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Title: Shadow over Asia
The rise of militant Japan
Author: Thomas Arthur Bisson
Release date: April 13, 2026 [eBook #78440]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: The Foreign Policy Association, 1941
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78440
Credits: Aaron Adrignola, Tim Lindell, Craig Kirkwood, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHADOW OVER ASIA ***
Transcriber’s Notes:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_), and text
enclosed by equal signs is in bold (=bold=).
An additional Transcriber’s Note is at the end.
* * * * *
HEADLINE BOOKS
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=CHANGING GOVERNMENTS=
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=SHADOW OVER EUROPE=
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=CHALLENGE TO THE AMERICAS=
=LOOK AT LATIN AMERICA=
With 25 Maps and Charts
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The Citizen’s Guide to National Defense
=SHADOW OVER ASIA=
The Rise of Militant Japan
=WAR ON THE SHORT WAVE=
(In preparation)
SHADOW OVER ASIA
THE RISE OF MILITANT JAPAN
by
T. A. BISSON
Illustrated by
GRAPHIC ASSOCIATES
THE FOREIGN POLICY ASSOCIATION
* * * * *
COPYRIGHT 1941
FOREIGN POLICY ASSOCIATION, INCORPORATED
22 EAST 38TH STREET, NEW YORK, N. Y.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_Published April 1941_
_Typography by Andor Braun_
PRODUCED UNDER UNION CONDITIONS AND
COMPOSED, PRINTED AND BOUND BY UNION LABOR
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
I. The Shadow 7
II. Introducing Imperial Japan 11
III. Imitating the Chinese 20
IV. Japan Bars Her Door 25
V. How the Door Was Opened 33
VI. Catching Up with the West 39
VII. Who Rules Modern Japan? 45
VIII. Creating a Modern Empire 53
IX. Japan and the First World War 59
X. Go Liberal, Go Fascist? 65
XI. The Shadow Deepens 73
XII. War with China 83
XIII. Shadow Over Asia 91
Suggested Reading 95
* * * * *
[Illustration: WHERE THE SHADOW LIES]
I. The Shadow
On the morning of September 27, 1940 the cables hummed with news of a
momentous ceremony. Japanese diplomats in Berlin had signed a military
pact with Germany and Italy. That evening in Tokyo the Japanese people
received a message from Emperor Hirohito. In their newspapers they
read: “We are deeply gratified that a pact has been concluded between
these three powers.” The Emperor had spoken. A new alliance had been
formed. And a lengthening shadow was spreading over Asia.
TEN YEARS AGO AND NOW
The shadow had first been cast on another September day nearly ten
years before, when a railway explosion at Mukden had served as an
excuse for the Japanese military to take over Manchuria. As we look
back now with the advantage of hindsight, that day--September 18,
1931--looms up as an important milestone. For Japan’s seizure of
Manchuria ended one historic era, and began another. It abruptly broke
up the period of comparative peace that had succeeded the first World
War. And it ushered in our present period of strife and unsettlement.
Its indirect effects on European developments were also very great. We
know that Japan’s defiance lowered the prestige and authority of the
League of Nations. It showed how hard it was to secure international
cooperation strong enough to check determined aggression. Japan’s
example undoubtedly influenced Mussolini and Hitler in the bold moves
they made later on in Europe.
After 1935 German and Italian expansion in Europe paralleled Japan’s
drive in the Far East. All of these movements steadily widened their
scope. Increasingly these three powers played into one another’s hands,
and helped one another’s advance. The anti-Comintern pact of November
1936 drew them closer together. But they were not formally allied
until September 27, 1940, when Japan signed the military pact with the
Axis powers.
This pact had startling implications. True, Germany and Italy were
separated from Japan by vast distances. As long as Britain controlled
the seas, the new allies could not actually join military forces. But
Germany had only to put pressure on the French authorities at Vichy in
order to help Japan win control over Indo-China. An Axis break-through
in the Mediterranean, moreover, could swiftly bring her much greater
aid.
TOWARD A “NEW ORDER”
It was this possibility that made Japan’s aims, as outlined in the
alliance, so significant. Berlin and Rome waved Japan ahead toward the
conquest of “Greater East Asia.” Until 1940 Tokyo’s official claims
had reached out only to Manchuria and China. But the new term brought
southeast Asia into the picture as well. This area would certainly
include Indo-China, Siam, Burma, Malaya, the Dutch East Indies and the
Philippines. On its outskirts lie Australia, New Zealand and India. By
formally announcing “Greater East Asia” as Tokyo’s sphere of influence,
the Axis-Japan pact served as a blueprint of the Far Eastern sector of
the world order which the Axis alliance hoped to establish.
WHAT IS “GREATER EAST ASIA”?
The new allies were seeking control over three continents. Germany
and Italy were bidding for domination over Europe, Africa and the
Near East, creating new and urgent problems for us. Tokyo’s bid for
supremacy in “Greater East Asia” raised problems which were just as
great. To many of us these problems seemed far away--much more remote
than those of Europe, to which we are bound by so many close ties. Yet
we know now that we should be making a mistake if we tried to close our
eyes to them.
More than one billion people, or half the earth’s population, live in
the area embraced by “Greater East Asia.” It is thus one of the most
populous regions of the globe. Its territorial spread is equally large.
Its outside limits range from northern Japan to Australia, and from
China and India to New Zealand. The whole North and South American
continents, excluding Canada, could be fitted comfortably into this
vast territory.
It is, besides, an area of great contrasts--greater, probably, than
in any other region of the world. In a score of different localities
conditions vary widely--climate, people, language, religion, economic
life, government. Coolies working in Korean rice fields are a far
cry from English-speaking Australian sheep ranchers, peasants in the
remote interior of China from Malayan tin miners or East Indian rubber
planters, Indian bazaars under a burning sun from Manchurian cities
deep in their winter snows.
A COLONIAL REGION
Another feature of this region became especially important after
Germany had conquered several European powers with Far Eastern
possessions. For eastern Asia is one of the greatest colonial areas
of the world, not even excepting Africa. From Korea to India runs a
continuous chain of Japanese, French, American, Dutch and British
holdings. Only Japan in the north, and Australia and New Zealand in the
south, may be counted as fully independent countries. So this region
is the scene not only of imperial rivalries, but of struggles for
independence on the part of native peoples.
Thus many factors enter into the international developments affecting
this region. Countless threads of policy connect it with Europe. They
run to Berlin, and are woven into Hitler’s plans; to London, where
they tie in with the problem of what naval and air forces the British
can spare for the Far East; to Vichy, and the attitude of the French
Government there; and to the refugee Netherlands authorities in
Britain taking counsel on the fate of their colonies. Moscow is caught
up in this diplomatic network, and so is Washington--their moves can
exert decisive influence on the course of events.
JAPAN PULLS THE STRINGS
Yet the main moving force in Far Eastern developments is Japan. In
fact, Japan has been pulling the strings ever since September 18,
1931. The challenge to the _status quo_ in East Asia proceeds from
Tokyo, just as in Europe it proceeds from Berlin. Like Germany, but in
even greater measure, Japan has the strategic advantage of a central
position. She need not take too seriously the protests of European
powers halfway across the globe, and she is well aware that the main
centers of strength in the United States and the Soviet Union are
almost equally distant. Only Japan, of the major powers, has her home
bases wholly within the Far Eastern region.
And so today we are forced to think more and more about Japan. In large
part we are concerned with the immediate present. We want to know what
Japan is doing, and what she intends to do. Yet we can understand her
present foreign policy and form some idea of her probable future moves
only if we know something of her past as well. We must seek out the
forces that have shaped modern Japan.
So in this book we shall go back to the legendary traditions of the
Japanese nation, today being revived by Japanese patriots and preached
as a state religion. We shall see how the belief in hereditary power
as the privilege of the few has been strong in Japan from the earliest
times, resisting the influence of democratic ideas from both China and
the West; how even when Japan set up a constitutional government, the
seats of ancient privilege were preserved; and how Japan, with her
military leaders in the saddle, finally set out on the road to Empire.
II. Introducing Imperial Japan
Japan proper, consisting of four closely connected islands, has often
been compared to the British Isles. A map of the Eurasian continent
shows the similarity of their geographical position. Japan’s island
chain is much longer, but it clings to the Asiatic mainland very much
as the British Isles cling to the European mainland. The Straits of
Tsushima take the place of the English Channel.
Actually, however, Japan is much farther from the mainland than
Britain, even in the narrow waters of Tsushima. The steamer from
Shimonoseki takes nearly eight hours in crossing over to Fusan, on the
tip of the Korean peninsula. This fact has had important historical
results. The stretch of water has been wide enough to make invasion
difficult--at least until modern times. Yet it has not been so wide as
to bar cultural exchanges with the mainland.
JAPAN AND THE ASIATIC MAINLAND
During historic times, for roughly 2,000 years, Japan was never
successfully invaded. In 1066 William the Conqueror successfully
invaded England. But two centuries later, in 1274 and 1281, Kublai
Khan’s Mongol-Chinese armies twice failed to conquer Japan. For long
periods, when Japan’s rulers so wished, they were able to isolate their
country more or less completely from the Asiatic mainland.
On the other hand, Japan was close enough to the continent to benefit
from the earlier growth of civilization there. From the very beginning
of Japanese national life, we can trace significant advances to the
coming of peoples and cultures from the Korean peninsula. At times,
notably in the seventh and eighth centuries, the flood of cultural
influences from China almost swamped Japan and threatened to sweep away
her native institutions. During the past century Western influence has
caused equally great changes in Japanese life. Each time, however, a
solid core of Japanese tradition resisted destruction, and shaped the
new elements into a social pattern characteristically Japanese.
JAPAN’S ISLAND HOME
Many local features of Japan’s island home are as important as its
geographical position. Its natural beauties have fed the highly
developed aesthetic sense of the Japanese people. No one who has
traveled the Inland Sea can forget its sparkling waters, or the lovely
islands which dot its surface. The majestic beauty of Mt. Fuji is world
famous. Hallowed associations enhance its snow-capped splendor for the
Japanese.
Not all characteristics of the group of Japanese islands are so
favorable. Many of its mountains are volcanic in origin. Several
volcanoes are still active. Earthquakes occur frequently. (The
disastrous earthquake of 1923, with over 150,000 dead and injured, is
still fresh in our memories.) Typhoons, sweeping in from the sea in
destructive assault, are also common. So nature contributes an element
of insecurity to the life of the Japanese, offsetting the protection
their isolation gives them.
Today other natural features give rise to a more serious insecurity.
Japan’s territory is small, barely the size of California, the
population is large and prolific. Four-fifths of the islands are so
mountainous that they are useless for the intensive rice cultivation
which is the principal Japanese agricultural pursuit. In recent times,
when modern industry became necessary, the Japanese islands were found
to lack most minerals. Water power is abundant, and can be harnessed to
produce electricity. There are considerable reserves of coal, though
not of good coking quality. But there is little iron, and even less of
the minor but still important metals. To these factors, which have not
prevented the Japanese from becoming an industrial nation, we shall
have to return later on.
WHO ARE THE JAPANESE?
Like all modern peoples, the Japanese of today are a mixed race. In
prehistoric times one migrant people after another overran the islands.
The ocean set a barrier to further migration. So the invaders had to
settle down, either exterminating the people already there or else
intermarrying with them.
[Illustration: JAPAN’S ISLAND HOME]
The last invasions must have occurred early in the Christian era.
Scholars are not agreed on the exact racial proportions of the groups
which mingled to form the modern Japanese people. The basic stock is
probably Mongolian, the result of migrations through Korea from the
north Asiatic continent. There is apparently a southern admixture,
coming from either southeast China or Malaysia. Many of these groups
were late invaders of the islands. They found there an Ainu people,
possibly of Caucasian racial origin. Ainu remnants still survive in
Japan, but most of them have been absorbed or exterminated in the
course of centuries of warfare.
[Illustration: EARLY INVADERS AND SETTLERS]
Three main racial elements thus entered into the making of the Japanese
people. To the Mongol strain is undoubtedly due the warlike spirit of
the Japanese, while from southeast Asia comes a mythology that has been
interwoven with Japan’s political institutions. Later, there were also
many Chinese and Korean immigrants. By the end of the seventh century,
according to one source, more than one-third of Japan’s noble families
claimed Chinese or Korean descent.
[Illustration: A Magatama, or bead ornament, common in early Japanese
tombs. Often made of jade, nephrite or chrysoprase--materials found not
in Japan but in the Ural-Baikal regions.]
EARLY JAPANESE INSTITUTIONS
To understand modern Japan, we need to study the past even more than in
the case of most Western nations. For survivals of ancient traditions
play a large part in Japan’s national life today. These beliefs and
practices can be traced back for nearly two thousand years. What were
these institutions like in their earliest form?
Historians give only a partial answer to this question. The latest
island invaders, who became the dominant Japanese, were a group of
clans or tribes. Leadership in these clans was hereditary. The clan
elder was both chieftain and high priest. He supervised or performed
sacrifices to the clan god, who was usually held to be his direct
ancestor. All clansmen were supposedly united by blood ties to the clan
elder, and thus shared in the divine descent.
“THE WAY OF THE GODS”
Societies ruled by a priest-king, usually called “theocracies,” have
existed in many parts of the world. In Japan, however, theocracy
grew all the stronger because of a mythological tradition, later
called Shinto, or “Way of the Gods,” centering about a Sun Goddess
(Amaterasu). There were many aspects to Shinto, including an early
nature worship. But its main feature came to be the story of the Sun
Goddess, whose descendants were the Japanese people. Early in their
history the rulers of Japan raised this myth to the dignity of a state
cult. The chieftain of the Yamato clan, the strongest of all, claimed
direct descent from the Sun Goddess. This claim was a very real thing
in Japan. It was taken much more literally than our vaguer Western idea
of “the divine right of kings,” which persisted until the eighteenth
century in Europe.
The clansmen were aristocrats who handed on their privileges from
father to son, and to whom war was second nature. But agriculture, in
the shape of the cultivation of rice, was already a cornerstone in
the economy of this early Japanese society. Under the clansmen were
“guilds” of farmers and artisans, who did most of the productive work.
Membership in these producing units also passed from father to son.
These serfs, as well as a smaller number of actual slaves, were made up
largely of war captives, conquered natives, or immigrants from Korea.
[Illustration: JAPAN’S EARLY SOCIETY (5-6th CENTURIES)]
The chief ideas of this primitive Shinto society are quite clear.
There was a strong emphasis on the hereditary principle. The idea of
an aristocracy of the blood was strengthened by the idea of descent
from the gods. Government was by men, not by law. The clan or group,
not the individual, was important. The mass of the people lived to
serve their rulers. We shall see how these primitive ideas--so like the
totalitarian ideas of today--have influenced Japanese history through
the centuries.
BEGINNINGS OF A NATION-STATE
At first the invading clans were not unified. There was little
centralized government. The Yamato chieftain had only a shadowy
authority over the other clans. He was “first among equals,” rather
than an overlord. He controlled directly the territory held by his own
clan, but not the lands of other clans. Nor did his religious authority
extend far beyond his own clan.
During the first four or five centuries of the Christian era this
picture was steadily changing. Most of central and western Japan was
conquered and occupied as the result of a long series of wars. The
power of the Yamato clan was growing. Its chieftain was becoming the
ruler of a centralized state. His position was approaching that of a
king. Lesser leaders were being attached to this “Emperor,” and were
assuming the role of ministers at the “court.”
