Download Japan`s Quest for Empire 1931

What Japanese history lessons leave out
By Mariko Oi BBC News, Tokyo
Japanese people often fail to understand why neighbouring countries
harbour a grudge over events that happened in the 1930s and 40s. The
reason, in many cases, is that they barely learned any 20th Century
history. I myself only got a full picture when I left Japan and went to
school in Australia.
From Homo erectus to the present day - 300,000 years of history in
just one year of lessons. That is how, at the age of 14, I first learned of
Japan's relations with the outside world.
For three hours a week - 105 hours over the year - we edged towards
the 20th Century.
It's hardly surprising that some classes, in some schools, never get
there, and are told by teachers to finish the book in their spare time.
When I returned recently to my old school, Sacred Heart in Tokyo,
teachers told me they often have to start hurrying, near the end of the
year, to make sure they have time for World War II.
"When I joined Sacred Heart as a teacher, I was asked by the principal
to make sure that I teach all the way up to modern history," says my
history teacher from Year Eight.
"We have strong ties with our sister schools in the Asian region so we
want our students to understand Japan's historical relationship with
our neighbouring countries."
I still remember her telling the class, 17 years ago, about the
importance of Japan's war history and making the point that many of
today's geopolitical tensions stem from what happened then.
Mariko's Japanese textbook: Only a footnote on the Nanjing massacre
I also remember wondering why we couldn't go straight to that period
if it was so important, instead of wasting time on the Pleistocene
epoch.
When we did finally get there, it turned out only 19 of the book's 357
pages dealt with events between 1931 and 1945.
Nanjing massacre, 1937-38
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A six-week period of bloodshed, after the Japanese capture of
the city in December 1937
International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), set up
after WWII, estimated more than 200,000 people were killed,
including many women and children
Dispute over scale of atrocity remains a sticking point in
Chinese/Japanese relations - some Japanese question whether a
massacre took place
There was one page on what is known as the Mukden incident, when
Japanese soldiers blew up a railway in Manchuria in China in 1931.
There was one page on other events leading up to the Sino-Japanese
war in 1937 - including one line, in a footnote, about the massacre
that took place when Japanese forces invaded Nanjing - the Nanjing
Massacre, or Rape of Nanjing.
There was another sentence on the Koreans and the Chinese who were
brought to Japan as miners during the war, and one line, again in a
footnote, on "comfort women" - a prostitution corps created by the
Imperial Army of Japan.
There was also just one sentence on the atomic bombings of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I wanted to know more, but was not quite eager enough to delve into
the subject in my spare time. As a teenager, I was more interested in
fashion and boys.
My friends had a chance to choose world history as a subject in Year
11. But by that stage I had left the Japanese schooling system, and
was living in Australia.
I remember the excitement when I noticed that instead of ploughing
chronologically through a given period, classes would focus on a
handful of crucial events in world history.
“Start Quote
All of the photographs that China uses as evidence of the massacre
are fabricated”
Nobukatsu Fujioka
So brushing aside my teacher's objection that I would struggle with
the high volume of reading and writing in English - a language I could
barely converse in - I picked history as one of my subjects for the
international baccalaureate.
My first ever essay in English was on the Rape of Nanjing.
There is controversy over what happened. The Chinese say 300,000
were killed and many women were gang-raped by the Japanese
soldiers, but as I spent six months researching all sides of the
argument, I learned that some in Japan deny the incident altogether.
Nobukatsu Fujioka is one of them and the author of one of the books
that I read as part of my research.
"It was a battlefield so people were killed but there was no systematic
massacre or rape," he says, when I meet him in Tokyo.
"The Chinese government hired actors and actresses, pretending to be
the victims when they invited some Japanese journalists to write
about them.
"All of the photographs that China uses as evidence of the massacre
are fabricated because the same picture of decapitated heads, for
example, has emerged as a photograph from the civil war between
Kuomintang and Communist parties."
As a 17-year-old student, I was not trying to make a definitive
judgement on what exactly happened, but reading a dozen books on
the incident at least allowed me to understand why many people in
China still feel bitter about Japan's military past.
