what term describes japans ambition that led to its participation in wwii

Nippon'south Quest for Power
and World State of war II in Asia

• The Earth at War: 1931-1945
• The Globe at State of war: Give-and-take Questions
• Japan and the The states at State of war: Pearl Harbor, December 1941
• Pearl Harbor: Discussion Questions

The World at War: 1931-1945

Economic Groundwork

While the The states was nonetheless struggling to emerge from the Great Low at the end of the 1930s, and would do and then partly because of the war, Japan had emerged from its ain menstruum of depression, which had begun in 1926, past the mid-1930s. Many of the young soldiers mobilized into the Japanese army by the early 1930s came from the rural areas, where the furnishings of the low were devastating and poverty was widespread. Their commitment to the war machine effort to aggrandize Japanese territory to achieve economic security can exist understood partly in these terms. The low ended in the mid-1930s in Japan partly considering of government deficits used to aggrandize profoundly both heavy industry and the military.

Internationally, this was a fourth dimension when "gratis trade" was in disrepute. The smashing powers non only jealously protected their special economic rights within their colonies and spheres of influence, but sought to eternalize their sagging economies through high tariffs, dumping of goods, and other merchandise manipulation. The Japanese, with few natural resource, sought to re-create this design. They used cutthroat trade practices to sell textiles and other calorie-free industrial goods in the Eastward Asian and U.Southward. markets, severely undercutting British and European manufacturers. They also developed sources of raw materials and heavy industry in the colonies they established in Korea, Taiwan and Manchuria. Nippon used high tariffs to limit imports of American and European industrial products.

The Japanese armed services faced a item tactical trouble in that certain critical raw materials — especially oil and rubber — were not available inside the Japanese sphere of influence. Instead, Japan received nearly of its oil from the United States and safety from British Malaya, the very ii Western nations trying to restrict Nihon's expansion. U.Due south. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's embargo of oil exports to Japan pressured the Japanese navy, which had stocks for only about half-dozen months of operations.

The Japanese army, for its part, was originally concerned with fighting the Soviet Union, because of the army's preoccupation with Manchuria and China. The Japanese regular army governed Manchuria indirectly through the "puppet" state of Manchukuo and developed heavy manufacture there under its favorite agencies, disliking and distrusting the zaibatsu (large Japanese corporations). Only the Soviet army's resistance to Japanese attacks was sufficient to discourage northern expansion.

Meanwhile in 1937, the intensification of Chinese resistance to the pressure level of the Japanese military drew Japan into a draining war in the vast reaches of China proper, and in 1940 into operations in French Indochina, far to the south. Thus, when the navy pressed for a "southern" strategy of attacking Dutch Republic of indonesia to get its oil and British Malaya to control its condom, the army agreed.

While it seems that economic factors were important in Japanese expansion in East Asia, it would be as well much to say that colonialism, trade protection, and the American embargo compelled Nihon to accept this course. Domestic politics, ideology and racism likewise played a role.

Domestic Politics

The political structure of Nihon at this time was inherited from the Meiji era and was increasingly dominated by the armed services. During the Meiji catamenia, the government was controlled by a small ruling group of elder statesmen who had overthrown the shogun and established the new centralized Japanese state. These men used their position to coordinate the bureaucracy, the military, the parliament, the Royal Household, and other branches of government. Post-obit their deaths in the early 1920s, no unmarried governmental institution was able to establish full control, until the 1931 Manchurian Incident, when Nihon took command of Manchuria. This began a process in which the military behaved autonomously on the Asian mainland and with increasing authorisation in politics at home.

From 1937 on, Japan was at war with China. By the time General Hideki Tôjô became prime minister and the war against the United States began in 1941, the nation was in a country of "total war" and the armed forces and their supporters were able to strength their policies on the government and the people. The wartime regime used existing regime controls on public stance, including schools and textbooks, the media, and the police, but Nippon continued to have more of an authoritarian government than a totalitarian one like Hitler'south Deutschland. In detail, the authorities was never able to gain real control of the economy and the smashing zaibatsu, which were more interested in the economic opportunities provided past the military's policies than in submitting loyally to a patriotic mission.