In other ways, too, the various clans were merging into a centralized
state. The Emperor, as the direct descendant of the Sun Goddess, came
to be recognized as divine ruler of the whole Japanese people. More and
more the Japanese thought of themselves as a single patriarchal family,
headed by “the Sovereign that is a manifest God.” Ancestors of the
other clan leaders, also divine, were brought into relation with those
of the Emperor, but in subordinate rank. The strongest clans were able
to claim descent from deities closely associated with the Sun Goddess.
CONQUESTS IN KOREA
These political and religious changes were the outward signs of an
underlying movement of growth and expansion. A larger and larger area
of the islands was being occupied. The population was growing, and
additional economic units, or “guilds,” were being formed. Japanese
armies were fighting in Korea, where they dominated the southern
region of the peninsula for long periods. Through this contact with
the mainland, a stream of Korean immigrants, and even some Chinese,
flowed into Japan. Many of them were educated scribes, Buddhist priests
or expert artisans. By the fifth century the Japanese had learned the
rudiments of Chinese writing, and in the sixth century Buddhism was
officially introduced from Korea. The wealth of Chinese civilization
was thus opened up to the Japanese people.
[Illustration: INTERCOURSE WITH KOREA 5-6th Centuries]
THE OLD ORDER BREAKS DOWN
By the sixth century, Japan faced new and difficult problems. Old
forms of government were breaking down. The simple clan rule, based on
blood ties, was being upset by migrations within, and immigration from
without. New leaders were faking their family trees, in order to claim
divine descent. The clan chieftains found their priestly control over
the people slipping, and had to try the use of political and military
power instead.
Special difficulties arose when new areas were conquered, or large
numbers of immigrants arrived. There were disputes between clans, some
of which favored “guilds” and some a freer order of serfs. The Imperial
clan proved able to get the richest of the new areas, and to extend
the lands and increase the people under its control. But this did not
settle the problem. For the leading clans tried to control the Emperor,
and fought over rival claimants to the throne.
These bitter quarrels threatened to tear the new state apart. A more
effective centralization, both of economic and political power, had
obviously become necessary. The groundwork had been laid, and the
times called for a drastic change. The model was sought in China, then
flourishing under the T’ang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.).
III. Imitating the Chinese
One of the most dramatic episodes of modern history has been Japan’s
adoption of Western institutions and techniques. But the interesting
thing is that such wholesale borrowings were not new in the history of
Japan. More than a thousand years earlier she had drawn similarly on
Chinese civilization. That earlier period, moreover, was akin to the
later in one significant respect--the old Japanese ways persisted under
the new shell. The changes were only skin-deep. And the more important
beliefs and practices that featured the early clan society we have been
studying continued to govern Japanese behavior.
Japan’s contacts with China had begun well before the seventh century,
the period when they became so marked. At first these contacts had been
only secondhand, through Korea. Direct relations with China had been
established early in the fifth century, but had remained unofficial.
The first official Japanese envoy was sent to the Sui Dynasty in 607
A.D., and a second embassy followed in 608. In the two centuries after
630, no less than twelve Japanese embassies visited the T’ang court
at Ch’ang-an, located on the site of the modern city of Sian (see
map opposite). These two hundred years were China’s golden age, when
dazzling Ch’ang-an was the world’s foremost civilized center. Japanese
monks and scholars accompanied the embassies, often remaining in China
for long periods of study. They brought back to Japan a thorough
knowledge of Chinese culture--much as Japanese students have returned
from Western countries with new knowledge and skills during the past
eighty years or so.
[Illustration: ROUTES TO THE CONTINENT 7-8th CENTURIES]
CHINA BECOMES THE “GLASS OF FASHION”
Chinese civilization, during the seventh and eighth centuries, was
transplanted to Japan on a vast scale. Nara, the new Japanese capital
(see map opposite), was built on the lavish model of Ch’ang-an. Court
society became highly sophisticated. The ability to write a good
Chinese hand, or turn a Chinese verse, was the indispensable equipment
of an educated man. The first national histories of Japan were
written--most of them in the Chinese language. Buddhism flourished.
Japanese artistic skill expressed itself in masterpieces of sculpture
and architecture, modeled on T’ang examples but individual in genius
and execution. Native Japanese poetry flowered and, in general, this
was the classic age of Japanese culture.
[Illustration: “Japanese artistic skill expressed itself in
masterpieces of sculpture ... modeled on T’ang examples.”]
In the field of government the Japanese also imitated the T’ang
system. They declared the land “nationalized”--or subject only to the
Emperor’s control. They reorganized local government, putting Imperial
officials in direct control, especially of tax revenues. In China such
officials were chosen through an examination system, so examinations
were introduced in Japan. The Emperor was now, in theory at least, the
all-powerful head of the Japanese state.
BUT IT’S CHINA--“WITH A DIFFERENCE”
These reforms were not amateurish. They were based on a good knowledge
of the principles and practices of the Chinese system. Yet in their
pure Chinese form they worked against certain ingrained Japanese ideas,
most of all the hereditary principle. So, from the beginning, the
Japanese changed the Chinese system as they took it over. The changes
may not have seemed great at the time, but they were really basic.
Within a few centuries, the new institutions had produced an entirely
different result in Japan. Only in form did they bear any resemblance
to the institutions of China.
The clearest example of such changes is the way Japan’s statesmen
treated the Chinese examination system. In China, at its best, this
was a real civil service system. For centuries the path to public
office lay through success in the examinations. Sons of great families
undoubtedly had a better chance of succeeding, and bribery and
favoritism were rife in decadent periods. But the “success story” of
the Horatio Alger type fills Chinese literature. In not a few cases,
the poor but brilliant Chinese youth passes the examinations with
honors, and becomes a powerful and wealthy official.
THE ARISTOCRAT’S PLACE IN THE SUN
This system was altogether too democratic for Japan’s clan society,
with its emphasis on aristocratic lineage. At the very outset it was
drastically modified. Training schools were set up, but only nobles
of a certain rank could enter them. These persons alone could take
the examinations, and qualify for high office. After a time, even the
examinations were discontinued. Important government posts soon became
hereditary again. Lower posts in the provinces were usually taken by
local leaders, instead of officers sent by the Imperial government.
The higher provincial officials meanwhile stayed at court, and
delegated their powers to personal followers in the various localities.
A similar development took place in the case of the land reforms. The
land was “nationalized,” but it proved impossible to preserve the
public domain. The great estates of the clan leaders were returned
to them in payment for their official services, and then remained
hereditary. Powerful individuals encroached on the public lands, or
impoverished peasants escaped tax exactions by joining their lands to
privately owned manors, and becoming serfs. In practice, the public
domain was gradually taken over by private families, the court nobility
or the great monasteries.
THE POWER BEHIND THE THRONE
As these private estates were usually tax-free, the Imperial government
was soon deprived of its revenue. And so, as time went on, the Emperor
became a mere figurehead. Elaborate state councils and ministries,
patterned after those of China, became nothing more than ceremonial
forms. Yet centralization was maintained for several centuries, with
the great Fujiwara family as the real power behind the throne. This
family held vast provincial estates, controlled many of the local
officials, and dominated the court. By wedding the Imperial princes
to Fujiwara ladies, it reduced the Emperors to puppets. The Fujiwara
dictatorship ruled a much more intricate and cultured society than had
existed in the early clan period. On the surface, this new society was
Chinese; in fact, it was still run in the old Japanese way.
Changes there had been, however. The courtier had replaced the warrior.
Instead of fighting clan chieftains, a bureaucracy of civilians now
ruled. Buddhism had pervaded Japanese society from top to bottom. The
teachings of Confucius had also been introduced from China. For a time
the home-grown Shinto religion was overshadowed, and lay dormant. But
it was not wholly eclipsed. The Emperor reigned, if he did not rule.
Though the Shinto ritual, playing up the Emperor’s descent from the Sun
Goddess, might be neglected, it was never lost. Japanese government
was still theocratic (centering on a priest-king), even if a Fujiwara
pulled the strings and bureaucrats played all the active roles.
IV. Japan Bars Her Door
We must now leap several centuries to about 1550, when the first
Western traders and missionaries reached Japan.
The Japan of 1550 differed greatly from the Japan of the Fujiwara era
we left behind us five or six centuries earlier. The Fujiwara power
had passed away in the twelfth century. Its civilian government had
grown weak. It could not even keep the peace. As disorder grew in
the provinces, great independent lords surrounded themselves with
military retainers on their private estates. A feudal society gradually
emerged. In 1185 one of these feudal lords established his supremacy
over the others, and soon obtained Imperial appointment as “Shogun,”
or Generalissimo. The Emperor’s court still carried on at Kyoto, but
political control passed increasingly to the Shoguns, who became
military dictators. A military aristocracy--but a rapidly shifting
one--dominated Japan. As new feudal lords grew in strength, they would
challenge the Shogun’s authority and bitter civil wars would follow.
Strife and disorder amounting to anarchy marked the century which
preceded 1550.
Then the trend was reversed. By 1590, through the work of three great
leaders--Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Ieyasu--the country was unified
again. In the brief period that followed--say, until 1625--Japan was
confronted with a fateful question. Should it embark on a program
of military and commercial expansion, similar to that which Western
nations were just entering upon? For a time it seemed that the answer
might be “yes.” In the end, it was “no.” And that “no” changed the
whole course of Far Eastern and perhaps world history. In 1603 Ieyasu
established the Tokugawa Shogunate, destined to rule Japan for more
than 250 years. After 1616, under his successors, the seclusion policy
was gradually adopted, and Japan was practically isolated from the
outside world.
Was this choice inevitable? We cannot really tell. We do know that in
the period just before she barred her door Japan was reaching outward
toward full intercourse with the West.
REACHING OUTWARD
For the last thirty years of the sixteenth century were a dynamic
period in Japanese history. An excess of energy in Japan seemed to
match the urge for discovery and conquest that stirred the rising
nations of Europe.
Japan’s domestic and foreign trade had been increasing at a rapid pace.
Native industries had grown, and trade guilds had flourished. After
1550 this commercial development leaped forward. Sakai, a great trading
center, became virtually a free city, ruled by its merchant princes.
Nagasaki was opened to foreign trade in 1570, and soon developed into
a thriving port. At this time, too, Japanese ships, often on piratical
expeditions, were venturing into the waters of the Philippines and
Siam. In groups and as individuals, Japanese emigrants were found at
various ports in southeast Asia. Hideyoshi even conceived the project
of conquering China, but after overrunning Korea in 1592-93, his armies
(numbering 150,000 men) were defeated.
After 1550 missionaries and traders from Portugal, Spain, Holland and
England came to Japan in growing numbers. The Japanese eagerly seized
upon Western products and technical advances, notably in firearms
and shipbuilding. These commercial contacts with the West modified
Japan’s economy and stimulated her industrial development. For several
decades Christianity, introduced by St. Francis Xavier in 1549-51, was
welcomed. Some of the feudal lords became Christians. By 1617 there
were some 300,000 Christian converts, or nearly as many as today.
[Illustration: JAPAN’S OVERSEAS ADVENTURES 16-17th CENTURIES]
JAPAN SENDS ENVOYS TO SPAIN
For a time, there was the possibility of even more extensive contacts
between Tokugawa Japan and the West. Ieyasu, the first Tokugawa Shogun,
deliberately sought to make Japan a great center of international
trade. China, mindful of Hideyoshi’s Korean invasions, rebuffed him. He
then turned to the West--that is, to Spain, then the richest trading
nation of Europe. In 1610 Ieyasu concluded a commercial treaty with the
Spanish governor of the Philippines. In 1610 and 1614 Japanese envoys
crossed the Pacific and visited some of the Spanish possessions in
America. Then they went on across the Atlantic. In Madrid the Japanese
envoy had an audience with King Philip III on January 30, 1615; later,
he saw the Pope at Rome. The Spanish king, however, influenced by
the anti-Christian persecutions that had already occurred in Japan,
rejected Ieyasu’s request for a treaty establishing trade relations
with Spain and the Spanish-American possessions.
BUT FINALLY PULLS IN HER LINES
It was not until more than two centuries later that such an opportunity
presented itself again. For soon after Ieyasu’s death in 1616, the
policy of national seclusion was adopted.
Many factors led to this decision. The narrow intolerance of the
missionaries, as well as conflicts between rival Jesuit and Franciscan
orders, had created difficulties almost from the beginning of their
stay in Japan. More important was the fear that estates of the
Christian lords might become centers of rebellion, and thus lay
Japan open to conquest by a foreign power. Persecution began under
Hideyoshi, and after 1616 a series of anti-Christian edicts was issued.
The Christian persecutions reached their height in 1622-24, although
Christianity was not fully stamped out until 1638.
At this time Japanese were forbidden to go abroad, and the building
of large sea-going vessels was also prohibited. All foreign traders
and priests either left Japan or were expelled. A small Dutch trading
center, restricted after 1641 to the islet patch of Deshima, was all
that remained of the early period of intercourse with the West. By 1650
the policy of national seclusion, introduced by the Shoguns of the
Tokugawa clan, was in full force. It was maintained until after the
middle of the nineteenth century, or well into the modern era.
THE DUTCH OASIS ON DESHIMA
We should be on guard, however, against some common errors about this
important period in Japan’s history. The term “hermit nation” must
not be taken too literally. Seclusion was not complete. Through the
Dutch settlement on Deshima, ideas from Europe filtered into Japan.
A small group of Japanese scholars studied the Dutch language. In
1745 they prepared a Dutch-Japanese dictionary, and in 1774 a Dutch
textbook on anatomy was translated. Of course, Japan did not keep
abreast of Western technical progress during the Tokugawa epoch. But
valuable beginnings were made, especially in language study, medicine,
geography, map-making and military science.
Another common error associated with the idea of a “hermit nation” is
that Tokugawa Japan remained static for two hundred years. In reality
great internal changes occurred during this period, some of which were
fundamental. By 1850 Japan was a very different country from what it
had been in 1650.
The seeming lack of development was most evident in the Tokugawa
political system. Its broad outlines did not, in fact, change very
much. The Emperor and his court were kept secluded at Kyoto. The
real center of government lay in Tokyo, where the Shoguns and their
ministers ruled. Most of the land was owned by the Tokugawa family and
the great feudal lords (_daimyo_) closely associated with it. About
three-eighths, however, was owned by the “outer lords,” such as Choshu
and Satsuma. These “outer lords” were viewed as potential rebels, and
were denied posts in the central administration. All of the feudal
lords had to spend certain months in attendance on the Shogun at Tokyo,
and had to leave their families there as hostages when they went back
to their own lands.
FOUR CLASSES OF SOCIETY
Efforts were made to draw strict class lines. The feudal lords and
their military retainers, or _samurai_, held the highest rank. The
farmers came next, but they were severely taxed and harshly treated.
The townspeople were looked upon as the lowest class of all. A
_samurai_ had the right to cut down a merchant with his sword, but very
early in the Tokugawa period he learned to respect the power of the
merchant’s purse.
[Illustration: JAPAN’S PRE-RESTORATION SOCIETY
DAIMYO (A Feudal Lord) Ruler but heavily in debt
SAMURAI (Military Retainers) Poor but proud
PEASANTS Poor and downtrodden
MERCHANTS Despised but wealthy]
Yet all measures to preserve a rigid centralized feudalism, and to
maintain Tokugawa rule, proved futile. Halfway through the period
serious economic problems began to appear. By 1850 the whole system was
on the verge of collapse.