Comfort women
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200,000 women in territories occupied by Japan during WWII
estimated to have been forced into become sex slaves for troops,
or "comfort women"
In 1993 Japan acknowledged use of wartime brothels
In 2007 Japanese PM Shinzo Abe was forced to apologise after
casting doubt on the existence of comfort women
While school pupils in Japan may read just one line on the massacre,
children in China are taught in detail not just about the Rape of
Nanjing but numerous other Japanese war crimes, though these
accounts of the war are sometimes criticised for being overly antiJapanese.
The same can be said about South Korea, where the education system
places great emphasis on our modern history. This has resulted in
very different perceptions of the same events in countries an hour's
flying time apart.
One of the most contentious topics there is the comfort women.
Fujioka believes they were paid prostitutes. But Japan's neighbours,
such as South Korea and Taiwan, say they were forced to work as sex
slaves for the Japanese army.
Without knowing these debates, it is extremely difficult to grasp why
recent territorial disputes with China or South Korea cause such an
emotional reaction among our neighbours. The sheer hostility shown
towards Japan by ordinary people in street demonstrations seems
bewildering and even barbaric to many Japanese television viewers.
Equally, Japanese people often find it hard to grasp why politicians'
visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine - which honours war
criminals among other Japanese soldiers - cause quite so much anger.
Japanese Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe, visiting the Yasukuni Shrine in 2012
I asked the children of some friends and colleagues how much history
they had picked up during their school years.
Twenty-year-old university student Nami Yoshida and her older sister
Mai - both undergraduates studying science - say they haven't heard
about comfort women.
"I've heard of the Nanjing massacre but I don't know what it's about,"
they both say.
"At school, we learn more about what happened a long time ago, like
the samurai era," Nami adds.
Seventeen-year-old Yuki Tsukamoto says the "Mukden incident" and
Japan's invasion of the Korean peninsula in the late 16th Century help
to explain Japan's unpopularity in the region.
"I think it is understandable that some people are upset, because noone wants their own country to be invaded," he says.
But he too is unaware of the plight of the comfort women.
Chinese protesters often mark anniversaries of 20th Century clashes
with Japan
Former history teacher and scholar Tamaki Matsuoka holds Japan's
education system responsible for a number of the country's foreign
relations difficulties.
"Our system has been creating young people who get annoyed by all
the complaints that China and South Korea make about war atrocities
because they are not taught what they are complaining about," she
said.
"It is very dangerous because some of them may resort to the internet
to get more information and then they start believing the nationalists'
views that Japan did nothing wrong."
I first saw her work, based on interviews with Japanese soldiers who
invaded Nanjing, when I visited the museum in the city a few years
ago.
"There were many testimonies by the victims but I thought we needed
to hear from the soldiers," she says.
"It took me many years but I interviewed 250 of them. Many initially
refused to talk, but eventually, they admitted to killing, stealing and
raping."
Matsuoka accuses the government of a deliberate silence about
atrocities
When I saw her video interviews of the soldiers, it was not just their
admission of war crimes which shocked me, it was their age. Already
elderly by the time she interviewed them, many had been barely 20 at
the time, and in a strange way, it humanised them.
I was choked with an extremely complex emotion. Sad to see Japan
repeatedly described as evil and dubbed "the devil", and nervous
because I wondered how people around me would react if they knew I
was Japanese. But there was also the big question why - what drove
these young soldiers to kill and rape?
When Matsuoka published her book, she received many threats from
nationalist groups.
She and Fujioka represent two opposing camps in a debate about what
should be taught in Japanese schools.
Fujioka and his Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform say
most textbooks are "masochistic" and only teach about Japan in
negative light.
History tuition in Japan
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Students first learn about Japanese history in Year Six, over 105
hours of lessons
In Year Eight of junior high school, they study the history of
Japan's relations with the rest of the world - this course now
lasts for 130 hours
Seven history textbooks are approved by the Education Ministry
- schools can choose which they use
Students can also choose to study World History in Year 11
"The Japanese textbook authorisation system has the so-called
"neighbouring country clause" which means that textbooks have to
show understanding in their treatment of historical events involving
neighbouring Asian countries. It is just ridiculous," he says.
He is widely known for pressuring politicians to remove the term
"comfort women" from all the junior high school textbooks. His first
textbook, which won government approval in 2001, made a brief
reference to the death of Chinese soldiers and civilians in Nanjing, but
he plans to tone it down further in his next book.