The emperor has been criticized for not taking a more forceful activeness to restrain his government, particularly in light of his own known preference for peace, but Japanese emperors subsequently the Meiji Restoration had "reigned but not ruled." One wonders if a more forceful emperor in fact could have controlled the regular army and navy at this late date. The doubts are strengthened in light of the difficulty the emperor had in forcing the military machine to accept surrender afterwards the diminutive bombings. The emperor'south determination at that indicate to bring agreement among his advisers was an extraordinary issue in Japanese history.

Credo

The emperor-based ideology of Japan during World War Ii was a relatively new creation, dating from the efforts of Meiji oligarchs to unite the nation in response to the Western claiming. Before the Meiji Restoration, the emperor wielded no political power and was viewed simply as a symbol of the Japanese civilisation. He was the head of the Shintô religion, Japan'south native religion, which holds, amidst other behavior, that the emperor is descended from gods who created Nippon and is therefore semidivine. Westerners of that time knew him only as a shadowy figure somewhat like a pope.

The Meiji oligarchs brought the emperor and Shintô to national prominence, replacing Buddhism as the national religion, for political and ideological reasons — since Buddhism had originated in Bharat and come to Japan via Communist china. The people were not allowed to await at the emperor, or even to speak his proper noun; patriotism had been raised to the unassailable level of sacredness.

It is sometimes hard to comprehend the extreme sacrifices the Japanese made in the name of the emperor. This can perhaps all-time exist viewed, however, as extreme patriotism — Japanese were taught to give their lives, if necessary, for their emperor. Merely this was non entirely different from the Americans who gave their lives in the same war for their country and the "American" way. The kamikaze pilots, who were named for the "divine wind" (kami kaze) that destroyed the Mongol fleet in the thirteenth century and saved Japan from invasion, might be compared to the immature Iranian soldiers fighting in suicide squadrons in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, or fifty-fifty to fanatical Shiites responsible for the truck bombing of the U.S. Lebanese diplomatic mission in 1983.

Racism

The Japanese were proud of their many accomplishments and resented racial slurs they met with in some Western nations. Their try to plant a statement of racial equality in the Covenant of the League of Nations was vetoed past the United States (because of opposition in California) and Great Britain (Australian resistance). The Japanese greatly resented this.

The Japanese military was convinced of the willingness of its people to go to any sacrifice for their nation, and information technology was contemptuous of the "softness" of the U.S. and European democracies, where loyalty and patriotism were tempered by the rights and well-being of the private. The military's overconfidence in its own abilities and underestimation of the will of these other nations were thus rooted in its ain misleading indigenous and racial stereotypes. While Asians, the Japanese saw themselves every bit less representatives of Asia than Asia's champion. They sought to liberate Asian colonies from the Westerners, whom they disdained. But although the Japanese were initially welcomed in some Asian colonies by the indigenous populations whom they "liberated" from European domination, the arrogance and racial prejudice displayed by the Japanese military governments in these nations created peachy resentment. This resentment is still evident in some Southeast Asian nations.

The World at War: Give-and-take Questions

1. What was the economical situation in Nippon effectually 1930? Why was this?
2. Who dominated the government in Japan at this time? What was their appetite?
3. Describe the international economic situation that fueled war machine disharmonize amidst nations. How did Nippon fit into this situation?
4. Who was General Hideki Tojo?
5. Explain what an "credo" is? What ideology was propagated by the Japanese leaders to unite the state backside the war? Explain what role belief in the emperor'due south special status played in the ideology. What office did racism play — the belief in the special qualities of Japanese and other Asian peoples?
6. Requite an case of a situation where the Japanese felt insulted by what they perceived as the racism of Western countries.

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Japan and the The states at War: Pearl Harbor, December 1941

Today Japan and the U.s. are close allies. But between 1941 and 1945, they fought a bitter and bloody war, which many people call up well today. Why did they fight this state of war?