THE SHOGUNS FAIL TO CONTROL THE MERCHANTS
In their attempts to prevent change, the Shoguns were unable to master
one basic element in their society--trade and industry. Even before the
Tokugawa regime was established, as we have seen, Japan’s commerce had
already grown sizable. Foreign trade was then cut off. But internal
trade, stimulated by a long period of peace, continued to develop. New
luxury goods of many varieties were produced, and industry prospered.
The merchant class in the cities grew wealthy and powerful. Large
business houses, including the present Mitsui firm, were founded.
Money, instead of rice, became the medium of exchange. The transition
to a money economy was gradual, but it worked a revolution in Japanese
society.
Incomes of the _daimyo_ and _samurai_ were in rice. The rice had to
be changed into money, and great exchange marts--similar to our modern
commodity exchanges--grew up in Osaka. The rice brokers “rigged”
prices. Dizzy price fluctuations occurred. The feudal lords and their
_samurai_ fell into debt to the rice brokers and the money lenders.
Government intervention did not help matters. The Shogunate either
debased the coinage, or tried vainly to control prices by decree. The
farmers suffered most of all--from the change to money, from the price
fluctuations, and from still heavier taxes when the feudal lords became
indebted to the merchants. After 1725 the number of farmers declined;
after 1750 peasant uprisings were frequent.
AND FACE A RISING REVOLT
In other ways, too, loyalty to the Shogunate was undermined. The luxury
of the towns stimulated a type of life quite the opposite from that
inspired by the Spartan ethical code, called Bushido, of the _samurai_.
Rich townspeople craved amusement--and painting, the drama, and the
novel flourished. No laws could prevent the _samurai_ from being drawn
to this life, nor could executing a more than usually lavish merchant
or usurer turn back the tide of the new age.
Other intellectual currents were more acutely dangerous to the
Shogunate. Ancient history, literature and religion were studied, and
there was a revival of interest in Shintoism. From these historical and
literary schools there grew a political movement, aimed at restoring
the Emperor to his former place as ruler of the nation.
Thus, by the middle of the nineteenth century, the country was ripe
for revolt. In the background lay the misery and distress of the
farmer. But the active promoters of this revolutionary overthrow of
the Shogunate were discontented groups within the ruling class. Four
of these groups banded together to bring about the Restoration: (1)
the “outer lords” of Choshu, Satsuma and the other western fiefs; (2)
the lesser _samurai_, ambitious and energetic; (3) the merchants, who
desired removal of feudal restrictions on their business activities;
and (4) the court nobles of ancient lineage who still clung to the
Emperor at Kyoto. This was a powerful coalition, and sooner or later
it would undoubtedly have brought down the Shogunate through its own
strength. As it happened, pressure on Japan from Western nations came
to its aid and hastened the outbreak of the revolt that was brewing
inside the country.
V. How the Door Was Opened
By the nineteenth century, a new flood of Western influence was
sweeping into the Far East. As in the age of exploration and discovery,
the West was knocking at the door.
In those earlier days, we must remember, the West had had little to
offer in the way of progress. In fact, in the arts and in the graces
of civilized life, the East could have given pointers to the West. But
now the West came strong in the might of the industrial revolution.
Master of machine technique, it was turning out manufactured products
in larger and larger quantities. It was extending international trade
by leaps and bounds. It was seeking new markets and sources of raw
materials throughout the world. And the most powerful of the Western
countries were staking out colonies wherever they could.
A PERIOD OF TRANSITION
1853 to 1868 were the years of transition for Japan. They were crowded
with events that laid the cornerstone of the modern Japanese Empire.
Two broad trends were uppermost during these years. First, there was
the coming of the Western powers with their demand for diplomatic
relations, trade and intercourse--in a word, for the end of the
seclusion policy and the opening of Japan’s door. Of course, the
Shogun, as the ruling power, had the job of dealing with the Western
nations. Too weak to resist, he had to give way. And his enemies at
home seized on this opportunity to discredit him. The second main
trend, therefore, was the sharpening of Japan’s internal conflict.
The extraordinary thing about this internal conflict in Japan was this.
The groups opposing the Shogunate were revolutionaries: they rejected
the existing system and fought for a new one. They sought progress for
Japan--and progress meant opening the country to Western influence.
Yet in their struggle with the Shoguns they were all against the
foreigner. The reason is not far to seek. Anti-foreign demonstrations
provided a handy weapon for attacking and discrediting the Shogunate.
As we shall see later on, when it had served its purpose, this weapon
was dropped.
But, meanwhile, let us look a little more closely at the two broad
trends we have mentioned. Let us see first how, by a series of steps
taken between 1853 and 1867, Japan’s door was gradually opened.
THE “UNEQUAL” TREATIES
What happened to Japan in her relations with the Western powers at this
time had previously happened to China. For a long time there had been a
closely regulated Western trade at Canton. During the early nineteenth
century this trade had steadily expanded. China’s last-minute
efforts to keep real control in her own hands were unsuccessful. The
Anglo-Chinese war of 1839-42, and further conflicts in 1857-60, ended
China’s seclusion and forced the Manchu authorities to treat with the
Western powers on terms of diplomatic equality. The treaties signed at
this time--later called the “unequal” treaties--actually established
China’s _in_equality. Not only were new ports opened to Western trade.
But a fixed schedule of Chinese tariff dues, usually not exceeding
5 per cent, was also enforced. In addition, Western nationals were
exempted from trial under Chinese law. Instead, they were to be tried
in courts set up by their own consuls in China. This was the system
known as “extraterritoriality.”
These events in China did not pass unnoticed in Japan. Many of the
Japanese leaders, despite the Shogunate’s policy of isolation, were
aware of what was happening in China. They began to be alarmed over
Japan’s future, fearing that the Western powers would soon be knocking
at Japan’s door. And sure enough, very soon they were.
COMMODORE PERRY BRINGS A LETTER
The visits of Commodore Perry’s squadron to Japan in 1853 and 1854,
bearing President Fillmore’s letter asking for the opening of trade
relations, were the prelude. Commodore Perry secured the first treaty,
on March 31, 1854. More important was the commercial treaty (July
29, 1858) negotiated by Townsend Harris, first American Minister to
Japan. This treaty opened five Japanese ports to Americans for trade
and residence, and--like the treaties with China--provided for a fixed
tariff schedule and extraterritoriality. It was the model for similar
agreements, also concluded in 1858, with England, France, Russia and
Holland. All of these treaties were signed by the Shogun, but not by
the Emperor. Later, as the Emperor’s power grew, the opposition sought
to prevent application of the treaties on the ground that the Emperor
had not ratified them. In November 1865, however, an Allied naval
demonstration off Osaka forced the Emperor to give his signature.
Finally, in June 1866, a tariff convention set 5 per cent as the duty
on practically all imports and exports.
We shall have to return to these treaties a little later. For soon
after the Restoration of the Emperor, they became a galling yoke to the
Japanese. The tariff and extraterritorial provisions, in particular,
were resented as shackles on the full exercise of Japan’s sovereignty.
Three long decades were to pass before Japan gained enough strength,
toward the close of the century, to revise these unequal treaties.
THE INTERNAL STRUGGLE IN JAPAN
At the time the treaties were negotiated, however, the issue was not
one of equality. The issue was whether there should be any treaties
at all. For many Japanese wanted no opening of Japan’s door. After
the first treaties, nevertheless, a growing number of Westerners
began to live in the ports opened to foreigners. The cry to “expel
the foreigner” was then raised. Coupled with this slogan was the
challenging demand to “revere the Emperor”--a direct call to revolution
against the Shogun. The whole country was aroused. It seethed with
internal strife and dissension, with plots and counter-plots, and even
with armed conflict.
The anti-foreign movement was merely the spark that set off a
bonfire that had been long in the making. By 1850 the Shogunate
was nearly bankrupt. The feudal lords, or _daimyo_, were in the
same position. Most of their landed property was mortgaged to the
merchant-bankers--the rising capitalist class. Thousands of _samurai_
were poverty-stricken. The condition of the peasantry, taxed more and
more heavily to pay for the debts of the feudal lords, was desperate.
Even the wealthy merchants, irked by feudal restrictions and the social
and political inferiority that was forced upon them, were dissatisfied.
The demand for change was growing broader and deeper.
SUPPORTERS OF THE EMPEROR
In Kyoto the Emperor had become the center of an active and
determined political movement. Its platform--anti-foreign and
anti-Tokugawa--called for the restoration of the Imperial power. The
court nobles and a growing number of the _samurai_ and feudal lords
supported it. Wealthy merchant-banker families, such as the Mitsui
house, provided it with cash. Above all, the movement was eventually
backed by a coalition of the western clans, notably those of Choshu and
Satsuma. The part these clans played, both in the Restoration movement
and in the later Imperial government, was decisive.
THE ROLE OF THE WESTERN CLANS
These clans, you will remember, were ruled by so-called “outer lords,”
who were denied a part in the Tokugawa administration. The fact that
they were so far from the center of government at Tokyo encouraged them
to be independent. Moreover, they were in many respects the strongest
and most progressive of the leading Japanese clans. In developing
manufacture and trade as a means of boosting clan revenue, Satsuma,
Choshu, Tosa and Hizen were far ahead of other clans. They fostered not
only handicrafts, porcelain manufacture, sugar-refining and textile
mills, but mining, iron foundries, gun-making, shipbuilding and allied
military industries. Choshu also made a revolutionary change in its
army, by including commoners as well as the _samurai_ in its ranks.
[Illustration: THE RISE OF THE WESTERN CLANS (Mid-19th Century)]
In these western clans, the anti-foreign spirit was at first intense.
For some years, in defiance of the Shogunate, the clans carried on
what was practically an independent war against the Western powers and
the new treaty rights of Westerners in Japan. They frequently attacked
foreigners and their employees. Things came to a head in 1863-64, when
they tried to expel the foreigners. In August 1863, in retaliation for
the murder of an Englishman by Satsuma clansmen, a British squadron
bombarded the Satsuma port of Kagoshima. And in September 1864 an
Allied fleet (British, Dutch, French, American) destroyed Choshu forts
at Shimonoseki which had been firing on Western vessels passing through
the narrow straits.
These decisive proofs of Western military and naval superiority gave
Satsuma and Choshu pause. Both clans stopped their anti-foreign
activities. They had long seen the need of acquiring modern armaments.
This determination was now made doubly strong. Many other leaders came
to see that Japan could not keep her door shut forever, and that her
salvation lay in mastering Western techniques. Once having grasped this
principle, they acted on it boldly and unhesitatingly.
THE RESTORATION
The Emperor’s prestige--and, indeed, actual authority--had grown
steadily throughout this transition period. As early as 1858,
recognizing the Emperor’s new importance, the Shogun sought his
approval of greater intercourse with the West. In 1863 the Shogun even
obeyed an Imperial summons to Kyoto. The advent of a new Shogun and
a new Emperor in 1867 made the transfer of authority all the easier.
In November 1867 the new Shogun resigned, and on January 3, 1868 the
Emperor Meiji, backed by the western clans, formally assumed control of
the nation. Six months later the Tokugawa forces, taking the field in
opposition to the seizure of power by the western clans, were defeated
in pitched battle. A new Empire had been founded.
VI. Catching up with the West
Great difficulties faced the early Meiji reformers. Their essential
task was to catch up with the West. For two centuries Japan had kept
to herself. During this period the Western world had made gigantic
technical advances, greater than man had achieved in all preceding
history. Japan had been left far behind. She was forced to do in
decades what the West had done in centuries.
How could Japan accomplish such a task? In both economy and government
she was still largely feudal and decentralized. There was no real
national state, as we understand that term today. Instead, there were a
hundred competing clans, each with its own territorial lord. And over
all lay the shadow of Western aggression, dictating speed and more
speed.
TACKLING THE PROBLEM
From the outset of the Meiji era, anti-foreignism was dropped. Emperor
Meiji’s famous Charter Oath (April 6, 1868) contained this statement:
“Knowledge and learning shall be sought for throughout the world in
order to establish the foundations of the Empire.”
A period of borrowing from the West, comparable only to the earlier
imitation of China, set in. One after another, Japanese official
missions were sent abroad. Foreign advisers--British, French, Dutch,
German, American--were employed in many different fields. Large numbers
of Japanese students entered the universities of Western countries.
For a short time imitation of the West went to extremes; in many
externals, Western ways became a fad. On the whole, however, there was
strict control over the process of borrowing, and careful adaptation to
Japanese needs.
In keeping with Japan’s traditions, a limited group maintained firm and
despotic power at all times. The Meiji political reforms clothed old
ideas of government in new garments. Emperor Meiji (1868-1912) reigned
again, and with some degree of authority. But actual power during his
long reign lay in the hands of the small group of men who surrounded
him. There was no thoroughgoing mass upheaval, forcing recognition of
popular rights. Reforms were dictated from the top down.
THREE NEW TRENDS
The great changes which occurred during the Meiji era may be grouped
under three main headings. There were, in the first place, the economic
reforms which merged the old feudal lords and _samurai_ into a new
society, and laid the foundations of Japan’s modern industries. Then,
there was a political movement which led finally to the Emperor’s
proclamation of a written constitution. Finally, there was a cautious
development of foreign policy by which Japan, at first on the
defensive, later embarked on an expansionist program and fought its
wars with China and Russia. In this chapter we shall look at the first
of these trends.
ABOLITION OF FEUDAL RIGHTS
Between 1868 and 1877 a series of basic reforms gave centralized
control to the Imperial government. The four western clans returned
their lands to the Emperor, thus enabling him to order the other clans
to do the same. In this way the government took over the land taxes,
the main source of revenue. But the lords, though they no longer
held the land registers, were still political rulers in their feudal
domains. So, in 1871, an Imperial decree established prefectures,
with Imperial governors, in place of the old clan divisions. Finally,
the feudal lords lost their private armies. At first, the Imperial
government’s army consisted mainly of the military forces of the
western clans. By 1873, however, the government was able to enforce
a system of universal military service, and thus build up a national
conscript army under its own absolute control.
Why, you ask, did the feudal lords accept so easily this rapid loss of
their former powers? In large part, it was a result of the lead taken
by the western clans, whose _samurai_ statesmen held the reins in the
Imperial government. For they were prepared to back the new measures
with military action, if necessary. But a second factor was equally
important. The clan lords, especially the great _daimyo_, were well
paid for the surrender of their old privileges. Their lands were not
confiscated outright. Large annual grants of money were allotted them
out of central revenues. But the payments originally promised in this
huge pension scheme turned out to be too heavy for the central treasury
to meet. The government therefore first reduced the pensions and then,
in 1876, compulsorily ended them by means of lump-sum payments, in
cash or short-term bonds. Though this drastic scaling down of the
original pension scheme amounted to repudiating its earlier promises,
the government had no other way of avoiding bankruptcy. As it was, the
total cost of commuting the pensions came to nearly 211 million yen--a
large sum for that period. In many respects, this way of dealing with
the pensions laid the basis of the new Japanese society which has since
developed.