But is ignorance the solution?
The Ministry of Education's guidelines for junior high schools state
that all children must be taught about Japan's "historical relations with
its Asian neighbours and the catastrophic damage caused by the
World War II to humanity at large".
"That means schools have to teach about the Japanese military's
increased influence and extension of its power [in the 1930s] and the
prolonged war in China," says ministry spokesman Akihiko Horiuchi.
Textbook crisis
In 2005, protests were sparked in China and South Korea by a
textbook prepared by the Japanese Society for History Textbook
Reform, which had been approved by the government in 2001.
Foreign critics said it whitewashed Japan's war record during the
1930s and early 1940s.
It referred to the Nanjing massacre as an "incident", and glossed over
the issue of comfort women.
The book was not used in many schools, but was a big commercial
success.
"Students learn about the extent of the damage caused by Japan in
many countries during the war as well as sufferings that the Japanese
people had to experience especially in Hiroshima, Nagasaki and
Okinawa in order to understand the importance of international cooperation and peace.
"Based on our guideline, each school decides which specific events
they focus on depending on the areas and the situation of the school
and the students' maturity."
Matsuoka, however, thinks the government deliberately tries not to
teach young people the details of Japan's atrocities.
Having experienced history education in two countries, the way
history is taught in Japan has at least one advantage - students come
away with a comprehensive understanding of when events happened,
in what order.
In many ways, my schoolfriends and I were lucky. Because junior
high students were all but guaranteed a place in the senior high
school, not many had to go through what's often described as the
"examination war".
For students who are competing to get into a good senior high school
or university, the race is extremely tough and requires memorisation
of hundreds of historical dates, on top of all the other subjects that
have to be studied.
They have no time to dwell on a few pages of war atrocities, even if
they read them in their textbooks.
All this has resulted in Japan's Asian neighbours - especially China
and South Korea - accusing the country of glossing over its war
atrocities.
Meanwhile, Japan's new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe criticises China's
school curriculum for being too "anti-Japanese".
He, like Fujioka, wants to change how history is taught in Japan so
that children can be proud of our past, and is considering revising
Japan's 1993 apology over the comfort women issue.
If and when that happens, it will undoubtedly cause a huge stir with
our Asian neighbours. And yet, many Japanese will have no clue why
it is such a big deal.
World
Scarred by history: The Rape of Nanking
Thousands of bodies were buried in ditches
Between December 1937 and March 1938 one of the worst
massacres in modern times took place. Japanese troops
captured the Chinese city of Nanking and embarked on a
campaign of murder, rape and looting.
Based on estimates made by historians and charity
organisations in the city at the time, between 250,000 and
300,000 people were killed, many of them women and children.
The number of women raped was said by Westerners who
were there to be 20,000, and there were widespread accounts
of civilians being hacked to death.
Yet, many Japanese officials and historians deny that there
was a massacre on such a scale. They admit that deaths and
rapes did occur, but say they were on a much smaller scale
than reported. And in any case, they argue, these things
happen in times of war.
The Sino-Japanese Wars
In 1931, Japan invaded Chinese Manchuria following a
bombing incident at a railway controlled by Japanese interests.
The Chinese troops were no match for their opponents and
Japan ended up in control of great swathes of Chinese territory.
The following years saw Japan consolidate its hold, while China
suffered civil war between communists and the nationalists of
the Kuomintang. The latter were led by General Chiang Kaishek, whose capital was at Nanking.
Entering the
city in triumph
Many Japanese, particularly some elements of
the army, wanted to increase their influence
and in July 1937 a skirmish between Chinese
and Japanese troops escalated into full-scale
war. The Japanese again had initial success,
but then there was a period of successful
Chinese defence before the Japanese broke
through at Shanghai and swiftly moved on to
Nanking.
Chiang Kai-shek's troops had already left the
city and the Japanese army occupied it without difficulty.
"One of the great atrocities of modern times"
At the time, the Japanese army did not have a reputation for
brutality. In the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, the Japanese
commanders had behaved with great courtesy towards their
defeated opponents, but this was very different.
Japanese papers reported competitions
among junior officers to kill the most Chinese.
One Japanese newspaper correspondent saw
lines of Chinese being taken for execution on
the banks of the Yangtse River, where he saw
piles of burned corpses.
