The Expansion of Japan after WWI History Essay Example

For years, Japan felt slighted by the English and Americans.  After World War I, Japan was forced to concede “much of the strategically advantageous terrain in China” (242, Keegan) to the Soviet Union.  This breed contempt, and mixed with widespread ideals of racial supremacy and nationalism, Japan was squarely on the axis side of the war, but the sparks of Japan’s war find their roots in scarcity.  

Japan is not a resource rich country. By the interwar period, Japan had “ceased to be self-sufficient in food” and had never been, nor would ever be, “sufficient in raw materials” (242, Keegan).  It was the industrial revolution that really revealed Japan’s scarcity; the supplies on which the world ran: iron, coal, rubber, and, above all else, oil, could only be acquired externally. To nationalist Japan, the formation of an empire -- like that of Britain -- was the perfect solution. Japan would be able to exploit labor sources, establish new trade routes, and, most importantly, extract needed resources from attained land.  In 1931, Japanese troops used the pretext of an explosion along the Japanese-controlled South Manchurian Railway to occupy Manchuria in China, creating the Japanese ruled state Manchukuo. 

It came as no surprise that when, on July 7th, 1937, shots were fired by Chinese soldiers on Japanese troops, war broke out.  In the previous month, June 1937, the formation of a new cabinet resulted in Prince Konoe Fumimaro, “who had good connections to the military and favored a policy on the Asian continent requiring control of lands and natural resources, seen as justified for a ‘have-not’ nation fighting for its survival,” assuming the position of Prime Minister (97, Kershaw).  Escalation of the conflict was nearly inevitable.  Within two days of reinforcements being sent to China, Peking and Tientsin were occupied.  Japan continued with similar swiftness in the expansion of their control, and by “1938 most of fertile China… was under Japanese occupation.” (243, Keegan).  However, even with the new resources they were extracting, war with China meant “Japanese resources and manpower would be stretched to the maximum.” (101, Kershaw).  The war also succeeded in straining American-Japanese relations, posing threat to their inflow of oil and metal needed for the war.  

If Japan planned to continue with its imperialist ambitions, they had to think bigger.   Since border disputes between Russia and Japan resulted only in failure for Japan, it made the decision to expand south.  In July 1940, Yosuke Matsuoka became Foreign Minister, and two months later, he committed Japan to the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy.  After France and the Netherlands fell to Germany, Matsuoka worried that French Indonesia and the Dutch East Indies would be under German control.  Hence, Japan declared the creation of the Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, Japan’s sphere of influence, securing its acquisition of resources in the Pacific.

In response to the Japanese occupation of French Indochina, on July 26th the United States froze Japanese assets. Soon after, Britain, Canada, the Philippines, New Zealand, and the Netherlands joined with embargos of their own. All of this effectively reduced “Japan’s foreign trade by three-quarters and [cut] off nine-tenths of her oil supply at source.” (248, Keegan).  Without oil, Japan had no hope of long-term empire building.  “Japan had less than two years of oil reserves left, and was rapidly consuming the remaining supplies.” (333, Kershaw).  Japan either needed to repair relations with the United States or secure the oil of the Dutch East Indies in order to continue on with its plans.  

The Japanese decision between war and peace was to take place in early October. With army and navy chiefs losing patience with negations that seemed to go nowhere, Japan held its breath for inevitable war.  The United States demanded that Japanese troops withdraw from China, spelling a “foreign policy amounting merely to submission” for the Japanese (353, Kershaw).  Prime Minister Konoe believed that given enough time “‘the possibility of reaching an agreement with the United States [was] not hopeless.’” (353, Kershaw).  So, when chiefs of staff of the army and navy, Sugiyama and Nagano, brought a deadline of October 15th to reach an agreement with the United States or go to war, he threatened to resign but did not follow through.  Hideki Tojo, General of the Imperial Army, and Konoe met for a private meeting on the 14th of October.  Konoe expressed that he was willing to withdraw troops from China to avoid an American-Japanese war.  Outraged, Tojo adamantly disagreed with Konoe, and at the following cabinet meeting, Tojo proclaimed “to submit to the contention of the United States… [is to] annihilate the gains from the China Incident” (353, Kershaw).  He said it could even affect Japanese rule over Korea and Taiwan, essentially putting Japan back to square one.  Tojo was unwilling to let the sacrifice of millions of Japanese troops who had fought and died go to waste, nor the billions spent on the struggle.  Konoe, in a last attempt to unbind his government from the impending war, resigned on October 16th.  It was Hideki Tojo whom the emperor asked to serve as Prime Minister.

Tojo knew Japan couldn’t win a drawn-out wat against the USA, but he calculated that if he could knock out America’s navy in the Pacific, Japan would have time to acquire and set up defenses in the Dutch East Indies.  Japanese leaders similarly hoped, without the ability to properly fightback, the United States would settle for peace negotiations.  If Japan wanted to keep their colonies in China and expand further, they had to act fast.  Tojo Hideki said on the 5th of November 1941 “Two years from now we will have no petroleum for military use.” (331, Kershaw).  Thus, the Attack on Pearl Harbor was conceived and carried out. 

The attack on Pearl Harbor had the opposite than intended effect.  The next day Roosevelt gave his “Day of Infamy” speech, which was soon followed by a declaration of war by congress.  Japan was in an unwinnable war as a country that would face honorable destruction before surrender.  The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima left 66,000 dead; in Nagasaki, it left 39,000 dead.