LORDS INTO CAPITALISTS
The _daimyo_, or great feudal lords, did not fare so badly in the
financial settlement of 1876. They were relieved of all their debts,
and of their previous obligations to support their military retainers,
the _samurai_. They retained great slices of their former lands, which
they now held as private owners--that is, with fewer responsibilities.
Moreover, they acquired large sums of money when the pensions were
commuted. These sums they invested in banks, stocks and industries,
as well as in landed estates. The _daimyo_ were thus merged into the
new society, no longer as territorial rulers but as wealthy financial
magnates, controlling the economic life of the countryside.
So, from their own point of view, commutation of the pensions was
a master-stroke by Japan’s new rulers. It helped to throw caste
distinctions of the old feudal type into the melting pot. It won
the allegiance of the clan lords to the new order simply by making
allegiance worth their while.
THE LOT OF THE _SAMURAI_
But in other respects this bold reform created a number of serious
difficulties. The _samurai_ class as a whole was plunged into great
distress. A few of them, especially those from the western clans,
immediately won high positions in the new government. But most of them
were left to sink or swim in a strange new world. Their small pension
payments soon dribbled away, and it was hard for them to find means of
support. They had other grievances. A law of 1877 forbade them to wear
their two swords--traditional mark of honor of the _samurai_ class.
1877, too, was the year when the _samurai_ were replaced by the new
conscript army. During this critical year a serious military revolt,
centering in Satsuma but joined by all the forces opposed to the new
order, broke out. It was crushed by the Imperial government’s new army,
made up largely of commoners and partly modernized. Thus the last
challenge to the new order was defeated.
HARD TIMES FOR THE PEASANTS
The peasants had an even harder time than the _samurai_. Many local
peasant revolts took place in the years up to 1877. Imperial forces
suppressed them, and so prevented the peasants from indulging in mass
confiscations of lands.
Yet great changes were taking place. For the peasants were no longer
feudal serfs. They became landholders, and they could serve in the
army. But the individual peasant secured only a very small plot of
land. As a private owner, his situation was most precarious. He had
to face the risks of drought or flood, pay taxes in money instead of
rice, and cope with price changes in the market. His land soon had to
be mortgaged, and could then be taken away by foreclosure. Indeed,
many peasants quickly lost their lands in the early years of the new
order. By 1892 nearly 40 per cent of the total cultivated area was
worked by tenants. This proportion has persisted, while the number of
part-tenants has increased.
Japanese agriculture, moreover, remained backward in technique and
social organization. The landlords became parasites. Instead of working
the land as a capitalist enterprise for profit, they were intent only
on drawing high rents--often as much as 60 per cent. This system had
far-reaching effects on Japan.
As the number of tenants grew, and the land became divided into smaller
and smaller plots, the farm areas in Japan became overpopulated. Only
a part of the unneeded farm workers could find a place in industry.
Competing for jobs, they kept wages low. Low wages, of course, were a
boon to industrial development. But what industry gained in one way
it lost in another. For the farmers and the workers were too poor to
buy much. The country’s purchasing power grew only very slowly. Thus
the home market for factory products was limited, and industry did not
develop as fast as it might otherwise have done. Very early Japan’s
new factory industries had to turn to the foreign market. As the
limitations on Japan’s home market have persisted down to the present
time, the pressure for foreign trade expansion has grown steadily more
urgent. Here is one underlying cause for Japan’s current policy of
military expansion.
INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT
But changes in agriculture, as we have seen, did help to make possible
the growth of a modern Japanese industry. Peasants who lost their
lands, or artisans thrown out of work, became available as factory
workers. Here was industry’s labor force.
Many other changes helped industry along. Foreign trade, long
prohibited, had begun to grow rapidly in the ’sixties. Clan barriers
to internal trade were leveled. Hundreds of different kinds of money,
issued by the various clans, had circulated. These were now abolished,
and a single national currency instituted. Railways were built, and
telephone and telegraph systems laid down. These improvements made a
freer sale and exchange of goods throughout the country possible. Thus
a home market--even if a very limited one--was established.
For the introduction of modern, large-scale industry, however, two
further things were needed--technique and capital. Foreign experts,
acting both as direct advisers in industry and as instructors in the
new technical schools, provided the first of these requirements.
The second was harder to fill. The banking-trader houses and the
pensioned-off lords had some capital. But it was not enough to finance
the big factory projects, especially where quick profits seemed
unlikely. So the Imperial government had to step in and supply the
capital in most of the larger enterprises. It paid special attention to
the armament industries--mining, metallurgy, shipbuilding.
NURSING INFANT INDUSTRIES
The clan bureaucrats in the government nursed the construction of this
new industrial plant with extreme care and pride. Many of them fell in
love with machinery and engineering technique. They worked closely with
the great business houses, grafting industry on to firms that had been
mainly concerned with trade or banking. The budding capitalists were
not financially strong enough to develop industry by themselves. So the
clan statesmen took them into partnership. It was the clan statesmen,
however, who headed the combination--an important factor in Japan’s
political growth, then and later.
But the clansmen did not wish to keep all industry under government
control. They only wanted to see that it developed quickly. Then
the businessmen could handle it, or at least all but the strategic
industries. The government kept control of railways, telephones,
telegraphs, arsenals and naval shipyards. But in the case of many other
industries, it supplied the capital and started their development,
then turned them back to the great business houses, often at very low
prices. In this way the capitalists were spoon-fed by the government.
Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo and other houses obtained ready-made
facilities in many fields--cotton-spinning mills, glass and cement
factories, mining enterprises, shipyards. The giant Mitsubishi monopoly
in commercial shipping, for example, got its start through the gift and
cheap purchase of government vessels.
By 1890 some 200 steam factories were in operation in Japan. The
development of a machine industry was making good headway.
VII. Who Rules Modern Japan?
We are now able to distinguish the main groups which were to rule the
modern Japanese Empire. Within the quarter century from 1853 to 1877 a
new leadership had emerged.
True to Japan’s history and tradition, control was concentrated in
a few hands. The ruling group was composed of the clan leaders,
dominating the government bureaucracy (since grown to nearly 500,000
office holders); the old feudal lords with great landed estates; and
the business group--bankers, traders and industrialists.
HAND IN GLOVE
At the head of this partnership were the clan leaders, and a few
representatives of the old court nobility. The clan bureaucrats, as
they came to be called, held the influential posts in the new Imperial
government. To a large extent, their dictatorial powers carried on
the old feudal tradition. Many of them were civilians, but they also
controlled the army (Choshu) and the navy (Satsuma). The business
people, on the other hand, especially in the beginning, were definitely
in a subordinate position. It was the government which controlled most
of the early industrial enterprises, as we have seen. Not until much
later, after the World War of 1914-18, did trade and industry reach a
size which enabled the capitalists to make themselves felt politically.
It was the existence of the “upper crust” and the inferior status of
business that largely determined the character of the new political
institutions established during the Meiji era. They were designed,
it is true, to serve the purposes of the whole combination of ruling
groups. But at the same time the clan bureaucrats took good care to set
up the machinery they needed to perpetuate their own supremacy.
CONSERVATIVES VS. LIBERALS
For a decade after the Restoration of 1868, an outright dictatorship
functioned in Japan. The powers of the clansmen were almost unlimited.
Within the ruling group itself, however, there were wide differences of
opinion on some points. One important question was what institutional
forms the new government should adopt. Headed by Itagaki (a Tosa
_samurai_), the more liberal reformers wanted to set up a fully
representative government modeled on the advanced Western democracies.
But most of the clansmen opposed such a radical step. In the end,
however, the conservatives accepted the necessity of a _written_
constitution--which they drew up themselves.
Even this concession was made grudgingly, and only after it had become
absolutely necessary. But several factors worked in favor of the
liberals. The prestige of Western institutions was high at this period.
An article in the Emperor’s Charter Oath, moreover, was interpreted as
a pledge to inaugurate a “deliberative assembly.” Quoting this pledge,
the liberals started a political campaign which won considerable
support. Finally, the rising capitalists needed a representative system
in order to secure a real voice in the government. Despite all these
advantages, in the end the liberals were outmaneuvered in the political
arena. They obtained a constitution, it is true, but one which was
written and imposed by the conservative clansmen. The result was not a
democratic Bill of Rights but a highly autocratic document. With but
few exceptions, the liberals’ failure at this time was characteristic
of Japan’s later history.
THE LIBERALS LOSE
The political struggle reached its climax in the second decade after
the Restoration. In the press and on the public platform, the liberals
waged their campaign. In 1878 they succeeded in getting provincial
assemblies with limited powers, and in 1880 local (town, city and
village) assemblies. In 1881, riots followed the exposure of graft in
the central administration. To save their position, the conservatives
had the Emperor issue a declaration promising a National Assembly in
1890--nine years ahead.
But the political struggle did not abate. It now turned on what should
be the terms of the constitution which was to establish the elective
assembly. The conservatives meanwhile took strong measures against
the opposition. They strictly enforced laws curbing the press. They
suppressed Itagaki’s political party in 1884. In 1887 martial law was
proclaimed in Tokyo, and the opposition leaders were driven from the
capital. In this way the conservative bureaucrats got a free hand in
drafting the new constitution and putting it over.
Hirobumi Ito, its main architect, had gone abroad in 1882 to study
Western constitutional practices. He was greatly impressed by
Bismarck, and took the Prussian Constitution as his model. First,
certain preparatory changes were made. A nobility of five orders
was established in 1884, and a Cabinet in 1885. A civil service was
started, and in 1887 a Supreme War Council was set up to advise the
Emperor on military and naval affairs. In 1888 Ito became president
of the Privy Council, which was given authority to revise the draft
constitution he had prepared. Ito’s work of framing the document was
carried out “in absolute secrecy.” After it had been read in private
to a small group of officials, the Emperor promulgated the new
constitution on February 11, 1889. The first elections to the Imperial
Diet were held in 1890.
A GIFT OF THE EMPEROR
The Constitution was a “gift” of the Emperor. It was not intended
to establish popular government. Its preamble emphasized the old
theocratic (priest-king) traditions of Japan. The Emperor “inherited”
the right to rule “from Our Ancestors,” and ruled “in lineal
succession unbroken for ages eternal.” Ito and his colleagues not only
incorporated these traditional ideas into the Constitution. They made
them the cornerstone of the new system of universal education, and
thus instilled them in the mass of the Japanese people. Reverence for
the Emperor as a divine ruler helped enormously to keep the new regime
solidly in place.
[Illustration: JAPAN’S RULING SYSTEM THE GOVERNMENT UNDER ITO’S
CONSTITUTION]
Practically all the government’s powers, both civil and military, were
vested in the Emperor. Vast economic power bolstered his political
authority. No longer, as on occasion in feudal times, could the Emperor
become penniless. For court expenses, the Imperial Family receives
an annual grant of 4,500,000 yen (more than a million dollars). Its
holdings in lands and blocks of shares, estimated at over one billion
yen, provide a large additional income. So it is one of the wealthiest
families in Japan.
THE EMPEROR MUST BE “CONSTITUTIONAL”
The Emperor’s powers are exercised on the advice of his ministers,
in accordance with constitutional practice. He is not supposed to
act on his own authority. Real power, therefore, resides not in the
Emperor but in his advisers, acting through the agencies set up by
the Constitution. On the surface, these agencies _seem_ to establish
a system of representative government. There is a Cabinet, and a Diet
with two houses--the House of Peers and the House of Representatives.
And political parties like those of the Western democracies soon formed
to contest elections in Japan.
But there the resemblance ends. There is not only the supposedly
divine power of the Emperor. The democratic forms themselves are a
shell, empty of the real meat of popular government. In all effective
representative systems, as we well know, the legislature--particularly
its lower house--has real authority. Not so under Ito’s Constitution.
Ito ranged an overwhelming battery of aristocratic, bureaucratic and
militarist influence in five powerful agencies of government. You can
see from our chart on page 49 what these agencies were. They completely
eclipsed the House of Representatives. Moreover, they often dominated
the Cabinet, or disputed its authority. And through them, as much as
through the Cabinet, the clansmen ruled Japan with a tight rein. Let us
see how each worked out in practice.
NON-POPULAR AGENCIES OF GOVERNMENT
First, there were the Elder Statesmen (or _Genro_). They were a body
completely outside the Constitution. Survivors of the early Meiji
clansmen, they had prestige and experience. For several decades after
1900 they held the government in the hollow of their hands. They made
and unmade Cabinets, shuffled the Premiership among themselves, decided
on war and peace. Their last representative, Prince Saionji, died in
November 1940 at the age of 92. So from now on there will be no more
_Genro_ to be reckoned with.
Next comes the Imperial Household Ministry. Two officials here occupy
key positions. The Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal holds the seals which
must be affixed to state documents. And the Minister of the Imperial
Household has charge of matters connected with the Imperial Family.
These men are not only themselves powerful advisers of the Emperor. But
appointments to see the Emperor must be made through them. So at times
they have been able to bar their political opponents from reaching the
Imperial ear. Usually they hold office for life or until they wish to
resign.
The Privy Council is likewise a useful piece of machinery for Japan’s
ruling group. It is the supreme advisory body to the Emperor. It
consists of 26 life members, usually of great age. Cabinet Ministers
serve as members of the Council _ex-officio_, but are outvoted by
at least two to one. Among other things, the Privy Council ratifies
treaties, approves amendments to the Constitution, and passes on
Imperial ordinances.
The House of Peers consists of about 400 members, of whom more than 200
are drawn from the nobility, 125 are life appointees, and nearly 70 are
elected from the largest taxpayers. It is an extremely aristocratic and
conservative body. Yet its powers equal those of the lower house. And
its members can become Premiers or Cabinet Ministers.
Lastly, the Army and Navy, with their General Staffs and their
representatives on the Supreme War Council, are largely independent
of civilian control. The chiefs of the General Staffs and the War and
Navy Ministers have direct access to the Emperor. This means that they
can go over the Premier’s head to appeal any decision of his to the
Emperor. The War and Navy Ministers cannot be civilians. They must be
ranking officers in active service. Since they are nominated by the
Supreme War Council, the latter body can overthrow a Cabinet by simply
ordering them to resign. Or it can prevent the formation of a new
Cabinet which it does not like by refusing to offer nominations for the
War and Navy Ministries.
THE PEOPLE’S REPRESENTATIVES
As against these aristocratic, bureaucratic and military organs of
government, the popular will can be expressed only through the House of
Representatives. The position of the House is very weak, especially in
comparison with the normal legislature of a full-fledged democracy.
For Ito saw fit to curb the powers of the Diet’s lower house by
a series of drastic restrictions. Large fixed, or non-votable,
expenditures limit its control over the public purse. If appropriations
are not voted, the Cabinet has the right to enforce the preceding
year’s budget. Most bills are introduced not by Diet members but by the
Cabinet, which also possesses an absolute veto. Moreover, the Cabinet
can issue Imperial ordinances which, with few qualifications, have
the force of law. It can dissolve the lower house, and thus force an
election--an expensive proceeding for the deputies. And for several
decades only part of the people could vote. Not until 1925 was full
manhood suffrage (age 25) adopted. During elections the Home Ministry
has often intimidated the voters. And popular rights are further curbed
by a controlled press, a strong centralized police force, a large
degree of central domination of local government, and the possibility
that one may be arrested and held indefinitely without trial (because
Japan has no _habeas corpus_ law).