Some victims Photographs from the time, now part of an
were reportedly exhibition in the city, show Japanese soldiers
standing, smiling, among heaps of dead
buried alive
bodies.
Tillman Durdin of the New York Times reported the early stages
of the massacre before being forced to leave. He later wrote: "I
was 29 and it was my first big story for the New York Times. So
I drove down to the waterfront in my car. And to get to the gate
I had to just climb over masses of bodies accumulated there.
The car just had to drive over these dead bodies. And the
scene on the river front, as I waited for the launch ... was of a
group of smoking chattering Japanese officers overseeing the
massacring of a battalion of Chinese captured troops. They
were marching about in groups of about 15, machine-gunning
them."
As he departed, he saw 200 men being executed in 10 minutes
to the apparent enjoyment of Japanese military spectators. He
concluded that the rape of Nanking was "one of the great
atrocities of modern times."
"The memories cannot be erased"
A Christian missionary, John Magee, described Japanese
soldiers as killing not only "every prisoner they could find but
also a vast number of ordinary citizens of all ages. Many of
them were shot down like the hunting of rabbits in the streets."
After what he described as a week of murder and rape, the Rev
Magee joined other Westerners in trying to set up an
international safety zone.
Another who tried to help was an American woman, Minnie
Vautrin, who kept a diary which has been likened to that of
Anne Frank. Her entry for December 16 reads: "There probably
is no crime that has not been committed in this city today. Thirty
girls were taken from the language school [where she worked]
last night, and today I have heard scores of heartbreaking
stories of girls who were taken from their homes last night - one
of the girls was but 12 years old...
Later, she wrote: "How many thousands were mowed down by
guns or bayoneted we shall probably never know. For in many
cases oil was thrown over their bodies and then they were
burned. Charred bodies tell the tales of some of these
tragedies. The events of the following ten days are growing
dim. But there are certain of them that lifetime will not erase
from my memory and the memories of those who have been in
Nanking through this period."
Minnie Vautrin suffered a nervous breakdown in 1940 and
returned to the US. She committed suicide in 1941.
Also horrified at what he saw was John Rabe, a German who
was head of the local Nazi party. He became leader of the
international safety zone and recorded what he saw, some of it
on film, but this was banned by the Nazis when he returned to
Germany. He wrote about rape and other brutalities which
occurred even in the middle of the supposedly protected area.
Confession and denial
After the Second World War was over, one of the soldiers who
was in Nanking spoke about what he had seen.
Azuma Shiro recalled one episode: "There
were about 37 old men, old women and
children. We captured them and gathered
them in a square. There was a woman holding
a child on her right arm ... and another one on
her left. We stabbed and killed them, all three like potatoes in a skewer. I thought then, it's
been only one month since I left home ... and
thirty days later I was killing people without
remorse."
Japanese
troops showed
Shiro suffered for his confession: "When there
little mercy
was a war exhibition in Kyoto, I testified. The
first person who criticized me was a lady in Tokyo. She said I
was damaging those who died in the war. She called me
incessantly for three or four days. More and more letters came
and the attack became so severe...that the police had to
provide me with protection."
Such testimony, however, has been discounted at the highest
levels in Japan. Former Justice Minister Shigeto Nagano
denied that the massacre had occurred, that it was a Chinese
fabrication.
Professor Ienaga Saburo spent many years fighting the
Japanese government in the courts with only limited success
for not allowing true accounts of Japanese war atrocities to be
given in school textbooks.
There is also opposition to the idea among ordinary Japanese
people. A film called Don't Cry Nanking was made by Chinese
and Hong Kong film-makers in 1995 but it was several years
before it was shown in Japan.
Japan's Quest for Empire 1931 - 1945
By Dr Susan Townsend
Last updated 2011-03-30
Japan's slow-burning aggression was borne of frustration with a world
whose order appeared tipped in favour of the west. Susan Townsend
describes how the intensification of this feeling led up to the Pearl
Harbor attack of 1941.
When the Japanese Kwantung Army (also known as the Guandong
Army) contrived to invade Manchuria on 18 September 1931, it
unleashed military and political forces which led ultimately to the
attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.
... a minor engagement between Chinese and Japanese troops ... led to
undeclared war between the two nations.
