Japan

Article Outline

Introduction; Land and Resources; People and Society; Arts and Culture; Economy; Government ; History

Economic Depression and Right-Wing Terrorism

In 1920 Japan’s wartime economic boom collapsed, and the country suffered a series of recessions. Bad economic conditions were aggravated by the great Kantō earthquake of 1923, which devastated the Tokyo-Yokohama region. Agricultural prices plunged, and the rural economy stagnated. A major bank panic in 1927 set off alarm bells, but conditions grew much worse with the onset of the Great Depression—the global economic slump that began at the end of 1929. Japan’s manufacturing production fell, workers were laid off, a new wave of strikes began, and the rural economy went into a tailspin.

These deteriorating economic conditions undercut the fragile growth of Japan’s democracy. Public opinion laid blame for the country’s economic troubles at the door of the political party leaders, who reacted slowly and conservatively to the economic crisis. Public distrust of the parties was heightened by revelations of political scandals involving the bribery of Diet members, cabinet members, and other leading politicians. Tight links between political parties and big business firms, known as zaibatsu, also deepened public suspicions.

By the early 1930s radical right-wing groups had formed, seeking to end party rule through terrorism. Extreme nationalists, these radicals sought to preserve traditional Japanese values and culture and eradicate what they saw as Western influences: party government, big business, and recent cultural imports. Many junior military officers, often from conservative rural backgrounds, shared these ultranationalist views. To achieve their aims, the radicals, with their sympathizers in the military, plotted to assassinate leading business and political figures. In May 1932 the era of party cabinets ended when a terrorist group assassinated Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi. From 1932 until 1945, Japan was governed by military and bureaucratic cabinets whose members claimed to stand above partisan politics.

Militarism and War

Occupation of Manchuria

Against a background of economic distress, social discontent, and political instability, the Japanese military launched a new phase of political expansion on the Asian continent in the early 1930s. Their primary motive was to protect Japan’s existing treaty rights and interests in Manchuria and other parts of China against a militant new Chinese nationalist movement. This movement, led by Chiang Kai-shek, called for an end to foreign imperialist privileges. Because the Chinese nationalists cooperated for a time with the Chinese Communist Party, many Japanese military leaders feared an alliance between a radicalized China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR, the Communist successor to the Russian Empire). Others saw Japan’s expansion into Manchuria as a way of dealing with economic crisis and rural distress at home. Vast tracts of undeveloped land in the region offered opportunities for Japanese rural migrants, and its natural resources could supply raw materials, such as iron ore and coal, for Japanese industry.

The Second Sino-Japanese War

On July 7, 1937 a Chinese patrol and Japanese troops on a training exercise clashed near the Marco Polo Bridge on the outskirts of Beijing. When the Chinese nationalist government sent reinforcements to the area, the Japanese responded with a mobilization of their own, launching the Second Sino-Japanese War. By the end of 1937 the Japanese had overrun northern China, capturing Shanghai, Beijing, and the Chinese capital at Nanjing. The Chinese government under Chiang Kai-shek, however, refused to negotiate an armistice. Instead it retreated to the interior province of Sichuan (Szechwan), where high mountainous terrain protected it against Japanese land attack. By the end of 1938 the Japanese had occupied northern China, the lower valley of the Yangtze River beyond Hankou, and enclaves along the south China coast, including Guangzhou (Canton). However, the fighting had reached a stalemate. Instead of confronting regular Chinese forces, the Japanese army had to fend off constant guerrilla attacks, even in territory they occupied.

World War II

The outbreak of war in Europe in September 1939 encouraged the Japanese leadership to consider expanding military and political influence into Southeast Asia. Japan urgently needed the region’s natural resources, including oil and rubber, for its war effort. In 1940, after France and the Low Countries (Belgium, Luxembourg, and Netherlands) had fallen to the Germans, the government of Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro announced Japan’s intention to build a “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,” a self-sufficient economic and political bloc under Japanese leadership. In September 1940 the Konoe cabinet concluded the so-called Axis Pact, an alliance with Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, and received permission from the Nazi-backed Vichy government in France to move troops into northern French Indochina (the area that is now Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos). The Japanese also tried to negotiate an economic and political foothold in the Dutch East Indies, whose colonial government had declared itself independent of the fallen home government of Netherlands.