The development of a Cabinet with independent power, responsible
to the lower house of the Diet, would seem impossible under these
circumstances. Entrenched positions were held by the aristocrats,
the bureaucrats and the militarists. For if they did not control the
Cabinet, always a necessary citadel of power, they could be sure of
bringing about its downfall. A responsible Cabinet did emerge in the
post-war years. But, as we shall see, this period was short-lived.
After 1930, largely through the pressure of the militarists, the
pendulum swung back.
VIII. Creating a Modern Empire
By 1890, when the first Diet elections were held, the foundations of a
new Empire had been laid. In the few short years since 1868, the old
feudal society had undergone a profound change. Agriculture was still
the key to Japan’s economy, but factory industry and foreign trade were
growing in importance. A strong centralized state had come into being.
Modern methods were revolutionizing science, education, medicine, law
and many other fields. There was an army recruited through universal
service and trained in Western ways, and the beginnings of a modern
navy.
JAPAN LOOKS ABROAD
The Meiji statesmen were now ready to turn their attention to foreign
policy. Even before the Restoration many of the Japanese leaders had
favored territorial expansion. During the years of internal reform,
however, they had cautiously refrained from rash adventures abroad.
A strong movement in favor of a punitive expedition to Korea had
developed in 1871-73, but the dominant clan bureaucrats had skilfully
prevented the outbreak of war. They had permitted a Formosan expedition
in 1874, but had settled the resulting issues peacefully with China.
Some small gains had been made. The Bonin Islands were annexed in 1876,
and the Liuchiu Islands in 1879. A naval demonstration in 1876 secured
to Japan special treaty rights in Korea, which led to more and more
intervention in Korean affairs.
But these were not the foreign problems which chiefly occupied the
early Meiji leaders. First and foremost, they were trying to change the
unequal treaties concluded with the Western powers at the end of the
Tokugawa period. These treaties, you will remember, permitted Western
nationals to be tried in their own consular courts (the system of
extraterritoriality), and fixed Japan’s tariff at the low rate of 5
per cent. The struggle to throw off these irksome restrictions was the
central issue in Japan’s foreign relations down to 1894.
FIGHTING THE UNEQUAL TREATIES
The Japanese made many efforts to regain control of both tariffs
and courts before they finally won success. An official mission
under Prince Iwakura toured Western capitals in 1871-73 but failed
to gain treaty revision. As other attempts also came to nothing, an
intense popular resentment developed in Japan. In 1889, just when his
negotiations for treaty revision were progressing favorably, a bomb
tore off Count Okuma’s leg. Success was not won, however, until a new
treaty was concluded with Great Britain on July 16, 1894. The other
powers soon followed suit. Japan’s law courts had been modernized, and
she now enforced new civil, commercial and criminal codes. In 1899,
when the new treaties went into effect, all Westerners became subject
to Japanese law. These treaties thus brought the extraterritorial
system to an end. But they all contained tariff schedules that lasted
for 12 years, so that Japan did not secure full control over her own
tariffs until the treaties expired in 1911.
WAR WITH CHINA
On July 25, 1894, nine days after signature of the “equal” treaty with
Great Britain, Japanese naval forces suddenly attacked and sank a
transport carrying Chinese troops to Korea. War was formally declared
on August 1. Thus, by an unusual coincidence, Japan was at war with
China two weeks after she had won her twenty-five-year campaign for
treaty revision.
[Illustration: IN QUEST OF EMPIRE (1876-1923)]
Japan’s statesmen had correctly estimated the weakness of China, as
well as their own degree of preparedness. They did not plunge into war
on a hasty impulse. The army and navy were tuned for action. With
harsh realism, the Japanese leaders unhesitatingly adopted a program of
expansion by force as soon as conditions seemed favorable. Their fight
for treaty revision had been a fight for equality with the Western
powers. They believed that even fuller recognition of equality would
come after a successful war. They were also driven by strong economic
considerations. The restrictions of the narrow home market were already
irking Japan’s youthful cotton textile export houses, and they were
trying to pry their way into the Korean and Chinese markets. Victory in
the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 opened both these markets to Japanese
manufacturers. It was a significant omen of the future that the new
Japan should have discovered, so early in its career, that resort to
the sword might help to overcome the handicaps of its late appearance
on the international scene.
We should also take note of several other results of Japan’s first
modern war. The territorial gains--Formosa and the Pescadores
Islands--were a welcome prize. More important was China’s formal
recognition of Korean independence, which left Japan practically a free
hand in the peninsula. By its new commercial treaty with China, Japan
also gained the benefits of extraterritoriality and low tariff rates
in that country--the system she hated so heartily when it was applied
against herself, as it still was at that time. The war indemnity of
nearly $180,000,000, moreover, helped Japan to expand its armaments
still further in preparation for the war with Russia in 1904.
THUS FAR AND NO FARTHER
An episode which heightened Japan’s sensitiveness in her foreign
relations marked the peace settlement. In the Treaty of Shimonoseki,
China had agreed to cede Japan the Liaotung Peninsula in South
Manchuria. Germany, Russia and France objected to this territorial
cession, and backed their objections by an ultimatum to Tokyo
threatening war. Japan was forced to submit, and in exchange for
a slight increase in the indemnity, the territory was returned to
China. More than the pre-Restoration bombardments of Kagoshima and
Shimonoseki, more even than the galling yoke of the unequal treaties,
this “tripartite intervention” rankled in Japanese hearts. This sense
of humiliation was not lessened in 1898, when Russia secured from China
a 25-year lease of the southern tip of the disputed Liaotung Peninsula
and proceeded to fortify Port Arthur and join Harbin to Dairen by a new
railway line.
WAR WITH RUSSIA
On the whole, however, the gains of the war had proved sufficient to
justify the calculations of Japan’s leaders, and to strengthen the
forces within Japan that were working toward expansion. In 1900 Japan
took part as an equal with the Western powers in quelling the famous
Boxer Uprising, in China, and shared in the returns from the Boxer
Indemnity which they later imposed as a punishment on the Chinese. The
fact that the British thought it worth while to sign an alliance with
Japan in 1902 was an additional testimony to her growing prestige.
Fortified by this alliance, and by strenuous efforts to build up her
military and naval forces, Japan emerged successfully from her clash
with Tsarist Russia in 1904-05.
The peace terms did not include the indemnity Japan coveted, largely
because she was too exhausted to continue the struggle. But still there
were substantial gains. Japan won a protectorate over Korea, which
she converted to full annexation in 1910. The Russian leasehold at
the tip of the Liaotung Peninsula was transferred to Japan, and also
the Russian railway lines in South Manchuria. Finally, Russia ceded
the southern half of Sakhalin Island to Japan, and granted important
fishing rights in northern Pacific waters to Japanese interests.
The Treaty of Portsmouth, which set forth these terms and in which
President Theodore Roosevelt mediated, established Japan as the rising
power in the Far East. In 1905, three weeks before the treaty was
signed, the Anglo-Japanese Alliance was extended for ten years, with
provisions sanctioning Japan’s paramount interests in Korea.
END OF THE MEIJI ERA
In the decade spanned by the two wars, Japan had forged rapidly ahead
in her economic development. Her foreign trade, which totaled only 265
million yen in 1895, had jumped to 810 million in 1905 (see chart,
page 61). Her steam shipping had shown an even more extraordinary
spurt--from 15,000 tons in 1893 to 1,552,000 tons in 1905.
[Illustration: HOW JAPAN’S FOREIGN TRADE HAS GROWN]
On the political side, the new constitution worked out pretty much as
the clan statesmen had expected. For a short time the bureaucrats had
some difficulty with the Diet, where a liberal opposition threatened
to develop. But they soon checked this tendency. They intimidated
or bought off opposition leaders. They embarked on a policy of war
and expansion--which the liberals supported. And, eventually, they
organized parties headed by members of the bureaucracy itself--in the
first instance, Prince Ito.
The Meiji Emperor died on July 30, 1912. During his long reign of
nearly 45 years, all the great changes which we have been considering
had taken place. From a weak feudal state, Japan had been transformed
into a great power. Two years after Emperor Meiji’s passing, the
outbreak of the World War ushered in a period of still more ambitious
expansion and growth.
IX. Japan and the First World War
The World War gave Japan her great opportunity, which her leaders were
quick to seize. The conditions created by World War No. 1 might have
been made to order for Japan. They brought all her strategic advantages
into play, and were ideally adapted to meet her economic necessities.
Japan was not compelled to fight a full-dress war. The Western powers
were more than occupied on the European battlefields, so Japan was
given pretty much of a free hand in the Far East. And the line-up of
powers in 1914-18 added greatly to the strategic advantage of her
geographic location. Britain and Russia were Japan’s allies from the
outset, while the United States could not offer firm opposition to
Japanese expansion. Thus Japan was able to achieve a great deal with
very little effort.
Conditions on the economic side were no less favorable. As Japan’s
military and naval operations during the war were relatively slight,
the costs were small. On the other hand, her economic gains were
exceedingly large. For next to the United States, Japan was the
greatest supplier of the warring nations.
MAKING HAY WHILE THE SUN SHINES
It was the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, renewed for the third time in 1911,
which gave Japan formal diplomatic cause for entering the war. On
August 23, 1914 she declared war on Germany.
After a brief struggle, the German forces at the leasehold of Tsingtao,
in Shantung province, surrendered on November 7. A month later the
whole of Shantung province was in Japanese hands. Then followed the
famous Twenty-One Demands on China. On May 25, 1915, at the point of
a gun, China signed treaties and notes incorporating many of these
Twenty-One Demands. Among other things these treaties confirmed
Japan’s newly won position in Shantung province, and extended her
railway and territorial rights in South Manchuria to the end of the
century. American protests helped to block the most sweeping demands,
which would have made China a Japanese protectorate. Meanwhile the
Japanese navy had scoured the Pacific, and had occupied all the German
islands north of the equator.
THE SECRET TREATIES OF 1917
During the early months of 1917, Japan turned to diplomacy in order to
be sure that she would be able to keep her territorial gains after the
war. The United States had not yet entered the war, and the military
fortunes of the Allied powers in Europe were at a low ebb. Making good
use of this situation, Japan negotiated secret treaties with Britain,
France, Russia and Italy. Signed in February and March 1917, these
agreements pledged that Japan’s claims to the German islands north
of the equator and to the former German rights in Shantung would be
supported at the peace conference. But the Japanese did not secure
American support of these claims. In the Lansing-Ishii agreement
of November 2, 1917, the United States offered merely a qualified
recognition of Japan’s “special interests in China.”
The secret treaties with the Allied powers were shrewdly drawn and
enabled Japan to come off victorious at the Paris Peace Conference.
Her newly established position in Shantung province, as well as the
extensions of her rights in South Manchuria, were accepted and written
into the Versailles Treaty. The German islands north of the equator
were awarded Japan as a Class C mandate, the kind of mandate which
came closest to annexation. American opposition to these decisions cut
no ice, mainly because of Japan’s secret agreements with the Allies.
On only one big issue was Japan defeated at the conference. Her
statesmen had demanded that a clause on racial equality be inserted in
the peace treaty. This demand was rejected, largely because the Western
powers were afraid that it would let down the bars against Japanese
immigration to their countries.
FLIES IN THE OINTMENT
But despite the acceptance of her territorial gains at the peace
conference, by 1919 Japan’s difficulties were increasing. A student
uprising in Peking drove out the pro-Japanese Anfu clique that had
controlled the Chinese government. Opposition to the Shantung award
was growing in the United States, and the American navy was rapidly
becoming the most powerful in the world. Two years later Japan’s
position had become still weaker. A boycott was severely reducing
Japanese trade in China. The costs of the naval-building race with the
United States were a heavy burden. Japanese intervention in Siberia,
which continued after the armed forces of the Western powers had
been withdrawn, was not succeeding. And expenditure on the Siberian
occupation, ultimately totaling about 800 million yen, together with
the naval-building costs, was straining the Japanese budget. These
various factors were discrediting the Japanese militarists at home, and
liberal Japanese were beginning to speak out against them.
SLOWING DOWN JAPAN’S DRIVE
Under these conditions, the United States was able to summon the
Washington Conference, at which important agreements on naval
limitation and Pacific questions were reached early in 1922. By
accepting a battleship ratio of 3 tons as against 5 each for Britain
and the United States, Japan was relieved of the costs of the naval
race. Her security in Far Eastern waters was further increased by the
provision restricting fortification of island bases in the Pacific. The
Four-Power Pact, signed by Britain, France, the U. S. and Japan, and
pledging respect for insular possessions in the Pacific, replaced the
Anglo-Japanese Alliance.
In return for these contributions to her security in Far Eastern
waters, Japan made a number of important concessions. By an agreement
with China, she restored Shantung province to Chinese control. Japan
also signed the Nine-Power Treaty, which pledged all its signatories to
respect China’s territorial and administrative integrity and the “open
door”--or equal commercial opportunity for all nations--in China.
In later days, some of the provisions of these Washington Conference
agreements came to be bitterly attacked in Japan, especially by
military and naval extremists. It is an open question as to how far
these criticisms were justified. It was chiefly the effectiveness of
the Chinese boycott that forced the restoration of Shantung province.
Japan’s major concession was in the Nine-Power Treaty, by which she
agreed to lay down the sword and accept the results of peaceful
commercial competition in China. But there was no machinery provided to
enforce this treaty. The naval limitation treaty relieved Japan of the
heavy costs of the 1921 naval race and at the same time, even under the
5-5-3 ratio, left her able to dominate the China coast. She was thus in
a strategic position to renew her expansionist program--which she did
in 1931.
WORLD WAR GAINS
Moreover, the World War settlement for Japan, as finally reached at
Washington, was no empty achievement. Japan had not obtained her larger
ambitions in China or Siberia, it is true. But the former German
islands north of the equator--of great strategic, if not economic,
importance--were now a Japanese mandate. Japan’s rights in South
Manchuria had become much more firmly established. Her naval and
commercial fleets had greatly expanded, she occupied a permanent seat
on the Council of the League of Nations, and she was recognized as one
of the half-dozen Great Powers. Japan had also made important economic
gains, to which we must now turn our attention.
THE WAR BOOM
It was in the economic field, perhaps, that Japan reaped her greatest
gains from the World War. For her shops and factories were kept busy
supplying the belligerent countries, their colonial populations, and
the American market. Her allies controlled the seas, and Japanese ships
sailed all of them. This freedom of the seas was an important factor
for Japan, who had become increasingly dependent on international trade.
Japan’s war boom was, in many respects, very similar to that enjoyed
by the United States. The relative increase in trade was even greater.
Between 1914 and 1920 Japan’s total foreign trade increased from 1,187
million yen to 4,285 million, or by nearly four times (see chart,
page 61). Through 1918, moreover, exports increased much faster than
imports. For Japan this meant a chance to stock up on her reserves
of gold and foreign currencies, which had always been low. In the
1914-18 period, exports outran imports by 1,460 million yen. This
figure contrasted with an import excess of 1,158 million yen during the
preceding 20 years.
What we have said so far applies only to trade in goods. But returns
on invisible trade items, such as shipping services, were also
high--totaling more than 1,500 million yen for the 1914-18 period.
The wartime balances for both types of trade came to more than 3,000
million yen--on the right side of the ledger. As a result, Japan’s
financial reserves greatly increased. Extensive loans and investments
were made in foreign countries, and large holdings in gold and foreign
exchange were piled up.