First, the post-invasion 'Manchurian Crisis' ended with the dramatic
walk-out of Japanese delegates from the League of Nations in 1933.
This was in reaction to the findings of the Lytton Commission, which
had upheld China's appeal against Japanese aggression, thus leaving
Japan effectively isolated in the world. By this time, however, the
Japanese had successfully detached Manchuria from the rest of China,
creating the puppet state of Manchukuo under the deposed Qing
emperor Pu Yi.
Then in 1937 a minor engagement between Chinese and Japanese
troops at the Marco-Polo Bridge, near Peking, led to undeclared war
between the two nations. The 'China Incident' and the creation of a
'New Order' in East Asia in 1938 dominated Japanese military
thinking until the summer of 1940, when the declaration of the
Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere anticipated the expansion of
Japan's empire into south-east Asia.
What were the forces that had pushed Japan down this road of
military conquest in the east, leading ultimately to war with the west
and catastrophic defeat?
Chasing power
Massive changes were unleashed in Japan by the Meiji restoration - a
period of radical modernisation - in 1868, and out of these emerged
the desire for wealth, power and prestige as a way of redressing the
imposition of unequal treaties that had been placed upon Japan by
western powers in the past.
Victory in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5 also gave Japan its first
real foothold on the Asian continent, forcing China to recognise
Korean 'independence' and cede Taiwan (Formosa) and the Liaotung
peninsula.
The Treaty of Portsmouth, which ended the war, allowed Japan to
dominate Korea ...
However, France, Germany and Russia, in the 'triple intervention',
protested that Japanese occupation of Liaotung would pose a constant
threat to China, and they forced a deeply humiliated Japan to abandon
the peninsula.
Another effect of the war was to expose China's soft underbelly to the
world, prompting the United States to formulate the Open Door
Policy in 1899 in an attempt to prevent anti-competitive policies in
China. But this didn't prevent the region from remaining one of fierce
rivalries, with the US, Russia and Japan all involved, leading Japan to
conclude an alliance with Britain in 1902 to counter Russian
predominance in the region.
Three years later Japan's victory in the 1904-5 Russo-Japanese War
amazed the western world, and encouraged some Asian nationalists
(those not directly threatened by Japanese expansion) to regard Japan
as the region's natural leader. The Treaty of Portsmouth, which ended
the war, allowed Japan to dominate Korea and secure a new sphere of
influence in south Manchuria. Maintaining and strengthening this
position became a fundamental national commitment.
The threat of still further Japanese expansion into China brought
Japan into conflict with the US Open Door Policy but the so-called
'blood-debt' of the costly Russo-Japanese war made it difficult even
for moderates in Japan to contemplate a return to the pre-war position,
despite the pressure to do so from America.
Seaborne empire
Things didn't move significantly until, after the formal
annexation of Korea in 1910, Japan turned its attention to the
Nan'yo-Gunto - or South Sea Islands. Japan's presence in the
South Seas had formerly been limited to an assortment of
Japanese traders and adventurers. But during World War One
there were an influential few, engaged in business or military
concerns - especially the navy - who advocated a southwards
advance [nanshin] rather than the advance northwards
[hokushin] favoured by the army. They made it clear that if
Japan moved into the South Pacific and south-east Asia,
abundant natural resources would become available.
... Japan had been allowed into the 'big power club', and for
now she felt secure.
Thus, after joining the victorious Allies in World War One,
Japan was granted Germany's Asian colonial territories under
a League of Nations' mandate. The territories consisted of
Tsingtao, on the Chinese Shantung Peninsula, and the
formerly German-held islands in Micronesia.
At long last it seemed that the unequal treaties and the triple
intervention had been avenged - Japan had been allowed into
the 'big power club', and for now she felt secure. Talk of
further expansion died away.
Deadlock
Until the late 1920s Japanese leaders generally supported the ideal, if
not the practice, of economic liberalism. Their attempts to integrate
the Japanese economy into a liberal world order, however, became
frustrated in the early 1930s when the depressed western economies
placed barriers on Japanese trade to protect their own colonial
markets.
Many Japanese believed that the structure of international peace
embodied in the League of Nations favoured the western nations that
controlled the world's resources. Moreover, the west had acted
hypocritically by blocking Japanese emigration through anti-Asian
immigration laws in the 1920s.