Escalating Japanese aggression created friction with the United States, the only major nation not yet involved in war. In 1937 U.S. president Franklin Roosevelt called for a “quarantine” against the “disease” of international aggression. The United States sympathized with the Chinese nationalists and wished to keep the resources of Southeast Asia available for the embattled British. Japan was heavily dependent on the United States for vital strategic material, such as petroleum, steel, and heavy machinery, so the Roosevelt administration gradually imposed embargoes on such goods. Negotiations aimed at settling differences between the two countries began in April 1941, but when the Japanese moved troops into southern Indochina in July, the United States responded by placing a complete embargo on oil. Britain, countries belonging to the Commonwealth of Nations (an association of states that gave allegiance to the British Crown), and the Dutch East Indies followed suit.

The U.S. oil embargo threatened to bring the whole Japanese military apparatus to a halt when its limited oil reserves were used up. Rather than face the humiliation of giving in to U.S. economic pressure, in early September the Konoe cabinet decided to continue negotiations while at the same time preparing for war. All attempts to reach a diplomatic accommodation with the United States failed, including a proposal for a summit meeting between President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Konoe. In October Konoe resigned, and General Tōjō Hideki, Japan’s minister of war, became prime minister. Tōjō formed a cabinet in preparation for war.

On December 7, 1941 (December 8 in Japan), a Japanese naval and air task force launched a devastating surprise attack on the major U.S. base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The Japanese also launched simultaneous attacks in the Philippines, Guam, Wake Island, Midway Island, Hong Kong, British Malaya, and Thailand. The following day the United States declared war on Japan, as did all the other Allied powers except the USSR. Nevertheless, Japan maintained the offensive in Southeast Asia and the islands of the South Pacific for the next year. By the summer of 1942, Japanese forces had occupied the targets of their first attack, as well as Burma (now known as Myanmar), Borneo, the Dutch East Indies, and several islands in the Aleutians off Alaska. Japan’s forces were also striking toward Australia and New Zealand through New Guinea, New Britain, and the Solomon Islands.

The Tide Turns

Japanese leaders were aware of America’s immense economic and technological strength, but they gambled that the American public and politicians would not have the stomach to fight to the finish. Japanese war plans envisaged a limited war that would lead the United States to a negotiated peace that recognized Japan’s dominant position and territorial gains in East Asia. The plans assumed that Japan would be able to hold a strategic defensive perimeter of island bases stretching through the central and South Pacific against American counterattack, and that Nazi Germany would complete its military conquest of Europe. These sobering realities would then force the United States to the negotiating table.

In actuality, the United States decided to wage an all-out “total war” that would end only with Japan’s “unconditional surrender.” Although the U.S. Pacific Fleet had been heavily damaged by the Pearl Harbor attack, American aircraft carriers had escaped unscathed, and they inflicted heavy damage on the Japanese at the Battle of Midway in June 1942. The Americans adopted an island hopping strategy of striking behind bases on Japan’s outer perimeter and cutting them off from their logistical support. The Americans also used submarine warfare to sink Japanese merchant marine vessels and cut the sea lanes linking the Japanese home islands to the resources of the Dutch East Indies and Southeast Asia. In July 1944 the American capture of Saipan, a major Japanese base in the Mariana Islands, put the Japanese home islands within range of American long-range B-29 Superfortress bombers. Beginning in the early fall of 1944, Japanese cities and their civilian populations were subjected to increasingly frequent bombing raids.

Although Tōjō was forced to resign as prime minister after the fall of Saipan, military setbacks did not change the basic policies of the Japanese government. A number of Japanese civilian politicians, ranking bureaucrats, and a few former generals were aware that the tide of the war had turned against Japan. They urged the opening of peace talks with the United States through an intermediary such as the USSR. However, despite steady military and naval losses, the destruction of Tokyo, Ōsaka, and other major cities, and the surrender of their German allies, Japan’s military and naval leaders were determined to fight to the end. Furthermore, despite increasing shortages of food, clothing, and other necessities, the civilian population showed few signs of declining morale. Many farm women and housewives were even trained to meet an American invasion force on the beaches with bamboo spears.

When in late July 1945 the Japanese cabinet rejected the Potsdam Declaration, a renewed Allied demand that Japan surrender unconditionally or face utter destruction, the United States decided to use its new atomic weapons (see Potsdam Conference). On August 6 the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Two days later the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, and on August 9 the United States dropped a second bomb on the city of Nagasaki. Faced with such an utterly hopeless situation, the Japanese leadership finally agreed to surrender on August 14 (August 15 in Japan). Japanese emperor Hirohito, speaking for the first time on the radio, broadcast the news to the nation.