Japan emerged from the war stronger financially and economically than
she had ever been before. Nevertheless, she was to suffer a series of
economic setbacks in the post-war period.
X. Go Liberal, Go Fascist?
Even before the war ended, there had been signs of economic distress
within Japan. While the profits from the war boom were going into the
pockets of a small group, a sharp rise in the cost of living had caused
suffering among the masses of the people. Speculators were profiteering
in rice, which soared from 20 or 25 yen to more than 50 yen on the
five-bushel unit. In the summer of 1918 there were serious “rice
riots,” and troops were called out to suppress the demonstrations.
During the war, moreover, trade union and socialist ideas had taken
root in Japan, paving the way for the growth of labor unions and
left-wing parties in the post-war years.
UPS AND DOWNS
Then came the world slump in 1920-21, which led to a sudden collapse
of Japan’s war boom. Partial recovery had no sooner set in than it
received a sharp jolt from the disastrous earthquake of 1923. To
meet these setbacks, Japan drew heavily on the financial reserves
accumulated during the war. Reconstruction after the earthquake created
another short-lived boom--ended by a bank panic in 1927.
Despite post-war difficulties, however, Japan managed to keep her
industry on the up grade. The great advances made during the war were
maintained and consolidated. In the post-war slump the number of
factory workers had declined, but in 1927-28 they reached the wartime
level of 2,000,000 again. Throughout the ’twenties, except for a sharp
drop in 1921, Japan’s total foreign trade continued to hold the new
average level of 4,000 million yen. Population leaped forward, from
about 50 million persons in 1914 to 56 million in 1920, and to nearly
65 million in 1930 (see chart, page 69).
[Illustration: A GROWING POPULATION]
BIG BUSINESS TO THE FORE
During and after the war, Japan’s business groups had come of age.
They were no longer subordinate to the other ruling forces in the
state. Japan’s effort to overtake the West, as we noticed, had led to
a close tie-up between government and industry. This relationship had
made it easy for Japan’s great business houses to become monopolies.
From the beginning they had united banking, trade and industry under
one roof. Post-war developments, such as the financial crisis of 1927,
had carried the process of financial concentration beyond even what
was characteristic of Western countries. By this time half-a-dozen of
Japan’s huge family combines, such as Mitsui and Mitsubishi, dominated
Japanese economy. They had become one of the most powerful financial
ruling groups in the world.
[Illustration: ONE OF JAPAN’S FAMILY EMPIRES]
BUT INDUSTRY DEPENDS ON FOREIGN TRADE
And here we have to point out the striking paradox in Japan’s new
economic society. It was still largely agricultural. In 1925 more than
half the people were dependent on agriculture for their livelihood.
But the peasants were too poor to buy the typical consumption goods
(automobiles, for example) that were staples in the home markets
of Western countries. Thus it was impossible for Japan to develop
modern factory industries turning out _all_ lines of consumption
goods. Only in cotton textiles, with their special export market,
and in shipbuilding and metallurgy, serving the army and navy, were
large-scale factories practical. In 1928 the greater part of Japan’s
manufactured goods was produced in industrial units employing ten,
five or even fewer workers. Firms like Mitsui and Mitsubishi, however,
contracted for the output of these small-scale industrial units and
then sold it, often in foreign markets.
Thus Japan, although she had made great strides in some lines of
industry, had become dangerously dependent on international trade.
After 1929, with the onset of the world depression, the difficulties
of this situation were plain to see. Quotas and tariffs barred even
Japan’s low-priced goods. Old sores rankled, particularly those
affecting immigration. The Exclusion Act, passed by the American
Congress over the President’s disapproval in 1924, cut the deepest.
In fact, it undid most of the good effects of the generous aid America
gave Japan after the earthquake in 1923.
THE LIBERALS TAKE A HAND
These post-war years, especially after 1921, witnessed a brief
flowering of parliamentary democracy in Japan. None of the architects
of the Constitution, least of all Ito, had foreseen this possibility.
Yet in the late ’twenties it seemed as if the Cabinet might win
unchallenged power, that party government would reign supreme, and that
the House of Representatives would become the true seat of authority.
This change came about quite naturally, through the increasing
influence of the great business houses. By 1925 the industrialists
and the bankers, or their representatives, held many of the leading
offices which the clansmen had formerly made their own. They held the
presidency of the Privy Council, and the key posts in the Imperial
Household Ministry. They were influential in the House of Peers, in
the bureaucracy and even in the Army and Navy. Generals and admirals
could actually be found to support the policies of party governments.
All the Elder Statesmen except Prince Saionji had died. And even he,
being related to the Sumitomo banking house, was in sympathy with the
capitalist outlook. As Prince Saionji was the Emperor’s chief adviser
on the choice of a new Premier, he occupied the most strategic position
in the state. In the 1925-31 period, on his nomination, six consecutive
governments were formed by party Premiers holding majorities in the
Diet’s lower house.
POLITICAL PARTIES
Party influence, increasing with the growth of capitalism in Japan,
reached its height during these years. At an earlier period the clan
bureaucrats had manipulated the parties to suit themselves--usually
with little difficulty. But as time passed, the parties formed closer
and closer ties with the great business houses. Mitsubishi interests
were linked with the Minseito party, Mitsui with the Seiyukai party.
The Election Law was gradually amended, increasing the number of
voters, until in 1925 manhood suffrage was adopted. This change forced
Diet members to spend large sums in electioneering, and made them more
dependent on capitalist support. Consequently, it strengthened the
capitalists’ control over the Minseito and the Seiyukai. At the same
time it made possible the rise of labor and left-wing parties, which
began to win Diet seats.
After 1925 the Cabinets formed by the Minseito and Seiyukai parties
began to have to account directly to their majorities in the House of
Representatives for what they did. Parliamentary government was by no
means fully established, however. An adverse vote in the lower house
did not, as a rule, overthrow these Cabinets. More often they fell
because of backstage maneuvers in the Privy Council or the House of
Peers. Nor were their leaders and policies always liberal. For a time
General Baron Tanaka was president of the Seiyukai. He represented the
aggressive, militarist wing of the Choshu clan. The Seiyukai Cabinet of
1927-29, formed under his Premiership, carried out a “positive policy”
of military intervention in China. Tanaka had to be a party leader in
order to become Premier. But his policy showed the strength of old
tendencies, even in a generally liberal era.
On the other hand, the succeeding Minseito Cabinet (1929-31) was the
strongest and most liberal party government which has ever held office
in Japan. It came the nearest to establishing democracy there. It
also had to meet the first onslaught of the military-fascist forces
that have since become so powerful. In the story of Japan’s political
development, it thus represents a critical turning point of unusual
significance.
SWAN SONG OF THE JAPANESE LIBERALS
The Minseito Cabinet of 1929-31 was liberal, but by no means radical.
It was, in reality, a government of “big business.” Its liberalism
stood out mainly in its moderate foreign policy, which contrasted
sharply with Tanaka’s earlier aggressive moves. It was headed by
distinguished leaders: Hamaguchi (Premier), Shidehara (Foreign
Minister) and Inouye (Finance Minister).
This Cabinet labored, however, under a fatal handicap, similar to that
which confronted President Hoover in our own country. For it entered
office in July 1929, at the height of the post-war boom. The Wall
Street crash, and the spreading world depression, immediately followed.
The swift change in economic conditions during its period in office had
much to do with its final overthrow.
Hamaguchi and his Cabinet aides began with a great victory on the issue
of the London Naval Treaty of 1930. This treaty extended limitations to
cruisers and destroyers, as well as capital ships. The army and navy
die-hards opposed it bitterly. The people and the press supported the
Cabinet’s fight for it. On October 1, 1930 the Privy Council ratified
the treaty. The Cabinet and the people had won.
For the moment it seemed as if the Cabinet had brought the army and
navy under control. Real democracy seemed possible. But the triumph was
short-lived. It was the swan song of parliamentary government in Japan.
In November 1930 Premier Hamaguchi was shot by an assassin; eight
months later he died from his wounds. His loss seriously weakened the
Cabinet, and cut down its chance of success on new issues which were
developing.
THE DEPRESSION STRIKES JAPAN
By the end of 1930 the depression had struck Japan with full force. It
laid the Cabinet open to attack by the rising military-fascist forces.
The most serious consequences of the depression were felt in Japan’s
foreign trade. In 1929 Japan’s export-import trade stood at 4,365
million yen. In 1930 it fell to 3,016 million, and in 1931 to 2,383
million. In two years Japan’s trade was cut nearly in half. Even at
that period, few Western countries suffered such a rapid and severe
contraction of their foreign trade.
The effects of this decline on Japan’s economy were catastrophic.
Agriculture and industry were both hard hit. The income from rice and
silk declined until there was actual famine in some rural districts.
Industrial unemployment mounted to three million, higher than ever
before in Japan. The middle-class professionals and wage-earners
suffered wage cuts, or were thrown out of work. There was general
social unrest, and Marxist doctrines won a wide acceptance. Strikes in
industry, and tenant conflicts in rural areas, became commonplace.
In the light of these conditions, the weaknesses of Japan’s economy
stood out in bold relief. Fully half the home market consisted of
poverty-stricken peasants. To put the rural population back on its feet
and enable it to buy the products of industry, drastic social reforms,
such as rent reductions and debt moratoria for the farmers, were
obviously needed. Neither the landowners nor the great business houses
were prepared to embark on such a “new deal.” The army had a different
solution--aggressive expansion abroad and military-fascist repression
at home.
This army program led to a finish fight with the Minseito Cabinet. And
the army leaders fought--and won--their campaign in Manchuria.
THE ARMY STRIKES IN MANCHURIA
The Minseito Cabinet had been trying to pursue a “friendly policy”
toward China. Baron Shidehara, the Foreign Minister, wanted friendly
relations with all countries. In this way he sought to foster Japan’s
foreign trade, and thus solve Japan’s economic problems. But he could
not control the army, especially after the depression had cut down
trade and brought unrest to Japan.
During the summer of 1931 a series of “incidents” occurred in
Manchuria, in which the hand of the military was plainly to be seen. At
home in Japan the army used these incidents to arouse popular support
for “positive” action in defense of supposedly threatened Japanese
interests. General Minami, new War Minister in the Cabinet, openly
supported this propaganda campaign. Baron Shidehara attempted to reach
a peaceful settlement of the Manchurian issues. But in vain. On
September 18, 1931--the historic date we mentioned at the beginning of
this book--the army struck in Manchuria. The “Mukden incident”--alleged
blowing up of a section of the South Manchuria Railway track--served as
an excuse for the Japanese army to occupy the chief Manchurian cities.
This independent _coup d’état_ by the army dealt a fatal blow to
the Minseito Cabinet. Baron Shidehara was forced into the position
of apologizing for the army’s actions, though he must have heartily
detested them. On December 11, 1931 the Cabinet resigned.
XI. The Shadow Deepens
The fall of the Minseito Cabinet marked the end of an era. The crisis
of 1930-31 had unleashed new forces. And these forces were destined to
mold Japan’s policy in the decade that followed.
At their head was the army. Not _all_ of the army leaders, however. At
times the “army extremists” seemed to be only a small minority. Their
power rose and fell. Yet they took command of Japan’s foreign policy,
and gained more and more control over her domestic policy. And as time
passed, their outlook was increasingly stamped on the army as a whole.
THE ARMY EXTREMISTS
Who were the army extremists? Names are not important, except as labels
of a whole group. There has been no outstanding fascist leader in
Japan, such as Mussolini in Italy or Hitler in Germany. It is enough
for us to note that, in the 1930-32 period, the high army leadership
centered in three generals--Araki, Muto and Mazaki. This trio was
supported by a powerful group of “young officers,” such as Doihara and
Itagaki, who have since become ranking generals.
These men were not from the old clan aristocracy. They came mostly
from the lesser clans, or from the middle classes in town and village.
They knew at first hand the sufferings of the farmers and the small
tradesmen. Like Mussolini and Hitler, they claimed to be the friend of
the common man. They bitterly denounced the “corrupt alliance” of the
political parties and the capitalists.
All this was part of their fight for political control at home. They
wanted a “national socialist” reformation in Japan. By this they
meant that the army, under the Emperor, should run the government.
They wanted the political parties suppressed and industry run by the
state--all, as they said, for the benefit of the common man.
On the home front, the army extremists have had little success. None of
their glowing promises of economic “reforms” has been carried out. In
the foreign field, however, their program has been largely adopted. We
must now see what their aims in foreign policy were.
THE DEMAND FOR “LIVING SPACE”
At the heart of the military-fascist program in Japan, just as in
Germany and Italy, lay a demand for territorial expansion. The army
extremists made careful plans for a series of bold moves. First,
Manchuria and Mongolia were to be conquered, then China, then the
rest of Asia. In the past decade we have seen this seemingly wild and
visionary program translated into reality to an extraordinary degree.
In fact, the actual course of Japan’s foreign policy has followed it
very closely.
With territorial expansion was linked an economic idea--that of
regional self-sufficiency, or the “bloc economy.” In 1931, Manchuria
was called Japan’s “economic life-line.” In 1932-33 the watchword was
the “Japan-Manchoukuo economic bloc.” After 1937 the demand was for
a “Japan-China-Manchoukuo bloc.” Finally, the slogan today is for a
“Greater East Asia,” to include the rich territories of Indo-China,
Malaya, the East Indies and the Philippines.
What the army leaders were chiefly seeking through this program was
to overcome Japan’s dependence on the international market. They were
proposing a basic alternative to Shidehara’s plan for the peaceful
development of international trade. In 1930-31 they had seen Japan’s
foreign trade suddenly collapse, plunging the country into an economic
crisis. They were determined that this should not happen again. The
answer, they felt, lay in extending Japan’s political control over
a vast region. The markets and raw materials of such an area, they
thought, would make Japan economically independent of the rest of the
world.
WEIGHTING THE SCALES
The army extremists were not the only ones to share these views. They
had supporters in the bureaucracy, even in the highest positions. Many
naval officers also supported them, although the navy as a whole was
more conservative than the army. And, despite their anti-capitalist
propaganda, they had close relations with some business groups who
hoped to profit from the expansion program.
Though the military-fascist leaders did not succeed in organizing a
unified mass fascist party, they wielded extraordinary powers. They
influenced public opinion through the Ex-Servicemen’s Association,
with its three million members. They also had a host of reactionary
societies to work through. Some of them were dignified patriotic
societies, with members from the highest ranks of Japanese society.
Others went in for espionage, strike-breaking, or outright terrorism.
Finally, the army had its special powers under the Constitution, such
as dictating the choice of War Minister, and going direct to the
Emperor over the head of the Premier.
To all these powers the extremists now added two special techniques
and used them for all they were worth. One was resorting directly to
military action, without waiting for authorization from the Cabinet.
Underlings in the field could plot “incidents” which committed their
superior officers and the government to certain courses of action. The
Manchurian occupation was largely brought about in this way.
The second technique was terrorism, or direct action, against political
opponents at home. Public opinion in Japan does not automatically
condemn assassination, especially if it appears to have been inspired
by patriotic or disinterested motives. The list of distinguished
Japanese who have been assassinated is very long--Okubo, Ito, Hara (the
first commoner to become Premier), Hamaguchi, to mention a few. Since
1931 many others have been added to this list, and their deaths have
all helped the military-fascists to rise to power.
AGAINST THE ARMY?
