BACKGROUND
Japan declared war on Germany on August 23, 1914 and immediately sought to expand its sphere of influence in China and the Pacific. It succeeded to some extent, taking over a number of German colonial holdings in the region. However, although Japan belonged the victors of World War I, the Japanese were excluded from the prestigious club of world powers and were instead grouped with smaller, less influential countries. In 1919, Japan proposed a clause on racial equality to be included in the League of Nations Covenant at the Paris Peace Conference. The clause was rejected by several Western countries and was not forwarded for larger discussion at the full meeting of the conference. The rejection was an important factor in the coming years in turning Japan away from cooperation with West and towards nationalistic policies. All these events released a surge of Japanese nationalism and resulted in the end of collaboration diplomacy, which supported peaceful economic expansion. The implementation of a military dictatorship and territorial expansionism were considered the best ways to protect the Yamato-damashii, or what Japanese saw as their spiritual and cultural values.
THE RISE OF JAPANESE FASCISM
In the 1920s, Japan witnessed a development of democratic trends, including the introduction of universal male suffrage in 1925. However, pressure from the conservative right forced the passage of the Peace Preservation Law of 1925 along with other anti-radical legislation. The Act curtailed individual freedom in Japan and outlawed groups that sought to alter the system of government or to abolish private ownership. The leftist movements that had been galvanized by the Russian Revolution were subsequently crushed and scattered. Historians consider these developments to be critical to the end of democratic changes in Japan.
In response to post-World war I disarmament efforts, a movement opposing the idea of limiting the size of Japanese military grew within the junior officer corps. On May 15, 1932, the naval officers, aided by Army cadets and right-wing civilians, staged a coup that aimed to overthrow the government and to replace it with military rule (known as the May 15th Incident). Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi was assassinated by 11 young naval officers. The following trial and popular support of the Japanese population led to extremely light sentences for the assassins, strengthening the rising power of Japanese militarism and and weakening democracy and the rule of law in Japan.
From September 1932, the Japanese were becoming more locked into the course that would lead them into World War II, with Sadao Araki leading the way. Adaki was an important right-wing thinker who linked the Japanese ancient code and contemporary local and European fascist ideals to form the ideological basis of an intellectual and political movement known as Shōwa nationalism. Totalitarianism, militarism, and expansionism were to become the rule, with fewer voices able to speak against it. In a September 23 news conference, Araki first mentioned the philosophy of "Kōdōha." The concept of Kodo linked the Emperor, the people, land, and morality as indivisible. This led to the creation of a "new" Shinto (an ethnic religion of the people of Japan) and increased Emperor worship.
The state was being transformed to serve the Army and the Emperor but the Emperor would become a figurehead while real power would fall to a leader very similar to a führer or duce. On the other hand, traditionalist Navy militarists defended the Emperor and a constitutional monarchy with a significant religious aspect. With the launching of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association in 1940 by Prime minister Fumimaro Konoe, Japan would turn to a unique form of government that resembled totalitarianism. All political parties were ordered to dissolve into the Association, forming a one-party state based on totalitarian values. Various nationalist initiatives were intended to mobilize the Japanese society for a total war against the West. This style of government was linked to a movement that combined such ideas as Japanese nationalism, militarism, and "state capitalism." Historians refer to it as statism in Shōwa Japan, Shōwa nationalism, or Japanese fascism. The creation of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association in 1940 is also seen as a Japanese response to the rise of fascism in Europe, which was to prevent the influences of German and Italian fascist movements.
EXPANSIONISM
The Japanese Empire's main economic problem lay in that rapid industrial expansion had turned the country into a major manufacturing and industrial power that required raw materials. In the 1920s and 1930s, Japan needed to import raw materials such as iron, rubber, and oil to maintain strong economic growth. Most of these resources came from the United States. The Japanese felt that acquiring resource-rich territories would establish economic self-sufficiency and independence, and they also hoped to jump-start the nation's economy in the midst of the Great Depression. As a result, Japan set its sights on East Asia, specifically Manchuria with its many resources.
With little resistance, Japan invaded and conquered Manchuria in 1931. It claimed that the invasion was a liberation of the Manchus from the Chinese, although the majority of the population were Han Chinese as a result of the large scale settlement of Chinese in Manchuria in the 19th century. Jehol, a Chinese territory bordering Manchuria, was taken in 1933. In 1936, Japan also created a Mongolian puppet state in Inner Mongolia named Mengjiang, which was also predominantly Chinese as a result of recent Han immigration to the area. In 1937, Japan invaded China, creating what was essentially a three-way war between Japan, Mao Zedong's communists, and Chiang Kai-shek's nationalists. The invasion started what would become known as the Second Sino-Japanese War, which after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 would merge into the greater conflict of World War II as a major front of what is broadly known as the Pacific War. The Second Sino-Japanese War was the largest Asian war in the 20th century. It accounted for the majority of civilian and military casualties in the Pacific War, with anywhere between 10 and 25 million Chinese civilians and over 4 million Chinese and Japanese military personnel dying from war-related violence, famine, and other causes. By the end of the Pacific War, Japan had conquered much of the Far East, including Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Indonesia, part of New Guinea and some islands of the Pacific Ocean.
On September 27, 1940, Imperial Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Its objective was to "establish and maintain a new order of things," with Nazi Germany and Italy taking leadership in Europe while Japan in Greater East Asia. The pact also called for mutual protection—if any one of the member powers was attacked by a country not already at war (excluding the Soviet Union) and for technological and economic cooperation between the signatories. The signatories of this alliance become known as the Axis Powers.
The imperial ambitions of Japan and particularly the 1931 Invasion of Manchuria dramatically revealed the helplessness and ineffectiveness of the League of Nations. The League was unable to do anything in light of the events. Japan withdrew from the organization in 1933.
Japanese troops (2nd Division) entering Tsitsihar during the Japanese Invasion of Manchuria, 19 November 1931, photo by Osaka Mainichi.
The 1931 Japanese Invasion of Manchuria was one of the military campaigns that established the imperial power of Japan during the interwar period.