the Pacific.
• Tensions increased when Japan signed the Tripartite Pact, becoming allies with Nazi German and fascist Italy (enemies of the US).
• Japan intended to seize the US controlled Philippines and British and Dutch colonial possessions in Southeast Asia.

• In response to Japan invading Manchuria, the League of Nations sent a group of officials led by Lord Lytton to study the problem, in December, 1931.
• Lord Lytton did not leave until 1932 and did not report until September.
• By the time he did arrive, Japan had already established the puppet state of Manchukuo, which the League refused to recognize.
• Lytton's report stated that Japan was the aggressor and should remove its troops from Manchuria.
• In February 1933, the League ordered Japan to leave Manchuria.
• Because of this, Japan withdrew its membership, and the League was unable to do anything.

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