On the surface it has often seemed that the capitalists were the chief
opponents of the army extremists in the political struggle of the
past decade. This is only partly true. These two groups have been the
strongest political forces in Japan. They have both sought to win the
bureaucrats and public opinion to their side. On the other hand, they
are in agreement on many points.
For the capitalists, as well as the military, are interested in
territorial expansion, and have taken advantage of its results in
China. Many of them favored the Manchurian invasion, because they saw
that it would give the widespread social discontent in Japan a safe
outlet. But at the same time, the capitalists tend to be more cautious
than the army leaders in foreign policy. They do not want to take
risks, or to plunge recklessly into a big war if the chances of success
are slight.
Even on the home front, there is an area of agreement between the
army extremists and the business men. Both wish to maintain their
ruling position against the threat of social revolution. The Minseito
government took measures to stamp out revolutionary groups as early as
1929-30. There is full agreement on regimentation of this kind. But the
capitalists have bitterly opposed the army’s efforts to take over _all_
political power, or to seize control of their business enterprises.
Keeping these general tendencies in mind, we can now turn to a
consideration of the events of the past decade.
THE EXTREMISTS TAKE DIRECT ACTION
The “Mukden incident” of September 18, 1931 marked the halfway point
in the sharp political struggle which was then convulsing Japan. Its
violent phase lasted for eight months longer, until May 15, 1932.
We have already seen the first result of this struggle--the overthrow
of the Minseito Cabinet. The Seiyukai party took up the reins of power
in mid-December 1931. It proved to be the last one-party government to
hold office during that decade. Inukai, its Premier, was a moderate; so
also was Takahashi, the aged Finance Minister. General Araki, symbol
and titular leader of the army extremists, was the Minister of War.
Not content with having forced a change of Cabinet, the extremists
still pressed the attack on party government. Inouye, Finance Minister
in the previous Minseito Cabinet, was assassinated on February 9, and
Baron Dan, head of the Mitsui interests, was shot on March 5. Both were
victims of the Blood Brotherhood League, organized to use terrorism
against the “corrupt political parties, slaves of the capitalists.”
More plots followed. Then, on May 15, 1932, Premier Inukai in turn was
assassinated. His death was the climax of an outbreak supported by high
army officers, who had planned to seize control of the government.
CONQUEST IN MANCHURIA
After this affair, things quieted down a little at home. But the
extremists had meanwhile had their way in the sphere of foreign policy.
Japanese troops had spread over most of Manchuria. In February the
Japanese attack on Shanghai had occurred. In March the “independent”
state of Manchoukuo was established. Far from being independent, it was
really the plaything of Japan’s army extremists who had planned the
“Mukden incident.”
Another year passed before the Manchurian issues were fully ironed
out. In September 1932 the Japanese government formally recognized
Manchoukuo. Early in 1933, on basis of the Lytton Report, the League
of Nations passed judgment on Japan. The army at once moved again in
Manchuria. In March 1933 Japanese troops occupied Jehol province, and
added it to Manchoukuo. In May these troops advanced to the gates of
Peiping and Tientsin, and enforced “demilitarization” of the region
immediately south of the Great Wall of China. Meanwhile, Japan had
withdrawn from the League of Nations. For the time, her conquest of
Manchuria had been made good in her own eyes, if not in the eyes of the
world.
PEACEFUL INTERLUDE (1933-35)
The period from the middle of 1933 to the end of 1935 was “peaceful”
only by contrast with the years before and after. The contrast is
sufficiently striking, however, to justify our using the term.
Two strong Cabinets, headed in turn by Admirals Saito and Okada,
old-line naval administrators opposed to extremism, governed Japan
during these years. The Saito Cabinet had entered office in May 1932,
after the death of Inukai. Party men held only a few of the lesser
Ministries. Nevertheless, the Cabinet was in the main moderate. The key
Finance Ministry, in particular, was in the capable hands of Takahashi,
who allowed only limited increases in the defense budgets. Early in
1934 the fiery Araki resigned from the War Ministry. Araki’s successor
carried out a partial “purge” of the army extremists.
KEEPING THE ARMY QUIET
There were several reasons for this moderate trend. For one thing,
foreign trade had turned upwards in 1932, and by 1935 Japan was again
enjoying a trade boom which soon overcame the worst effects of the
economic crisis and tended to calm the political waters.
In the second place, the army extremists were kept busy with their
experiment in Manchoukuo, where they were trying to realize their
goal of “state socialism.” They were building strategic railways, and
fostering the growth of Manchurian industry. They met with opposition
from business interests at home, and found it hard to raise sufficient
capital for their projects in Manchuria. In order to secure greater
influence over these economic questions, the extremists forced the
establishment inside the Cabinet of a Manchoukuo Affairs Board. Here
the army was in the saddle. And the extremists did secure enough
capital for their projects to provoke the wise old Takahashi into
issuing a warning that Japan’s finances could not stand such a large
and continuing investment drain to Manchoukuo.
On the whole, however, the army men were disappointed with the economic
results in Manchoukuo. By 1935 they were trying to bring North China
into their Manchurian realm, and thus enlarge their economic bloc. In
November 1935 Doihara, the “Lawrence of Manchuria,” tried to detach
five of the northern provinces from Chinese control. The extremists
also planned these moves as part of an effort to strengthen their
position at home. For there they were being steadily pushed into the
background.
DYING FLICKERS OF DEMOCRACY
Plots were still being hatched within Japan, even during this
“peaceful” period. But the moderates were reasserting their control.
They kept the high posts in the Privy Council and the Imperial
Household Ministry. The Cabinet was firmly set for a moderate course.
Even the parties’ strength was reviving. The climax of this trend came
with the general election of February 1936. For the voting showed that
the people had swung decisively away from the extremists. Japan’s labor
party elected eighteen Diet members, while three left-wing proletarians
won Diet seats. It was thought that a new Cabinet, with much greater
party influence, might now be formed.
But the extremists were unwilling to admit defeat. Their answer came
in the military uprising of February 26, 1936--known in Japan as the
“2-26” affair.
THE “2-26” UPRISING
The direct participants in this historic revolt were some 1,400 troops,
with their lower officers. No upper officers openly joined them. Yet
the insurgents had contact with the highest army quarters. And General
Mazaki, an outstanding army extremist, was kept under detention for a
year after the outbreak.
A long death list had been prepared. Actually only three high officials
were killed: Takahashi, the moderate Finance Minister; Admiral Saito,
the former Premier, then Lord Privy Seal; and General Watanabe, who
had been responsible for shifts in army officerships. Premier Okada
escaped, but his brother, who resembled him, was killed. Outside of
Tokyo both Count Makino, former Lord Privy Seal, and Prince Saionji,
the last Elder Statesman, managed to escape attacks directed against
them.
For three days the insurgents occupied the center of Tokyo. They were
finally disarmed when it became clear that the revolt was not taking
hold anywhere else. Once again, an attempt to seize the government had
failed. Nevertheless, the uprising caused an important shift in the
balance of political power. The trend toward moderation was reversed.
Under succeeding Cabinets, new policies were adopted which led directly
toward the war with China in 1937.
PRELUDE TO WAR (1936-37)
The chief result of the “2-26” uprising was to give greater power
over government policy to the army leaders. This power was not
exercised by the extremists in person, because the military revolt
had temporarily discredited them in the people’s eyes. A new set of
army leaders adopted most of their platform, however, and succeeded in
putting it across. The public strongly opposed the expansionist and
military-fascist tendencies of the new program, but could do no more
than delay its realization.
The new program took definite shape under the Cabinet headed by Hirota,
a bureaucrat with extremist leanings. It called for stronger pressure
on China, expressed in demands for “Sino-Japanese cooperation.” The
anti-Comintern pact was concluded with Germany in November 1936. On
the home front, there were efforts to amend the Election Law in such
a way as to curb the political influence of the parties. The new
budget included large increases in defense expenditure. Sections of
heavy industry, interested in the profits to be reaped from supplying
armaments for the defense services, threw their support to the enlarged
arms program. On the other hand, popular opposition to the Hirota
Cabinet grew steadily. Following strong attacks in the Diet, Hirota
resigned in January 1937.
General Hayashi, the next Premier, barred the recognized Minseito and
Seiyukai party leaders from his Cabinet. Within two months he had
carried through the economic planks of Hirota’s platform. Ikeda and
Yuki, representing the business houses, took official posts in order
to handle the financial problems. Premier Hayashi also instituted a
Cabinet Planning Board, which became an economic general staff for the
army program.
THE PEOPLE VS. THE MILITARY
These rapid steps toward a “wartime economy” met with bitter opposition
from the parties and even more from the public at large. A wide breach
opened up between the Hayashi Cabinet and the people. When Hayashi
dissolved the Diet, he was overwhelmingly defeated in the general
election of April 1937. Out of 466 members in the Diet’s lower house,
the government elected less than 50 supporters. It tried to stay in
office, but finally, on May 31, had to resign.
The popular disapproval of the military-fascist program was shown quite
unmistakably in this election--even more unmistakably than in the
earlier election of February 1936. At that time, the extremists had
defeated the will of the people by the “2-26” uprising. This time they
used new methods.
Under the Konoye Cabinet, national unity was restored--at least to all
outward appearances. Party members were included in the Cabinet, and
Prince Konoye was made the symbol of unity. But the party men chosen
for Cabinet posts were in sympathy with the military-fascist program,
and in any case held only minor offices. The chief Ministries were
cornered by the army leaders and by bureaucrats who supported them.
But merely setting up a new Cabinet was not enough to quell the
widespread suspicion of the army’s aims. It was necessary to quiet
opposition voices, reestablish the army’s prestige and really get
somewhere with the “controlled economy” plans.
How could all this be done? Two months after the Konoye Cabinet entered
office, Japan was at war with China.
XII. War with China
Few of Japan’s leaders expected that the war with China would last for
years. Their original plans called for a short campaign of five or six
months. North China, Shanghai and Nanking would be occupied. Chiang
Kai-shek’s crack divisions would be destroyed in the Shanghai-Nanking
operations. By Christmas, at the latest, a dictated peace could be
imposed at Nanking.
VICTORIES WITHOUT PEACE
On the military side, these calculations proved surprisingly accurate.
The victorious Japanese troops _were_ entering Nanking in mid-December.
And all the strategic railways in North China _were_ under Japan’s
control. But these military successes did not lead to the expected
peace settlement. China’s national unity held firm, and Chinese
resistance continued. If Japan wished to dictate peace terms, she would
have to wage further battle.
This she proceeded to do. Two big campaigns were fought during 1938.
In May, after a bitter struggle in Shantung province, Japan’s northern
and southern armies were able to join forces. In October, after an
exhausting advance up the Yangtze River, the Japanese captured Hankow.
A lightning blow in the south led to the occupation of Canton.
China’s main cities, and much of her railway system, were now in
Japanese hands. But still there was no sign of peace. By the end of
1938, it was clear that, despite her military triumphs, Japan had
not won victory. The war had lasted eighteen months, instead of six.
In lives and money, it had cost Japan far more than the original
reckoning. And the end was not in sight.
What was happening at home during these first eighteen months of the
war? Three main trends were clear. First, all popular opposition to
the war was suppressed. Second, the military took over conduct of
affairs in China, allowing the Cabinet little or no say. And third,
a “controlled economy” was set up, although the army leaders did not
succeed in getting it into their hands. The business houses either
pared down the controls, or decided how they were to be applied.
MAKING THE PUBLIC TOE THE LINE
Various measures to gain public support of the war were adopted. The
most spectacular was a campaign for “national spiritual mobilization.”
It began on September 11, 1937 with a patriotic rally in Tokyo,
addressed by the Premier and other Cabinet Ministers and broadcast
throughout the country. In the Diet the parties expressed their support
of the war. Even Japan’s labor party, which had elected 36 Diet members
in April 1937, swung behind the war policy. The authorities were not
content, however. In December 1937, the Home Ministry carried out
large-scale police raids, in which hundreds of persons were arrested.
Two left-wing labor and party groups, both headed by Kanju Kato, were
disbanded without notice. Kato himself, who had been elected to the
Diet by a proletarian constituency in Tokyo, was jailed. The arrests
also included Baroness Ishimoto, a noted feminist leader, and a great
many liberals and pacifists.
All sections of Japan’s ruling circles were united in this program of
suppressing popular opposition to the war. There was more scope for
disagreement, however, over how the war in China should be conducted.
But in this dispute the army held all the points of vantage, and soon
reigned supreme.
THE ARMY WINS A FREE HAND IN CHINA
Control of military and naval operations in and off China was given in
November 1937 to Imperial Headquarters. This special organ included
all the high army and navy officers. Since it decided military policy
under the direct authority of the Emperor, it neatly sidetracked
Cabinet control. Non-military phases of policy in China, however, were
not so easily disposed of. Here the army used a technique which it had
tried and tested in Manchuria. In September 1938 army leaders forced
the establishment of a China Affairs Board, set up within the Cabinet
but run by military men. Through this board the army kept economic and
political affairs in China pretty well under its thumb, despite some
continued opposition from the Foreign Ministry. In the broader field of
international policy the struggle for power was more acute. It still
continues, although the army eventually became strong enough to put
through the alliance with Germany and Italy.
THE ECONOMIC WAR MACHINE
The third main trend of which we spoke was the establishment of a
wartime “controlled economy” in Japan. The state took over more and
more control of the economic life of the country. Both army and
businessmen agreed that such control was necessary, but bitterly
disagreed as to how it should be applied. On the whole, the businessmen
managed to keep the most important economic regulations in their own
hands.
The fiercest political struggle during 1938 was waged over the National
Mobilization Bill. Drafted by the Planning Board under army influence,
this measure called for drastic economic conscription. The government
was to have practically unlimited control of social and economic life,
including finance, industry, trade, labor and the press. With respect
to labor, the bill provided for compulsory allocation of workers
to their jobs, prohibited strikes and lockouts, and empowered the
government to fix wages, hours and working conditions.
This bill met with determined opposition in the Diet. Army supporters,
using pressure and intimidation, including terroristic attacks on
Diet members and on party headquarters in Tokyo, pushed it through.
Nevertheless, the opposition did force certain modifications in
the original plan. Premier Konoye pledged that it would be applied
only during a wartime emergency and not invoked in the Sino-Japanese
conflict, which was still referred to in Japan as an “incident.” The
Premier also agreed to appoint a majority of Diet members to the
National Mobilization Council. This Council was to be consulted before
Imperial ordinances applying various sections of the bill were issued.
But on May 5, 1938, despite Konoye’s pledge to the Diet, several of
the main provisions of the bill _were_ applied, and new ordinances
issued since have put many others into effect. Before Premier Konoye’s
resignation in January 1939, a broad series of control measures was
in operation. Foreign exchange was strictly licensed. To make up the
huge war budgets the government had taken over control of capital,
and restricted new investment to a list of so-called “essential”
industries. It also rigidly regulated trade, limiting the export
and import of several hundred commodities. It put the labor control
provisions of the National Mobilization Act into effect. In June 1938
it instituted nation-wide price control for certain commodities, and
has since steadily increased the list of such goods. The Home Ministry
enrolled several thousand “economic police” officers to enforce the
price schedules and other features of the economic program.