... the idea began to emerge in Japan of an East Asian federation or
cooperative body ...
As a result, the idea began to emerge in Japan of an East Asian
federation or cooperative body, based on traditional pan-Asian ideals
of universal brotherhood (hakko ichiu - eight corners of the world
under one roof) and an 'Asia for Asians' liberationist rhetoric.
The Japanese aggression in Manchuria in 1931 was in this context,
and was justified on the basis of the Manchurian-Mongolian
seimeisen or 'lifeline' argument - the idea that Japan's economy was
deadlocked. Three factors creating this deadlock loomed large - the
shortage of raw materials in Japan, the rapidly expanding Japanese
population, and the division of the world into economic blocs.
Political crises
Japan's increasing isolation abroad was exacerbated by political crisis
at home. The last party prime minister, Inukai Tsuyoshi, was
assassinated in May 1932 by right-wing extremists. Political parties
survived but were out of power, as 'national unity cabinets' ended the
democratic promise of the 1920s.
After an attempted coup d'etat on 26 February 1936, 'national unity'
was skewed towards greater military power within the state. Then
crucially, in May of that year, a rule that only serving officers could
become military ministers was reinstated. This gave the military a
veto over the cabinet, and the power to topple governments.
... the climate of assassination, intimidation and propaganda
undoubtedly contributed to the breakdown ...
After the aristocrat Fumimaro Konoe became prime minister for a
second time, in 1940, his brain-child, the Imperial Rule Assistance
Association, failed to deliver a popular civilian government capable
of checking the military. And when General Hideki Tojo came to
power in October 1941 he presided over what was effectively a
military-bureaucratic regime.
Although, after 1932, there had been a massive upsurge in
fundamentalist nationalism, most of Japan's right-wing groups were
not as radical as the European fascist movements to which they are
often compared. Many embraced moderate politico-economic reform,
as well as restorationist monarchical principles that had no parallel in
fascist ideologies.
None of these groups ever seized power. However, the climate of
assassination, intimidation and propaganda undoubtedly contributed
to the breakdown of party government and the disappearance of
international liberalism from public discourse. The mix of
international events and domestic politics was to prove a lethal
cocktail.
Deterrent diplomacy: Germany
The conclusion of the Nazi-Soviet pact in August 1939 was a great
shock to pro-German groups in the Japanese government, who
regarded the Russians as dangerous. And after German forces overran
France and the rest of western Europe in the spring and summer of
1940, the Japanese began to fear that Germany would also seek
political control of French Indochina and the Netherlands East Indies.
... the Japanese were worried that German influence was thus
affecting their interests in south east Asia.
These territories were part of Japan's vital supply route for men and
materials to and from the Chinese mainland, and the Japanese were
worried that German influence was thus affecting their interests in
south east Asia. Neither were they sanguine about Hitler's long-term
intentions.
Foreign Minister Matsuoka, therefore, advocated strengthening
political ties with the Axis, and a 'Tripartite Pact' was concluded in
September 1940.
At the same time, Japan was faced with an 'ABCD encirclement' of
America, Britain, China and the Dutch, all of which threatened
Japanese markets and interests in Asia. The Japanese thus felt obliged
to strengthen their own position further south, and embarked on a
southward advance into French Indochina. This gained in intensity on
22 September 1940, after the German-influenced Vichy government
in France gave its agreement to the policy.
The Japanese also began negotiations with the Netherlands East
Indies to increase the quota of oil exports to Japan in case oil exports
from the US ceased.
Deterrent diplomacy: Russia and US
Relations with the Soviets had taken a down-turn in November 1936,
after Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact (a pact to thwart
international communism) with Germany. They reached their lowest
ebb when Japanese and Soviet forces clashed in the Nomonhan sector
of the Manchurian-Mongolian border in 1939. To defuse the threat of
war with Russia, on 13 April 1941, discretion proved the better part of
valour, and Japan signed a neutrality pact with the Soviets.
... the emperor himself was becoming concerned about the hawkish
tone of the military ...
In June 1941 negotiations with the Netherlands East Indies broke
down and on 2 July the Japanese endorsed a further push forward for
their 'southward advance' while secretly preparing for war with the
Soviets. When Japan occupied southern Indochina that same month,
the United States imposed a de facto oil embargo.