The reply on the American side is unproblematic: the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. The Americans were aroused at the Japanese for their invasions of first Manchuria (1931), then China (1937), and after French Indochina (1940). After the Japanese moved into Indochina, President Roosevelt ordered a trade embargo on American chip steel and oil, on which the Japanese armed services depended. But the American people felt that Asia was far away, and a large bulk of voters did not want to go to war to stop Japan. The surprise attack on the Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 changed this, outraging the whole U.S. nation and disarming it that information technology must terminate the Japanese regular army and navy.

Why did Japan attack the United States? This is a more complicated question. Japan knew the United states of america was economically and armed forces powerful, just it was not afraid of whatsoever American attack on its islands. Nippon did worry however, that the Americans might help the Chinese resist the Japanese invasion of their country. When President Roosevelt stopped U.S. shipments of steel and oil the Japan, he was doing exactly this: the Japanese are dependent on other countries for raw materials, for they have virtually none on their own islands. Without imports of steel and oil, the Japanese armed forces could non fight for long. Without oil, the navy would not be able to move after information technology had exhausted its vi-month reserve. Roosevelt hoped that this economic pressure would strength Japan to stop its military expansion in E Asia.

The Japanese military saw another solution to the problem: if it could quickly conquer the British and Dutch colonies in Southeast Asia and gain complete control of the oil, rubber, and other raw materials it needed, and then it could defend its interests in Communist china and Indochina against those Europeans who were now busy fighting a major war in Europe against the Germans and Italians. The only force that could end the Japanese was the American Pacific fleet — which was conveniently gathered close to Japan at Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii. Knowing that many Americans did not want to fight a war against Nihon, the armed services thought that if information technology suddenly destroyed the U.South. fleet, America would simply give upwardly and allow Nippon to consolidate its grasp on E Asia.

Japan was not militarily or economically powerful enough to fight a long state of war confronting the The states, and the Japanese armed forces knew this. Its attack on Pearl Harbor was a tremendous gamble — and though the short-run gamble was successful, the long-run gamble was lost considering the Japanese were wrong most the American reaction.

But behind this mistake was another, earlier miscalculation. Ever since Commodore Perry's fleet opened Nihon in 1853, in an era of great colonial expansion, the Japanese had watched the European powers dominate Eastern asia and establish colonies and trading privileges. People's republic of china, Japan's neighbor, was carved upwardly similar a melon as Western powers established their spheres of influence on Chinese territory. Later on an amazingly short time, Japan was able to develop the economic and military force to join this contest for authorisation of the Asian mainland. Japan defeated China in 1895 and Russia in 1905, in battles over who should dominate Korea. Japan joined the allies confronting Frg in 1914-18 in a struggle to control a portion of Prc and and then conquered Manchuria in 1931 in an attempt to secure a state area rich in raw materials. The Japanese nation and its military, which controlled the government past the 1930s, felt that it then could, and should, control all of East Asia by military forcefulness.

Japan's military invasions of other Asian countries, nevertheless, brought resistance from not just the European colonial powers, but also the Asian people themselves, and finally, the United States. The Japanese military tried to convince the Japanese people that complete loyalty and obedience would brand Nihon invincible. Nihon'due south early victories seemed to evidence this, only the U.Due south. victory at Midway Isle in June 1942 led to the steady encirclement of the Japanese islands, cutting them off from needed supplies of raw materials. The Japanese navy was destroyed. When this was followed by massive bombardment from the air and the final blow of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japanese invincibility was proven to be a myth. At the end of the war, the Japanese nation was non simply starving and devastated by the bombing, but bewildered and shocked past the defeat.

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Pearl Harbor: Give-and-take Questions

1. Was Japan the beginning country to try to boss other countries in Asia? Explain.
2. Why did it seem logical to the Japanese that they, rather than the European powers, should be dominant in Asia?
3. Explain the economic reasons for establishing colonies. What in item did Nihon hope to gain from its colonies?
4. Locate Pearl Harbor on a map.
5. Why did Nippon attack the United States at Pearl Harbor?
6. In what ways was the Japanese assail a tactical miscalculation?
7. In what sense could you say that Japan really defeated itself? Explain.

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Source: http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/japan_1900_power.htm

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