THE MEN AT THE CONTROLS
But despite the sweeping nature of these provisions, the business
houses managed to keep a fair amount of independence. Their own men
took key positions in many of the agencies that were enforcing the
control measures. In the field of capital investment, they could still
tip the scales. They successfully resisted army pressure for outright
state control and operation of industry. Nationalization of the vital
electric power industry, for instance, over which they fought long
and bitterly, was finally put through only part way, and has been a
subject of continued dispute.
So it was not the military leaders alone, but the military leaders in
an uneasy partnership with the businessmen and the party heads, who
carried out the wartime economic program. The army fascists charted the
program, it is true, but they were not allowed to run it in their own
sweet way. The army ruled in China, as it had in Manchuria. But it was
not the unchallenged dictator at home. There, it shared power with “big
business.” And big business, despite war restrictions, still operated
its own enterprises and still reaped its dividends.
STALEMATE IN CHINA
A Cabinet under Prince Konoye had held office throughout the first
phase of the war in China. It resigned in January 1939, when China’s
refusal to accept a dictated peace had become unmistakable. For Japan
now no longer won spectacular victories. A stalemate had developed,
and the war had become a war of attrition. This second phase of the
war lasted for another eighteen months--until June 1940, when Hitler’s
victories in Europe shifted the balance of power in the Far East.
The costs to Japan of this second period were no less than before. She
had to maintain the same number of troops in China, totaling 800,000
or 1,000,000. Heavy fighting was taking place almost continuously.
But the hostilities, ranging from Canton to Inner Mongolia, led to no
decisive results. In some cases Japan occupied new cities, such as
Nanchang, Nanning and Ichang. In other cases Japanese offensives were
disastrously routed. Chinese guerrillas, ranging far and wide, limited
Japan’s area of effective control, even in the so-called “occupied”
territory. Moreover, the economic gains were not as great as the army
had expected. Sales of Japanese goods to China steadily increased, but
imports of Chinese raw materials either declined or rose very slowly.
STEPPING ON WESTERN TOES
At the same time Japan’s interference with the interests of the Western
powers in China became much more direct, and created serious friction.
Difficulties were most acute at Tientsin, Shanghai and Amoy. The
Japanese army imposed various restrictions. It kept Western shipping
off the Yangtze River above Shanghai, and the Pearl River below Canton.
Western traders had to face many practices--tariffs, exchange controls,
import and export controls--which were put into effect especially to
hamper their trade. The Japanese enforced a blockade of the British
and French Concessions at Tientsin, and stripped British citizens for
examination before allowing them to enter or leave their Concession.
Although the Western powers resented these Japanese actions, they
limited their opposition mainly to protests. In July 1939 the United
States abrogated its trade treaty with Japan, but did not follow up
this step by imposing trade penalties.
THREE JAPANESE WAR CABINETS
Difficulties on Japan’s home front mounted steadily during the second
phase of the war. The strain was shown in many ways. One was the
rapidity with which Cabinets succeeded one another. The first Konoye
Cabinet, as we have seen, had held office for nineteen months--from
June 1937 to January 1939. In the second period (January 1939 to July
1940), there were no less than three Cabinets. Their average length of
life was only six months. These Cabinets, with their Premiers, held
office as follows:
1. Baron Kiichiro Hiranuma, January 5, 1939 to August 29, 1939
2. General Nobuyuki Abe, August 30, 1939 to January 15, 1940
3. Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai, January 16, 1940 to July 16, 1940.
HIRANUMA AND THE NAZI-SOVIET PACT
Many of the decisive events of this period were closely related to
the Cabinet changes. Hiranuma, for example, was forced out of office
by the Soviet-German pact of August 23, 1939. During that summer the
Hiranuma Cabinet had been dickering with Germany over the details of
a proposed military pact, while the Japanese army had been fighting a
minor war with the Soviet Union on the Outer Mongolian frontier. So
the Soviet-German pact came as a stunning blow to Tokyo, and for a
time feelings against Germany ran high. The army extremists, who had
strongly advocated an alliance with Germany, were discredited along
with Hiranuma. Consequently, extremist influence was not so great in
the next two Cabinets, headed by General Abe and Admiral Yonai.
ABE AND THE PRICE OF RICE
The Abe Cabinet was overthrown five months later for reasons entirely
different, but equally significant. Here the issue turned mainly on
Japan’s growing economic difficulties. During the winter of 1939-40 a
rice shortage developed, and “bootleg” prices soared toward 50 yen per
_koku_ (the five bushel unit)--dangerously close to the level which
stimulated the “rice riots” of 1918. In September 1938 the Abe Cabinet
had fixed ceilings on all prices. When the rice shortage developed, it
had to back down on its own ruling. In November it raised the official
price from 38 to 43 yen per _koku_. By this time, however, the farmers
had already sold their crops, and the gains were reaped by the rice
dealers.
Outspoken criticisms were expected in the Diet and, rather than meet
them, the Abe Cabinet resigned in mid-January. The incoming Yonai
Cabinet had to face the music. One outspoken member of the Minseito
party, Takao Saito, challenged not only economic conditions, but the
war itself. His striking speech of February 2, 1940 attacked Wang
Ching-wei’s proposed regime (Japan’s puppet government) in China
as nothing more than a “central government in name.” After casting
doubt on the prospects of achieving the “new order in East Asia,” he
asked what the Japanese people had received in return for their great
sacrifices in the war. Even more serious, in the eyes of Japan’s
army leaders, was Saito’s declaration that, in view of China’s large
territory and army, it “is doubtful whether Japan can overthrow” Chiang
Kai-shek’s regime. A critical electric power “famine” which developed
at this time, and forced many factories to shut down, underlined the
truth in Saito’s remarks. The Japanese people backed Saito so strongly
that several months passed before the authorities dared to expel him
from the Diet.
YONAI TRAILS TOO FAR BEHIND NAZI PUSH
But Hitler’s military victories in the spring of 1940, and especially
the defeat of France, swiftly altered Japan’s position in the Far East.
The “moderation” which the Abe and Yonai Cabinets had shown in foreign
policy suddenly vanished. Intense pressure was brought to bear on the
French authorities in the Far East. In June the French Ambassador at
Tokyo agreed to stop shipments of goods to China over the Indo-China
Railway. Less than a month later, the British government also bowed to
the Japanese demand that the Burma Road be closed for three months. But
these gains were not enough for the extremist elements within Japan.
They had received a fresh impetus from Hitler’s successes, and were
prepared to move far more boldly both on the home and foreign fronts.
The War Minister, maneuvering for the set-up of an equally bold and
impetuous Cabinet, suddenly offered his resignation. Thus, on July 16,
1940, the Yonai Cabinet crumbled.
XIII. Shadow Over Asia
Under the second Konoye Cabinet, formed July 22, 1940, the flood
that had been sweeping over Japan since 1931 reached a new high.
Territorial aims were enlarged. Expansion was no longer to be confined
to China. The goal was now a “Greater East Asia,” including all the
rich colonial territories in southern Asiatic waters. At home, also,
the pace quickened. The army leaders moved toward full suppression of
the parties, and a reduction of the Diet’s powers. Obstacles to foreign
expansion and internal regimentation continued to exist, however, and
slowed down the fascist advance.
In foreign policy, the Konoye Cabinet made two far-reaching moves. On
September 27, 1940 it concluded a military alliance with Germany and
Italy. By this alliance, as we have seen, Japan was allotted “Greater
East Asia” for her “living space.” This sphere, however, was not yet
under Japanese control. It had to be won. So the second move was a step
in the direction of winning it. It was a move into Indo-China.
In September 1940, a French-Japanese agreement admitted a limited
number of Japanese troops to northern districts of the French colony of
Indo-China. These troops were the entering wedge. Then Japan pushed her
control southward to Saigon. Early in 1941, Tokyo dictated a settlement
of the Thailand-Indo-China conflict, which she hoped would eventually
yield her full control of Indo-China, and still greater powers over
Thailand, where Japanese influence was already strong. And Saigon, we
should add, is only 650 miles north of Singapore.
A HARD ROW TO HOE
In other respects, however, the Konoye Cabinet’s expansionist
program--like that of its predecessors--did not enjoy easy going. For
the war in China was still not won. In November 1940 Japan formally
recognized Wang Ching-wei’s Nanking regime (the puppet government
she herself had created). But this step merely spotlighted Japan’s
failure to secure peace in China. Tokyo also undertook negotiations
with the Soviet Union, but with little immediate result. Finally, the
British and the Dutch strengthened the defenses of both Malaya and
the Netherlands Indies, and the American fleet at Hawaii served as an
eloquent warning against any move by Japan on Singapore, strategic key
to southeast Asia.
THE HOME FRONT
On the home front, the Konoye Cabinet clamped down even firmer
dictatorial control. All political parties “voluntarily” dissolved in
the summer of 1940. There was a plan afoot to curb the Diet’s influence
by amending the Election Law to give fewer people votes. And the
extremists began to organize a mass fascist party, with local units
throughout the country.
These efforts achieved some practical results. The outspoken criticism
marking previous Diet sessions was less apparent in 1940-41. The “near
neighbor” groups, set up by the new fascist party, gave the authorities
a means of checking up closely on popular opinion, and taking measures
to suppress opposition as soon as it appeared. Economic difficulties
were piling up, and the need for repression was becoming greater.
Rationing of sugar, charcoal and matches, begun in 1940, was extended
to rice early in 1941.
A HORSE TRADE
But the political struggle within Japan, even among its ruling circles,
was not settled by the Konoye government’s actions. On the contrary,
it continued as strong as ever. A characteristic “deal” indicated the
lines along which the struggle was being fought. The military-fascist
groups were unwilling to permit a general election, due in 1941, to
take place. On the other hand, the moderates opposed moves to revise
the Election Law and to strengthen state control over industry. In
January 1941, a deal was made in which the extremists agreed to drop
these moves, while the moderates consented to let the Diet run on
without an election for one year, and to support the government’s
program in the meantime.
EXPANSION OR DEFEAT?
In the early months of 1941, Tokyo increasingly committed itself to a
policy dictated by the results of a decade of aggression. Since 1937
Japan had spent nearly 20 billion yen on the war in China, or twice
the total national debt in 1936. She had suffered more than a million
casualties, in killed, wounded and diseased. In return for these great
losses, she expected vast gains.
Thus “Greater East Asia” became the avowed goal of Japan’s foreign
policy. To Japan’s rulers, it represented the full flowering of the
“bloc economy” idea. They now considered not only Manchuria and
China, but the whole of East Asia, necessary for such a bloc. The raw
materials of southeast Asia, especially the oil, tin and rubber of
the Indies and Malaya, were needed to make up the deficiencies of a
“Japan-China-Manchoukuo” bloc. But even with these rich prizes Japan
would not be entirely self-sufficient economically. She would still
lack high-grade machinery and certain other products. Nevertheless,
with the raw materials of East Asia firmly under her control, Japan
believed she would have sufficient bargaining power to secure the
foreign currency necessary for buying all she needed in the world
market.
Japanese statesmen continually stressed this idea of an East Asiatic
bloc in their speeches. To make its realization possible, they
concluded the alliance with Germany. Barring an outright German victory
in Europe, however, the difficulties which confront Tokyo’s advance
toward mastery of East Asia are still formidable.
For Japan’s economic resources are at a low ebb. Industrial production
has begun to decline. Foreign trade is falling off, and reserves of
foreign currency are low. China is unconquered, and relations with
the Soviet Union are uncertain. The British Empire and the United
States, which stand guard over southeast Asia, are the mainstays of
Japan’s foreign trade. By moving against them in that region, Japan
might risk everything gained thus far. For the first time, she would
be staking her future on a war with powers that control the seas and
access to world markets. She would be facing all the dangers that she
successfully avoided in the World War of 1914-18.
Japan’s geographical location, close to the scene of action in the Far
East, is still her great strategic advantage. Her economic deficiencies
have been, and continue to be, her main source of weakness. The ratio
between these two controlling factors may well determine the immediate
future. Is Japan’s new Empire to reach out over immensely larger areas,
or is it to suffer its first great defeat?
SUGGESTED READING
BORTON, HUGH. _Japan Since 1931._ New York. Institute of Pacific
Relations. 1940. Political and social developments within Japan during
the past decade. Rather technical.
COLEGROVE, KENNETH W. _Militarism in Japan._ New York. World Peace
Foundation. 1936. The army’s role in Japan, and a study of the
military-fascist movement. Fairly advanced but readable.
CROW, CARL. _He Opened the Door of Japan._ New York. Harper. 1939. The
life of Townsend Harris, first American Minister to Japan (1856-62).
Very readable.
ISHIMOTO, BARONESS. _Facing Two Ways._ New York. Farrar and Rinehart.
1935. A noted Japanese feminist leader tells the story of her life.
Popular and readable.
NORMAN, E. HERBERT. _Japan’s Emergence as a Modern State._ New York.
Institute of Pacific Relations. 1940. Discussion of Japan’s political
and economic reforms during the Meiji era. Technical.
OMURA, BUNJI. _The Last Genro._ Philadelphia. Lippincott. 1938. The
story of Prince Saionji’s life, covering the whole period of Japan’s
modern development. Entertaining narrative style.
REISCHAUER, ROBERT K. _Japan: Government--Politics._ New York. Nelson.
1939. Sketches the growth of Japanese government from earliest times.
Fairly advanced but readable.
RUSSEL, OLAND D. _The House of Mitsui._ Boston. Little Brown. 1939.
Three centuries of the Mitsui family’s history, beginning in Tokugawa
times. Readable.
SANSOM, G. B. _Japan: A Short Cultural History._ New York. Century.
1931. The best recent history of Japan, covering events up to 1868.
Technical.
YOUNG, A. MORGAN. _Imperial Japan, 1926-1938._ New York. Morrow. 1939.
Also _Japan in Recent Times, 1912-1926_. New York. Morrow. 1931.
Narrative accounts of more recent phases of Japanese history. Readable.
SUGGESTED PERIODICALS: _Amerasia_; _Asia_; _Far Eastern Survey_; and
_Pacific Affairs_.
* * * * *
A NOTE ON HEADLINE BOOKS
_Shadow Over Asia_ is one of the Foreign Policy Association’s HEADLINE
BOOKS. The object of the series is to provide sufficient unbiased
background information to enable readers to reach intelligent and
independent conclusions on the important international problems of
the day. HEADLINE BOOKS are prepared under the supervision of the
Department of Popular Education of the Foreign Policy Association with
the cooperation of the Association’s Research Staff of experts.
The Foreign Policy Association is a non-profit American organization
founded “to carry on research and educational activities to aid in the
understanding and constructive development of American foreign policy.”
It is an impartial research organization and does not seek to promote
any one point of view toward international affairs. Such views as may
be expressed or implied in any of its publications are those of the
author and not of the Association.
For further information about HEADLINE BOOKS and the other publications
of the Foreign Policy Association, write to the Department of Popular
Education, Foreign Policy Association, 22 East 38th Street, New York,
N. Y.
* * * * *
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
T. A. Bisson has been the Foreign Policy Association’s specialist on
Far Eastern affairs since 1929. He has taught in China and travelled
widely in the Far East. In addition to writing numerous Foreign
Policy Reports, he is the author of _Japan in China_, published by
the Macmillan Company in 1938, and _American Policy in the Far East,
1931-1940_, published by Institute of Pacific Relations in 1940.
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Note:
Illustrations have been moved to paragraph breaks near where they are
mentioned, except for the frontispiece.
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