By early September the emperor himself was becoming concerned
about the hawkish tone of the military vis-à-vis negotiations with the
United States. But a memorandum issued by US Secretary of State
Cordell Hull, on 26 November, demanding that Japan withdraw
completely from China and Indochina, played into the hands of
Japanese hardliners. On that day the Japanese fleet sailed for Pearl
Harbor.
Awakening the sleeping giant
Illustration of Pearl Harbor attack ©
The history of Japanese expansionism highlights its basically ad hoc
and opportunistic nature, as well as Japan's desire to create an
autonomous region under Japanese leadership.
Japan's annexation of territory throughout SE Asia in 1941-2 was the
immediate cause of war in the Pacific during World War Two.
However, it was Japan's insistence on retaining its Chinese territory seen as crucial to its existence by moderates as well as by hardliners and US insistence that Japan relinquish this territory, that created the
real tensions between the two. The tripartite pact (between Japan,
Germany and Italy) of September 1940 was also a major stumbling
block to good relations between the US and Japan.
... there was prejudice and misconception, but the Japanese
government was also misled by military factions ...
On the US side, there was prejudice and misconception, but the
Japanese government was also misled by military factions, who had
learned the wrong lessons from their two short imperial wars with
China and Russia. They believed that Allied weakness in south east
Asia and American isolationist sentiment would mean another short
war.
This, however, was not to be. What the Japanese had done was to
awaken the fury of America, and to set in train a war that would end
in their total defeat.
Find out more
Documentary sources
Japan's Decision for War: Records of the 1941 Policy Conferences
translated, edited and introduced by Nobutaka Ike (Stanford
University Press, 1967)
Pearl Harbor and the Coming of the Pacific War: A Brief History
with Documents and Essays edited and introduced by Akira Iriye
(Bedford, 1999)
Books
Deterrent Diplomacy: Japan, Germany and the USSR 1935-1940
edited by James William Morley (Columbia University Press, 1976)
The Fateful Choice: Japan's Advance into Southeast Asia edited by
James W Morley (Columbia University Press, 1980)
Japan and the Wider World: From the mid-Nineteenth Century to the
Present by Akira Iriye (Longman, 1997)
Japanese Imperialism 1894-1945 by WG Beasley (Clarendon Press,
1991)
The Origins of the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific by
Akira Iriye (Longman, 1987)
Pearl Harbor Reexamined: Prologue to the Pacific War edited by
Hilary Conroy and Harry Wray (University of Hawaii, 1990)
War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War by John
Dower (Pantheon Books, 1986)
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About the author
Dr Susan Townsend lived in Kobe, Japan, in 1991-2, and now teaches
modern Japanese history at the University of Nottingham. Her
monograph on the philosopher Miki Kiyoshi, the architect of the
philosophical principles of the New Order in Asia, is to be published
soon.
what is already done , its over , cannot be changed
We have made mistakes in the past, may have caused pain to
people around us, in this birth and many before. We do not
need to think of what is already done, it’s over, cannot be
changed. Focus only on creating the right karma now.
Creating guilt, self criticism or self hatred about the past will
deplete our power, and again create present karma of negative
energy. We need the power to create right karma now, so
focus only on the now.
When return of past karma comes to us as challenging
situations or conflicts in relationships, we have to now
respond to the situation with stability and positivity. Even if
we are constantly receiving negative energy, we have to create
and radiate only positive energy.
Even if we have one strong negative karmic account, it
depletes the soul power and can affect our health and our
relationships. Change the quality of that karmic account so
that we enjoy all our other beautiful karmic relationships.
Everything that we do whether at work or in family, let us set
our goals and use our skills and qualities to achieve them. The
focus should be on our own journey, not in reference to others
around us.
If we keep striving to go ahead of others and appear to be in a
race, then stress, anxiety, fear and jealousy will be our normal
emotions.
If we focus only on our goal, then there will be no insecurity,
we will be confident and motivated. This stability will keep
give us the energy, which will empower us to achieve our
goal. When we create insecurity and jealousy we will achieve
less than our capacity.
It is because we want to go ahead of others, we compromise
on our values, principles and ethics. Compromising on values
depletes the power of the soul.